Faahiye bro. JZK, good read indeed! Why Read The Quran? A Good Question. From past eNuri Post, here is a partial answer: 1. Quraan is a healing and Mercy " And we reveal (portions) of the Quraan which are a cure and mercy for the believers, (while) it does not add to but more of a loss for those who do injustice" Suurah Israa, 82 2. Quraan is Guidance and light "Allah guides through (Quraan) those who follow his pleasure, peaceful paths, helping them scape from darkness toward light" Suurah Maaedah, 16 3. Quraan is Good News " This Quraan does indeed guide towards the rightest (0f every issue), and breaks good news to the believers who are busy doing good deeds, that they have (indeed earned) a great reward" Israa, 9 4. Quraan is Wisdom " And hence we recite for you some of the verses and the wise reminder" Suurah Aal Imraan, 58 5. Quraan is a counsel " Counsel (them) with Quraan he who is fearful of my (punishment)promise" Suurah Qaaf, 45 "O people, an advice from your Lord has indeed been delivered to you (which is) healing for your consciuosness, a guidnace and mercy for the believers" Younis 57 6. Quraan is a spirit and Life "And so forth do we have revealed to you a spirit(revelation) of our concern" Suurat Al Shuuraa, 52 Quraan and the Sunnah on: The importance of studying Quraan " Say, (to the unbelievers) Allah and he who has knowledge of the Book should be sufficient as a witness(s) between us" Suurah Al Raad, 43 The Prophet SAWS said, " Best among you is he who studied Quraan and (then) teaches " Reported By Bukhaari The Importance of the Recitation of Quraan " Those who recite the Book of Allah, who have established regular prayers, and in private or in public have spent part of the sustenance we have provided for them, these shall (rightfully) hope for a business that will never go bancrupt" suurah Faatir 29 The Prophet SAWS said " Read the Quraan, because (Quraan) will come in the day of judgement as an advocate for his companions" Reported by Muslim The prophet SAWS also said " the(person who) has no Quran in his inner realm, is like a destroyed home" Reported by Tirmidhi The prophet SAWS said " Whoever reads a letter of the Book of Allah, earns a Hasanah ( unit reward ), and a Hasanah will be multiplied tenfolds, I do not say ALM is a letter, rather Alif, is a letter, Laam is a letter, and Meem is a letter " Reported by Tirmidhi. Nur ------------------------------------------------- 2008 eNuri Archives

Reviving this thread afater two year, its a timeline of our progress in our outlook, some of you who have written a thought on this thread may have a new outlook, proven an idea wrong, or learned a lesson, either way, please share your thoughts on this timely but old topic. Nur

To tame our lust for life, it helps to pay a visit to your local Muslim Cemetery. While on visit to relatives, I took a time off to pay my respects to fallen refugees at Gardens of Peace at Hainault, Ilford , A Muslim Cemetery near London. There I walked calmly to read the stones of the graves that were lined up in rows and columns. I was particularly looking for Somali names on plaques to identify them among the other Muslim names, I could spot such names like Hodan, or jama or Warsame. As I passed, I pondered about the story of each person lying peacefully or otherwise in those graves, specially our Somali Nomads. I took special note of Abdi Razak salad, a 73 year old who died on the 29th of February 2008, and Hodan Abdullahi Hashi who passed away on 20th of Muharram this year. ( dates on plaques are written in Gregorian and Hegira) What is their personal story? who have they left behind? what was their hopes, fears, and purpose or plight that brought them to the UK in the short life that Hodan lived and the normal lifetime AbdiRazak lived? I walked between the rows of these graves trying to find a name that I may recognize, but it was in vain. As I walked, I pictured myself in one of these graves, a place that will be my home till I am resurrected in the day of judgement, with all of humanity from Adam's day till end of time. The Cemetery was a peaceful place, solemen and quiet, the name "Gardens of Peace" was indeed ( Ismun calaa musammaa) , a right choice, at least from the perspective of the living, ours, however, no one can imagine what is happening to these people in their spiritual world which is far removed from our senses and comprehension. Nur

Lessons can be learned and Education takes place in the following places: 1. Home 2. School 3. Shopping Malls 4. Public Parks 5. Streets 8. Public Transport Can you guess which lessons would form a kids outlook later in life? Nur

Walaal Qundur Waxaad qortay " Hada iyo xaalada Taagan Hadaan Eegno Waxa dhibka ugu wayn ka taagan yahay waa Tawxiid al-xaakimiyah maxaa yeelay dadkii sankay wada tageen Amarkii ilaahay oo Ay dimuqraadiyah iyo waxan loo joogin ay wada Qaateen Marka Dadka Dulaabul cilmiga ah iyo Culimada waawayn Inay isku dayaan Siday Xoogga saaraan Tawxiid al xakimiyah oo ah mid aad iyo ad muhiim u ah waajibna ah in lagu dhaqmo" Walaal Baarakallahu feek, runtii ishaad ka ridday, Sidaan wada ognahay ( dad yar), tawxiidka Uluuhiyadda seddexdiida qaybood ayey badanaa mushkiladda ka taagneyd weligeed, ha noqoto, mushkilaaddii khalqal Quraan ( Asmaa wa Sifaat), ama tan Qubuurta awliyadda la caabudo ( Tawxiid al shacaa,ir al tacabudiya). Maanta, dunidu wexey hoos timid hal xukun, oo ah mid la siiyay sharciyeyn dawladaha dunida oo dhan, sharcigaas oo basharku dajisteen. Dadkiina ayagoo tukanaya ayey u doodayaan hirgelnta qawaaniintaas bashariga ah ayagoon dareynsaneen iney galeen diin kale ( maxaa yeelay macnaha Diin, ayaa fahamkiisii lumay) Nur

