Ramadan Kareem Sister Amatillah Is it true that some Somali Sufi Aussies living in Perth have local grown Australian Qaat for Iftar? Nur

Akhi Xiin You write: An enemy that’s resolved to permanent take Palestinian land occupies Palestine close to hundred years. Somalia though a failed state is not an occupied land. I take this statement as "Politically Correct", since you have written off Western Somalia occupied by Ethiopia as an Ethiopian Territory? Which Somali government have officially relinquished the idea of a United Somalia which includes Western Somalia? the late Siad Barre was a hero in this regard standing tall towering over political pygmies masquerading as peace negotiators with an enemy that is burning Somali Villages in Western Somalia, raping our women wholesale, killing our children as per Human Rights Watch Report. The problem with politics is that those involved in this profession become very creative and hallucinated like artists, they paint pictures far from reality of what is on the ground, if you follow them closely, you wouldn't know the difference between facts and fiction. If politicians serve anything, its often their personal interests, not their nations. Calling a spade a spade is what is required in Somalia brother. Shareef's government has given away a nation and served its rival Ethiopia much better than its own army who is practically ruling most of Somalia's self declared regions, he has divided the unity of the resistance, sold the soul of a nation that is not used to bow for invaders. Somalia under Shareef will serve the interests of Ethiopia and the US more than that of its people. If not, why are they so much supportive of his government? Djibouti's election was a warlord election process, Sharief was added for legitimizing criminal warlords and weakening the resistance by causing internal division. Djibouti as you know is home to US East African Military Operations that works in concert with Ethiopia who illegally invaded and continues to invade Somalia with an American Support, As we speak, US and Nato are struggling to make a mock elections in occupied Afghanistan, why don't they hold the elections in nearby Baghdad? it would be as legitimate as Shareefs government? Abu Salman brother Internal Somali rifts was created by Somalia enemies, cant you see that the TFG is based on 4.5 Clan politics that are not allowed in the West?. Reconciliation is good, but not when an enemy with an interest in your division and chaos is looking over your shoulder in your own house and clearly supporting criminal warlords who have kept Somalia captive in chaos for the last 18 years. Akhi Abu Salman you ask Finalemente, and most crucially, why those advocating for an alternative, if there is one, get a consensus from the most learned Ulamas, both in Somalia and elsewhere, ya akhi Nur? I assume that you mean Why DON'T they get a Consensus Brother, Somalis want to be free from foreign invasions and occupations. Our Ulima have spoken, they advised Shareef to expel the African Merceneries of Uganda and Burundi out of Somalia in order to hold reconciliation, which he refused just like Abdullahi Yusuf, and they have asked the resistance to sit with the Shareef faction of the Islamic Courts Union who is now in alliance with the Criminal Warlords coalition. The problem is that the more Shareef tries to please foreign players, the more that he will radicalize unaffected Somalis. Nur

Akhi Al Xabib Abu Salman You write: Walaal, is there a parallel between Sh C. janaqow/Prof Sh Cadow/Sh Sharif & co, islamically learned super-achievers and a corrupt Fatah who was rejected through the last election? I wouldn't say "Islamically Learned", and the description of "Super "Achievers" may fit in the case of Brother Ibrahim only ( Two Masters and a PHD in Education and Political Science). The Islamicaly learned are busy teaching our people, Jazaahumullahu Kheiran. I think there are parallels, but not a complete symmetry. The parallels are in the following perspectives: 1. Both Organizations are infiltrated by known agents of foreign interests. 2. Both Organizations are holding their Election under occupation. 3. Both Organizations are being remotely directed, they ave no free will. 4. Both Organizations are out of touch with their peoples needs and aspirations of total freedom. You write: Did not the former forsake their comfortable routine and were already known for assisting their compatriots or calling for Shariah implementation while the latter Fatah & co were solely resting on the legacy of Arafat? You know I was a supporter of the Islamic Courts from day one, my thread on the first page is a permanent testament. But, in Islam, we dont follow people, people are prone to make errors of judgement, we follow the Quraan and Sunnah, thats how we know who to follow. You write: What country other than Djibouti would have been an "ideal" place to negociate an Ethiopian retreat and a more legitimate authority? Somalia is so large, dont tell me there is no single safe place to hold a meeting if we care to be really free of outside influence of our internal affairs. Besides, would you negotiate with a rapist or a thief while in your house? negotiations are an option when you have other options, not when you are confined under occupation and molestation. You write: Is there a figure more consensual and able to unite us than Sh Sharif, who never ceases urging for negotiations, a figure which will likely get fuller support? I am upset with you brother Abu Salman, how can you forget about me ? Seriously though, the issue is not about uniting Somalis, as most of them are already united in their desire for Islam, the problem is the few who reside outside of Somalia inconvenienced by not being able to conduct business in Somalia or the Warlords, of course with the Support of Client State Ethiopia, and the window dressing African Union and UN. You write: Is fighting now the only alternative for a "perfectly transparent" process or should we find a ulamas-mediated compromise granted the humanitarian catastrophe as well as the genocide raging in oga-denia? If you can find a totally free Ulima not afraid speaking their minds, I am all for their wisdom, but where are they? I think they are in the Bushes of Somalia, and there is a tag on their heads by the warlords. Nur

Raamsade Your write: "This rationalization is a clear abdication of reasoning and complete submission to religious dogma" You should read your words again and again saaxib, you are very much describing your reasoning. Reminding you for the last time, I wrote that Allah does not need His creatures, and that His creatures need Him. But you chose to understand that this statement means that Allah needs to be worshiped, how absurd a comprehension saaxib? Let me ask you a simple question. Unless you are beginning to doubt your own Atheism, If you believe that you have created yourself and that there is no purpose in life, and that the universe began as a freak accident, then, why does it matter to you what God is and what not? Frankly, if I was in your shoes, I wouldn't have bothered that kind of question before I resolve the more basic issue of the possibility of existence of a God who created you and the Universe which you have dodged in our last discussion. Nur

Marxab Marxab Yaa, Ramadan! Nomads Ramadan Kareem My heartfelt greetings to all of SOL Islam page readers. I pray for Allah's mercy on the weak, sick, injured, disabled, poor children, adults, women, men and the old, who are under the indiscriminate criminal bombardment of what is known as the TFG (Transplanted Foreign Government), Burundi and Ugandan soldiers-of-fortune mercenaries in Mogadishu. And all Somalis disadvantaged by the foreign occupation in Somalia, Somaliland, and Puntland. I pray for the quick Victory of the grassroots Somali resistance against Foreign Occupation, tyranny, anarchy, oppression, lawlessness perpetrated by bloody criminal warlord traitors. Nur

