US-IS? Does the Most Un-Islamic State Have a Future?

Tags

ISIS, Islam, Middle East, religion

 

Many blog-readers have asked me this. How to respond? The easiest and most honest answer would be to say, Who knows? Because no one can tell. The question does, however, raise some interesting issues. For example, how curious is it to find yourself thinking of Al-Quaeda as ‘moderate’? For, in the face of Desh, Taliban, and other enormities, such is evidently the case. It leads one to think of who controls these organizations. And, on the anniversary of the US attack on the Medecins Sans Frontiers hospital at Kundun, Afghanistan, a year go today – in which many innocent patients and staff were slaughtered – it reminds you of the valid grievances shared by some members of some anti-western groups. Al-Quaeda, since the assassination of Osama bin-Laden, has been headed up by Dr. Aiwan Zawahiri, a spectacularly uncharismatic leader, also very adept at hiding himself from US assaults. A surgeon by profession, he presumably has, or so one would imagine, the kind of educated mind able to look through ideological blather and perceive the political realities of his organization’s current and future situation. This may well account for Al-Quaeda’s recent low profile.

The current situation vis a vis West Asia, from Iran and the Gulf to Syria, is about as uncertain and turbulent as that troubled stretch of the world has ever been. The catastrophe in Iraq, and now the chronic vacillation regarding Syria, have made it clear to those two-thirds of the planet never enthusiastic about western hegemony that the United States is a waning power. Where once a phone calls from any Secretary-of-State would have made rebels and dictators alike jump, now there is only a scornful silence, as everyone proceeds with their  bloody work of imposing someone’s brutal will upon others. Within this fiasco are, somewhere or other, the many voices supposedly representing an ‘Islamic State’. But who exactly do they claim to represent? It certainly isn’t most of the planet’s billion-odd Muslims.

The African factions, like al-Shebab – and which proliferate faster than one can recall their grandiose names – scarcely represent any form of Islam at all. They comprise mostly recent Muslim converts whose allegiances are principally tribal. Conflicts in Africa are invariably hostilities between tribes dating back into the mists of time, and only nominally religious wars. Groups sympathetic to an ‘Islamic State’ south of Syria are extremist Palestinian factions financed by the Wahhabite clergy of Saudi Arabia – just as Bashar Assad’s Shiite regime is backed by hardline Iranian clerics. The Syrian rebels seek a Sunni government at Damascus – some indeed probably a secular one. The forces of Desh – in a three-way civil war (something the US is prone to get involved in, despite military advice to the contrary) – are in reality led by officers of the old Iraqi Republican Guard. They may have grown beards and become adept at spouting nonsense bowdlerized from the Koran, but their sole interests are carving out a territory for themselves from parts of Syria and Iraq. One can hardly blame them. A vast majority of the Sunni and Christian Iraqis with whom I am still in sporadic contact say the same thing: no matter how bad things were under Saddam, there was peace, stability and prosperity. Now there is just conflict, chaos and poverty. It ought to have been very clear to the brain-trust in Washington that overturning Saddam’s Ba’athist rule would leave the oppressed Shia majority in power, and everyone else running for their lives. It is another measure of America’s waning power than no one appears to have advised against the war. Long-used to being in power, Iraqi Sunnis, and some of their Christian subordinates, would have not only felt mistreated, but would also have also possessed the know-how, and some of the means, to fight back – to carve out part of Arabia for themselves. At the end of the day, it is the post-1919 dividing-up of West Asia by western powers which decided on the artificial frontiers seen on any map today. The inhabitants of these vast areas – much of them desert – have never viewed the boundary-lines as legitimate. As a glance at the atlas will show, they are all straight lines – a sure sign of the mapmaker’s work. A sign too of the viability a theorised ‘Islamic State’ presents to many living in the proposed area for such a state.

Israel sits unhappily at the centre of this maelstrom, unable or unwilling to voice her many valid complaints and suggestions. To Jerusalem, the only feasible solution to Syria’s dilemma is the continuation of Assad’s regime. It may not be just or likeable, but it will still be easier to deal with than any kind of Sunni democracy, let alone – God forbid! – any kind of Islamic state. A situation in which no one is happy certainly seems like no solution at all.

But should such a bastion of pseudo-Islamist ideals manage to cut itself a portion of West Asia, what prospects would it have for a thriving future? Precious few, I would say. Israel’s potent military would be ever-watchful. Iran would arm and finance Shia rebels. The Saudis would meddle. And the African factions would demand help with their endless inter-tribal belligerence. On top of all this, the Internet and social media would force the Future into these time-trapped regions and, just perhaps, their denizens would then ask themselves and their leaders what all the horror, hostility and bloodshed were about, Perhaps?

 

P.S. Whoops! I have just learned that the US have blmed Russian interference for all the problems in Syria. Now doesn’t that just go to show you that an old unresolved squabble is better than

 

Paul William Roberts

The Arab Street

Tags

egypt, egyptian word on the street, ISIS, Middle East, politics, syria

First let us clear up one irritant: the name by which these terrorists ought to be known. They are not a ‘state’, by any stretch of the term, for their talent lies in destroying people and things; they could not build up, less still run, an atoll in the South Pacific, even if they had one. I shall henceforth refer to them as PC, an abbreviation of ‘Psychopathic Criminals’, which more accurately defines them, and, by inference, the treatment they merit. The term Daesh, currently favoured by French and other media – which, for some reason, is imagined to contain an insulting double entendre,if omly because gaesh can mean ‘small donkey’ – has been commonly used for them by Egyptians since they first crawled from their holes, and essentially refers to a swathe of land incorporating Iraq and Syria – both, very long ago, once seats of the Caliphate, much as Wessex was once the ruling kingdom of England, or Rome the world’s capital. According to someone on CBC radio, the wisely reclusive PC leader, al-Baghdadi – who failed acceptance by a university to study Economics, admitted by a lesser institution for Islamic Studies – had, among his favourite tomes, Paul Kennedy’s masterly Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a self-explanatory study from 1500 to 2000. Conceivably, Baghdadi imagined the book would teach him how to make great powers fall; but more likely he ceased his perusal after discovering that economic history entailed a fair bit of economics, with many statistical charts similar to those nixing his ambitions as an economist. If he actually read the book, one wonders which tyrannical butcher he most identified with. Even the bone-headed bully, Mussolini, and his Abyssinian catastrophe, is a dictatorial Titan compared with the PC Fuhrer – sorry, wannabe Caliph. Kennedy’s opus demonstrates that economic factors – like production or manufacturing – bring down nations. Gun and bomb-toting fanatics, backed by mentally ill death-wishers, achieve little more than their own demise. Bakunin – ubi est? Surely the PC Mastermind must have asked himself what economic factors he and his demented crew even possessed? Perhaps the Balkans gave him hope? After all, two-thirds of PC’s armed rabble in Syria are from Chechnya, and elsewhere in Russian Central Asia, a crew weaned on war, and with a hatred of Russia far exceeding their determination to terminate Assad. To Baghdadi, economic prosperity involves whatever can be stolen, and how much Saudi Wahhabite clerics hand over for the cause – which is, let’s be clear, an attempt by allegedly Sunni Muslims to rid Arabia of the Shia, declared by Wahhab himself to be non-Muslims. Assad is a Shia sectarian, which is why Iran, sole Shia theocracy, supports him. Czar Putin’s backing, obviously not theological, concerns the build-up of battle-hardened Balkan militants on his doorstep (a map will show you how surprisingly near Syria is to recalcitrant remnants of the Russian empire).