Garab Rarato, waxaa inna soo haya Ramadaan kale, Allah ayaan ka baryeynaa inuu na gaadhsiiyo annagoo ladan, na waafajiyo camal inta u fiican uu raalli ka yahay. Dad badan oo nala soomay Ramadaankii hore ayaa maanta Rabbigooda agtiisa jooga, Naxariistiisa dushooda ha ahaatee, annana ma naqaan inaan gaadhi doono Ramadaankan, ama kan ku xiga, sidaa darteed, waa nasiib badan yahay qofkii Allah waafajiyo khaatimo fiican. Nur

Nomads In Preparation For Ramadan Forums! Its eNuri's 7th year at SOL pages, sharing Islamic principles and perspectives , Islamic worldviews and analysis of events that are changing our lives, here in this life and the there in next life. Many Nomads, on the wide spectrum of the thought train have participated, each from their perspective, subjectively or objectively, which gave this site its unique following and quiet audience in the Wide World of Wareer and Walbahaar. Unfortunately, eNuri contributions have coincided with a time in history in which freedom of speech is muffled by "protecting" that very freedom, people in Muslim world bombed and killed wholesale to To Give Them A Better Life! ( ironically may be in next life), and their National Wealth and resources stolen in a violent robbery by coalition of the willing ( Micronesia and Palau included) to "improve their standard of living", also, "strategic" countries are occupied and synthetic local governments and leaders are created to protect the invaders "national interests" , Flimsy Governments are installed to give the occupied nations "freedom" and " Democracy", While the resistance of the occupied nations are known as "Terrorists", and their national traitors are hailed by the Media as "Moderates". As a result, of this historic changing of the meaning of words and actions, the pages of SOL ISLAM became mere informative boards not a forum of live dialogue and discussion as was meant, reason being that most issues I raise are slippery in light of the current limitations on "freedom of Speech" This brings me to my renewed kind request to the SOL audience to actively participate in the debates, because silence in face of distortion of facts about our faith and people in mainstream media is slowly giving credibility to such news. Under present circumstances, silence is a crime! You will stand in front of your creator to answer for your tacit approval of media misinformation by way of your "Golden" silence! In This Ramadan, as always, I post topics that interest me to write about, my score in delivering against my own targets has been a failure ( 30 %), partially due to my preoccupation with worldly worries ( Please Read WOL Article on this subject). To correct this problem, I suggest that Nomads share with me the burden of writing with the topics I post, that way, together we can achieve 100% delivery on all topics posted. The Following are the topics that need Volunteer writers! (If you need any ideas or guidance please send me a private message) 1. Check Reality With Spirituality ( balancing Our Material Life With Our Faith) 2. Faith and Anti Faith, what you don't believe is as much a faith. 3. Restoring Somalia: We need German Discipline, American Ingenuity, Chinese Patience, Indian Austerity, Jewish Financial Management (without interest!), Japanese hard work, Finnish Pragmatism, English Foresight, Afghani endurance, and SHARIA LAW! 4. Sadaqa ( Philanthropy) Effectiveness! Legitimate Need, Deserving Entity, Efficient Delivery, Structured management, and feedback to donors. 5. Speed of Light Politics! When Classical Politics collides with Islam at speed of light, it displays wacky properties just like Quantum Physics! 6. Superconductivity ( Siratul Mustaqeem), Alignment of purpsose, Alignment of Worshippers in prayer! The Connection between resistance against Satan, conductivity of Allah's commandments,(temperature / Fervor) cool headedness, and straight line geometry. 7. A Euro Tomorrow is better than a Euro Today! Time Value of Money In Islam. (Hint : Hadeeth Fatima and the leg of the lamb ) 8. Joy Of Pain. Like running, Dawa and Community Activist work has pain at the start, pleasure at the end. 9. Intention Meters! a new invention by Bush Technologies! Device will tell intention of terror suspects. To get approval for its use in courts, it was tested at US Congress, Congressmen were asked about their intentions strapped with the new device, all of the congressmen and congresswomen passed the test as their permanent intention was the unwavering support for Israel! Device will now be used in courts.. 10. Isbaheysiga Dib U Sharciyeenta Gumeysiga! Jarta lala damacsanyahay in laga tuuro Isbahaysiga Dib U Xoreynta Somalia. Nur 2008 eNuri Ramadaaniyaat We Attack Problems, Not People

Dr. WOL, a provocative story indeed!, thank you for the reminder of worldly temptations, women and wealth is what drives most me to mischief on earth. Caafaanaa Allah minhumaa, amin Nur

JB You write: "Sorry my Sheikh, Athiesm is a lack of belief that there is a superior being responsible for creation of man and the Universe, and neither Atheists nor theists that i know of conduct a purposeless life, be it one they themselves set for themselves or a mawkishly assumed purpose a theist claims to have been set for him by a Deity of his choice, so that an Atheist is 'likely' to enherit bad characters of Greed is baseless accusation that needs to be substantiated." My question directly to you saaxib, What is the purpose of life? Nur