CIA-Trained Security Chiefs Elected to the Palestinian Leadership What Actually Happened in Fatah's Elections? By Esam AL-Amin “He is our guy.” George W. Bush speaking of Palestinian security chief Muhammad Dahlan, June 4, 2003 August 14, 2009 "Counterpunch" -- The U.S. government has been meddling in the Palestinian internal affairs since at least 2003. Its effort is to transform the Palestinian national movement for liberation and independence into a more compliant or quisling government, willing to accede to Israel’s political and security demands. The tactics employed by the U.S. include military, security, diplomatic, and political components. With the ascension of Hamas after the 2006 legislative election, U.S. strategy has been fixed on unraveling the election results. Its aim for a political comeback of the pro-American camp within the Palestinian body politic has been initiated with the convening of Fatah’s national conference this last week. During the week of August 4, 2009, the Palestinian National Liberation Movement Fatah, convened its sixth national conference in its 44-year history. Fatahhas historically been considered the largest Palestinian faction, but that perception changed when it lost the legislative elections to Hamas in January 2006. As the group wrapped up its conference after eight days, it announced the results of its elections. The international media, particularly western outlets, framed the election as “fresh” and “new” faces ascending to power in the movement. But what actually happened in the vote? Fatah’s internal structure is unlike most political parties or resistance movements. It is not hierarchical and its members’ loyalty largely follows a system of patronage and factionalism embodied in a 23-member Central Committee. The Central Committee is technically supposed to reflect a system of collective leadership and the political program of a national liberation movement. Even its founder, the late Yasser Arafat, who led the organization from its inception in 1965 until his death in 2004, did not have an official title beyond that of a member of the committee and commander-in-chief of its military wing. But over time, in the eyes of many Palestinians, Fatah’s leadership has symbolized, a system of cronyism, corruption, collaboration with Israel, and political failures, especially since the Oslo process. Although its internal charter calls for a national conference every four years to elect its leadership, the major questions at the eve of this conference were: Why did it take Fatah two decades to convene this one? Did the election of Fatah’s new leadership reflect the aspirations of the Palestinian people and a new and fresh approach to the political process? And finally, who are the backers of the main individuals who were recently elected to lead it? Fatah’s Central Committee led by Arafat made the strategic decision in 1988 to negotiate a political settlement with Israel, and accept the United States government as the main broker. For two decades, especially in the aftermath of the 1993 Oslo accords, the Palestinian issue gradually receded from the international agenda, becoming an almost exclusive affair between the U.S, Israel, and the Palestinian leadership whether it was the PLO or after 1994, the Palestinian Authority (PA). Most neutral Middle East analysts such as Robert Malley, the Middle East Program Director at the International Crisis Group, and a former National Security Council (NSC) staff member during the Clinton administration, observe that American negotiators throughout several administrations (both Democratic and Republican) have mostly adopted the Israeli point of view and placed most of the pressure on the Palestinian leadership (whether Bill Clinton with Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, or George W. Bush with Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert.) During the first term of the Bush administration, Arafat, as the head of the PA, was isolated, while Washington promoted those within the Palestinian leadership such as Mahmoud Abbas (imposed on Arafat as prime minister in 2003), and former security chief Muhammad Dahlan, both of whom embraced the American strategy in the region. In 2005, Bush declared his freedom and democracy agenda, demanding elections in the Palestinian territories, and hoping for a Fatah victory to implement his vision. However, the administration soon abandoned its agenda of promoting democracy in the Arab world when Hamas won a landslide victory in the January 2006 legislative elections. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed shock about the results saying, “No one saw it coming.” A Department of Defense official told David Rose of Vanity Fair in 2008, “Everyone blamed everyone else,” “We sat there in the Pentagon and said, ‘Who the f*@# recommended this?’?” Ever since that election, the American administration employed three different but overlapping strategies in order to undo the results. These efforts by the State Department, the White House and the Defense Department, were scantily planned and poorly coordinated. Throughout 2006 and the first half of 2007, the State Department used its diplomatic resources and political muscle to topple the democratically-elect ed Palestinian government led by Hamas. In an April 2008 report, Vanity Fair disclosed that an American talking point memo emerged after a U.S. diplomat accidentally left it behind in a Palestinian Authority building in Ramallah. The document echoed Rice’s demand that Abbas dissolve the national unity government and take on Hamas. Meanwhile, as detailed by Vanity Fair, neo-con and NSC deputy director Elliot Abrams was plotting a coup in Gaza against Hamas with former Gaza security chief Muhammad Dahlan in the spring of 2007. It included coordination with Israel, several Arab countries such as UAE and Jordan, payments to Dahlan of over $30 million, the training of five hundred security personnel, a campaign to destabilize Gaza, and a torture program against Hamas members and other Islamists. Dahlan admitted as much to the magazine’s writer, David Rose, saying that he told his American counterpart who was pushing for a confrontation with Hamas, “If I am going to confront them, I need substantial resources. As things stand, we do not have the capability.” The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on June 7, 2007, that the American administration had asked Israel to authorize a large Egyptian arms shipment, including dozens of armored cars, hundreds of armor-piercing rockets, thousands of hand grenades, and millions of rounds of ammunition. Rose explains that Abrams’s plan stressed the need to bolster Fatah’s forces in order to “deter” Hamas. According to a senior administration official the “desired outcome” was to give Abbas “the capability to take the required strategic political decisions (i.e. fulfilling the Israeli conditions for a political settlement) and dismissing the (Hamas led) cabinet, establishing an emergency cabinet.” But Dick Cheney’s Middle East advisor, David Wurmser, admitted the failed effort when he told the magazine, “It look(ed) to me that what happened wasn’t so much a coup by Hamas but an attempted coup by Fatah that was pre-empted (by Hamas) before it could happen.” The third effort, was mainly overseen by the Pentagon, and led by Lt. General Keith Dayton. In a speech before the pro-Israel think tank, the Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP) in May 2009, he said that the Office of the U.S. Security Coordinator, which he has been leading since December 2005, is “an effort to assist the Palestinians in reforming their security services.” But according to the notes of a meeting between Dayton and a Palestinian security chief in Ramallah in early 2007, the real purpose of the mission was revealed when Dayton said, “[W]e also need to build up your forces in order to take on Hamas.” Since 2007, Congress has given Dayton $161 million dollars to implement his plan. In addition, this year Congress appropriated an additional $209 million dollars to Dayton for the 2009 and 2010 fiscal years, to accelerate his program after receiving high marks from Israeli security chiefs. In the past year alone, more than 1,000 Hamas and Islamic Jihad members have been arrested and detained without trials, with many tortured and killed under interrogation, by U.S.-trained Palestinian security personnel in the West Bank. Amnesty International and many other human rights organizations have condemned these actions and called for an immediate halt to the human rights abuses of Palestinian detainees in PA prisons. In his WINEP speech Dayton acknowledged this crackdown when he said, “I don't know how many of you are aware, but over the last year-and-a-half, the Palestinians have engaged upon a series of what they call security offensives throughout the West Bank, surprisingly well coordinated with the Israeli army.” He further admitted that during the 22-day Gaza war last winter, U.S.-trained Palestinian security forces prevented Palestinians in the West Bank from organizing mass protests against the Israeli army, which ironically allowed for the reduction of the Israeli military presence in the West Bank in order to redeploy those troops to Gaza. Dayton added, “As a matter of fact, a good portion of the Israeli army went off to Gaza from the West Bank— think about that for a minute, and the (Israeli military) commander (of the West Bank) was absent for eight straight days.” After a failed coup and brutal military offensive failed to dislodge Hamas from Gaza, the Israeli and U.S. strategy sought to intensify its pressure against Hamas through a suffocating economic siege in Gaza, massive security detentions in the West Bank, financial squeeze in the region and political isolation internationally. Meanwhile, according to several Hamas spokesmen, including the deposed prime minister Ismael Haniyya in Gaza and political chief Khaled Meshal in Damascus, the main obstacle to any national reconciliation with Fatah has been the detention of hundreds of Hamas members and the PA’s security collaboration with the military occupation overseen by Dayton. The next phase in this effort is to reinvent Fatah and present it as a viable political alternative to Hamas and other resistance movements by improving the living conditions in the West Bank in contrast to Gaza’s devastating siege. But more important, the plan envisions a new Fatah that is considered a reliable partner willing to accomodate Israel’s conditions for a political settlement. The sixth Fatah conference and accompanying elections was thus convened to dispose of its corrupt and dysfunctional image. For over a year, the Central Committee, the highest body in its structure, could not agree on many major issues, including where to hold the conference (the final decision was to hold it in the occupied Palestinian territories, which means that Israel has a veto on which delegates from abroad would be allowed to participate). They also squabbled about which delegates would be appointed to the conference, which would determine the composition of the new leadership, as well as the political program and the role of armed resistance against the occupation. Abbas and his inner circle vetoed the decision of the committee, and decided to hold the conference in Bethlehem, virtually hand-picking all the participants to guarantee the election outcome. Historically, the delegates to Fatah’s national conference were elected or appointed by the Central Committee, but at least fifty-one percent came from the military apparatus. Since most of the military wing has either been disbanded or wanted by the Israelis, a large number of the delegates to this conference were security personnel substituting for the military ones. This fact guaranteed that the election results would be skewed towards the security chiefs and their supporters. The original number of delegates was supposed to be around 700. Then it increased to 1,250 but eventually mushroomed to 2,355. Less than ten percent were actually indirectly elected by the virtue of their positions, while the overwhelming majority was appointed by a small group in Ramallah led mainly by Abbas and other power brokers such as Dahlan and former West Bank security chief Jibreel Rujoub, who used to hang the picture of former CIA director George Tenet above his desk alongside that of Arafat. The number of Central Committee members was also increased from 21 to 23, with 19 directly elected by the delegates. Abbas was to appoint four members later, but he himself was chosen by acclamation, to avoid embarrassment if he does not garner first place in a direct election. The 18 individuals who were elected at the end of the week-long conference comprised four from the “old guard” who are considered close to Abbas, and 14 new members, three of whom are former security chiefs who’ve been close to the CIA. These include Dahlan, Rujoub, and Tawfiq Tirawi, a former intelligence chief, who is currently heading a security training academy in Jericho under the supervision of Gen. Dayton. From the outset, this conference was heavily tilted towards delegates from the West Bank. Unlike previous conferences, Palestinians in the Diaspora were hardly represented since Israel allowed only a few people to enter from abroad. While Gaza’s population is equal to that of the West Bank, less than 400 people were selected as delegates from Gaza, while there were over three times as many delegates from the West Bank. But most of the Gaza delegates did not even attend because Hamas prevented them from leaving the strip, demanding in return that hundreds of its detained members in the West Bank be freed by the PA, which it summarily refused. In short, aside from Dahlan, who no longer lives in Gaza, not a single elected person is from or lives in Gaza. This prompted the entire Fatah leadership in Gaza, including former Central Committee member Zakariya al-Agha, to resign en mass one day after the conference, protesting not only the results, but also the whole election process. Similarly, Fatah members abroad did not fare well. Only two people were elected to the Central Committee, though more than two-thirds of Palestinians (eight million) live outside of the Palestinian territories, many in squalid refugee camps, with the “right of return”, considered a hot- button issue in future negotiations, up in the air. On the other hand, the overwhelming majority of the new members were either from the West Bank or already living in Ramallah as part of Abbas’ closest aides, affirming the American-led ‘West Bank first’ strategy. Some of the historic old guard who oppose Abbas’s political program such as Central Committee secretary Farouk Kaddoumi or Hani Al-Hassan did not even attend or run as candidates. Kaddoumi condemned the conference, questioned its legitimacy, and went as far as accusing Abbas and Dahlan of plotting with the Israelis to poison Arafat, eventually causing his death. Other former members who ran as candidates were defeated and cried foul. Former prime minister and negotiator Ahmad Qurai (Abu Alaa) questioned the credentials of the delegates and the integrity of the election procedure. When Abbas chief of staff, Tayeb Abdel-Rahim lost, he demanded a recount and was eventually declared a winner, after the election committee claimed he was actually tied for last. Many delegates, especially female candidates, all of whom lost, criticized this blatant cronyism. Nevertheless, several popular and “clean” candidates were able to win a seat such as Marwan Bargouthi, who is serving five life sentences in Israel, and Mahmoud Al-Aloul, a former mayor of Nablus. As Palestinians watched this conference unfold, many were hoping that it would be the beginning of a national reconciliation and the establishment of a unity government. However, it seems that as a result of this conference Fatah itself may further disintegrate, as its Gaza leaders and Abu Alaa are threatening to launch a new faction called “Fatah Awakening,” further increasing division and tension within the Palestinian ranks. The next step in the strategy of the pro-American camp is to hold presidential and legislative elections in the Palestinian territories next January, hoping to present a rejuvenated Fatah as an alternative to Hamas and other resistance movements. Jonathan Steele of the Guardian further exposed on June 22, 2007 the U.S. "hard coup" of June ’07, as well as its political strategy. He detailed US officials' conversations with several Arab regimes. These were, among others, “ ‘to maintain President Abbas and Fatah as the center of gravity on the Palestinian scene’, ‘avoid wasting time in accommodating Hamas,’ ‘undermining Hamas’s political status,’ and ‘calling for early elections.’” In the words of Gen. Dayton, the Palestinian personnel trained by the U.S pledge after their graduation that they “were not sent here to learn how to fight Israel, but were rather sent here to learn how to keep law and order.” The main purpose of these security battalions is to halt any resistance to or rejection of the occupation including non-violent means. He then added that senior Israeli military commanders frequently ask him, "How many more of these new Palestinians can you generate, and how quickly?” Many of the questions, posed by ordinary Palestinians before the conference, remain unanswered. What is Fatah’s political program in light of the current Israeli intransigence and pre-conditions? What of national reconciliation with other Palestinian factions and the establishment of a national unity government? What is the role of resistance against the occupation, the suffocating siege against Gaza, and most importantly, the continuous collaboration with the Israeli security agencies and military against their own citizens? These questions persist while Israel’s occupation and its brutal policies, the expansion of settlements, the separation wall, the detention of over 11,000 Palestinians, the expropriation of land, the depopulation of East Jerusalem’s Palestinian residents, and the denial of Palestinian refugees’ right of return, continue unabated. Simply put, the U.S. wants a Palestinian leadership that will answer these questions in a way that is satisfactory to Israel. As one State Department official said to Vanity Fair regarding American objectives in the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, “[W]e care about results, and [we support] whatever son of a b..tch [w]e have to support. Dahlan was the son of a b..tch we happened to know best.”