I want now to share with you what my Egyptian sources tell me of the varied rumours, theories, and sound convictions found today on the streets of Cairo and elsewhere along the Nile. I do not necessarily endorse these views, nor necessarily dismiss them. It just strikes me as important to hear widely-held beliefs not broadcast by NBC, CNN, or Fox Ne…well, it’s Opinion, isn’t it, not news. I could name my sources, but they will be happier if I do not. I shall list the street-speak in no particular order.

1. The Muslim Brotherhood was paid $ 8 billion by the US to hand government back to a Washington-controlled military dictatorship.
2. Slaughter of Christians across the region is hardly ever mentioned by western media.
3. A plan exists to turn the Sinai into a Palestinian state.
4. CIA blew up that Russian plane over the Sinai to assist the above plan by destroying foreign tourism to Sharm el-Sheikh, the most popular Egyptian resort for Europeans, and, until now, considered safe from terrorism.
5. US Intelligence is failing badly in distinguishing combatants in the region, seemingly unaware of the vital role tribal leaders could play if approached respectfully.
6. Saudi oil and thus cash will run out within five years, resulting in a Wahhabite coup and theocratic state, armed to the teeth with top-notch US weaponry and likely to wage a war on Iraq, ousting the Shia-dominated government and seizing the vast southern oilfields. This will ignite a war with Iran over disputed territory in the Hormuz Straits, and possibly PC-Wahhabite attacks on the Emirates, which have plenty of oil yet few military defenses.
7. An Israeli-Saudi accord – existing for years now – could divide Syria between Israel and the new Arabia.
8. Egypt will secure territories the US wants secure, and it does possess nuclear weapons – as does Israel, and possibly Saudi Arabia.
9. Russia will support Iran in this conflict, supplying nukes if the need arises.
10. Wahhabite clerics will dispose of PC elements easily, allying with Iraqi ex-Republican guard fighters, who have backed PC for tactical reasons but hate their fanaticism. They will argue that a Caliphate ought to be run from Mecca, and not interfere in social or political concerns. The Saudi clerics may regard this as equitable, but only if they have rid themselves of their own and the Yemeni Shia they’ve recently bombed with impunity.
11. The map of West Asia will be redrawn, and the new powers may next fight over Africa, or else agree to divide it between themselves.
12. Wahhabism has been spread through free schools across the undeveloped world, providing a potential army to fight for the heresy if called upon to do so.
13. If war erupts, Iran will block the Straits, cutting off oil supplies to much of the world. If oil is suddenly priced in a non-US dollar currency, the American economy will collapse as dollar values fall, leaving Washington no alternative but war on a massive scale, and one also facing the old foe, Russia.
14. Those on the spot claim that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey was in fact downed by unmarked US fighter planes, to create strife between Ankara and Moscow, because Turkey is the main conduit for Saudi funds to the PC, and Russian ambitions in Syria are suspect.
15. Egypt’s only dollar-earning business is tourism, which has collapsed due to continuing unrest, leaving unemployment at inordinate levels, further weakening resistance to the army dictators, in order to return the place to the relative tranquility of Mubarak’s reign, when Israel was free from fear of Egyptian and/or Syrian attacks.
16. The diluted new Intifada will make the Sinai seem increasingly attractive as a Palestinian state, especially when Israeli forces crack down harder, since no one is left in a position to object, and Egypt will be as responsible for peace-keeping there as Jerusalem will be at the old Gaza border.

 

As said, I make no comments, beyond this being grim stuff. I will say, however, as I have before, that Iraqi and Syrian Christians are by far the safest bet as refugees – indeed, any Christians in the region ought to be offered asylum if they seek it. They recognize one another very easily, and would identify a PC imposter at 100 paces. They are also not terrorists, and have been abused in the lands they first inhabited – and where the world’s oldest churches are being demolished by PC imbeciles, a fact rarely heard on western media, which seem to regard innocent Muslims as more innocent and deserving than innocent Christians. Over ten years ago I said Iraq Christians needed help badly, and would be sponsored here privately by a large Eastern Orthodox community. No one cared or listened then; I hope they do now, particularly since Christian refugees would make processing so much simpler. Educated, middle-class, they would blend into Canada like snow. Americans are disastrously sick of politicians, arriving at Donald Trump the way a starving mass would fall on MacDonald’s’ dump. I hope the reliance on bureaucrats and professional paper-jockeys doesn’t have the same effect here. If US Intelligence is bad – because intelligent people don’t want to get involved with such bungled duplicity – I hate to think what Canada’s is like. The country is full of knowledgeable people, who don’t want to be ensnared by government, but do not mind answering questions occasionally. A vote does not signify intelligence, but there are other things that do. Use them, for God’s sake, before the Mess gets messier.

 

Sincerely with love,

 

Paul William Roberts

Canada, ISIS and Refugees

Tags

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

How to Deal with ISIS

Tags

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}

Is Thought Dead?