Ragtag Taliban Show Tenacity in Afghanistan By Moises Saman for The New York Times 04/08/08 "New York Times" -- -KABUL, Afghanistan — Six years after being driven from power, the Taliban are demonstrating a resilience and a ferocity that are raising alarm here, in Washington and in other NATO capitals, and engendering a fresh round of soul-searching over how a relatively ragtag insurgency has managed to keep the world’s most powerful armies at bay. The mounting toll inflicted by the insurgents, including nine American soldiers killed in a single attack last month, has turned Afghanistan into a deadlier battlefield than Iraq and refocused the attention of America’s military commanders and its presidential contenders on the Afghan war. But the objectives of the war have become increasingly uncertain in a conflict where Taliban leaders say they do not feel the need to control territory, at least for now, or to outfight American and NATO forces to defeat them — only to outlast them in a region that is in any case their home. The Taliban’s tenacity, military officials and analysts say, reflects their success in maintaining a cohesive leadership since being driven from power in Afghanistan, their ability to attract a continuous stream of recruits and their advantage in having a haven across the border in Pakistan. While the Taliban enjoy such a sanctuary, they will be very hard to beat, military officials say, and American officials have stepped up pressure on Pakistan in recent weeks to take more action against the Taliban and other militants there. That included a visit last month by a top official of the Central Intelligence Agency who, American officials say, confronted senior Pakistani leaders about ties between the country’s powerful spy service and militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Pakistani officials say those ties, which stretch back decades, have been broken. But there is no doubt that the Taliban continue to use Pakistan to train, recruit, regroup and resupply their insurgency. The advantage of that haven in Pakistan, even beyond the lawless tribal realms, has allowed the Taliban leadership to exercise uninterrupted control of its insurgency through the same clique of mullahs and military commanders who ran Afghanistan as a theocracy and harbored Osama bin Laden until they were driven from power in December 2001. The Taliban’s reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, a one-eyed cleric and war veteran, is widely believed by Afghan and Western officials to be based in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan Province in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. He runs a shadow government, complete with military, religious and cultural councils, and has appointed officials and commanders to virtually every Afghan province and district, just as he did when he ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban claim. He oversees his movement through a grand council of 10 people, the Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, said in a telephone interview. Mullah Bradar, one of the Taliban’s most senior and ruthless commanders, who has been cited by human rights groups for committing massacres, serves as his first deputy. He passes down Mullah Omar’s commands and makes all military decisions, including how foreign fighters are deployed, according to Waheed Muzhta, a former Taliban Foreign Ministry official who lives in Kabul and follows the progress of the Taliban through his own research. The Taliban even produce their own magazine, Al Somood, published online in Arabic, where details of their leadership structure can be found, he said. But while the Taliban may be united politically, the insurgency remains poorly coordinated at operational and strategic levels, said Gen. David D. McKiernan, commander of the NATO force in Afghanistan. Taliban forces cannot hold territory, and they cannot defeat NATO forces in a direct fight, other NATO officials say. They also note that scores of senior and midlevel Taliban commanders have been killed over the past year, weakening the insurgents, especially in the south. Three senior members of the grand council were killed in 2007, and others have been detained, Mr. Muzhta said. The military council has lost 6 of its 29 members in recent years, he said. Despite their losses, however, the Taliban repeatedly express confidence that the United States and its allies will grow weary of a thankless war in a foreign land, withdraw and leave Afghanistan open for a return of the Taliban to power. The Taliban say they need little in the way of arms or matériel. “The Taliban are now mounting a hit-and-run war against their enemies,” Mr. Mujahed, the spokesman, said. “It doesn’t need much money or weapons compared to what the foreign troops are spending.” Even so, Western officials say the Taliban have a steady stream of financing from Afghanistan’s opium trade, as well as from traders, mosques, jihad organizations and sympathizers in the region, and Arab countries. At the same time, Taliban leaders can still exploit their position as moral authorities — Taliban means religious students — which gives them overarching power over the various commanders, bandits, smugglers and insurgents fighting around Afghanistan. That aura is increasingly terrifying. Known for their harsh rule when in power, the Taliban have turned even more ruthless out of power, and for the first time they have shown great cruelty even toward their fellow Pashtun tribesmen. The Taliban have used terrorist tactics — which include beheadings, abductions, death threats and summary executions of people accused of being spies — as well as a skillful propaganda campaign, to make the insurgency seem more powerful and omnipresent than it really is. “The increasing use of very public attacks has had a striking effect on morale far beyond the immediate victims,” the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit group that seeks to prevent and resolve deadly conflicts, said in a recent report. Some of that brutality may be attributed to the growing influence of Al Qaeda, but much of it has by now taken root within the insurgents’ ranks. After the American-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, Al Qaeda and the Taliban both sought refuge in Pakistan’s tribal areas, which have since become a breeding ground where they and other foreign fighters have found common cause against the American forces in Afghanistan and have shared terrorist tactics and insurgent strategies. Pakistan’s tribal areas along the border are now the main pool to recruit fighters for Afghanistan, General McKiernan said. Pakistani insurgent groups in the region — Pakistani Taliban — have also become a potent threat to the security and stability of Pakistan itself. Jihad does not recognize borders, the Taliban like to say, and indeed much unites the Taliban on both sides of the border. They share a common Pashtun heritage, a longstanding disregard for the Afghan-Pakistani border drawn by the British and the goal of establishing a theocracy that would impose Islamic law, or Shariah. In fact, the dispatches of the Pakistani Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, carry the symbol of the Islamic Emirate, the name the Afghan Taliban used for their government. Mr. Mehsud and his cohort have sworn allegiance to the Afghan Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, as well as to Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former minister in the Taliban government who now commands Taliban forces in much of eastern Afghanistan. Western military officials often describe Mr. Haqqani as running a distinct network with close links to Arab members of Al Qaeda, but he and his followers have also proclaimed allegiance to Mullah Omar. Even Mr. bin Laden has paid tribute to Mullah Omar as Amir ul-Momineen, or Leader of the Faithful, the paramount religious leader. To avoid jeopardizing their sanctuary or their hosts, however, the Taliban have always maintained the pretence that their leadership is based inside Afghanistan and that the insurgency is made up entirely of Afghans. The two Afghan Taliban spokesmen, Mr. Mujahed and Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, who speak regularly by telephone to local journalists, never reveal their whereabouts. They profess sympathy for their Muslim brothers, the Pakistani Taliban, but deny that there is any joint leadership or unified strategy. They also claim that the Afghan Taliban broke with Al Qaeda after the Sept. 11 attacks, which led to the fall of the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The Afghan government dismisses those claims, however, and insists that the Taliban on both sides of the border are directed by Pakistani intelligence officials with the aim of destabilizing Afghanistan and maintaining some sway over their neighbor. While the Pakistani government was one of the only supporters of the Taliban government when it was in power from 1996 to 2001, today the Pakistani authorities profess not to know the whereabouts of Mullah Omar or his colleagues. But Afghan and NATO officials say the Taliban today operate much as the mujahedeen did in the 1980s, when they used Pakistan as their rear base, to drive out the Soviet Army, which had invaded Afghanistan. Many members of President Hamid Karzai’s government, who were themselves mujahedeen, say the Taliban are even using some of the same contacts from 20 years ago, including a well-known trader in Quetta who handles logistics, housing and other supplies. He was widely known to be the front man for the largest Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, according to one former mujahedeen commander who is now a senior official in the Afghan government. Meanwhile, Taliban spokesmen dismiss the idea of negotiations or power-sharing deals with the Afghan government, even though Afghan officials say that more Taliban members have made overtures to talk in recent months. “We carried out the fight to oppose the invaders,” one of the Taliban spokesmen, Mr. Ahmadi, said. “Now they are on the brink of humiliation. That’s the aim of our fight.”

FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials BY JAMES GORDON MEEK DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU 04/08/08 "NY Daily News" -- Saturday, August 2nd 2008 -- WASHINGTON - In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned. After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was "beaten up" during President Bush's morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide. "They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East," the retired senior FBI official told The News. On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, "There may be some possible link" to Bin Laden, adding, "I wouldn't put it past him." Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden's henchmen were trained "how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together." But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. "Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with," the ex-FBI official said. "They couldn't go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next."

JB You Ask: " Do you mind expounding the assumption that a religious person ( no matter in what s/he beleives in ?) has a richer and purposeful life than an Agnostic/Atheist?" JB Let me expound. Athiesm is a belief that there is no superior being responsible for creation of man and the Universe. As such, an Athiest sees that life has no purpose, except for the purpose the Athiest charts for himself in his short life span, which is pursuit of his own pleasure. An Athiest (who believes in one life to live) finds comfort in maximizing his own self pleasure and minimzing his own displeasure, regardless of others, which leads him to be reluctant to sacrifice his pleasure for others if needed. He sees survival of fittest as the rule and politically subsribes to Machiavelli's version of power. Thus, an Athiest is likely to inherit bad characters of Greed. In Contrast, a believer in Allah looks forward to another life after the present, which liberates him from inhumane characters making him a generous and helpful person. in Conclusion, you can trust a true believer, but you can not trust a true Athiest! Nur

" The 350% crime increase during the past 40 years can be tied directly to immorality. Immorality is the embryo stage of crime. An Alcoholic did not begin as an alcoholic. He or she took their first drink and it escalated on them and they became addicted to alcohol. Then they became the DWI killing more people than in all of our wars combined. The drug addict did not begin as a drug addict. He started with a little marijuana and it escalated on him and he became a drug addict. The drug addict then began committing crime to support his habit. The Porn addict did not begin as a Porn addict. He read his first Playboy or passed by his first porn web site and it escalated on him when he would not leave it alone. He then became a Porn addict finally acting out his addiction in rape and violence leaving the shallow graves of our women and children. Click Here (CA-1). It is time to call evil-evil. It is time to call addictions bad personal choices. We have hordes of terrorist monsters in our society and we need to deal with them as monsters-get them out of society permanently. The touchy, feely culture employed for the past few decades has miserably failed the American people and put a nation at great risk. Lawyers and sociologists attempt to dismiss the terrorist acts of some of these monsters by blaming a bad childhood. Hogwash! Millions upon millions of Americans had a tough childhood but they did not turn to crime and terrorize their fellow beings" Sammy Sorrell Author and Radio Talk Show Host National Crusader for Legal Justice Reform and against the national threat of crime in America NATIONAL DIRECTOR & FOUNDER OF UCLR United Citizens For Legal Reform

Johnny Boy You Write: " no angel is occupying your shoulders. no woman can get pregnant without human-male sperms. no God (if exists)can be both omnicient , omnipotent and has the will to inform humanity about his/her presence yet can't do that." Answer: Belief in Allah (aka God), Angels, and miracles are pillars in all Abrahamic faiths ( Judaism, Christianity and Islam. You see JB, there is a purpose in our existence, which calls for some sort of accountability. To be accountable, there must be some sort of enforcement of a sovereign law by an entity empowered to be a witness and an executor of Devine orders. Allah appoined angels for that purpose, just because you cant see them does not rule out their existence, otherwise I will assume that you have no intelligence, because I cant see your intelligence. You see JB, I agree with you, if there is no purpose in our existence, there is no need for angels, but if there is a purpose, then it becomes reasonable to believe that angels exist. Today, modern societies have governments that serve a purpose for their people, they have laws to serve the purpose for which they exist, and law enforcement, who are not always or visible, they use hidden cameras to observe to secure peace and harmony. Thus Police is the human analogue of Angels, and we also have Good COP ( Constables On Patrol) and Bad COP ( Angels of Mercy and Angels of Punishment). You can chose not to believe in their existence, just like you can run red lights assuming that there is no Police Cameras, what you cant see, can see you! As for the immaculate conception of Jesus Christ, you see JB, there are four possibilities for creation: 1. No Parent (in the case of father of humanity Adam) 2. Male Parent Only ( in the case of Eve who was created from Adam side) 3. Two Parents ( in Your case and Mine) 4. Female Parent Only ( the Immaculate birth of Jesus Christ, may peace and blessings be upon him) Hence, Jesus was the fourth and final possibility of Allah's creation, a miracle. Finally, Allah is omnipresent and Omnipotent, He questions and not questioned, judges and not judged, and because of His Sovereignty, He reserves to do what He wishes when He wishes, everything except Him is a slave to Him as he has created them. If you have a problem with Allah, I am sure that it will be settled after you die, which is also when you will see the angels that you did not believe, so when you finally come face to face with them, you will believe, but it will be in vain. Nur