Raamsade saaxib You write: The Awakening Councils were created by concerned native Sunni Iraqis who were unhappy with the attitude, behavior and actions of foreign sunni Jihadists led by Al-Qaeda's main man in Iraq, Al-Zarqawi." I agree with you pal, the local American and European Crusaders where in Iraq with the consent of the Iraqi people while the Foreign Jihadist Fighters were disrupting the peace in Iraq by hurting the local American Crusader Fighters who were giving Candi and chocolates to poor Iraqi kids and building houses and infrastructure that was mistakenly destroyed during the arrival of the local American fighters who were freeing Iraq from the brutal Saddam who was threatening to disrupt world peace by selling his oil in exchange with non-Dollar currencies only. You write: The collaboration between the Awakening Council and the US occupation forces was one of mutual interests. Bingo again, very mutual, the tribal Sheikhs were given cash and carnal pleasures in exchange of fighting off the Jihadists who were disrupting the stealing of the cheap Iraqi oil. In effect, the Awakening tribal chiefs ( like the American Indian Chiefs) were given a tiny portion of their own cow. You write: The US assisted the Awakening Council only after it saw active interest and self-organization on the part of native Sunni Iraqis. Just like they supported the Beshmerga and Kurdish political ambitions in Northern Iraq. I am bit confused here saxib! was it the Awakening councils that were assisting the American Crusaders, or the American Crusaders who were assisting the Awakening Councils? You write: No body provided them with "financial assistance and weapons." Do you have ANY evidence for such insinuation? In case you haven't noticed, the whole Somali peninsula is awash with weapons already. Saaxib, you are like the American Crusaders, you shoot first and then ask questions. Don't be naive. ask yourself, how can a pacifist Sufi order who have never taken up arms even in 20 years even when many were killed by the warlords can form a single powerful force equivalent to the Ethiopian Army in armaments to take an entire region coincidentally when the Ethiopians withdrew their forces in defeat? For the Sufis to become allies with the criminal warlords in Somalia and to declare the creation of a new Islamic group with the support of Ethiopia is a copy and paste strategy from Iraq as the article above shows. You seem to be either ignorant or with an interest by your claim that there are areas of sufi stronghold, in Somalia, sufis were never known to have had a stronghold, they were everywhere but with diminishing followers. You write: They provoked Somali Sufis. Their crimes include: desecration of the graves of Sufi saints and prohibiting Sufi practices like visiting the graves of venerated shiikhs. Saaxib, graces of saints are not Sacred in Islam, there are only Three Sacred shrines in Islam, Grand Mosque of Mecca, Prophets Mosque in Madina, and Aqsa Mosque in Jurasealem. But, the desecration you claim was committed by zealots paid by fellow warlords to discredit the resistance, the Somali resistance denied any part of that stooopid act, they have more pressing matters than waste their time with such nonsense. But You have a point that the resistance are guilty of fighting against Ethiopian occupation forces, and their TFG allies, they shouldnt, they should not endanger the civilians by fighting the brave and civilized Ethiopian proxies, who shoot to all directions whenever they hear a gun sound. By the way, the story of the stoning of the 13 year old girl was as true as Saddam's Weapons of Mass Destruction aka The Western Media Deception To be continued....... Nur

Raamsade saaxib You write: But that would make God needy and human-like. A God that needs his "creation" to show gratitude is not a self-sufficient and perfect God. The Quran says God is perfect and self-sufficient. So which is it: the God that takes slight at human ingratitude or the perfect and self-sufficient God? Saaxib, Allah says in the Holy Quraan ( Surah Abraham, Verse 8). And Musa (Moses) said: "If you disbelieve, you and all on earth together, then verily! Allah is Rich (Free of all wants), Owner of all Praise." Saaxib, Allah is perfect and has no need from his creatures, but its the creatures who need to connect with their creator in the form of obedience and following His natural and revealed laws. As an illustration, in our secular world, as an individual, you need to conform to the common laws that guarantee peace in a community. These laws can be laws that prohibit drinking while driving ( Except for Camel Milk, which is encouraged by eNuri) or inhaling drugs, or stealing others properties, or lying to a jury and to the whole world for greed purposes, and so on. As you can see saaxib, we benefit from our surrender to Allah, He has no need, no son, no gratitude, no worship, and you Raamsade and your ilk, ( and you are a many) are a living proof that your Kufr and denial is not taking away anything from Allah's self sufficiency and Absolute Sovereignty over His creatures, but you are in dire need to call it quits and bow down in surrender saaxib and you know it. The sooner, the better, and this is a caring advice from your Paesano. Nur

M Aden bro I second Salman's take on this, its waswaas of Sheitan, its whispering is what you hear that your recitation is so cool, that you will will be regarded as a good Qaari. That feeling is Sheitan's whisper, you should immediately say, Acuudu billahi mina sheitaani Rajim. If you began reciting alone with Ikhlaas, and that riyaa feeling followed, its usually from Sheitan. if you began with that feeling, its usually from you. either case, its a form of sin, and it requires tawbah and istiqaamah of the niyah. The way to overcome this feeling is to see less of yourself ego, and more of your faults. Love the akhira more than the Dunyaa, and seek Allah's pleasure more than pleasing his creatures. Nur

Raxmah sis This page SOL Islam page is suffering from lack of participation due to perceived problems after exercising one's right to free speech. Nothing can be farther from truth, without participation, and open and frank discussions, we will never find solutions for current problems facing Somalia and the Muslim world at large. Nur

Bin Abi Saceed Where have you been sis? Nur

Raamsade asks: Ingratitude towards who? Toward The One And Only, who gave you life, sight, hearing, intelligence and created you for the definite purpose of surrendering to His will by following his natural laws, and revealed commandments in the scriptures, of the Torah, Gospel and the Quraan. Nur

Raamsade writes: Somali Sufi militias were created in response to the unremitting provocations and crimes of Somali Salafi Militias (namely, but not limited to, Al-Shabaab). I agree with you that they have been created for a purpose, just like the Awakening Councils in Iraq by the US Occupation forces after failing to tame the Iraqi resistance for the past six years. In the Somali case, Could you elaborate some more on: 1. Who created the Somali Sufi Militias, provided them with financial assistance and weapons? 2. Who have The Salafi movements provoked and against whom have they committed said crimes? 3. Nature of the crimes you allege that the Salafi groups have committed? 4. The US occupation of Iraq was prompted by the non-existent Saddam's weapons of Mass destruction (WMD), and Saddams LINK with Al Qaeda in Iraq, both claims have since been proven a big lie. That big lie, resulted in the death of 1.5 Million Iraqis and the destruction of Iraq's entire infrastructure and a non ending civil war. Explain to me, who has committed a bigger crime, Bush or Zarqawi in Iraq? can you see the US preposterous claim of Al Shabaab's LINK with Al Qaeda? . Hence, if the two situations are similar, and the claims from the US are identical in the case of Iraq and Somalia, does'nt that mean that the Somali Salafi groups are innocent victims and have nothing to do with Al Qaeda (which we all know is a US created genie to advance its geopolitical strategies worldwide)? Nur

Baashi bro writes: Yes the author got it right. Kufr, in the final anaylsis, amounts to ingratitude. Indeed! Kufr is the epitome of ingratitude. Nur