Tags

Canada, egyptology, harper, Iraq, Middle East, oil, shia, sunni, war

I am continually asked if I am anti-American, pro-or-anti Israel, pro-or-anti Muslim, homophobic or pro-gay, pro-life or pro-choice, pro this or anti that. It becomes annoying to find that people need you to subscribe utterly to one cause and all of its beliefs, idiocies, nooks and, often, dark crannies. They become annoyed if you cannot be easily categorized. I have been called, through my writing, everything from a bleeding-heart liberal to a fascist (for suggesting people ought to answer a simple multi-choice questionnaire before they are allowed to vote, just to establish that they know the candidates and the issues upon which they are voting). These labels essentially enable people who prefer not to think to accept or dismiss a writer – or anyone else – without having to fret over troublesome arguments that may not support their own opinions – and I stress ‘opinions’ because, increasingly, people who imagine they have an interest in current affairs merely have opinions on issues which they often cannot defend, except by such gobbledegook as, “I don’t care what you say; that’s what I believe.” The term ‘belief’ is interesting in this context, because, like ‘faith’, it is really saying, “That’s what I want to be true.” There used to be discussions and debates, in public, or on the media. Now there seem to be little more than opinions stated as facts, angry monologues or harangues by TV or radio ‘hosts’ who have forgotten that a host treats his or her ‘guest’ with courtesy – such is the traditional relationship, rather than bully and victim – or merely the brief and dreary interview with a politician skilled in the art of staying ‘on-message’ no matter what the question may be. Debate is where someone states an argument, and someone else opposes it. The person whose case cannot withstand the arguments opposing it loses the debate and, ideally, their point of view along with it. This would seem to be straightforward. Yet where did these discussions and debates go? Where are the public forums? In answer to the pro-anti questions, I have no knee-jerk views on any subject at all. If it interests me, I study everything I can find on a topic, from as many points of view as possible, and then make up my own mind about what strikes me as the truth regarding that issue. I am happy to debate with anyone about anything I feel capable of contributing some rational thought towards; and am equally willing to admit I am wrong when proved so. I do not, of course, mean discussions about such follies as so-called Creationism, where the argument against dinosaur bones and fossils consists of, “Satan placed them there to lead us astray.” An argument must be provable – such as the earth revolves around the sun. Instead of discussions, now we have TV documentaries which all too often present a tautological case for some mysterious phenomenon, setting out to ‘seek’ the evidence for what the producers already ‘know’ to be true. A good example is Egyptology, which, when it failed to refute Dr. Robert Schoch’s argument for a far, far earlier date for the origins of Ancient Egyptian civilization at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, in my view lost its entire science, along with the spurious chronology upon which it is largely based. To adequately counter the Schoch thesis, Egyptologists would have to dig down to far deeper levels, where the evidence of this far earlier civilization – and we are talking 7000 to possibly 30,000 BCE – would be found. In countless irritating Discovery Channel docs, we find the self-styled ‘experts’ rejecting the notion of much deeper digs because they know there is nothing there to be found. This is not science; it is tautological pseudo-science (see my book River in the Desert for a fuller account of this academic travesty). These docs do not even scratch the tautological iceberg’s tip when it comes to such risible irrelevancies as Noah’s Ark: Found! Being blind, I’m no great TV watcher; but I can still hear the torrent of nonsense, and am possibly more attuned to the verbal balderdash usually hidden behind flash-cuts and mosaic images designed to keep the short attention span on life support. It is such irresponsible programming that has afflicted the contemporary mind with a widespread inability to think for itself. For every newspaper headline or media lead-story there are at least 100 books which could be regarded as essential reading to provide a context for the 700 word story. Some of these may alter that story entirely; some may explain why an event, tragic or otherwise, actually occurred; others may explain a history of multitudinous causes leading up to what appears to be an isolated event. Admittedly, some newspapers and journals – never the most widely-read ones, it would appear – do still take pains to provide in-depth context; but you cannot read it in a minute, and no politician would dream of plumbing such depths, even if he or she were aware of them. I have discussed Iraq here too often, but only because I have written two books on the subject and become infuriated by politicians who still appear to view public ignorance of the issues involved as mandatory – or else share that ignorance. Listening to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s lies and evasions on the question of Canadian involvement in a war today – and no doubt we shall hear the same from Obama tomorrow – is simply maddening, As I speculated here a few days ago, our ‘advisers’ will in fact be Special Forces troops, and they will be armed, boots on the ground, after all. Let us call ISIS, ISOS, and IS, SS instead – for ‘Sunni State (and for a certain historical resonance), since ‘Islamist State’ misleads people into imagining the enterprise involves Shia, Sufi, or any other branch of Islam. Ruled for decades by the nominally Sunni tyranny of Saddam Hussein, Iraq was suddenly turned by the US invasion into an allegedly democratic Shia state – under the misguided impression that the long-oppressed Shia majority would be undyingly grateful to their saviour, not to mention obey Washington’s dictates whenever required to. Let’s be honest: the US was solely interested in controlling the vast wealth of high-grade oil. It certainly was not thinking of how the dispossessed Sunnis would feel about their new situation under a government dominated by Shia. Since the Sunni used to wield all the power, controlled the army, and had most of the money, besides being better educated, it must surely have occurred to someone in a so-called Think Tank that, if the Sunni were unhappy with their lot they would be far more able to organize and start a civil war. This is in fact that civil war, aided by more radical factions funded, as I have tirelessly stated, by the fabulously rich Saudi Arabian Wahhabite theocrats, who have no wish to find a Iranian-Iraqi Shia block on their doorstep. They also view the Shia as heretical infidels. These grievances go back two hundred years, and involve many complexities as well as unresolved territorial disputes (remember, it was mainly the British who created nations in Arabia, which is why the boundaries are all straight lines, and still ignored by the nomadic Bedu tribes). Thus, many boots, and even shoes, will be on the ground for a very long time, unless someone makes a deal with the SS moderates to turn over the more barbaric radical elements – few of them probably Iraqis anyway – in exchange for a government in which they have proportional representation. This fantasy government is unlikely given the deep-rooted Shia-Sunni hatred. Alternatives? None really, since creating an autonomous Sunni State would place it where it currently is, in the north, where the oil is not. The Kurds have their own area, to the north-west, but they also have oil there. Would the Shia divide equally the oil cash? On paper perhaps, but not in reality. This leaves the US share of Iraq oil – exact figures unknowable, because private companies are involved. Is it possible that the US would oblige those companies to compensate the SS for a peaceful resolution to what could otherwise escalate into a pan-Arabian war? Hardly likely, since these companies essentially own America, started the war, and have fingers in every American pie – especially Military-Industrial Pie. There may be big money in keeping this chaos running, as long as it can be contained. Special Forces from three countries specialising in such forces could, with a few hundred men, and some fancy weaponry and air cover, contain such a situation indefinitely, while generating enough global fright to jack up the price of oil very nicely. Is this the plan? If so, no wonder we, the people, aren’t allowed to know about it. Mr. Harper spouted the usual national security crap – the all-purpose excuse for every abomination – but can he seriously believe that violent meddling in Muslim Arab disputes will help make Canada safer? The consequences faced by other meddlers – notably the one to our south and its English crony – would seem to refute that theory. A maple leaf lapel button used to guarantee safe passage through the hell-holes of this world; now it does not. This looming fiasco in Iraq is going to make Canadians less safe everywhere, Mr. Harper. Do you want that as your legacy, or will the lucrative sinecures on oil company boards be more than satisfying enough?   With love, as always, Paul William Roberts.

