أعوذ بالله من الشيطان الرجيم
الحمدلله رب العالمين
و صلاة و سلم على النبي
I hoped you watched the video before reading this. The video is of Alex Jones, a Texas talk-show host who, for the past 14 years has been warning Americans of great conspiracies of the rich and powerful to transform America into a kingdom and its citizens into serfs. Many do not take Alex serious; however, I tend to believe the gist of his talks. The details seem embellished.
I was watching this particular video and I noticed that Alex is uncharacteristically angry. It seems that as time goes on, he is getting more and more angry.
Anwar Al-Awlaki, who after September 11, 2001 was a very nice, friendly, peaceful preacher of Islam. He condemned the attacks. He spoke of how peaceful Islam was. But, as of late, people have commented that Imam Al-Awlaki has gotten more and more angry as time goes on.
I have been a moderator of www.ummah.com.forum for the past eight years. People have commented that I also have gotten more and more angry as time goes on.
I write this, not to put myself on the level of Alex, with his vast amounts of information and professional public speaking experience, nor on the level of the Imam, with his vast amount of Islamic knowledge, public-talking experience and understanding of Islam, but more along the lines of trying to explain what I see as a common thread between, not only the three of us, but of many others, past and present. Evem the numerous articles trying to explain “the radicalization of Muslim youth” tend to overlook the obvious.
Martin Luther King also seemed to change his approach as time passed. At one time, he unequivocally embraced non-violence and solely domestic issues. Later, he expanded this understanding and his speeches became more fiery.
Malcolm X transformed in many ways as time passed.
Even the Prophet Muhammad صلى الله عليه و سلم also transformed the delivery of his message after time. The Prophet Noah, after 950 years of inviting people to the Oneness of God, eventually wound up pray to God to curse his people.
What happened?
Circumstances, knowledge, and events change. Alex has seen that this onslaught of tyranny has now included using the USA military as a gang of amoral thugs, which he believes will return to the USA and be used as a national police force to contain the American people.
Anwar Al-Awlaki has apparently seen the reality of the evil of the American Empire. Where previously he sat and spoke from a position of security and comfort within Washington DC; and now after reading, studying and preaching about the life of the Prophets, the history of Islam and death and the Hereafter, it appears the reality of the evil of the USA and how it is slaughtering Muslims has become more clear to him.
As for myself, I actually witnessed the attacks at the WTC, and I remember telling anyone that would listen that there was no justification for the things that happened that day. However, similar to both Awlaki and Jones, after getting over the emotional shock of it all and actually doing some investigation into how the USA has been conducting itself domestically and abroad, you begin to realize that there is an evil presence in the government of the USA. This evil has existed since Christopher Columbus landed on the shores of the Western Hemisphere and it has continued unabated since. My prior blogs contain many links and videos explaining this.
When one begins open their mind and look beyond the headlines and the propaganda being promoted, things become clearer and the reality sharper. You will get angry.
You start to see that the true evil is not the Taliban, or Al-Qaaida, but the duplicity in the American foreign policy. If we are going to use innocent life as a measuring stick, the USA has killed far more innocent people than Al-Qaaida. If we are going to use the USA’s definition of terrorism, the USA winds up being the chief proponent of terrorism, NOT Al-Qaaida.
Muslims have been victimized by the USA, directly and through proxies (ie support of tyrannical dictatorships). They have been kidnapped (extraordinary rendition), tortured (enhanced interrogation techniques), their homes bombed (terrorists hide amongst civilians), their innocents killed (collateral damage), lands invaded and military bases installed and a host of International violations and even violations to its Constitution and laws.
Seeing these inconsistencies is enough to raise the ire in any thinking person. Add to it the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, then it becomes a portrait of pure evil. Lastly, to watch the propaganda machine portray the victimizer as the victim is sufficient to infuriate the mildest of temperaments.
Constantly, we hear of the youth being radicalized by this speaker or watching videos or the internet. This is not true. What caused the radicalization of old and young is observing evil being committed and a desire to correct this evil. “as English philosopher Edmund Burke said, ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph [of evil] is for good men to do nothing.’
I write this to remind those who are not angry, Have you not seen the deaths caused by the USA’s invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq? These people did nothing to the USA, but the USA bombs and kills with impunity. Have you not read about the drone attacks against Muslims in Pakistan? Solely because someone is deemed a “militant” is now justification in the eyes of the USA of that person deserving of death. Well, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were also considered militants.
Are you angry?
Abu Mubarak's Blog 
We are all angry brother, just doing something would mean leaving everything we care for, and that’s not something many of us wanna do.
Can We post this article on Answering MM website?
yes, of course akhi
done, but the arabic font isnt working. how can i fix that?
I dont know what to say about the arabic font, akhi
Vulnerable Muslim Youth: The Challenge of Counter-Radicalisation
If Muslim leaders are expected to guide their youth in a religious cause against violence and extremism they should also be encouraged to speak truth to power against issues of political injustice, argues Abbas Barzegar.
