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Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Rabi' al-Awwal 15,1427/April 14, 2006 #25


IRAN
U.S. Facing No-Win Situation as it threatens Nuclear War
by Kaukab Siddique

I can write about Iran with some assurance. I met Imam Khomeini twice, once in Qum and once in Tehran, during the first years of the Islamic revolution. After he passed away, I visited his grave to pay my respects. I differed with the Iranian regimes post-Khomeini. However, I have kept an eye on developments there and have written extensively on Iran, often critically. Here are my thoughts on the current situation [April 2006].

In spite of Iran's cooperation in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. government is threatening military action against the Islamic Republic. The Zionist/corporate/liberal media are fanning the flames of possible war. Seymour Hersch has gone to the extent of claiming that the U.S. will use nuclear weapons against Iran. He might be in the know or he might be trying to embarrass the Bush administration.

. Let us look at the arguments and options under debate:

1. The Zionists would like the U.S. to carry out "regime change" in Iran which implies the use of force to unseat an elected government. [Radical warmongers such as Christopher Hitchins have gone to the extent of claiming that the Iranian goverment is not an elected government!]

The U.S. government is encouraged in its desire for "regime change" by Chalabi-type Iranians who claim that large numbers of young people in Iran love America and hate the "mullahs." This kind of fantasy is possible for people who visit North Tehran and meet westernized [gharabzadah] Iranians. Also, Iranians generally like to argue with and criticize their government. This creates the incorrect impression of disunity.

Any attempt to overthrow the Islamic government would be swamped by the massive response of the Iranian people. The anniversary of the revolution in February which drew huge crowds should have warned people who do not live outside reality. Regime change from within is nothing more than a fantasy. Ahmedinejad has mass support and has been able to mobilize public opinion.

2. Regime change from outside too is a fantasy because the U.S. military is stuck in Iraq and is in no condition to invade Iran. The Islamic Republic has strategic depth and vast quantities of weaponry available for popular resistance. IRAQ, through three years of resistance, may well have saved IRAN from the military clutches of the U.S.

3. BOMBING by the U.S. AIR FORCE, including nuclear strike, is the only option open to the U.S. This could do severe damage to Iranian military capacity and at least some damage to its nuclear project. It could kill 20,000 to 40,000 Iranians in a matter of days. However, this won't work for a variety of reasons:

3a. Iran is capable of absorbing punishment. In the city of Bam, an earthquake killed 30,000 people in one day. Iran did not ask anyone for help and swiftly took care of the damage done.

3b. Iran's MARTYRDOM COMPLEX is very different from that of Al-Qaidah and Taliban. While Al-Qaidah operates to hit and hurt opposing forces, often the most vital economic structures as happened in 9.11, Iran is good at dealing with hurt inflicted on itself. This attitude is best symbolized in the self-flagellation ceremonies in memory of Imam Husain. The Iranians are at their best when they are being hurt by the enemy. Saddam Husain did not understand this and invaded Iran when Iran had disbanded its regular forces because of their loyalty to the Shah.

3c. When the Iranians tried to take Basra at the end of Iran-Iraq war, they lost 10,000 young people in a couple of days as the Iraqis hit them with heavy artillery from dug-in positions. Losses do not deter Iran. If the U.S. succeeds in killing large number of Iranians in a nuclear strike or heavy bombing from the air, the ensuing war will probably be open-ended.

4. If the U.S. attacks, it is no exaggeration to stipulate that the entire Iranian nation will rally to support the Islamic government. IMAM KHOMEINI's Line will be empowered as never before. The Imam had taught Iranians that their real enemy is the U.S. [whom he called the "Great Satan."] Owing to short sighted policies of junior leaders in Iran, who took over during his illness, IRAQ came to be seen as the enemy of Iran. It was a strategic blunder by the post-Khomeini Iranian government. An AMERICAN ATTACK would create tremendous ideological focus for the Iranians.

5. If the U.S. attacks, the entire Muslim world [the masses] will rally to support Iran. Thus the Shia-Sunni divide will be bridged. Already Islamic movements in Pakistan and the Arab world [including the Ahle Hadith, "wahhabis,"] are showing outright support for Iran regardless of sectarian differences.