My Birthday

Tags

Canada, Islam, journalism, Middle East, politics, Saudi Arabia, stephen harper, syria, war

What better gift could I receive on my birthday than the news that Canada is about to send in ‘advisers’ to assist the Iraqi military in its struggle against the organization whose name varies from ISIS to ISOS, but which we shall call IS, for ‘Islamic State’? Without much elaboration – since I have stated the case so often – I shall keep these comments brief. Firstly, the term ‘advisers’ – which I noticed originally back when the USA was inheriting the Vietnam War from France – actually means highly-trained special forces; the kind of soldiers able to take an entire town or base without assistance. The vagueness of Prime Minister Harper’s description of this advisory unit as “several dozen men” confirms this suspicion, ‘several’ being one of the most meaningless terms in the                                                                                                                                                    language. ‘Advisers’ has always been Pentagon code for Special Forces. I met such people when I was in Iraq in 2003, and they had been there long before the actual invasion itself began, their principal task being to knock out Saddam’s desert bases, thereby immobilizing his most highly-trained forces. So let us dispense with the myth of ‘advisers’. If actual advice were required by Iraq’s military, a couple of men could perform this task; ‘several dozen’ would merely be superfluous, if not confusing. Let us assume that Britain will send in its SAS, and the US its Delta Force. This tells us the problem is troublesome, yet easily contained.

Next arises the issue of why the Canadian public is not consulted about such an action, which will undoubtedly result in Canadian deaths, if not an involvement in another debacle as insolvable and pointless as Afghanistan or Vietnam. Not to mention the cost to taxpayers. Are we really living in a democracy? Does Harper actually comprehend the function of a Parliament? What became of public discussion?

The last issue I can be bothered to raise before my birthday dinner is the one of how to stop IS in its progress, including the execution of men I still deem colleagues. Does no one wonder why these beheaded journalists are all termed ‘independent’? I always reported on war zones as an ‘independent’, but it was only when my reports from Iraq in 2003 were so eagerly received by the Globe and Mail, and the CBC, that I realised why. They had none of their own people on the ground because they could not – or would not – afford the insurance to cover reporters in danger spots. They happily take the reporting of such independents venturing into areas where a story really exists, yet they offer nothing in condolence or compensation to those who have provided the material they would otherwise lack. It seems likely I lost my eyesight from exposure to toxins in Iraq, yet I would no more dream of asking the Globe or CBC for compensation than I would of suing the Pentagon for its war.

As I have stated ad nauseam, the way to stop IS is to locate the channels of funding which, I can guarantee, originate from the Wahhabi priesthood of Saudi Arabia. This is not a crew of crazed vicars handing over the collection plate. This is an hereditary priesthood receiving, by law and tradition, half the Saudi oil wealth. The ethnic cleansing being performed by IS alone demonstrates its close Wahhabi ties. Wahhabism is ostensibly a Muslim heresy which, for self-serving purposes, condemns the Shia and other Muslim sects as non-Islamic. It also regards women as subhuman and views music and dancing as satanic. Unfortunately, however, it also has an annual income in the trillions of dollars, which it has used to spread its malicious heretical version of Islam all over the world since the oil boom of the 1970s. It also funds IS, and all the Al Quaeda spin-off factions. Notice how none of these pseudo-Islamic psychopaths ever bother a Sunni-led regime. Read books about the sect, for Christ’s sake, if you don’t believe me. If you want to see more Canadian soldiers die for nothing, then please don’t bother to inform yourself about any issue at all. If, however, you would prefer Canada to engage solely in just wars, ask your MPs and MPPs to raise the issue of Saudi funding for IS in Parliament. Demand to know why the most backward and barbaric state on earth is tolerated simply for its oil wealth. Also ask why Iraq, not Syria, is the cause behind intervention. Could it possibly be that Syria has no oil? If any country deserves to be invaded it is surely Saudi Arabia. If any faith deserves to be prohibited it is surely Wahhabism. If oil is not the issue – as the liars in high places will doubtless assure us – then leave Iraq to sort out its own problems. Interfering in them will solve nothing in the long run but further antagonizing those few deranged Islamist radicals who still believe the Crusades have yet to end. “Whoops,” as George W. Bush said, “I didn’t mean to say ‘crusade’.”

 

With love, as always, Paul William Roberts

What You Aren’t Told About Islamist Terrorism

Tags

Islam, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, United States of America

There are some conspiracy theorists who claim the sad deaths of Robin Williams and Lauren Bacall were ‘black operations’ designed to distract media attention away from events in Ferguson, Missouri. While obviously this is stultifying nonsense, there are very valid questions to be raised regarding what the media choose to treat as news, and how they choose to treat it.

I, for one, am growing heartily sick of media refusal to provide a context for both the current situation in Iraq, and so-called Islamist terrorism in general. What I am about to say has been said before, and not just by myself, but in numerous                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     far more-learned and densely-foot-noted books. Yet the information has been largely ignored by a media curiously reluctant to provide viewers or listeners with any context for events, which thus seem to exist in a disconnected void, much like a television series where each episode is a complete story, not reliant upon any knowledge of previous episodes.

With Iraq this entails no mention of the American invasion of 2003 – covered first-hand in my book A War Against Truth – which violated international law, and was predicted by many to result in the current factional chaos. As I predicted here some weeks ago, the threat to U.S. oil interests would oblige America to respond with lethal force. The situation will further deteriorate, and I shall not be surprised to see U.S. boots on the ground soon enough – particularly since they are already on the ground in remote desert bases, stationed there purely to protect oil concerns. The reader ought to remember that America has never closed a base – they still exist in Japan, Italy, Germany, and other defeated victims of World War II; as well as in the numerous objectives of American imperialism, from Indo-China to the Philippines, the Caribbean, and Central America. Although such bases are occasionally mentioned in connection with U.S. operations requiring their use – Weisbaden, for example – I have never heard any media pundit question their existence seventy years, in some cases, after the war which justified their initial construction.