Kheyr bro. Allah guides his slaves in different ways, some of the best Muslims in history are known to have been Islam's enemies, one of the them even rose to become the Second Calif of Islam, Omar Ibnul Khattab. Dont give up on JB, I have made a sincere prayer that Allah guides him to the straight path. Nur

Written in 1995 U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948: Our real task... is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity [u.S. military- economic supremacy]... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization... we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning. U.S. State Department. 1948

............What other reason is there to attack a governing body which has produced more, in less time, in Mogadishu ,than the US has produced in Iraq with huge resources which have mostly been squandered on already wealthy corporate mercinaries and their masters while the poeple of Iraq still suffer and hope for an end to their occupation By Jerry Gates (respnding to above topic)

Mike Whitney opens the wounds in Mogadishu in his "They are Slaughtering Somalies, like Goats". Black hawk down is now being reveanged, as are many of the US's defeats. No reasonable mind can see the good in Ethiopia ousting what was seen as a strict, yet judicially proficient Islamic regime which had taken to Somalia with Islam on it's mind and the law as their weapon of choice in bringing order to the anarchy of Mogadishu and Somalia. AFRICOM, is just a word for Bush's CIA actions with the Ethiopian Miltary at it's center,but more on the way in terms of the usual crowd of exploiters from the US stable of Globalist Corporate raiders, looking for new fodder for the economic cannons. The US is not going down without another rape and pillaging on it's already infinite rap sheet of agressive warfare for profit. The worse the US ecomomy gets, the more desperate the raiders are in pushing open new markets of labor and consumers with old ways of dubious intentions and even more dubious results in this day and age. The US keeps useing the same formula to do their dirt to impoverished nations. This particular "liberation" is founded in the US's maniacal paranoia of Islam, aided and abetted , of course , by Israel and the UK, with the UN along as the solicitor to the press. The UN has it's head up it's ( Rear End) and up the (Rear End) of the US so far that they have now facilitated the demise of nearly every single one of the US war crimes and has the audacity to cry wolf when they are bludgeoned in Mogadishu. What do you expect, UN, are the people of the world BLIND, DEAF and DUMB? Your answer? Mike Whitney has tears on his sleave for these people in Somalia, especially the orphans and refugees in the south of the city of Mogadishu. Quat is the drug of choice in Mogadishu and when deprived of it;s balm the people are irate and unhappy. Islamic Courts Union had declared it illegal, and along with brothels and other illegal activities engaged in by the warlords of Mogadishu, the Islamic Courts Union had driven stakes into the hearts of the people, who had lived in anarchy's shadow and on the largese of their black market for too long to be taken out of their element by Islamic strictures, so things lightened up, people were happier, and things calmed down considerably, but with severe dissention of the Islamic Courts Unions sharia code's power over the people, many of whom were not and are not Muslims in the adherance sense, but familiar with it's doctrines. Once integrated the Islamic Courts Union had made friends and a few , if not quite a few enemies, enough to call into question the validity of the ICU's concern for the people as their ceterpiece of governance. Bush needed no more to use as his excuse ti get the CIA into the heads of Ethiopian heads of state and their military arms to concieve an actionable plan of attack in the ICU. What is galling to me is the use of a joint US/Ethiopian clandestine operation's cover in Somalia to insert chaos in a recovering drug addicts den of iniquity and use the forces of terror in military and spy garb to cause widespread hunger, famine and refugee status in a city which has seen it's share of troubles from lawwlessnes only to be thrust ,again, into a new pit of extreme deprivation, BY THE BUSH REGIMES CORPORATACRCY's war on terror. This is a crime unheard of , even in Bush's densely obtuse mind. The US war on terror is truly become the war of terror and no neocon apologist can ever live this fact down or spin it in any way but criminal. But where will it end, this is incredible, but true. What is at issue , aside from the horrific suffering of yet more children ,more refugees and more abject poverty is the way in which the Bush White house and their neocon associates in the UK and Israel have responded to an effort by the Islamic Courts Union to do what the US has failed miserably in attempting in the recent past, bring order to Somalia. It's one thing to be suspicious of Islam's ever growing popularity and think it may be forced by radicals with guns and not derived in love, but to take this suspicion and make war with the ICU by proxies from Ethiopia is to let the warlords back in and provide them with modern firepower which brings the whole mess full circle with no relief in sight for this populous nation of the poor. History show us that when wars escalate on the basis of proxies fighting for empires, the people suffer grave deprivations, certaily more so than if diplomacy had been tried with some semblance of decency and honor involved as a show of hope to the people that wars are being averted for their comfort and respect. It's not too much to ask of the US to see the error of their ways in useing the war college CIA goons to drive people out of their minds to the point of exhaustion. Grow up, damn it! Does the USA feel that peoples lives are nothing but levers to sqeeze when the economy goes sour and the US gets a little depressed from excessive binging on wealth derived from other peoples suffering? Wake up US plutocrats, you are shitting in your own fetid hat and causeing undo harm to people who want relief, not tent cities with no latrines. While the neocon drivel is not without some truths of it's own, we need to be reasonable with the peoples lives in theatres of war where too much war is just that, too much war. War does not fix every human tragedy ,nor have the balms of compassion which enter into negotiations with an eye to being realistic about what can be accomplised and what is a reach too far. The US could have easily gone the route of resolving to work with the ICU and make inroads with an Islamic group which sees governance as their calling. Why not engage these people and work with them to develope their governig skills and learn how Sharia law has kept the peace in Saudi Arabia for all these years, with some measure of latitude to the people in allowing a kind of Algerian style Islam behind the scenes of the stricter Sharia codes of conduct. Certainly, the US has much to learn of the ways and means of Islam and is deficient in tutoring it's own government in the understanding of a culture which has stood more firmly and much longer than capitalist democracy and is still standing firm in more peoples lives than capitalisn ever will. Islam cares few everyone, Capitalism ..... well we lnow who capitalism cares for, just look at the current state of the USA and ask yourself are we selling THIS as a better life to others? The US has become a fugative from justice to much of the civilised world, are we going to drive the stake further into our own heart and take the ICU out to serve our pride? What other reason is there to attack a governing body which has produced more, in less time, in Mogadishu ,than the US has produced in Iraq with huge resources which have mostly been squandered on already wealthy corporate mercinaries and their masters while the poeple of Iraq still suffer and hope for an end to their occupation. This is getting out of control, first Indonesia, then Afghanistan, Iraq not Somalia, where do you feel you are welcome, Mr Bush if you have not produced a single functioning democracy yet? This will not be anything but more misery for the poor and who will end this tirade of pride if no senator or congressional rep has even the balls to look Bush in the eye and tell him the truth, WAR CRIMINAL! Thanks Cindy! By jerry gates | 07.07.08 - 6:32 pm |