The Sheik Down By Shane Bauer August 12, 2009 "Mother Jones" -- It's a bright day in February, and I am in a pink villa on the outskirts of Fallujah, sitting with a tribal sheikh and a Marine commander as they hunch over a plate of truffles. The sheikh is Eifan Saddun al-Isawi, a charming 33-year-old Iraqi in a red-checkered kaffiyeh, a brown dishdasha, and DKNY wraparound sunglasses who uses phrases like "sons of b.i.t.c.h.e.s" when he talks about Al Qaeda with Americans. He is the head of Fallujah's Sahwa, or Awakening, council, the Sunni militia hired by the United States in early 2007 to fight its enemies in Iraq, and he's become one of the American military's go-to guys in the city, as evidenced by the photos on his walls of him with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. The American officer, Lt. Colonel Chris Hastings, apologizes for forgetting to bring Eifan "magazines with pictures of pretty ladies" and congratulates him for winning a seat in the provincial elections. He proceeds to tell Eifan to make sure that a certain someone the Marines are "concerned" about doesn't make it into local politics. Eifan assures him he'll see to it. Hastings also needs Eifan on the hearts-and-minds front: The Marines recently killed a teacher strapped with a suicide belt, and Hastings wants the sheikh to convince his community that the Americans aren't bloodthirsty warmongers. The Awakening councils don't officially work for the Americans anymore—the Iraqi government now pays the $300-a-month salaries of Eifan's men—but Eifan obliges immediately. "Give me pictures and I will give it to all the imams and sheikhs to show them he was wearing a belt," he says. He then presses the lieutenant colonel to release some of his friends from prison (Hastings agrees), offers him an antique hunting rifle (Hastings declines), and steers the talk back to the topic he's been hinting at throughout the meeting: American cash. "Just tell the colonel to give me the contract. Come on, man. You know I'll do a good job," he says. Over the years, Eifan's gotten used to the way Americans do business in Iraq. Working with them has made him a millionaire. Hastings isn't particularly proud of that fact. He has been trying to wean the sheikh off the no-bid contracts the Pentagon has been giving him and his relatives for the past few years. The military has put "a lot of money" into Sheikh Eifan, he explains, and "he's gotten a little bit greedy." Eifan is a beneficiary of what some American personnel call the "make-a-sheikh" program, a semiofficial, little discussed policy that since late 2006 has bankrolled Sunni sheikhs who are, in theory, committed to defending American interests in Iraq. The program was a major part of the Awakening, which the Pentagon has touted as a turning point in reducing violence and creating the conditions for an American withdrawal. It was also a reinstitution of a strategy started by Saddam Hussein, who picked out tribal leaders he could manipulate through patronage schemes. The US military didn't give the sheikhs straight-up bribes, which would have raised eyebrows in Washington. Instead, it handed out reconstruction contracts. Sometimes issued at three or four times market value, the contracts have been the grease in the wheels of the Awakening in Anbar—the almost entirely Sunni province in western Iraq where Fallujah is located. The US military has never admitted to arming militias in Iraq—or giving anything more than $350 a month to Anbari tribesmen to fight alongside Americans against Sunni resistance groups and Al Qaeda. But reconstruction payments, sometimes handed out in shrink-wrapped bundles of $100 bills, have left plenty of extra for the sheikhs to "help themselves as far as security goes," as one Marine officer describes it, or "buy guns," as Eifan's uncle, Sheikh Talib Hasnawi, puts it. From the Pentagon's perspective, the money gave Iraqis a reason to support—or at least stop attacking—the United States in the province where more American soldiers had been killed than in any other. But it has also put security in western Iraq in the hands of powerful, heavily armed men whose cooperation is based not on loyalty to Baghdad or Washington but on a consistent flow of cash. When Eifan registered his construction firm, Al-Thuraya Contracting Co., with the Iraqi government in 2003, it barely had $4,000 in capital. Today, though, business is booming. "I'm going to turn Anbar into Dubai," he boasts. Dubai isn't quite what comes to mind as I watch four men mixing cement and stacking cinder blocks, setting the foundation for a clinic a couple of miles from his compound. The 3,000-square-foot building is the most recent of Eifan's several "patronage projects," as Hastings describes them. The military paid the sheikh $488,000 for it, yet Hastings estimates that it will cost around $100,000 to build. "That's, you know, a pretty good profit margin," he says—close to 80 percent. In comparison, KBR, the largest military contractor in the country, cleared 3 percent in profits in 2008. Halliburton scored around 14 percent. Most of these kinds of projects are funded through the Commander's Emergency Response Program, which allows batallion commanders to hand out reconstruction contracts worth up to $500,000 without approval from their superiors or Washington. CERP was founded in 2003 by then-Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer, who took its initial funding from a pool of seized Iraqi assets. Over the next five years, the program disbursed more than $3.5 billion in American taxpayer dollars. A Pentagon manual called "Money as a Weapon System" broadly defines CERP's purpose as providing "urgent humanitarian relief and reconstruction." The guideline has been interpreted liberally: CERP recently funded the development of a $33 million Baghdad International Airport "Economic Zone" with two hotels, a remodeled VIP wing, and a $900,000 mural depicting an "economic theme." CERP regulations explicitly prohibit the use of cash for giving goods, services, or funds to armed groups, including "civil defense forces" and "infrastructure protection forces"—Pentagonspea k for militias. But Sam Parker, an Iraq programs officer at the United States Institute of Peace, says it's "no real secret" among the military in Iraq that CERP contracts are inflated to pay off sheikhs and their armies. Austin Long, an analyst with the Rand Corporation who has been studying the Awakening, says it is not unusual for contracts to go to sheikhs who, like Eifan, had little or no construction experience before the 2003 invasion. "Contracts are inflated because they are only secondarily about the goods and services received," explains Parker. "It's very problematic. You are rewarding the guys with the guns." Five years and hundreds of millions of reconstruction dollars later, Fallujah remains a shell. The "city of mosques" still has minarets with gaping holes left by American rockets during the 2004 siege. Men wander the streets; the World Food Programme says 36 percent of Fallujans have no chance of employment. The city gets no more than eight hours of electricity a day. Sewage fills the streets; a sewer project is four years behind schedule and has cost $98 million, more than three times its original budget. Building after building is nothing but broken-down cement frames. Some have been repurposed by the Iraqi army as watchtowers, others by women drying their laundry. Bullet holes pockmark everything. I walk down the city's main thoroughfare guided by a police officer. As I chat with a man about the collapsed building beside his shop, my notebook out, a group of men approach, eager to air their grievances. "When any country in the world gets money for reconstruction, it shows. But not here," says a burly man who calls himself Nabil. "The contractors just slap something together and put the money in their pockets," he says, slipping invisible bills into an imaginary shirt pocket. "Reconstruction contracts are deals between the Americans and their collaborators. I don't want to name names, but people who didn't have cigarettes in their pockets now have piles of money and brand-new, bulletproof cars." Later, Eifan smirks as he tells me his black armored BMW is 1 of 11 in the entire world. Unlike the white Land Cruiser the Americans gave him last year (in 2008, the military spent $1.54 million on vehicles for "Anbari leaders"), he swears the sedan—which he claims is worth $420,000—was not a gift. "It will resist any automatic weapon and it will hold up pretty well in a bombing," he tells me, smacking one of its two-inch-thick windows. I grab an energy drink from the leather-covered, refrigerated liquor cabinet in the backseat as we admire its hidden cameras and a security feature that lets Eifan speak to people outside the car without rolling down the windows. A few years ago, hardly anyone outside a green stretch of date orchards and wheat fields a few miles south of Fallujah knew who Eifan was. Born in Iraq but raised in Saudi Arabia, he didn't know much about his homeland except that his father was poisoned by the Baath Party's secret services in Egypt five years after he'd tried to lead an uprising in 1976. Eifan moved back to Iraq in 2001 with a degree in accounting, married, had three kids, and started a small construction company. He says the American invasion "was a big mistake," but coming from a family of shrewd businessmen, he knew an opportunity when he saw one. "I'll do business with anyone. I don't care who it is," he says. He built a small militia "for protection" and, according to a close associate, started running construction materials to American bases. He says he tried to convince the Americans not to lay siege to Fallujah. Eifan considers the thousands of Iraqis subsequently killed heroes. Today, being in Fallujah as a guest of Sheikh Eifan is like seeing Baghdad from the Green Zone. His home is a small fortress, surrounded by 12-foot walls, with a shack of armed men guarding the entrance. Suicide bombers have killed several of his militiamen at the front gate; many others have lost their lives in the 12 assassination attempts Eifan claims he has survived. Next to a 10-foot-tall picture of the sheikh in a paisley dishdasha, two pickups mounted with machine guns are constantly ready to go. They follow him almost everywhere. While Eifan slips away for meetings on American bases or appointments with politicians, he leaves me with his armed assistants, who brusquely dissuade me from asking too many questions, including about their boss' whereabouts. While he is gone, people trickle in and gather in his diwan, or sit in lawn chairs around his empty swimming pool. Some days, upwards of 20 men await his return. Sometimes they watch TV or play with a remote-controlled helicopter, but mostly they sit in silence over dark, sweet tea. When Eifan returns, the men hop to their feet and form concentric circles around him in hopes of stealing his attention. Sometimes, he hands out envelopes of cash. Other times, he ignores everyone and does side wheelies on his ATV around the compound. When I met Eifan for the first time, he was coming back from a meeting with the prime minister. He ordered his men to start up the grill so he could cook the crab one of his American friends had just brought him from Florida. Before we pull out of a gas station along the Baghdad-Amman highway, Eifan peels several crisp 25,000 dinar notes (roughly the equivalent of $20 bills) off a fat wad he keeps in his pocket and hands them to a police officer through his barely rolled-down window. "Go buy yourself a Pepsi," he tells him. The two trucks filled with Eifan's armed men position themselves in front of and behind the BMW. Eifan plays the Sahwa's orchestral anthem on the stereo and looks at me in the rearview mirror. "I did not cooperate with the Americans to ruin Iraq," he says. "I cooperated with the Americans because they were a reality enforced on Iraq." He blames the United States for giving rise to the extreme violence that tore Iraq apart, but personally takes credit for making this route safe. "It used to be impossible to drive on this road," he says. He points to an overpass where he says Al Qaeda hung two people. We float past crumpled cars, remains of the suicide bombings that once targeted outsiders who ventured into Anbar. I don't have to worry about being pulled out of the car by masked gunmen, in part because the attacks stopped when the hijackers realized the Americans paid better. The original leader of the provincial Sahwa, and a close friend of Eifan's, Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, was well known for running a successful ring of highway bandits. Initially, he had tried to befriend Al Qaeda, but then Al Qaeda began raiding Anbar's roads to raise funds, and a turf war ensued. And so Abu Risha's alliance with the Americans began. Eifan and several other Anbari sheikhs fled to Jordan in 2005, but a group of Marines convinced them to return at the end of 2006. It's not clear what promises were made, but when the sheikhs came home, they and other Sunni tribal leaders began fighting the insurgents alongside the Americans. Eifan initially refused to join Abu Risha's Sahwa—Abu Risha belonged to a different tribe—but once the Americans started giving Abu Risha contracts, Eifan changed his mind. Getting a full accounting of the make-a-sheikh program is nearly impossible; at press time the Pentagon was still responding to multiple Freedom of Information Act requests. Yet data from Pentagon reports to Congress indicate that in Fallujah, CERP funds more than tripled in the year starting in September 2006. Anbar has received $424 million in CERP funds, more per capita than any other province ($297 per person, twice as much as Baghdad). Abu Risha, once one of Anbar's most notorious criminals, hosted the first "reconstruction fair," in Ramadi. He was assassinated in September 2007, just days after meeting with George W. Bush. The main point of the CERP contracts "was to try to get people to realize that if they played by the rules we were establishing, then they would have a chance to actually play the game," explains Commander Edward Robison, who worked as a Navy reconstruction officer in Anbar in 2007. And "play the game," he clarifies, means "make money." As he tells it, the US military or Iraqi politicians would handpick a pliable sheikh, then award him funds that he could hand out as he saw fit. "If you were an individual who was not going to be one of the players in the community, you did not get work. The ones who were going to be players, they got work." Funneling billions of dollars into an unstable country "has raised the stakes of corruption considerably," says the US Institute of Peace's Parker. According to Transparency International, Iraq is tied with Burma as the world's second most corrupt country, behind Somalia. Payoffs and profiteering are widely seen as "the cost of doing business" in Iraq, Parker says. He believes the US government doesn't care whether Iraqis are left with a corrupt country when our troops leave. "We are fine with letting the Iraqis have their own corrupt system for themselves." Maki al-Nazzal, a former UN field worker who grew up in Anbar and knows Eifan's family, notes that even American troops have not been immune to the temptations of graft. "Officers want their cut," he says. "It used to be 15 percent of the contract." In March, investigations by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) led to the arrest of several commanders taking kickbacks. Three South Korean Coalition soldiers were convicted for stealing $2.9 million in CERP funds in a bribery scheme, and a US Army captain was indicted for stealing $690,000 in CERP funds after a late-model BMW and a Hummer showed up in his driveway back in Oregon. SIGIR is currently investigating around 80 cases of corruption and waste. But it has turned a blind eye to CERP's function as a payoff dispenser for the military. Inspector General Stuart Bowen may have bigger fish to fry—by his own accounting, at least $8.8 billion in reconstruction funds went missing between just October 2003 and June 2004. (Oversight of the reconstruction of Afghanistan has also been spotty at best; see "No Accounting for Waste.") Oversight for CERP projects of less than $500,000 is almost nonexistent, according to the Government Accountability Office. Yet in its audit of CERP in 2008, the GAO decided against digging any deeper. "We did not really look at any of the contracting practices or how they were awarded or that kind of thing," says Sharon Pickup, the GAO's director of defense capabilities and management. SIGIR representatives declined to be interviewed for this story, as did the spokesperson for the Department of Defense inspector general. Eifan at ease (above). A "lower level" guest of the sheikh (right). Meanwhile, Congress continues to approve CERP funds for Iraq—approximately $1 billion is in the works for next year—under the assumption that the program's sole purpose is humanitarian relief and reconstruction. Most members of Congress remain unaware that the American alliance with the Sunni tribes has gone beyond the now defunct security contracts that paid their fighters' salaries. "There's not been a lot of discussion about [CERP]," says Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.). "The program has largely given the commanders in the field the ability to use funds with what appears to me to be very little accountability." Back in Eifan's diwan, I am sipping tea with a roomful of men when the sheikh bursts in, sweeping a long stick across the room. "Nobody say a word!" he shouts. Four heavies march in behind him and throw a man on the floor, his feet, hands, and eyes tightly bound with kaffiyehs. A man in green camo with an AK-47 blocks the doorway. The captive's chest heaves as Eifan stands over him, stick in hand. An hour earlier, the sheikh was shouting into his cell phone about a botched reconstruction contract. Eifan stands to lose $50,000, and the compound has filled with murmurs about when and how he'll explode. The crime of the man curled up on the floor isn't related; in fact, no one is sure he's committed a crime at all, but some goatherds have accused him of being involved in a kidnapping. Eifan fires questions at him while the room holds its collective breath. "Don't stop to think of lies!" Whack! The stick comes down against his thigh. Fallujah's police chief shows up, clearly deferent to Eifan's authority. Finally, satisfied with the interrogation, Eifan orders his men to bring tea to the shaken detainee. "We have many levels of guests here," he says, looking over at me. "This one is on a lower level." The police carry the man away. I ask Eifan what will happen to him. "They will interrogate him in a different way," he says flatly. After everyone leaves, he takes me into another room, turns on a Lebanese beauty pageant, and pours some whiskey. He says his form of tribal justice is the only effective kind. "We still can't trust the police. That's why people come to me," he says. Despite winning the seat on the provincial council and his occasional meetings with the prime minister and other top politicians, Eifan shows little faith in the government. He confesses that his reason for making common cause with the Americans wasn't only to fight Al Qaeda; he also wanted to gain power over the Shiites, whom he sometimes spitefully calls Iranians, who control the government in Baghdad. "They wanted to desecrate Sunni land, repress Sunnis, and kill Sunnis. I was certain that we would not be able to get out of this problem unless we put our hand in the hand of the Americans." That was two years ago, and since then reconstruction money has bought a lot of guns—guns the Awakening councils now aren't shy to threaten to use against fellow Iraqis. The councils' last beef was with the Iraqi Islamic Party, their main rival in the January provincial elections. For months leading up to them, assassinations had been taking out leaders on both sides. The current Sahwa leader in Anbar, Ahmed Abu Risha (brother of the slain Abdul Sattar Abu Risha), threatened to make Anbar "like Darfur" if the IIP won the vote. It was a flashback to the sheikhs' original conflict with Al Qaeda: a fight for control over the spoils of war. The new battle, according to a report by the International Crisis Group, "centered on the control over resources, notably reconstruction contracts." Peter Harling, senior Middle East analyst with the ICG, says the volatility in Anbar indicates why buying allies, as appealing as it may seem, is unfavorable to a stable, democratic future in Iraq. "The pillaging of state resources is not a particularly good strategy," he says. "It creates a culture of predators and a lot of resentment from those who don't take part in those contracts. You might lavish one tribal leader with contracts but alienate 10 others." Rand analyst Long is also concerned that the strategy is shortsighted and could lead to unpredictable shifts in political loyalties when the United States cuts off the funding. "The question is, are the people we picked to be our friends going to continue to be supported by the Iraqi government?" he says. "If the people we were paying off don't get that kind of support, what does that do to stability? I think it's a real risk." For now, the Iraqi government seems set on keeping a lid on Anbar by sticking to the American policy of buying off the sheikhs with contracts. When Eifan and I drive to Baghdad, we stop on a bridge overlooking a small river and a dam. The dam's overseer approaches the car and explains to Eifan that the provincial council told him they couldn't afford to fix it. "How much did you tell them it would cost?" Eifan asks. The man hands him a slip of paper. "I'll get the prime minister to sign off on this and I'll do the work myself," Eifan says. "But first, write a new proposal. And double the price."