This, however, is not my point here – although it does remain a question demanding both to be asked and answered. My point here is going to be stark, unembellished, and profoundly offensive to some – and those ‘some’ are profoundly offensive to me. I am tempted to state the case in point form as an aid to comprehension, and to add emphasis that this is fact, not opinion:

01: Wahhabite Islam is responsible for all Islamist Terrorism. It is the sole form of Islam officially sanctioned by Saudi Arabia.

02: Wahhab, the founder, was an 18^th century Muslim with delusions of grandeur that appealed to Ibn Sa’ud, who was then attempting, through a prodigious campaign of inter-tribal marriages, to make himself ruler of Arabia – then an ill-defined area of nomadic peoples. Wahhab – whose own parents regarded him as insane – saw himself as greater than the Prophet Mohammed, aspiring to be Caliph of a vast Islamic empire. This meshed in nicely with Ibn Sa’ud’s own plans, giving them a religious sanction. Thus, a partnership was formed between priest and prince – not unlike that advocated by ancient Hebrew texts – dividing control of the inchoate Saudi Arabia between an hereditary monarchy and an hereditary priesthood, which exist to this day, splitting the fabulous oil wealth – undreamt of in the 18^th century – between Wahhabite priests and Saudi royalty.

03: Many of Wahhab’s heretical interpretations of Islam were suited to Ibn Sa’ud’s specific needs: for example, Islam forbids Muslims from attacking other Muslims. Ibn Sa’ud badly wanted to raid the rich merchant caravans travelling west from Persia, yet, Iranians being Muslim, he could not do. Thus Wahhab proclaimed the Shia form of Islam practiced in Persia to be un-Islamic, thereby justifying Ibn Sa’ud’s raids, which increased pre-oil wealth handsomely.

04: In order to increase the power of his own sect, excluding other Islamic influences, Wahhab also declared Sufis, and other branches of more mystical forms of Islam, to be un-Islamic. He also banned music and dancing.

05: Wahhab effectively reduced his form of Islam to something approaching a prison code, which merely existed to be obeyed.

06: When Ibn Sa’ud conquered the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, putting himself in charge of the lucrative Haj pilgrimage, which all Muslims able to do so are encouraged to perform at least once, he was faced with a large group of Egyptian pilgrims singing their traditional Haj songs. On the advice of Wahhab – for whom music was anathema – all these Egyptians pilgrims were slaughtered.

07: Wahhab, to further his own ambitions of becoming global Caliph, began emphasising passages in the Koran urging Jihad against infidels as a divine injunction. Some scholars even suggest that Wahhab himself embellished such passages to make them sound more like a physical, rather than a spiritual war.

08: The Koran can only be read in Arabic, since more than an third of it is impossibly difficult to comprehend, due to the antiquity of the language. All translations are thus interpretations, and Wahhabi translations are among the most prevalent, and the most suspect, in their presentation of Jihad as a literal war, rather than the inner, spiritual struggle it is – much like the war referred to in the Bhagavad Gita.

09: It has been well known what the Saudi royalty spent their half of the sudden and unexpected torrent of oil dollars on; yet few seem aware of what the Wahhabi theocrats did with their share. We are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. From the 1970s on, Wahhabi money was poured into free schools, built all over the world, and not merely in nominally Islamic countries. Africa has been a major target. The form of Islam taught in these schools was the heretical doctrine of Wahhab, preaching a violent Jihad as one of its major tenets. This has not gone unnoticed – a friend of mine in Zambia tried to close down such schools – yet free education has proved hard to argue against, especially when it is accompanied by such perquisites as free loans for agricultural equipment, clothing, and so on.

10: Except in nations where school curricula are carefully monitored, the Wahhabi heresy is now being taught as Islam, encouraging, among many monstrosities, the glories of martyrdom in all its hideous forms. Furthermore, through a complex network of banking facilities, Wahhabi money is financing Jihadi movements everywhere, providing weapons and expertise.

11: Ask yourself why the only airplane allowed to fly on 9/11 carried members of the Saudi royal family out of the U.S.A. Then ask yourself if the C.I.A., with all its resources, is unaware of Wahhabi involvement in international terror.

12: Hardly any average citizen understands the Sunni-Shia schism in Islam – why is this not explained by the media? Is one person in a million aware of the Wahhabite heresy co-ruling Saudi Arabia, and dividing its wealth? How many ‘news junkies’ know that Wahhabism is solely responsible for the current fear of Islam as a threat to world peace? Why should this be?

One possible answer to such nagging questions is that the current situation suits someone with the power to keep it going for their own interests. By far the most barbaric and backward of wealthy world states, Saudi Arabia remains unscathed by tribulations afflicting much of the Arab world. They even have a secret yet widely acknowledged pact of mutual cooperation with Israel. Besides the Wahhabi menace, one would expect a little more pressure brought to bear on the Kingdom by western feminists. Yet the descendants of Ibn Sa’ud and Wahhab seem to dwell within a titanium time capsule, within which they are free to run a society on 12^th century lines, as well as to sponsor and espouse movements and activities which are by far the most disturbing, lethal and disruptive in the world where dwell the rest of us. Harass your senators, congressmen, and members of parliament, I suggest. Ask these questions, and demand answers. No one more than I would be happier to learn that answers are available. I would post them here, without doubt. In the meantime, wait for U.S. efforts to safeguard the oil that most Iraqis still imagine is theirs; and, of course, do nothing for Syria – neediest of needy spots – because Syrians don’t have to imagine they own oil; they know they do not. It is up to us to make this planet a better place, and forcing the media to provide a little context for its discombobulated and hysterical content would be a good place to start.

With love, as always,

Paul William Roberts.