6. Whether the U.S. attacks alone or is supported by Israel, the Muslim world will see it as the Israeli hand coming out of the American sleeve. Gone are the days when Israel could attack the Iraqi nuclear facility and succeed. There was no Islamic movement to challenge Israel.

6a. Israel-type attack cannot succeed because Iranian nuclear facilities are said to be decentralized and underground. The chances of direct hits and substantial damage are low.

6b. If ISRAEL ATTACKS, all the "front" regimes the U.S. has installed to create a buffer between Israel and the Islamic masses will come under internal pressure and probably collapse.

6c. If it attacks, Israel will have signed its death warrant. No project for peaceful dismantling of Israel will get a hearing in the Muslim world. According to Islamic Hadith narrations, if and when a final battle takes place, the Jews will find no place to hide. Even the rocks themselves will cry out if a Jew is concealed behind them.

WHAT COULD IRAN DO:
1. Shut down its own oil production.
2. Hamper or put a stop to the transportation of oil through neighboring waterways.
3. Actvate Hizbullah against Israel.
4. Fire missiles into "Saudi" Arabian oil installations.
5. Iran could, if things get really bad, hook up with al-Qaidah and even the Taliban. Reactive support for the Taliban could lead to a swift Taliban victory in Afghanistan.
6. An Islamic victory in Afghanistan would activate Islamic forces in Pakistan and bring about the overthrow of General Musharraf with whom the Iranians are now cooperating in the "war on terror."

DOES IRAN HAVE THE RIGHT TO NUCLEAR WEAPONRY?:

American analysts agree that the enrichment of uranium announced by Iran does not mean that it can now have a nuclear weapon. That will not be possible for several years. There is NO INDICATION AT ALL that Iran is going for a nuclear weapon. It certainly does not have the capacity at this time.

By contrast ISRAEL already HAS a NUMBER OF NUCLEAR BOMBS at its facility at Dimona. Thus the U.S. and UK have created a situation in the Middle East in which the gangster regime in Tel Aviv has nuclear weapons while Muslim countries face military action if they show even the inclination for such an effort. The Middle East is being systematically DISARMED to make it subservient to Israel.

Within that context, Iran definitely has the right to have nuclear weapons to defend itself against Israel. So, what's the moral outrage all about in the Zionist media? People like Christopher Hitchens should be in an institute for the mentally disturbed rather than giving out political advice on corporate media TV screens.


Research Paper Documents Zionist Control of U.S. Foreign Policy but most Americans will not not know about it because .....


Two learned professors recently wrote a research paper in which they documented the Israeli factor in U.S. foreign policy as well the Zionist hand behind the Iraq war. The corporate media are trying to discredit the paper. Here is a letter the editor of New Trend wrote to the Philadelphia Inquirer in response to one such attempt.


Subj: Re: "Attacking the 'Israel Lobby.' " [Inquirer April 3]
Date: 4/5/2006 8:44:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: KSidd37398
To: inquirer.letters@phillynews.com

Dear Editor

Max Boot's hatchet job on a serious critique of the Israel lobby takes away from analysis of an issue which has skewed American foreign policy. John Mearsheimer [University of Chicago] and Stephen Walt [Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government] certainly have better academic credentials than Max Boot. To call their work "nutty" indicates that Boot is trying to smear them.

The two scholars have thoroughly researched Israel's role in the subversion of America's foreign policy interests, with 41 pages of references. Boot has not been able to deal with any of the points they made. Name calling certainly does not help in serious debate.
Boot's process of reasoning is faulty. He tries to compare the Israel Lobby with other lobbies but conveniently forgets that Social Security, the Second Amendment and Roe v. Wade supporters do not deal with foreign policy. He is comparing "apples with oranges" and trying to get away with it.

Mearsheimer and Walt don't need to call the invasion of Iraq a "Zionist Plot." Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Leiberman have not concealed their inclinations. They are blatant supporters of Israel and of the war against Iraq.

U.S. support for Israel has turned the entire Muslim world against us. As a result, the U.S. has to spend billions of dollars to prop up oppressive regimes in Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Algeria and now in Iraq, to stop the emergence of global opposition to Israel.
Iraq under Saddam never harmed the U.S. in any way. Our expensive war there emanates from the Israeli lobby. The people whom Boot is trying to discredit, astute researchers, have shown in a very scholarly fashion that the hand of Israel behind the war is a fact, not a conspiracy theory.