Xiin bro writes: The biggest tarbiyah lesson in this event, as I see it, is the inevitability of conflict and the importance of dialogue as remedy. True. There are three dimensions to this fitnah, and Musa tackles each one of them. It can be said that there are two Musas in the quran. I would rather say, one Musa. Different situations and different stages in our journey toward Allah, call for different approaches. The first is the physically strong man, who grew up playing around majestic buildings, and who as the quran points out slaps adversaries in the face to side with the xaq. Musa reacted for the sake of Justice, the Egyptian was the tyrant, the Israelite was the oppressed, Moses, who grew up as a Prince in Pharaoh's court but who was well aware of his identity acted with full dignity, it was the unintentional manslaughter that was his sin, not the heroic defense on behalf of the weak and the oppressed. The second is the humble, wise and educator Musa who as we can see in this episode overcomes his anger and uses dialogue to advance his message. In reality, Moses reacted with anger when he came to know that his people worshiped the calf during his absence, he acted with violence toward his brother Aaron who he pulled his beard and head. To be angry in the cause of Allah is a virtue, in the day of judgement, a pious man will be ordered to hell for not showing signs of anger on his face for the sake of of Allah ( Lam yatamacar wajhu hu lillah). The transition is brought about by rigorous spiritual and as well as physical training prescribed by Allah, and in the surati Dhaha the sequence of that transition is beautifully captured by one of the best, and certainly my favorite, quranic narrations; Ji’ta calaa qadarin yaa Musa. Allah narrates Moses' upbringing and his preparation for the leadership of the oppressed children of Israel. It was not a coincidence. In the meantime, and while good Febragas is contemplating on the matter, let me draw Sh. Nur in to this discussion, and directly ask him how could the stories of prophets in general and their struggle to advance xaq under the shade of thulmi and the approaches they took to overcome it contrast with today’s rebellious, reactionary manifestations in resorting to swift justice, as they called it, even when its clear that it’s hardly that swift. Akhi Xiin, unless one is in the kitchen, theoretical approach hardly presents solutions in the face of organized oppression and tyranny. depending on the situation and the personality, people take different paths to solve a problem, Abu Bakar was known for cool headedness while Omar was known for swift justice, but during the wars of the Ridda, they took oppiste approaches, Abu Bakar was for swift justice against the Murtaddeen, while Omar was the apologetic. What was the dignity and sharaf nabiyyullaahi Luud lacked, for instance, when he was clearly willing to offer his daughters to wicked men to save his angelic guests that today's linnets in the form of armed groups posses and die for it in rejecting alternatives other then the one that is supposedly found in the so called rapid Islamic justice? One wonders if such act would be considered dab0dh1lif practice in light of today’s mindless rhetoric from some groups in Somalia. Akhi al Xabiib, its precisely the fear that the whole world might turn soddomists that is driving the call for the application of the Sharia in Somalia and rejection of secularism. The Quraan shows, if secularists have their way, the world will become Sodom and Gomorrah towns again, without Prophet Lut, a Pharoah's Kingdom without Moses, A Roman Empire, without Jesus, a Chaos of the Arabian desert, without Muhammad SAWS. You read the story of Huud, Saalax, and Yonis and the pattern never changes. It’s one of resolve and gradual gain, and not what we see today in many places of Islamic world. Akhi Al Xabib, we have these good examples in the form of the Ducaat, those preaching Islam everywhere today, who are making the difference, and who have taken the responsibility of the Prophets, its because of their efforts that Islam is coming back to become an intergral part in our lives, wa low karihal kaafirun! As for those who calls others Dabbodhhillif, it shows lack of religious maturity, a Muslim is not a Faaxish or Lacaan Mid dadka caaya ama naclada) according to the Hadeeth, a wise man like you should forgive them for Xusnul Dhann! Baarkallahu feek, akhi Nur