An Eye For An Eye

Tags

Islam, Judaism, Middle East, Palestine, politics, religion, violence

 

I keep waiting for the Imam or Mullah of substance to say, “Every time a Muslim carries out an act of violence, he or she is desecrating Islam and the Holy Quran.” I keep waiting, too, for the Islamic scholar daring to suggest that the Quran needs a thorough editing, existing, as it does – we know for certain after the discovery of a Quranic graveyard in the Yemen of multiple variant texts – in numerous forms, mostly transcribed from oral sources. Like every other scripture, it is most definitely not the Word of God. It is also written in a form of Arabic so basic and obscure that a full third of it is incomprehensible. Thus, every translation of it is, of necessity, an interpretation. Muslims are not expected, or allowed, to discuss the text and its meaning, merely to recite it. The very word ‘Quran’ means ‘verses’ and its first injunction is to ‘recite’. The questioning of Allah, or God, is as forbidden in orthodox Islam as it is encouraged in Judaism and Christianity, where doubt is a valued aspect of faith. Muslims are told that doubt reveals the presence of Satan. Like the pre-Reformation Roman Church, Islam prefers its congregations to remain ignorant of the sacred text, its clergy preaching sections from it, or telling apocryphal stories related to it. Anyone who can read the New Testament in its original Greek can easily understand why the Church acted as if its own Latin translation was the authentic version – the Greek writing, with the exception of St. John’s gospel, is poor stuff, a vernacular form of the language barely recognizable to early scholars. Much of the Quran is similarly primitive, though can sound quite beautiful when chanted. Many Muslims learn it by heart, yet few can understand the meaning of what they recite. This leaves the religion open to chronic abuse by sects like the Saudi Wahhabites, as well as pseudo-religious organizations like Islamic Jihad, whose erstwhile leader I once had the dubious pleasure of interviewing.

With the current escalation of violence between Israel and the Palestinians, I once again wait for that Imam or Mullah, and now the Rabbi willing to state that the appropriate response to violence is not more violence. If someone killed my children I would indubitably want to kill them with my bare hands – this kind of vengeance is human nature – yet I would not want to kill their neighbours, relatives, or anyone in the vicinity where they lived. The Palestinians have a legitimate grievance, no question, but every time they fire rockets at random into Israel they undermine the legitimacy of that grievance. And what do they expect in return? Well, they get it: air attacks from Israel, whose weapons are at least somewhat more accurate than the Palestinian rockets. In both cases, the result is innocents, women, children, the old and infirm, dead. Allied with Islamic Jihad, the Hamas militants, like ISIS or ISOS, with its spiteful, ridiculous ‘Emir’ al-Baghdadi, and the disparate al-Quaeda factions, are no more Muslims than a herd of swine. They are destroyers of the faith they profess, which is why they so despise the Sufis, and other Islamic factions, who teach love, not hate.

As I tried to tell factions in Iraq, during the U.S. invasion, Ghandi won his revolution through non-violence. If they sat peacefully in front of American tanks, the whole world would be watching, and on their side. If they adopted a policy of reconciliation, putting sectarian differences into the past, they would have a prosperous thriving country with a magnificent future. Instead, of course, the path of violence and revenge was taken, the road most often travelled – and the results speak for themselves.

Many in Israel realise that retaliation and increased violence are no solution at all. Many Arabs also recognize the same irrefutable truth. Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan is, I believe, the only person in West Asia who understands that the necessary dialogue for peace is between religious leaders, not politicians. He has, quietly, pursued the organization of such dialogues for years now. At least a dialogue exists; it is a start.

Just as I await the righteous Muslim cleric to condemn all forms of violence, I also wait for the righteous Rabbi willing to explain that “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” is not the sanction for revenge, but rather an illustration of the impossibility of its rectitude – what human can judge the exactitude of his or her revenge? An eye for an eye would blind the whole world, without the remotest claim to true justice. Are we not also told, “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord”? The silence of religious leaders on these issues is deafening, or else prevaricates with empty rhetoric. Let Pope Francis go and stand in Gaza, or under the Hamas rockets, and I will believe his sincerity. As always, though, I wait for someone with the courage of their convictions to speak and act, if they wish their various creeds and faiths to be taken seriously by the rest of us – and if they themselves wish to take them seriously.

 