Somalia: Troops killing people 'like goats' by slitting throats-new Amnesty report Posted: 06 May 2008 Amnesty International today released a report revealing the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis facing the people of Somalia. The report contains first-hand testimony from scores of traumatised survivors of the conflict, exposing the violations and abuses they have suffered at the hands of a complex mix of perpetrators which include Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops, Ethiopian troops, and various armed groups. Amnesty International's Africa Deputy Programme Director Michelle Kagari said: 'The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, tortured; looting is widespread and entire neighbourhoods are being destroyed.' Witnesses described to Amnesty International an increasing incidence of Ethiopian troops killing people by what is locally termed 'slaughtering' or 'killing like goats' - referring to killing by slitting the throat. Those killed are often left lying in pools of blood in the streets until armed fighters, including snipers, move out of the area and relatives can collect their bodies. In one case, a 15-year-old girl found her father with his throat cut when she returned home from school after Ethiopian security forces had swept through her neighbourhood. Other cases in the report include: A 56-year-old woman from Mogadishu called Haboon said Ethiopian troops had raped her neighbour's 17-year-old daughter. When the young woman's 13 and 14 year old brothers tried to protect their sister, the soldiers beat them and gouged out their eyes with a bayonet. The mother fled. It is not known what happened to the boys. This girl is in a coma as a result of the injuries she sustained during the attack. Qorran, another 56-year-old woman from Mogadishu, described how after her family went to bed, she went out to collect charcoal. While she was out, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at her home, completely destroying it. She said, 'When I came back, I couldn't find my house.' Her husband and sons were all killed in the attack. She told Amnesty International, 'If grief is going to kill anyone it's going to kill me.' Guled, aged 32, who said that he saw his neighbours 'slaughtered'. Guled said he saw many men whose throats were slit and whose bodies were left in the street. Some had been castrated. He also saw women being raped. In one incident, more than 20 Ethiopian soldiers raped his newly-married neighbour when her husband was not home. Michelle Kagari continued: 'The testimony we received strongly suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity have been committed by all parties to the conflict in Somalia - and no one is being held accountable. 'The human rights and humanitarian situation in Somalia is growing worse by the day. This report represents the voices of ordinary Somalis, and their plea to the international community to take action to end the attacks against them, including those committed by internationally-supported TFG and Ethiopian forces.' Security in many parts of Mogadishu is non-existent and the entire city's population bears the scars of having witnessed or experienced severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. Michelle Kagari said: 'There is no safety for civilians, wherever they run. Those fleeing violence in Mogadishu are attacked on the road and those lucky enough to reach a camp or settlement face further violence and dire conditions.' Amnesty International's report insists that the TFG, as the recognised government of Somalia, bears the primary responsibility for protecting the human rights of the Somali people. However, the Ethiopian military, which is taking a leading role in backing the TFG, also bears responsibility. Kagari continued: 'Attacks on civilians by all parties must stop immediately. Also, the international community must bear its own responsibility for not putting consistent pressure on the TFG or the Ethiopian government to stop their armed forces from committing egregious human rights violations.' Amnesty International urged that the capacity of the UN Political Office for Somalia be strengthened, and that the African Union Mission to Somalia (or AMISOM) - and any succeeding UN peacekeeping mission - be mandated to protect civilians and include a strong human rights component with the capacity to investigate human rights violations. The organisation also called for the UN arms embargo on Somalia to be strengthened, amongst other recommendations.