Perpetual War for Perpetual War Get ready for a “lasting military presence” in Iraq By Jeff Huber August 08, 2009 "American Conservative" -- -U.S. Army Col. Timothy R. Reese says it’s time for the U.S. to “declare victory” in Iraq and “go home.” It was time to declare victory and go home in January 2007, when the Bush administration decided to ignore the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group and charged off on its cockamamie “surge” strategy. The original stated objective of the surge was political reconciliation in Iraq. By September 2007, when it was clear that the political objective was not in sight, Gen. David Petraeus pulled a bait-and-switch and announced that the military objectives of the surge were being met. Petraeus hagiographer Thomas E. Ricks slipped Freudian in February 2009 when he confessed that Petraeus’s goal was never to end the Iraq conflict but to trick Congress and the American public into extending it indefinitely by achieving short-term results though bribing Iraq’s militias. According to Colonel Reese, chief of the Baghdad Operations Command Advisory Team, the surge’s real objectives still haven’t been met and never will be. In a recent memorandum, Reese asserts that “the ineffectiveness and corruption” of Iraq’s government ministries is “the stuff of legend.” The government is “failing to take rational steps to improve its electrical infrastructure and to improve their oil exploration, production and exports.” There is “no progress towards resolving the Kirkuk situation,” transition the Sons of Iraq into the Iraqi Security Forces “is not happening” and “the Kurdish situation continues to fester.” Violent political intimidation is “rampant.” Iraq’s security forces are a disaster. The officer corps is corrupt. Enlisted men are neglected and mistreated. Cronyism and nepotism are rampant. Laziness, lack of initiative, and absence of basic military discipline are endemic. Iraq’s military leadership is incapable of leading; it can’t plan ahead, it can’t stand up to the Shiite political parties, it can’t stick to its agreements. The U.S. military in Iraq has accomplished “all that can be expected,” Reese says. Gen. Ray Odierno’s propaganda officer, Lt. Col. Josslyn Aberlem, told the New York Times that Reese’s memo “does not reflect the official stance of the U.S. military.” The memo “Reflects one person’s personal view at the time we were first implementing the Security Agreement post-30 June,” Abaelem said. “Since that time many of the initial issues have been resolved and our partnerships with Iraqi Security Forces and [government of Iraq] partners now are even stronger than before 30 June.” Right. We shaved our monkey in Iraq for six years and change, but since June 30 everything’s gone hunky dory. Oddly enough, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on July 29 that the relatively low levels of violence in Iraq might allow commanders to “moderately accelerate” troops reductions. He added, though, that Odierno would have to recommend speeding up the withdrawal before any decision is made. That pretty much tells you how things work in the Department of Defense. Gates isn’t in charge of his four-stars; they’re in charge of him. Odie is on record as wanting to keep 35,000 U.S. troops in Iraq through 2015, so, predictably enough, on August 4 he rejected the idea of an accelerated pullout, saying that the surge hasn’t reached its goals yet and we need to “stay the course.” (Yes, he really used that moronic Bush-era mantra.) The Desert Ox doesn’t seem particularly concerned about the Status of Forces Agreement that requires all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011. Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki doesn’t appear to be overly committed to the agreement either. In a July 23 appearance at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington, Maliki opened the door for indefinite U.S. presence in his country, saying, “If Iraqi forces need more training and support, we will reexamine the agreement at that time, based on our own national needs.” Even Reese isn’t all that committed about U.S. forces leaving Iraq. In his memo, he says that during the withdrawal period the U.S. and Iraqi governments “should develop a new strategic framework agreement that would include some lasting military presence at 1-3 large training bases, airbases, or key headquarters locations.” Lasting military presence. That’s been the objective of the neoconservatives all along. In their September 2009 manifesto Rebuilding America’s Defenses Cheney’s pals at the infamous Project for the New American Century argued, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.” The neocons’ Pax Americana vision has translated into the Pentagon’s “long war,” a strategy that does not seek to win wars but rather to create a sequel to the Cold War in which Islamofacism substitutes for communism and puny Iran, whose defense budget is less than one percent of ours, replaces the Soviet juggernaut. That might be justified if military applications overseas were making us safer from terrorism, but they are not. In 2008 the highly respected national security analysts at Rand Corporation released a report titled How Terrorist Groups End. The study involved a comprehensive analysis of terror organizations that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006. 83 percent of the groups ended as a result of policing and political action. Military force accounted for a mere 7 percent of success against terrorists. Rand analysts recommend that the best course of counterterrorism actions should involve “a light U.S. military footprint or none at all.” We’re almost certainly, as Donald Rumsfeld suspected in 2004, making multiple new terrorists for every one we capture or kill. We have discovered a new style of warfare: reverse attrition. The more enemy we attrite the more enemy we have. All the talk about withdrawing from Iraq is an Orwellian card trick. Reese says our “lasting military presence” should not “include the presence of any combat forces save those for force protection needs or the occasional exercise.” Why would we need to leave noncombat forces behind? So they can cook and clean for the combat forces that provide them force protection? The exercises we might do with the Iraqis would involve practicing for the invasions of Iran and Syria, which is the real reason the warmongery wants to keep an enduring base of operations in Iraq. There’s no need to conduct defensive exercises. None of Iraq’s neighbors is capable of invading and occupying it or crazy enough to try. President Obama’s promise to remove all U.S combat troops from Iraq by August 2010 was also a see-through canard. As Gareth Porter revealed in March, the “advisory and assistance brigades” that will remain after that date will in fact be combat brigades augmented by a handful of advisers and assistants. The Cold War justified defense spending for a half-century. Now, the Pentagon is trying to validate its existence with another long war in the Middle East. Sun Tzu famously said, “No nation ever profited from a long war.” The 27- year Peloponnesian War ended Athens’ reign as a superpower. The Thirty Years’ War Balkanized the Holy Roman Empire, dividing German power among multiple smaller states. The 46-year Cold War forced the Soviet Union to change its name back to Russia. Don’t expect us to withdraw from Iraq or the Bananastans any time soon. The American warmongery, a confluence of Big War, Big Energy, Big Jesus, Big Israel, Big Brainwash, and Big Brother, is trying to entangle us in a state of constant armed conflict that will carry on into the next American century. There’s no need for anyone to challenge our hegemony; all they have to do is sit back and watch us collapse under the weight of our own stuupidity. Commander Jeff Huber, U.S. Navy (Retired) writes at Pen and Sword. Jeff’s novel Bathtub Admirals(Kunati Books), a lampoon on America’s rise to global dominance, is on sale now. Copyright © 2008 The American Conservative