Middle East Online
Atlanta, Georgia – Many of us are still bewildered by the bizarre news of the 19-year-old Somali-born American citizen, Muhammad Osman Mohamud, arrested on 25 November for attempting to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. Putting aside questions regarding the nature of the FBI’s involvement in this case, it appears that despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent on counter-radicalisation programmes in the United States, Europe and Muslim-majority countries around the world, a seemingly well-adjusted American youth is once again willing to carry out a horrendous act of violence.
If strategies to deter extremist violence are to be effective, we must take a serious look at some of their strengths and weaknesses.
Where the voices of Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri have faded, this new stream of at-risk youth are being inspired by the likes of ideologue cleric Anwar al-Awlaki. Despite their small numbers and lack of mainstream followers, extremists like al-Awlaki disproportionately affect the discourse on Muslim-Western relations because their acts of violence capture the most headlines and provide ammunition to political opportunists determined to further complicate Muslim and Western world relations.
In an effort to combat the influence of radical ideologues, an entire cadre of Muslims leaders around the world has come forward with active campaigns to take the “Islam” out of “Muslim terrorism”. They aim to make clear that such acts of violence are not only morally repugnant but clear violations of Islamic principles and law.
For example, earlier this year an international group of Muslim scholars gathered in Mardin, Turkey in order to publicly refute the infamous fatwa (non-binding legal opinion) by 14th century cleric Ibn Taymiyyah that calls for violence against non-Muslim rulers. The fatwa has been used repeatedly as justification by extremists.
Similarly, earlier this year scholar Dr. Muhammad Tahir ul-Qadri issued a 600-page fatwa condemning “Islamic terrorism.” Relying upon traditional sources and methodologies, scholars like ul-Qadri hope to break the monopoly violent ideologues have held over the discourse on Muslim and Western world relations.
Governments, civic groups and Muslim leaders around the world have supported these efforts in a number of ways. For example, in the UK the Radical Middle Way and the Quilliam Foundation have sought to educate the public about Islam, while at the same time promote a distinctly British Muslim identity for emerging youth. They do so with the help of prominent Muslim leaders like Hamza Yusuf and Abdul Hakim Murad.
While these efforts should be commended, many of them have fallen short of their mandate because of their largely non-political orientation. If de-radicalising potentially violent Muslim youth and deterring religious extremism is the aim, how can these approaches reach their target audience without offering a viable pressure valve in today’s intensely conflicted world? How can such programming influence the angry and disaffected to deter extremism?
It is common sense to most people that the acts of violence committed by groups like Al Qaeda and their home grown wannabes are political in origin but wrapped in religious ideology. Muslim youth today are enraged, for instance, by misdirected drone strikes in Pakistan that kill innocent women and children, and the seemingly endless oppression of Palestinians. Both Afghanistan and Somalia, today’s terrorist hot spots, have been failed states for two generations; the youth in these countries have only known social strife, war and failed promises from the international community.
It is these raw conditions that brew extremism. Nonetheless, counter-radicalisation programmes often shy away from difficult and direct political conversations. Instead, they overemphasise topics like the multicultural legacy of Cordoba in Spain, the inward spiritual teachings of Sufi sages, and the scientific achievements of the medieval Muslim world.
Muslim leaders and their allies in government and civil society must move beyond simply nurturing the “Good Muslim” role model and encouraging acts of good citizenship like charity and community service. They must realise that stories of water-boarding and pictures from Abu Ghraib will have a far more profound influence on shaping the political perceptions of Muslim youth than US President Barack Obama’s eloquent words of peace or the interfaith declarations of Muslim clerics.
If Muslim leaders are expected to guide their youth in a religious cause against violence and extremism they should also be encouraged to speak truth to power against issues of political injustice, which are real driving factors fuelling extremism. By ignoring this call, Muslim leaders and their allies will not only be seen by their target audiences as mere puppets of Western governments, but guarantee that those disaffected masses are forced into the shadowy world of extremist cyber space and the arms of figures like al-Awlaki.
***
Abbas Barzegar is Assistant Professor of Islam in the Department of Religious Studies at Georgia State University and Co-Editor of Islamism: Contested Perspectives on Political Islam (Stanford University Press, 2009). This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews)
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=43114
that article only glimpses at the real issue. If you are not going to speak truth to power, then, in the words of Thomas Paine, “Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”
http://abumubarak.blogspot.com/2011/03/usa-soldiers-rape-muslim-women-children.html
USA Soldiers Rape Muslim Women & Children
An American Atrocity in Afghanistan By Dave Lindorff
March 09, 2011 “Information Clearing House” — The people of Afghanistan know who was flying the two helicopter gunships that brutally hunted down and slaughtered, one by one, nine boys apparently as young as seven years old, as they gathered firewood on a hillside March 1. In angry demonstrations after the incident, they were shouting “Death to America.”