Sincerely
Kaukab Siddique, Ph.D
Associate Professor of English


AFGHANISTAN
Why are Afghans Welcoming the Upsurge of the Taliban?

'He cried out "Allah, Allah" and everyone thought it was funny.'
[These are excerpts from an extensive report published in the New York Times last year. We cannot publish it in full owing to copyright restrictions. The prisoner being mistreated by the U.S. in this report was not a Taliban fighter but an average middle class Afghan, a taxi driver. It's not difficult to imagine the fate of actual Taliban captured by the U.S. on the field of battle. Also, in that case it would not have been published in the NY Times - Editor]

"For Mr. Dilawar, his fellow prisoners said, the most difficult thing seemed to be the black cloth hood that was pulled over his head. "He could not breathe," said a man called Parkhudin, who had been one of Mr. Dilawar's passengers.

Mr. Dilawar was a frail man, standing only 5 feet 9 inches and weighing 122 pounds. But at Bagram, he was quickly labeled one of the "noncompliant" ones.

When one of the First Platoon M.P.'s, Specialist Corey E. Jones, was sent to Mr. Dilawar's cell to give him some water, he said the prisoner spit in his face and started kicking him. Specialist Jones responded, he said, with a couple of knee strikes to the leg of the shackled man.

"He screamed out, 'Allah! Allah! Allah!' and my first reaction was that he was crying out to his god," Specialist Jones said to investigators. "Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny."

Other Third Platoon M.P.'s later came by the detention center and stopped at the isolation cells to see for themselves, Specialist Jones said.

It became a kind of running joke, and people kept showing up to give this detainee a common peroneal strike just to hear him scream out 'Allah,' " he said. "It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes."

In a subsequent statement, Specialist Jones was vague about which M.P.'s had delivered the blows. His estimate was never confirmed, but other guards eventually admitted striking Mr. Dilawar repeatedly.

Many M.P.'s would eventually deny that they had any idea of Mr. Dilawar's injuries, explaining that they never saw his legs beneath his jumpsuit. But Specialist Jones recalled that the drawstring pants of Mr. Dilawar's orange prison suit fell down again and again while he was shackled.

"I saw the bruise because his pants kept falling down while he was in standing restraints," the soldier told investigators. "Over a certain time period, I noticed it was the size of a fist."

As Mr. Dilawar grew desperate, he began crying out more loudly to be released. But even the interpreters had trouble understanding his Pashto dialect; the annoyed guards heard only noise.

"He had constantly been screaming, 'Release me; I don't want to be here,' and things like that," said the one linguist who could decipher his distress, Abdul Ahad Wardak.

The Interrogation

On Dec. 8, Mr. Dilawar was taken for his fourth interrogation. It quickly turned hostile.

The 21-year-old lead interrogator, Specialist Glendale C. Walls II, later contended that Mr. Dilawar was evasive. "Some holes came up, and we wanted him to answer us truthfully," he said. The other interrogator, Sergeant Salcedo, complained that the prisoner was smiling, not answering questions, and refusing to stay kneeling on the ground or sitting against the wall.

The interpreter who was present, Ahmad Ahmadzai, recalled the encounter differently to investigators.

The interrogators, Mr. Ahmadzai said, accused Mr. Dilawar of launching the rockets that had hit the American base. He denied that. While kneeling on the ground, he was unable to hold his cuffed hands above his head as instructed, prompting Sergeant Salcedo to slap them back up whenever they began to drop.

"Selena berated him for being weak and questioned him about being a man, which was very insulting because of his heritage," Mr. Ahmadzai said.

When Mr. Dilawar was unable to sit in the chair position against the wall because of his battered legs, the two interrogators grabbed him by the shirt and repeatedly shoved him back against the wall.

"This went on for 10 or 15 minutes," the interpreter said. "He was so tired he couldn't get up."

"They stood him up, and at one point Selena stepped on his bare foot with her boot and grabbed him by his beard and pulled him towards her," he went on. "Once Selena kicked Dilawar in the groin, private areas, with her right foot. She was standing some distance from him, and she stepped back and kicked him.

"About the first 10 minutes, I think, they were actually questioning him, after that it was pushing, shoving, kicking and shouting at him," Mr. Ahmadzai said. "There was no interrogation going on."