Paul William Roberts

Friday the 13th Blog Post

Tags

Middle East, oil, politics, rant, USA

It’s Friday the 13^th, with Mercury Retrograde, and a full moon, so don’t blame me if this sounds a trifle zany. I know I have promised more intriguing entries, and they will come; but there are times – possibly influenced by a full moon – when the state of this world, particularly as presented by our media, quite overwhelms one with dismay and disgust. What happened to reasoned commentary and debate? While no one wants the hollering opinions of a pig-ignorant, ill-mannered churl like Bill O’Reilly, do we want to hear Barack Obama – the biggest disappointment in politics since Napoleon crowned himself Emperor (or was it when Robespierre declared himself the Supreme Being?) – telling us that Iraq is in a state of “disruption” into which America would be unwise to wade, since any calming effect caused by U.S. intervention would vanish as soon as the intervention did? And this requires no comment from any news anchor? Such as, “America created this ‘disruption’, did it not?” Or, “The so-called ‘disruption’ has existed since the illegal and unwarranted invasion of 2003. Why is it suddenly an issue meriting sufficient concern to dispatch an aircraft carrier to the Gulf?” Answer: Because the suddenly-boisterous pseudo-Sunni ‘terrorists’ have begun to encroach upon the oil regions, which were the only real objective of George II’s attack, and are now controlled by U.S. oil companies, including the Bush family business, Standard Oil, as well as dubious corporations, many of them registered in tax-free Dubai, such as the octopus named Halliburton, run, if at arm’s length, by George I’s crony, and his son’s vice-president, Dick Cheney (wealth while in office going from a few million to a few hundred million). No doubt everyone forgets that the many oil companies used to be one giant company, until complaints of monopoly forced it to multiply like cancer cells into the current plethora of greasy concerns, all of which have governing boards that warrant close examination, since, originally they consisted of men who had previously run the Big Company, and currently they share many of the same names, or names from the same five families. Little known, too, is the fact that oil companies can declare every well ‘exploratory’, thus legally spared taxation, even if they’re foolish enough to have a head office in the U.S. Iraq has the world’s richest oilfields – over 33 million barrels a day – and most of them are yet to be tapped. These fields have a hidden bonus, too: the oil is under such pressure that it spurts out by itself, sparing the expense of pumping. So there’s an awful lot of money at stake, and you can bet your bottom dollar that America will eventually do anything it takes to secure those fields. In the meantime, oil companies have raised the price at the pumps, an essentially illegal practice known as ‘buncing’, where the price beans, say, increases, and a store raises the price of beans it already owns. The gas you’re now paying more for is the same gas you were paying less for last month. If the current ‘crisis’ creates an oil shortage, it won’t kick in for a year or so. The price rise now is a mix of commodities speculation – a practice where people who make nothing but money dictate prices for people who actually make something real – and sheer greed, the motto of Wall Street. Right now, in the militarised Gulf, it’s at the imminent threat stage, and confused by the sudden arrival of several divisions from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, come to aid their Shia co-sectarians, who are attempting to govern Iraq’s chaos with an army that recently fled from the ‘terrorists’, shedding their weapons and uniforms on the way. Iran has clearly forgotten its bloody and inconclusive war with Saddam’s Iraq, in which millions died, and the unlamented ex-president, Ahmadinajad, had the job of indoctrinating eleven-year-old children to fight, promising them all the joys of martyrdom, some of which many were too young to appreciate. Will America fight alongside the unforgiven and eternally-hated Iranians? Not likely. But, of course, no American recalls how their government, along with Britain’s M.I.6, destroyed Iran’s democracy in the 1950’s, restoring the late Shah’s brutal tyranny, and even encouraging its hideous excesses, such as the Savak’s tendency to arrest, torture and murder without legal process. Is the Iranian assistance to Iraq now purely altruistic? Perhaps not, since Iran has always laid claim to parts of Iraq – oddly enough the oily parts – as well as regarding the Strait of Hormuz as its private lake (Teheran’s only feasible war strategy being to sink oil tankers in the Strait, effectively preventing shipment of much of the world’s high-grade oil. Don’t kid yourselves, Canadians, your tar-sand bitumen, no matter how well-refined, is shit, useful only for the most basic purposes. It’s the ‘Light Sweet Crude’ that makes the sophisticated wheels of industry turn, not to mention the wheels of any car not wishing to destroy its pistons every year by exploding crap inside them. And this good stuff, the light, the sweet, and the crude, comes only from the Gulf, where pliant tyrants rule the tiny emirates, which have more money than they know what to do with – unless you count building artificial islands and sub-aqueous hotels — but rampaging chaos, or its impending version, still reigns over the richest fields. Now, chaos is something the fiends in their Pentagon don’t mind, since it’s easy to manipulate, and to operate within without attracting any attention. They far prefer a military dictator, of course, since that means only having to pull the strings of one puppet. What they loathe and fear most is a relatively stable quasi-democracy like Iran, which cunningly avoids giving America any valid and legal reason to invade it, by playing chess as if they invented the game, which they did. This latest move, into Iraq, appears to create a stalemate with America – the emphasis being on ‘appears’. America seems unable to make a viable move; yet if they don’t, Iran’s next move could well create a Shiite Union between Iraq and Iran, both awash in the good oil, and both intent on disrupting life in the pseudo-Sunni theo-kleptocracy of Saudi Arabia, where the ever-less-fabulous oil wealth is divided between a pullulating ‘royal’ family, and an hereditary priesthood espousing an especially nasty and heretical version of Islam concocted by a eighteenth-century lunatic, named Wahhab, who possessed severe delusions of grandeur. Among its many aberrations, the Wahhabite heresy declares the Shia to be non-Muslims, along with the Sufis and other variants of Islam. It also bans music, a sure sign of insanity, condones slavery, and views women as sub-human chattels. Yet the Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, is such good friends with the Bush family that he’s known affectionately as ‘Bandar Bush’. Go figure. Yet, with an Iranian-Iraqi Shia power block, old Bandar better make sure his pals get him a U.S. passport, since his homeland has been a bloodbath waiting to happen for some time now, while the country’s theocratic element has been spending its share of the oil cash in opening schools all over the world to teach their hateful heretical Wahhabite form of Islam to as many of the disadvantaged billions as possible. In league with the original King Ibn-Saud – a title accorded by the British to the man with more wives and goats than anyone else – Wahhab, who viewed himself as greater than the Prophet Mohammed, shaped his dogma according to the king’s needs. Since a Muslim cannot attack a fellow Muslim, the Shiite Iranians were declared non-Muslims so that Ibn-Saud could raid their rich trade caravans. Ardent believers in Wahhabism include the late Osama bin Laden’s hydra-headed al-Quaeda, whose local branches are now too numerous to mention, but include pretty much all the organizations responsible for senseless atrocities on every continent in the world. Wahhabism was behind 9/11, and the Boston Marathon bombing. It is responsible for the bombings, murders and kidnappings in Somalia, the South Sudan, and Nigeria; as well as in Britain, France, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bali, and the Philippines. The preponderance of Wahhabite-funded schools, financed by Saudi oil wealth, alongside numerous websites, are entirely responsible for the fitful reign of terror dominating the last two decades. I stress that these people have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, yet the more anti-Muslim sentiment grows in the West, the more their membership expands, for, “As every schoolchild learns, those to whom evil is done do evil in return” (W.H. Auden). Since the root of this evil is so easily located in the Saudi Wahhabite heresy, one wonders why it has not been pulled out, just as one wonders why the only planes allowed to fly after 9/11 were those carrying members of the Saudi royal family out of America. It is well known that the more frightened a population is, the stronger its government will be. Is it possible that the Wahhabite terrorists – who, when all is said and done, amount merely to a few hundred people suffering from a mix of brainwashed mania and legitimate grievances – serve someone’s purposes perfectly? Who ordered all U.S. fighter planes to stand down on 9/11, and why? This question alone, among the many others, needs answering.