Our Suicide Bombers Thoughts on Western Jihad By John Feffer August 07, 2009 "TomDispatch" -- The actor Will Smith is no one's image of a suicide bomber. With his boyish face, he has often played comic roles. Even as the last man on earth in I Am Legend, he retains a wise-cracking, ironic demeanor. And yet, surrounded by a horde of hyperactive vampires at the end of that film, Smith clasps a live grenade to his chest and throws himself at the enemy in a final burst of heroic sacrifice. Wait a second: surely that wasn't a suicide bombing. Will Smith wasn't reciting suras from the Koran. He wasn't sporting one of those rising sun headbands that the Japanese kamikaze wore for their suicide missions. He wasn't playing a religious fanatic or a political extremist. Will Smith was the hero of the film. So how could he be a suicide bomber? After all, he's one of us, isn't he? As it happens, we have our suicide bombers too. "We" are the powerful, developed countries, the ones with an overriding concern for individual liberties and individual lives. "We" form a moral archipelago that encompasses the United States, Europe, Israel, present-day Japan, and occasionally Russia. Whether in real war stories or inspiring vignettes served up in fiction and movies, our lore is full of heroes who sacrifice themselves for motherland, democracy, or simply their band of brothers. Admittedly, these men weren't expecting 72 virgins in paradise and they didn't make film records of their last moments, but our suicidal heroes generally have received just as much praise and recognition as "their" martyrs. The scholarly work on suicide bombers is large and growing. Most of these studies focus on why those other people do such terrible things, sometimes against their own compatriots but mainly against us. According to the popular view, Shiite or Tamil or Chechen suicide martyrs have a fundamentally different attitude toward life and death. If, however, we have our own rich tradition of suicide bombers -- and our own unfortunate tendency to kill civilians in our military campaigns -- how different can these attitudes really be? Western Jihad In America's first war against Islam, we were the ones who introduced the use of suicide bombers. Indeed, the American seamen who perished in the incident were among the U.S. military's first missing in action. It was September 4, 1804. The United States was at war with the Barbary pirates along the North African coast. The U.S. Navy was desperate to penetrate the enemy defenses. Commodore Edward Preble, who headed up the Third Mediterranean Squadron, chose an unusual stratagem: sending a booby-trapped U.S.S. Intrepid into the bay at Tripoli, one of the Barbary states of the Ottoman empire, to blow up as many of the enemy's ships as possible. U.S. sailors packed 10,000 pounds of gunpowder into the boat along with 150 shells. When Lieutenant Richard Sommers, who commanded the vessel, addressed his crew on the eve of the mission, a midshipman recorded his words: "'No man need accompany him, who had not come to the resolution to blow himself up, rather than be captured; and that such was fully his own determination!' Three cheers was the only reply. The gallant crew rose, as a single man, with the resolution yielding up their lives, sooner than surrender to their enemies: while each stepped forth, and begged as a favor, that he might be permitted to apply the match!" The crew of the boat then guided the Intrepid into the bay at night. So as not to be captured and lose so much valuable gunpowder to the enemy, they chose to blow themselves up with the boat. The explosion didn't do much damage -- at most, one Tripolitan ship went down -- but the crew was killed just as surely as the two men who plowed a ship piled high with explosives into the U.S.S. Cole in the Gulf of Aden nearly 200 years later. Despite the failure of the mission, Preble received much praise for his strategies. "A few brave men have been sacrificed, but they could not have fallen in a better cause," opined a British navy commander. The Pope went further: "The American commander, with a small force and in a short space of time, has done more for the cause of Christianity than the most powerful nations of Christiandom have done for ages!" Preble chose his tactic because his American forces were outgunned. It was a Hail Mary attempt to level the playing field. The bravery of his men and the reaction of his supporters could be easily transposed to the present day, when "fanatics" fighting against similar odds beg to sacrifice themselves for the cause of Islam and garner the praise of at least some of their religious leaders. The blowing up of the Intrepid was not the only act of suicidal heroism in U.S. military history. We routinely celebrate the brave sacrifices of soldiers who knowingly give up their lives in order to save their unit or achieve a larger military mission. We commemorate the sacrifice of the defenders of the Alamo, who could have, after all, slunk away to save themselves and fight another day. The poetry of the Civil War is rich in the language of sacrifice. In Phoebe Cary's poem "Ready" from 1861, a black sailor, "no slavish soul had he," volunteers for certain death to push a boat to safety. The heroic sacrifices of the twentieth century are, of course, commemorated in film. Today, you can buy several videos devoted to the "suicide missions" of American soldiers. Our World War II propaganda films -- er, wartime entertainments -- often featured brave soldiers facing certain death. In Flying Tigers (1942), for example, pilot Woody Jason anticipates the Japanese kamikaze by several years by flying a plane into a bridge to prevent a cargo train from reaching the enemy. In Bataan (1943), Robert Taylor leads a crew of 13 men in what they know will be the suicidal defense of a critical position against the Japanese. With remarkable sangfroid, the soldiers keep up the fight as they are picked off one by one until only Taylor is left. The film ends with him manning a machine gun against wave upon wave of oncoming Japanese. Our warrior culture continues to celebrate the heroism of these larger-than-life figures from World War II by taking real-life stories and turning them into Hollywood-style entertainments. For his series of "war stories" on Fox News, for instance, Oliver North narrates an episode on the Doolittle raid, an all-volunteer mission to bomb Tokyo shortly after Pearl Harbor. Since the bombers didn't have enough fuel to return to their bases, the 80 pilots committed to what they expected to be a suicide mission. Most of them survived, miraculously, but they had been prepared for the ultimate sacrifice -- and that is how they are billed today. "These are the men who restored the confidence of a shaken nation and changed the course of the Second World War," the promotional material for the episode rather grandly reports. Tokyo had the same hopes for its kamikaze pilots a few years later. Why Suicide Missions? America did not, of course, dream up suicide missions. They form a rich vein in the Western tradition. In the Bible, Samson sacrificed himself in bringing down the temple on the Philistine leadership, killing more through his death than he did during his life. The Spartans, at Thermopylae, faced down the Persians, knowing that the doomed effort would nevertheless delay the invading army long enough to give the Athenians time to prepare Greek defenses. In the first century AD in the Roman province of Judea, Jewish Zealots and Sicarians ("dagger men") launched suicide missions, mostly against Jewish moderates, to provoke an uprising against Roman rule. Later, suicide missions played a key role in European history. "Books written in the post-9/11 period tend to place suicide bombings only in the context of Eastern history and limit them to the exotic rebels against modernism," writes Niccolo Caldararo in an essay on suicide bombers. "A study of the late 19th century and early 20th would provide a spate of examples of suicide bombers and assassins in the heart of Europe." These included various European nationalists, Russian anarchists, and other early practitioners of terrorism. Given the plethora of suicide missions in the Western tradition, it should be difficult to argue that the tactic is unique to Islam or to fundamentalists. Yet some scholars enjoy constructing a restrictive genealogy for such missions that connects the Assassin sect (which went after the great sultan Saladin in the Levant in the twelfth century) to Muslim suicide guerrillas of the Philippines (first against the Spanish and then, in the early twentieth century, against Americans). They take this genealogy all the way up to more recent suicide campaigns by Hezbollah, Hamas, al-Qaeda, and Islamic rebels in the Russian province of Chechnya. The Tamil Tigers of Sri Lanka, who used suicide bombers in a profligate fashion, are ordinarily the only major non-Muslim outlier included in this series. Uniting our suicide attackers and theirs, however, are the reasons behind the missions. Three salient common factors stand out. First, suicidal attacks, including suicide bombings, are a "weapon of the weak," designed to level the playing field. Second, they are usually used against an occupying force. And third, they are cheap and often brutally effective. We commonly associate suicide missions with terrorists. But states and their armies, when outnumbered, will also launch such missions against their enemies, as Preble did against Tripoli or the Japanese attempted near the end of World War II. To make up for its technological disadvantages, the Iranian regime sent waves of young volunteers, some unarmed and some reportedly as young as nine years old, against the then-U.S.-backed Iraqi army in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Non-state actors are even more prone to launch suicide missions against occupying forces. Remove the occupying force, as Robert Pape argues in his groundbreaking book on suicide bombers, Dying to Win, and the suicide missions disappear. It is not a stretch, then, to conclude that we, the occupiers (the United States, Russia, Israel), through our actions, have played a significant part in fomenting the very suicide missions that we now find so alien and incomprehensible in Iraq, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Lebanon, and elsewhere. The archetypal modern suicide bomber first emerged in Lebanon in the early 1980s, a response to Israel's invasion and occupation of the country. "The Shiite suicide bomber," writes Mike Davis in his book on the history of the car bomb, Buda's Wagon, "was largely a Frankenstein monster of [israeli Defense Minister] Ariel Sharon's deliberate creation." Not only did U.S. and Israeli occupation policies create the conditions that gave birth to these missions, but the United States even trained some of the perpetrators. The U.S. funded Pakistan's intelligence service to run a veritable insurgency training school that processed 35,000 foreign Muslims to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Charlie Wilson's War, the book and movie that celebrated U.S. assistance to the mujihadeen, could be subtitled: Suicide Bombers We Have Known and Funded. Finally, the technique "works." Suicide bombers kill 12 times more people per incident than conventional terrorism, national security specialist Mohammed Hafez points out. The U.S. military has often publicized the "precision" of its airborne weaponry, of its "smart" bombs and missiles. But in truth, suicide bombers are the "smartest" bombers because they can zero in on their target in a way no missile can -- from close up -- and so make last-minute corrections for accuracy. In addition, by blasting themselves to smithereens, suicide bombers can't give away any information about their organization or its methods after the act, thus preserving the security of the group. You can't argue with success, however bloodstained it might be. Only when the tactic itself becomes less effective or counterproductive, does it recede into the background, as seems to be the case today among armed Palestinian groups. Individual motives for becoming a suicide bomber or attacker have, when studied, proved to be surprisingly diverse. We tend to ascribe heroism to our soldiers when, against the odds, they sacrifice themselves for us, while we assume a glassy-eyed fanaticism on the part of those who go up against us. But close studies of suicide bombers suggest that they are generally not crazy, nor -- another popular explanation -- just acting out of abysmal poverty or economic desperation (though, as in the case of the sole surviving Mumbai suicide attacker put on trial in India recently, this seems to have been the motivation). "Not only do they generally not have economic problems, but most of the suicide bombers also do not have an emotional disturbance that prevents them from differentiating between reality and imagination," writes Anat Berko in her careful analysis of the topic, The Path to Paradise. Despite suggestions from Iraqi and U.S. officials that suicide bombers in Iraq have been coerced into participating in their missions, scholars have yet to record such cases. Perhaps, however, this reflects a narrow understanding of coercion. After all, our soldiers are indoctrinated into a culture of heroic sacrifice just as are the suicide bombers of Hamas. The indoctrination doesn't always work: scores of U.S. soldiers go AWOL or join the peace movement just as some suicide bombers give up at the last minute. But the basic-training techniques of instilling the instinct to kill, the readiness to follow orders, and a willingness to sacrifice one's life are part of the warrior ethic everywhere. Suicide missions are, then, a military technique that armies use when outmatched and that guerrilla movements use, especially in occupied countries, to achieve specific objectives. Those who volunteer for such missions, whether in Iraq today or on board the Intrepid in 1804, are usually placing a larger goal -- liberty, national self-determination, ethnic or religious survival -- above their own lives. But wait: surely I'm not equating soldiers going on suicide missions against other soldiers with terrorists who blow up civilians in a public place. Indeed, these are two distinct categories. And yet much has happened in the history of modern warfare -- in which civilians have increasingly become the victims of combat -- to blur these distinctions. Terror and Civilians The conventional picture of today's suicide bomber is a young man or woman, usually of Arab extraction, who makes a video proclamation of faith, straps on a vest of high explosives, and detonates him or herself in a crowded pizzeria, bus, marketplace, mosque, or church. But we must expand this picture. The September 11th hijackers targeted high-profile locations, including a military target, the Pentagon. Hezbollah's suicidal truck driver destroyed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut on October 23, 1983, killing 241 U.S. soldiers. Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, a female Tamil suicide bomber, assassinated Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991. Suicide bombers, in other words, have targeted civilians, military installations, non-military sites of great significance, and political leaders. In suicide attacks, Hezbollah, Tamil Tiger, and Chechen suicide bombers have generally focused on military and police targets: 88%, 71%, and 61% of the time, respectively. Hamas, on the other hand, has largely targeted civilians (74% of the time). Sometimes, in response to public opinion, such movements will shift focus -- and targets. After a 1996 attack killed 91 civilians and created a serious image problem, the Tamil Tigers deliberately began chosing military, police, and government targets for their suicide attacks. "We don't go after kids in Pizza Hut," one Tiger leader told researcher Mia Bloom, referring to a Hamas attack on a Sbarro outlet in Jerusalem that killed 15 civilians in 2001. We have been conditioned into thinking of suicide bombers as targeting civilians and so putting themselves beyond the established conventions of war. As it happens, however, the nature of war has changed in our time. In the twentieth century, armies began to target civilians as a way of destroying the will of the population, and so bringing down the leadership of the enemy country. Japanese atrocities in China in the 1930s, the Nazi air war against Britain in World War II, Allied fire bombings of German and Japanese cities, the nuclear attacks against Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. carpet bombing in Cambodia and Laos, and the targeted assassinations of the Phoenix program during the Vietnam War, Russian depredations in Afghanistan and Chechnya, the tremendous civilian casualties during the Iraq War: all this has made the idea of conventional armies clashing in an area far from civilian life a quaint legacy of the past. Terrorist attacks against civilians, particularly September 11th, prompted military historian Caleb Carr to back the Bush administration's declaration of a war against terror. "War can only be answered with war," he wrote in his best-selling The Lessons of Terror. "And it is incumbent on us to devise a style of war more imaginative, more decisive, and yet more humane than anything terrorists can contrive." This more imaginative, decisive, and humane style of war has, in fact, consisted of stepped-up aerial bombing, beefed-up Special Forces (to, in part, carry out targeted assassinations globally), and recently, the widespread use of unmanned aerial drones like the Predator and the Reaper, both in the American arsenal and in 24/7 use today over the Pakistani tribal borderlands. "Predators can become a modern army's answer to the suicide bomber," Carr wrote. Carr's argument is revealing. As the U.S. military and Washington see it, the ideal use of Predator or Reaper drones, armed as they are with Hellfire missiles, is to pick off terrorist leaders; in other words, a mirror image of what that Tamil Tiger suicide bomber (who picked off the Indian prime minister) did somewhat more cost effectively. According to Carr, such a strategy with our robot planes is an effective and legitimate military tactic. In reality, though, such drone attacks regularly result in significant civilian casualties, usually referred to as "collateral damage." According to researcher Daniel Byman, the drones kill 10 civilians for every suspected militant. As Tom Engelhardt of TomDispatch.com writes, "In Pakistan, a war of machine assassins is visibly provoking terror (and terrorism), as well as anger and hatred among people who are by no means fundamentalists. It is part of a larger destabilization of the country." So, the dichotomy between a "just war," or even simply a war of any sort, and the unjust, brutal targeting of civilians by terrorists has long been blurring, thanks to the constant civilian casualties that now result from conventional war-fighting and the narrow military targets of many terrorist organizations. Moral Relativism? We have our suicide bombers -- we call them heroes. We have our culture of indoctrination -- we call it basic training. We kill civilians -- we call it collateral damage. Is this, then, the moral relativism that so outrages conservatives? Of course not. I've been drawing these comparisons not to excuse the actions of suicide bombers, but to point out the hypocrisy of our black-and-white depictions of our noble efforts and their barbarous acts, of our worthy goals and their despicable ends. We -- the inhabitants of an archipelago of supposedly enlightened warfare -- have been indoctrinated to view the atomic bombing of Hiroshima as a legitimate military target and September 11th as a heinous crime against humanity. We have been trained to see acts like the attack in Tripoli as American heroism and the U.S.S. Cole attack as rank barbarism. Explosive vests are a sign of extremism; Predator missiles, of advanced sensibility. It would be far better if we opened our eyes when it came to our own world and looked at what we were actually doing. Yes, "they" sometimes have dismaying cults of sacrifice and martyrdom, but we do too. And who is to say that ending occupation is any less noble than making the world free for democracy? Will Smith, in I Am Legend, was willing to sacrifice himself to end the occupation of vampires. We should realize that our soldiers in the countries we now occupy may look no less menacing and unintelligible than those obviously malevolent, science-fiction creatures. And the presence of our occupying soldiers sometimes inspires similar, Will Smith-like acts of desperation and, dare I say it, courage. The fact is: Were we to end our occupation policies, we would go a long way toward eliminating "their" suicide bombers. But when and how will we end our own cult of martyrdom? John Feffer is the co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies and writes its regular World Beat column. His past essays, including those for Tomdispatch.com, can be read at his website. Kathryn Zickuhr contributed research assistance to this article. Copyright 2009 John Feffer Western Occupation Jihad