The session ended, he said, with Sergeant Salcedo instructing the M.P.'s to keep Mr. Dilawar chained to the ceiling until the next shift came on.

The next morning, Mr. Dilawar began yelling again. At around noon, the M.P.'s called over another of the interpreters, Mr. Baerde, to try to quiet Mr. Dilawar down.

"I told him, 'Look, please, if you want to be able to sit down and be released from shackles, you just need to be quiet for one more hour."

"He told me that if he was in shackles another hour, he would die," Mr. Baerde said.

Half an hour later, Mr. Baerde returned to the cell. Mr. Dilawar's hands hung limply from the cuffs, and his head, covered by the black hood, slumped forward.

"He wanted me to get a doctor, and said that he needed 'a shot,' " Mr. Baerde recalled. "He said that he didn't feel good. He said that his legs were hurting."

Mr. Baerde translated Mr. Dilawar's plea to one of the guards. The soldier took the prisoner's hand and pressed down on his fingernails to check his circulation.

"He's O.K.," Mr. Baerde quoted the M.P. as saying. "He's just trying to get out of his restraints."

By the time Mr. Dilawar was brought in for his final interrogation in the first hours of the next day, Dec. 10, he appeared exhausted and was babbling that his wife had died. He also told the interrogators that he had been beaten by the guards.

"But we didn't pursue that," said Mr. Baryalai, the interpreter.

Specialist Walls was again the lead interrogator. But his more aggressive partner, Specialist Claus, quickly took over, Mr. Baryalai said.

"Josh had a rule that the detainee had to look at him, not me," the interpreter told investigators. "He gave him three chances, and then he grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him towards him, across the table, slamming his chest into the table front."

When Mr. Dilawar was unable to kneel, the interpreter said, the interrogators pulled him to his feet and pushed him against the wall. Told to assume a stress position, the prisoner leaned his head against the wall and began to fall asleep.

"It looked to me like Dilawar was trying to cooperate, but he couldn't physically perform the tasks," Mr. Baryalai said.

Finally, Specialist Walls grabbed the prisoner and "shook him harshly," the interpreter said, telling him that if he failed to cooperate, he would be shipped to a prison in the United States, where he would be "treated like a woman, by the other men" and face the wrath of criminals who "would be very angry with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks." (Specialist Walls was charged last week with assault, maltreatment and failure to obey a lawful order; Specialist Claus was charged with assault, maltreatment and lying to investigators. Each man declined to comment.)

A third military intelligence specialist who spoke some Pashto, Staff Sgt. W. Christopher Yonushonis, had questioned Mr. Dilawar earlier and had arranged with Specialist Claus to take over when he was done. Instead, the sergeant arrived at the interrogation room to find a large puddle of water on the floor, a wet spot on Mr. Dilawar's shirt and Specialist Claus standing behind the detainee, twisting up the back of the hood that covered the prisoner's head.

"I had the impression that Josh was actually holding the detainee upright by pulling on the hood," he said. "I was furious at this point because I had seen Josh tighten the hood of another detainee the week before. This behavior seemed completely gratuitous and unrelated to intelligence collection."

"What the hell happened with that water?" Sergeant Yonushonis said he had demanded.

"We had to make sure he stayed hydrated," he said Specialist Claus had responded.

The next morning, Sergeant Yonushonis went to the noncommissioned officer in charge of the interrogators, Sergeant Loring, to report the incident. Mr. Dilawar, however, was already dead.

The Post-Mortem

The findings of Mr. Dilawar's autopsy were succinct. He had had some coronary artery disease, the medical examiner reported, but what caused his heart to fail was "blunt force injuries to the lower extremities." Similar injuries contributed to Mr. Habibullah's death.

One of the coroners later translated the assessment at a pre-trial hearing for Specialist Brand, saying the tissue in the young man's legs "had basically been pulpified."

"I've seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus," added Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the coroner, and a major at that time.

After the second death, several of the 519th Battalion's interrogators were temporarily removed from their posts. A medic was assigned to the detention center to work night shifts. On orders from the Bagram intelligence chief, interrogators were prohibited from any physical contact with the detainees. Chaining prisoners to any fixed object was also banned, and the use of stress positions was curtailed.