This is the kind of background one requires of the media, yet why does one not get it? Take a close look at the executive boards of oil companies and companies in the war business. It should be someone’s Ph.D. thesis. The same names crop all over the places where serious wealth is to be had. U.S. ‘intervention’ only occurs where such people’s money is at stake. Why no help for Syria, by far the biggest catastrophe in the Middle-East, which is saying alot? Answer: no oil, dummy. What happened to the brief democracy in Egypt, now returned to a comfortable military dictatorship just like the one supposedly sprung by the ‘Arab Spring’? Answer: Israel did not like the hostile tone it was hearing from the Muslim Brotherhood. Why does Israel have so much clout in America and Canada? Answer: take a look around, then ask yourself why five percent of the population occupies so many powerful positions, makes so much noise, and controls so much wealth. But don’t tell a soul, because the brand of anti-Semitism – a literally meaningless term in the Semitic Arab world – is impossible to remove. All the major newspapers are shamelessly pro-Israel, as if the Jewish State has done, and could do no wrong. The odd article detailing Palestinian grievances is thrown in so that these rags can ‘prove’ their lack of bias, yet when the column inches are compared, pro-Israel encomia stretch a mile or so, and Palestinian-favourable laments amount to a couple of feet. By contrast, read the Israeli press, like Ha-Aretz, which convey a true sense of the divisions of opinion within Israel itself. Some of the articles would have anyone writing them here thrown in jail. Okay, the Holocaust did happen and was indeed the greatest abomination committed by an allegedly-civilized nation; and Israel does have a right to exist; yet the Palestinians also have rights, or do in theory. They had nothing whatsoever to do with the Nazi Holocaust, yet they were driven from their homeland, entire villages destroyed without trace, and are now forced either to live in an apartheid state, or as refugees abroad, often in camps worse than prisons. Even if so-called peace talks get off the ground, they will stall over control of Jerusalem, a symbolic, rather than holy place for both Jews and Muslims. The problem created by Zionism has no solution – unless it is a reprise of the ‘final’ one – and everyone knows it. Why the endless stream of U.S. Secretaries-of-Sate bother to try solving the insolvable is beyond me. This is why most Jews have no desire to live in Israel, which itself is more symbol than actual homeland. Many of my Jewish friends even regard America as the Promised Land, and hardly any believe the Torah has any more historical value as a property deed than the Koran, or, for that matter, the so-called New Testament, whose geography, let alone historicity, is provably fictional, cobbled together in bad Greek by Roman schismatic Jews who had never left Italy in their lives. You won’t hear this stuff on your radio or television, however, because the powers that be know very well that religion – from the Latin religare, ‘to bind together’ – is a great pacifier of the masses, promising, like a parent or school, punishment for bad behaviour, and great rewards for the good, meaning ‘the meek’, who shall inherit the earth only when the multi-national corporations have reduced it to a toxic trash heap, or a smouldering cinder. The only future those people believe in is the next quarter’s bottom-line. The board of a corporation is legally forbidden to make any decision which will lower share-holder dividends. Legally forbidden. So wonder not why such organizations fail to decide on matters like more environmentally-friendly ways to dispose of their poisonous by-products. Only strong and concerted public lobbying can force them to behave responsibly; and even then governments, largely the pawns of corporate interests, can pass laws subverting the will of the electorate. If there was any justice in this world, the Jews would have been given Germany as their homeland. They would have been much happier there, and it would have given the Germans a chance to atone, instead of trying to forget their whole nation went mad for twelve years. If, if, if…

If Justice were truly for all, fines, like speeding tickets and the rest, would be levied according to the culprit’s income. To a poor man $100 is a hardship; to the driver of a Ferrari it is merely a license fee. When you can afford a crack lawyer, you don’t go to jail; but if you’re in court with some overworked loser from Legal Aid, abandon all hope before ye enter. A heart surgeon here murdered his two children, stabbing them multiple times, yet his crack lawyer, with some quack psychiatrist, got him acquitted on the grounds of ‘temporary insanity’. Try that defense after robbing a bank. No, my friends, justice, like democracy, is a myth by which we imagine life is endurable. As the Dalai Lama once said, “What mystifies me about humanity is that you lose your health trying to make money, then spend the money trying to regain your health. You live in memories of the past, and fantasies about the future, ignoring the present, and refusing to believe you will die. Thus, when you do die, you have never even lived.” I would add to this that if you rely on the corporate media for your knowledge of the world, you will die in utter ignorance, believing you are well-informed.

What is the point of giving the right to vote to someone who hasn’t a clue what the candidates or their parties really stand for? Why does the American working class consistently vote against its own interests by electing Republicans? Why does anyone watch ‘Fox News’, which actually peddles opinions, not news, since opinions are cheap and can never be wrong? Why do so many right-wing media yackers have to shout all the time, when the only people listening to them agree with every malicious word they say? These are mysteries to be probed. Being blind, I no longer own a television, yet have never missed the box. When I encounter one in a hotel room, on rare occasions, I find the hundred-odd channels broadcasting hysterical nonsense, scarcely differentiated from the ads that seem to run every five minutes. Such ‘serious’ programs as you can find are aimed at a kindergarten audience, and any discussions are on a level of banality so stupefying that one fears for any audience they may have. If this is where most people obtain information – along with the dubious and frighteningly unreliable Internet – then why bother with education? Why pretend any vote is ‘democratic’ when no voter has access to any real information on the issues involved? In the United States of Amnesia, history does not really exist beyond a few legends and a great many outright lies. Why do so many Americans still believe that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 atrocity? Why do they continue to believe that the people they elect for Congress or Senate have their best interests at heart, when these people consistently vote against these interests? How many still think Obama was born in Kenya, and why? How did ‘Socialism’ become a pejorative, when it means what the Constitution promises: rule by the people for the people?

In 1776, 95% of Americans worked for themselves, producing real items, crops or manufactures; and only 5% of the national income came from non-productive sources, like rent or usury. Now 95% of the population work for a salary, for a ‘boss’, and 1% control 98% of the wealth. How did this happen? How can a Constitution written for the social order of 1776 even be considered relevant today? The right to bear arms? Come on, N.R.A., that was added at a time when the country had no standing army, and it seemed wise to have a potential militia familiar with weapons. Guns don’t kill people? I think we all know that’s bullshit. By all means go hunting, but not with laser-sighted automatic machine guns. That is not sport. America, the whole world views you as an armed madhouse – because you have become that. What has made a nation which began as the greatest advance in human history, embodiment of our noblest dreams, become so stultifyingly stupid? And this stupidity is now its greatest export, if not the only one. Last year I found British television to be plumbing new depths of idiocy, every talking-head adopting the tone of pseudo-manic excitement pioneered by U.S. media. Does the audience need to be kept awake or something? You wouldn’t want house guests talking like that. I have watched unmitigated Hollywood crap in places like Burma and Papua-New Guinea, where most of its content must be incomprehensible, yet its short-attention-span editing and noise levels seem to compel viewers to watch for neuro-psychological reasons, much the same as being beaten-up commands attention without interest. Admittedly, I did watch Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf on Jordanian television, with some Bedouin in a desert tent, whose only comment on the hauntingly beautiful yet hopelessly obscure film was that, “It have no wolf…” I think Miami Vice was on next, engaging more interest, but disapproval at the scandalous behaviour and dress of women. When was the last time any American channel played a Bergman film? Or Fellini? These giants of the cinema have been replaced by midgets, like Tarrentino and others whose names are not worth remembering. The culture is dying a slow and painful death. No one reads a book anymore, although they may buy many, in order to appear as if they read them. Is there not a way we can salvage this wreck of a civilization? Does this ‘dumbing-down’ benefit someone? If so, who, and why? Is it all to end, as T.S. Eliot predicted, “not with a bang but a whimper”? Always follow the money to find your answers to these mysteries, and then refuse to take the bullshit any more. Stand up and fight, if you believe there is anything to fight for. Life is about Now, not when or then. It is never too late to build a better world. I only wish I could be of more help, yet remain sincerely, Paul William Roberts (I warned you it might be zany. Blame it on the Moon, or the Bossa-Nova).

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