Americans are still blissfully unaware that their “heroes” in uniform are guilty of this obscene massacre. The ursine US corporate media has been reporting on this story based upon a gutless press release from the Pentagon which attributes the “mistake” to “NATO” helicopters.
The thing is, this terrible incident occurred in the Pech Valley in Afghanistan’s Kunar province, where US forces have for several years been battling Taliban forces, and from which region they are now in the process of withdrawing. Clearly then, it is US, and not “NATO” helicopters which have been responding to calls to attack “suspected Taliban forces.”
So why can’t the Pentagon say that? And if they won’t say that, why won’t American reporters either demand that they clearly state the nationality of whatever troops commit an atrocity, or exercise due diligence themselves and figure it out?
There is a second issue too. Most publications appear to have followed the lead of the highly compromised New York Times, and are going with the Pentagon line that the boys who were killed were aged 9-15. That’s bad enough. It’s hard to see how helicopter pilots with their high-resolution imaging equipment, cannot tell a 9-year-old boy when they see one, from a bearded Taliban fighter. But at least one news organization, the McClachy chain, is reporting that the ages of the boys who were murdered from the air were 7-13. If that latter range of ages is correct, then it is all the more outrageous that they were picked off one by one by helicopter gunners. No way could they have mistaken a 7-year-old for an adult.
No wonder the even the famously corrupt Afghan President Hamid Karzai refused to accept an apology proffered for this killing by Afghan War commander Gen. David Petraeus.
Calls by this reporter to the Pentagon for an accurate report on whose troops were flying those two helicopters, and for an accurate accounting of the ages of the nine victims, have thus far gone unanswered. This, I have discovered, is fairly standard for the Defense Department. If it’s a story about some big victory, or a new eco-friendly plan for a military base’s heating system, you have to beat the Pentagon PR guys off with a stick, but if you call them about something embarrassing or negative, you get passed from Major Perrine to Lt. Col. Robbins to Commander Whozits, and nobody give you an answer. Finally you’re given someone to email a question to, and that message goes into the Pentagon internet ether and never gets returned.
So let’s give an honest report here. Two US helicopter gunships, allegedly responding to a report of “insurgent” activity on a hillside in Kunar Province, came upon the scene of 10 young Afghan boys who were collecting brush for fuel for their families. The gunships, according to the account of a lone 11-year-old surviver who was hidden by a tree, systematically hunted down the other nine boys, hitting them with machine gun and rocket fire and killing them all–their bodies so badly damaged that their families had to hunt for the pieces in order to bury them.
This atrocity is being described as a “mistake,” but it was no mistake, clearly. The crews of the helicopters were shooting at fleeing human beings who made no attempt to return fire (obviously, because all the boys had were sticks, which they surely dropped when the first shots were fired).
They almost certainly saw that they were dealing with kids, because it would be hard to mistake even a nine year old for an adult, particularly in a country where young kids go around with their heads uncovered, and don’t have beards, while adult males generally wear head coverings, and have full beards. But killing kids is part of the deal in America’s war in Afghanistan. Even in Iraq, 12 year olds were being classified by the US military (in contravention of the Geneva Conventions) as being “combat age,” for example in the assault on the city of Fallujah.
Let’s also be clear that this slaughter of nine Afghan children is the ugly reality behind Gen. Petraeus’s supposed policy of “protecting civilians.” Here’s a number that tells the true story about that policy: since Gen. Petraeus assumed command after the ousting of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, US airstrikes in Afghanistan have gone up by 172%. That’s not counting attacks by remote-controlled, missile-firing drone aircraft, which are also up by a huge amount. Those airstrikes and drone attacks are notoriously deadly for civilians–far more so than ground attacks, but of course they have the advantage for our “heroes” in uniform of reducing the number of US casualties in this hugely one-sided conflict.
There are so many aspects to this story that are disturbing, it’s hard to know what’s worse. Clearly we are deliberately murdering kids in Afghanistan, and this particular incident is just an example we know about. The men who did this will hopefully pay for their crimes by living with their guilt, but hopefully there will be an honest investigation and proper punishment too by military authorities (I’m not holding my breath). Petraeus and his boss, Commander in Chief Obama, should also be called to account and punished for implementing a war plan that calls for this kind of brutal slaughter of civilians.
But the US media are also guilty here. How can Americans reach proper conclusions about this obscene war against one of the poorest peoples in the world if our supposedly “fair and balanced” media simply perform the role of Pentagon propagandist, running Defense Department press releases as if they were news reports?
The blood of these poor Afghan kids is smeared not just on the hands of Obama and the generals, and the soldiers who pull the triggers and push the buttons that unleash death, but on the desks and keyboards of American newsrooms that cover up their crimes.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27641.htm