In February, an American military official disclosed that the Afghan guerrilla commander whose men had arrested Mr. Dilawar and his passengers had himself been detained. The commander, Jan Baz Khan, was suspected of attacking Camp Salerno himself and then turning over innocent "suspects" to the Americans in a ploy to win their trust, the military official said.

The three passengers in Mr. Dilawar's taxi were sent home from Guantánamo in March 2004, 15 months after their capture, with letters saying they posed "no threat" to American forces.

They were later visited by Mr. Dilawar's parents, who begged them to explain what had happened to their son. But the men said they could not bring themselves to recount the details.

"I told them he had a bed," said Mr. Parkhudin. "I said the Americans were very nice because he had a heart problem."

In late August of last year, shortly before the Army completed its inquiry into the deaths, Sergeant Yonushonis, who was stationed in Germany, went at his own initiative to see an agent of the Criminal Investigation Command. Until then, he had never been interviewed.

"I expected to be contacted at some point by investigators in this case," he said. "I was living a few doors down from the interrogation room, and I had been one of the last to see this detainee alive."

Sergeant Yonushonis described what he had witnessed of the detainee's last interrogation. "I remember being so mad that I had trouble speaking," he said.

He also added a detail that had been overlooked in the investigative file. By the time Mr. Dilawar was taken into his final interrogations, he said, "most of us were convinced that the detainee was innocent."

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit.)


RAPE AWARENESS A MUST FOR Muslim WOMEN IN AMERICA

As Salaamu Alaikum Community,

Please contact Baitul Salaam if you want to do a Sexual Assault Awareness training or just bring in a speaker to your community. It does not take much planning. We have the resources and contacts. Just call us if you want to make this subject part of a Ta'leem or Halaqah in your community. It is easy to do, insh'Allah.

This is not an easy subject to discuss however it is necessary. In our community we have this problem of sexual assault at many levels. It is not only just one or two people that we have heard about or that some type of public action has been taken (reports to the police and in one case a trial may happen any day).

We must train ourselves to project ourselves on all levels. The best protection is education. What you don't know can hurt you and members of your family.

Here are some myths in our community about sexual abuse and sexual misconduct.

1. Your Hijab protects you from sexual assault.

Wrong! Your Hijab lets those in the thinking world know you are not a part of the everyday hype of showing bare skin in public, etc. However you are not protected from a rapist due to rape is not about sex it is about power. If you get in the sight of a rapist your Hijab may even be a trigger. So beware and be cautious. Also know that most women are raped by people they know in some way this is called acquaintance rape. Many women are raped in their homes by their husbands, fathers, cousins and sometimes sons, neighbors or the friendly man who always helped you with taking your groceries from your car, etc. Women can be abusers in general and women can be sexual abusers and predators so be aware of who you are around at all times.

2. If you don't go out at night you will not be raped.

Wrong again! Now not going out at night may help decrease the possibility in some way. We should not be at night alone unless we just have too at anytime. However many women are raped at home during the day by intruders and again those they know, relatives, the friendly neighbor and or the husband.

3. If you don't speak to men, etc.

WRONG! This may be a trigger for a rapist. We of course do not have any unnecessary conversation with men or anyone for that matter. However not ever speaking to men will not keep you from being raped.

As one who works with our families who are struggling with abuse I hear and have medical reports in the Baitul Salaam files of various types of sexual abuse to adults and children. It is not just a few misguided Muslims it is happening in some of our most respected families and to people who are doing all they can to live this Deen in honesty and with truth. It is happening in Atlanta and every other major city. It is happening in small towns and villages.

It is happening around us and in many cases to some of us.

I am sending this as a warning and hopefully people will pay more attention to the social ills that are happening in our community with the desire to see them not happen or at least that our community stop lying to itself. We must come out of the state of denial on issues such as sexual assault. We need leaders who will not only just talk but take action.

Please pass this on to all (male and female) young and old.

If you have any comments just remember what Prophet Muhammad said to the early community about how to approach each other and you will get an open objective ear.

May Allah forgive all of us for our shortcomings.

ma salaam
Hadayai Majeed
Administrator
Baitul Salaam Network, Inc.
www.baitulsalaam.net

2006-04-13 Thu 21:34:55 cdt
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