Where is Pacifist these days? Nur

Walaalayaal Dadka xun xun wexey isku colaadiyaan meeshey ka kala yimaaddeen ayagoon u aabo yeelin meeshey u socdaan. Dadka wanaagsan, wexy isku baheystaan isuna kaashadaan meeshey u socdaan, ayagoon u aabo yeelin meeshey ka kala yimaadden Nur

Waranle bro writes: We need Sheikhs like the late Boqolsoon who is brave enough to say war heedhe qabiilku ilaahey sheegay ma aha reer qurac ama reer qansac ee waa reer soomali. So True! Nur

Blessed sis You write “Marry those among you who are single, or the virtuous ones among yourselves, male or female: if they are in poverty, Allah will give them means out of His grace: for Allah encompasseth all, and he knoweth all things.” Isn't this interesting? we marry when we can afford, but this verse is suggesting that we should marry even when we cant afford! marriage is in itself a blessing, barakah in which Allah extends his help for the risk taker ( Marriage is a gamble, comes from an old English word wedding) Any Rich Halimo out there who is seeking barakah? Nur

Naxar saaxib This classification is superficial, if you read the thread, its also wrong in my opinion, we are all Muslims, and names only add to division of the ummah, not it unity. Nur

Akhi Geelle T. wuxuu qoray : "Waa wax lagu farxo in Soomaali sidan oo kale ay meel ugu wada doodi karto, ayna is dhaafsan karto arregti kala duwan. Intaan meeshan lagu soo bandhigay oo kale ayaan u baahan nahay in meel aan joognaba aan isku weydaarsano. Qori,anaa kaa xoog weyn, iyo taano kuuma ogali, waa waxa meesha aan naalno na dhigay." Runtii waa wax lagu farxo, in la wada doodi karo ayadoon gacmo iyo ilko la isula tagin. taasina wexey ka mid tahay ilbaxnimada, iyo biseylka marka la xaajoonayo( civilized behavior and maturity). Waxaan si gaar ah geel jireyaasha baraaktan ka dhaansada ka dalmanayaa iney i cafiyaan haddey iga cadhoodeen markaan ku khilaafay taladooda. Nur

The Insatiable American Thirst for Blood By Dr Muzaffar Iqbal July 18, 2009 "Opinion Maker" --- The Anti-War Movement in America, Canada, and Britain has virtually become a non-entity. This was not unpredictable because the diverse groups which make up the so-called Anti-War Movement have neither the resources, nor the leadership, nor any solid ideological foundation beyond the apparent loathing for war. The invasion of Afghanistan by the United States took place at a time of high fever (September 11, 2001 attacks) and no one thought much of the long-term agenda of Americans at the time of Afghan invasion. Hence, Afghanistan never gained the kind of front end importance which Iraq immediately achieved with the Anti-War Movement. But now the Anti-War Movement is in total disarray over the continuous occupation of Afghanistan and the expanding military operations. This has given a free hand to the three main governments which lead Afghan operations to do whatever they wish to do in Afghanistan without any fear of homegrown opposition. Thus President Obama had no one to oppose him when he decided to send more troops into Afghanistan. He did this to make his first term as “successful” as that of his predecessors, assuming that the time-tested American definition of success still holds good: America must be engaged in a war to be successful. The insatiable American thirst for blood is now in full bloom in this killing season as its drones continue to take the lives of men, women, and children in various parts of Pakistani FATA and its soldiers continue to dig deeper and deeper into Afghanistan. Although it is moving its soldiers out Iraqi towns, it is simply redeploying them. This continuous lust for blood is something that now defines America. Its war machine has become so blood thirsty that there is no end in sight of American occupation of Afghanistan, even though there is absolutely no moral or legal justification for its continuous operations in that war-ravaged land. Yet neither the increased troops, nor the huge monetary resources being pumped into Afghan war indicate anything but failure. Just two weeks into July, 46 foreign troops have already been killed, making July 2009 a record month. But for the NATO spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith, these deaths were “something we did anticipate occurring as we extend our influence in the south.” He also touted the “pretty intensive set of objectives being met in terms of routing the insurgents.” Blood and death is simply what is expected, there is absolutely no shame, no regret, no qualms about loss of human lives; it is all expected and that, somehow justifies it! On July 10, 2009, the death of eight British soldiers in one 24 hour period set a record: British military’s death toll in Afghanistan (184) now surpasses the number of its soldiers killed in Iraq (179). Yet, speaking at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended the Afghan mission: “Our resolution to complete the work we have started is undiminished,” he said. “It is in tribute to the members of our forces who have given their lives that we should succeed in the efforts we have begun… it has been a very hard summer, and it is not over.” It is this circular rhetoric of the American, Canadian, and British politicians that has become the bedrock of their raison d’etre to be in Afghanistan: we need to complete the mission we started. But if one asks them: what mission? what exactly is the reason for your presence in Afghanistan, they have no answer except vague plenitudes: defending the hard-won progress, eliminating terrorism, defending our ideals, safeguarding our nation. The same rhetoric is regurgitated by the Canadian politicians whenever a Canadian soldier is killed, the most recent being the 124th solider, Cpl. Nick Bulger, killed on July 3, 2009 in Kandahar province. (The explosion was a near miss for Canadian Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance, whose vehicle passed the Improvised Explosive Device (IED) just metres ahead Bulger's vehicle.) Prime Minister Stephen Harper expressed regrets and condolences to the Bulger family, saying: “Hard-won progress is being made in Afghanistan." Adding; "Remarkable Canadians like Corporal Bulger will be remembered for their dedication and ultimate sacrifice for peace and freedom." Whose freedom, what peace? One may ask. These men and women are being sacrificed simply in pursuit of a phantom enemy in a far away land. No Canadian in his or her right mind believes that Taliban in Afghanistan are going to attack their country. There is simply no reason for Canadian soldiers to be in Afghanistan but this most simple, most apparent fact does not enter the calculations of Canadian politicians because they immediately start to think of the economic consequences of pulling out of Afghanistan: what would happen to the trade with the big trade partner to the south if we pulled out. How many jobs will be lost and what would be the consequence of these job losses in the next elections. Such is the “logic”, if one can call it logic. If history can be any guide, one can say with certainty that sooner or later the foreign troops will have to leave Afghanistan and they will leave behind nothing but broken families, severed bodies, scared children, and a trail of corruption and destruction at a level and scale never witnessed in Afghan history. Yet, this will not happen until the Americans find another place to send their soldiers so that their insatiable thirst for blood has new killing fields. Copyright © 2008 O M