U.S. State Department Policy Planning Study #23, 1948: Our real task... is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity [u.S. military- economic supremacy]... To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming... We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization... we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better. George Kennan, Director of Policy Planning. U.S. State Department. 1948 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bush's Blood-Orgy in Somalia: "They Are Slaughtering Somalis Like Goats" By Mike Whitney "Land is not our priority. Our priority is the people's peace, dignity and liberty. It is the people that are important to us." Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, Head of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) 07/07/08 "ICH" -- -- While George Bush was busy railing at Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe at the G-8 summit in Toyako, Japan; his Ethiopian proxy-army in Somalia was grinding out more carnage on the streets of Mogadishu. More than 40 civilians have been killed in the last 48 hours. On Sunday, Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the UN Development Program in Somalia, was shot gangland style as he left a mosque Mogadishu. He died before he reached the hospital with wounds to the head and chest. Ali Ahmed is just the latest of the peace-keepers who have been killed in the ongoing battle between Bush's Ethiopian occupiers and Somali guerrillas. "I care deeply about the people of Zimbabwe," Bush announced. "And I am extremely disappointed in the election which I labeled a sham election." Right. Bush's newly-discovered empathy for black people was nowhere in sight during Hurricane Katrina when thousands of African Americans were rounded up at gunpoint and forced into the Superdome without food, water or medical supplies. Nor is it visible in Somalia today where millions of Somalis have been forced to flee their homes and relocate to tent cities in the south because of Bush's support for the Ethiopian army's invasion. The latest surge in violence has been the worst in a decade and the security situation continues to deteriorate despite the arrival of 2,600 troops from the African Union and a tentative truce that was signed in June between some of the warring factions. It should be no great surprize that the western media has stubbornly refused to report on the rising death-toll in Somalia, choosing instead to focus all of their attention on America's "villain du jour", Robert Mugabe. Mugabe is next on the neocon's list for regime change. Neocon Godfather Paul Wolfowitz even composed a postmortem for Zimbabwe's president in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial "How to Put the Heat on Mugabe". In 2006, the United States supported an alliance of Somali warlords known as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) who established a base of operations in the western city of Baidoa. With the help of the US-backed Ethiopian army, western mercenaries, US Navy warships, and AC-130 gunships; the TFG was able capture Mogadishu and force the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and their allies to retreat to the south. But, much like Iraq and Afghanistan, the resistance has coalesced into a tenacious guerrilla army which has returned to the capital and resumed the fight making it impossible for their Ethiopian rivals to govern. As the struggle continues, the humanitarian situation gets worse and worse. At least 2.6 million Somalis are now facing famine due to acute food shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, violence and high inflation. UN monitors have warned that the figure could hit exceed 3.5 million by the end of 2008. The UN Security Council has played its traditional role as facilitator of American-backed imperial violence by failing to condemn US involvement in Somalia and by promising to send peacekeepers to mop up after violence subsides. The UN has shown no interest in stopping the carnage and have become little more than the glove-hand of the US military; an accomplice to Bush's chronic adventurism. In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Salim Lone, a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya and a former spokesperson for the UN mission in Iraq explains the UN's role in providing the "go ahead" for the US invasion: "The lawlessness of this particular war is astounding; the most lawless war of our generation. You know, all aggressive wars are illegal. But in this particular one, there have been violations of the UN Charter and gross violations of international human rights. But, in addition, there have been very concrete violations by the United States of two Security Council resolutions. The first one was the arms embargo imposed on Somalia, which the United States has been routinely flaunting for many years now. But then the US decided that that resolution was no longer useful, and they pushed through an appalling resolution in December, which basically gave the green light to Ethiopia to invade. They pushed through a resolution which said that the situation in Somalia was a threat to international peace and security, at a time when every independent report indicated, and Chatham House’s report on Wednesday also indicated, that the Islamic Courts Union had brought a high level of peace and stability that Somalia had not enjoyed in sixteen years. So here was the UN Security Council going along with the American demand to pass a blatantly falsified UN resolution. And that resolution actually was a violation (of the) the UN Charter. You know, the UN Charter is like the American Constitution and the Security Council is not allowed to pass laws or rules that violate the Charter. And yet, who is going to correct them?" The Bush administration has predictably invoked the "terrorist" hobgoblin to justify its involvement in Somalia, but no one is buying it. The ICU is not an Al Qaida affiliate or a terrorist organization despite the absurd claims of the State Dept. It is true that the ICU was trying to enforce Sharia Law, but a much milder form of Sharia than in Saudi Arabia. The ICU was the first government in over a decade to restore security and order to Somalia and--generally speaking--the people were supportive of the new regime. Political analyst James Petras summed it up like this: “The ICU was a relatively honest administration, which ended warlord corruption and extortion. Personal safety and property were protected, ending arbitrary seizures and kidnappings by warlords and their armed thugs. The ICU is a broad multi-tendency movement that includes moderates and radical Islamists, civilian politicians and armed fighters, liberals and populists, electoralists and authoritarians. Most important, the Courts succeeded in unifying the country and creating some semblance of nationhood, overcoming clan fragmentation.” The real motives behind the invasion were oil and geopolitics. According to most estimates 30 per cent of America's oil will come from Africa in the next ten years. Bush's new warlord-friends in the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) have already indicated a willingness to pass a new oil law that will encourage foreign oil companies to return to Somalia. The same oil giants that are now lining up in Iraq will soon be making their way to Somalia as well. The Horn of Africa is also critical for its deep-water ports and strategic location for future military bases. It's all part of the Grand Schema for reconfiguring the region to accommodate America's hegemonic ambitions. Humanitarian Catastrophe: "The Ethiopian invasion has destroyed all the life-sustaining systems" Heavy fighting and artillery fire have reduced large parts of Mogadishu to rubble. More than 700,000 people have been forced to leave the capital with nothing more than what they can carry on their backs. Entire districts have been evacuated and turned into ghost towns. The main hospital has been bombed and is no longer taking patients. Ethiopian snipers are perched atop rooftops across the city. Over 3.5 million people are now huddled in the south in tent cities without sufficient food, clean water or medical supplies. It is without question the greatest humanitarian crisis in Africa today; a man-made Hell entirely conjured up in Washington. Just weeks ago, Amnesty International reported that it had heard many accounts that Ethiopian troops were "slaughtering (Somalis) like goats." In one case, "a young child's throat was slit by Ethiopian soldiers in front of the child's mother.” In another Democracy Now interview, Abdi Samatar, professor of Global Studies at the University of Minnesota, had this to say: "The Ethiopian invasion, which was sanctioned by the US government, has destroyed virtually all the life-sustaining economic systems which the population have built without the government for the last fifteen years. And the militia that are supposed to protect the population have been looting shops. For instance, the Bakara market, which is the largest market in Mogadishu, has been looted repeatedly by the militias of the so-called Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, supported by Ethiopian troops. And the new prime minister of Somalia, Mr. Hassan Nur Hussein, has himself announced in the BBC that it was his militias that—who have looted this place. So what you have is a population that’s hit from both sides--on one side, by the militias of the so-called Transitional Federal Government, which is recognized by the United States, and on the other side, by the Ethiopian invaders who seem to be bent on ensuring that they break the will of the people to resist as free people in their own country.... What you have is really terror in the worst sense of the word, a million people have been displaced that the Ethiopians have been denying humanitarian aid, and the United States which seems to just watch and let it happen. It’s like there's has been a calculated decision made somewhere in the world, maybe in Washington, maybe in Addis Ababa, maybe in Mogadishu itself, to starve these people until they submit themselves to the whims of the American military and the Ethiopians, who are acting on their behalf." Amnesty International has called for an investigation of the United States role in Somalia. Regrettably, neither the United Nations nor the corporate media are at all interested in Bush's war crimes in Africa. What they care about is Mugabe. Notes Somalia: Troops killing people 'like goats' by slitting throats-new Amnesty report http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17747

Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck By Naomi Klein 04/07/08 "The Nation" -- Once oil passed $140 a barrel, even the most rabidly right-wing media hosts had to prove their populist cred by devoting a portion of every show to bashing Big Oil. Some have gone so far as to invite me on for a friendly chat about an insidious new phenomenon: “disaster capitalism.” It usually goes well — until it doesn’t. For instance, “independent conservative” radio host Jerry Doyle and I were having a perfectly amiable conversation about sleazy insurance companies and inept politicians when this happened: “I think I have a quick way to bring the prices down,” Doyle announced. “We’ve invested $650 billion to liberate a nation of 25 million people. Shouldn’t we just demand that they give us oil? There should be tankers after tankers backed up like a traffic jam getting into the Lincoln Tunnel, the Stinkin’ Lincoln, at rush hour with thank-you notes from the Iraqi government … . Why don’t we just take the oil? We’ve invested it liberating a country. I can have the problem solved of gas prices coming down in ten days, not ten years.” There were a couple of problems with Doyle’s plan, of course. The first was that he was describing the biggest stickup in world history. The second, that he was too late: “We” are already heisting Iraq’s oil, or at least are on the cusp of doing so. It’s been ten months since the publication of my book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, in which I argue that today’s preferred method of reshaping the world in the interest of multinational corporations is to systematically exploit the state of fear and disorientation that accompanies moments of great shock and crisis. With the globe being rocked by multiple shocks, this seems like a good time to see how and where the strategy is being applied. And the disaster capitalists have been busy — from private firefighters already on the scene in Northern California’s wildfires, to land grabs in cyclone-hit Burma, to the housing bill making its way through Congress. The bill contains little in the way of affordable housing, shifts the burden of mortgage default to taxpayers and makes sure that the banks that made bad loans get some payouts. No wonder it is known in the hallways of Congress as “The Credit Suisse Plan,” after one of the banks that generously proposed it. Iraq Disaster: We Broke It, We (Just) Bought It But these cases of disaster capitalism are amateurish compared with what is unfolding at Iraq’s oil ministry. It started with no-bid service contracts announced for ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total (they have yet to be signed but are still on course). Paying multinationals for their technical expertise is not unusual. What is odd is that such contracts almost invariably go to oil service companies — not to the oil majors, whose work is exploring, producing and owning carbon wealth. As London-based oil expert Greg Muttitt points out, the contracts make sense only in the context of reports that the oil majors have insisted on the right of first refusal on subsequent contracts handed out to manage and produce Iraq’s oil fields. In other words, other companies will be free to bid on those future contracts, but these companies will win. One week after the no-bid service deals were announced, the world caught its first glimpse of the real prize. After years of back-room arm-twisting, Iraq is officially flinging open six of its major oil fields, accounting for around half of its known reserves, to foreign investors. According to Iraq’s oil minister, the long-term contracts will be signed within a year. While ostensibly under control of the Iraq National Oil Company, foreign firms will keep 75 percent of the value of the contracts, leaving just 25 percent for their Iraqi partners. That kind of ratio is unheard of in oil-rich Arab and Persian states, where achieving majority national control over oil was the defining victory of anticolonial struggles. According to Muttitt, the assumption until now was that foreign multinationals would be brought in to develop brand-new fields in Iraq — not to take over ones that are already in production and therefore require minimal technical support. “The policy was always to allocate these fields to the Iraq National Oil Company,” he told me. This is a total reversal of that policy, giving INOC a mere 25 percent instead of the planned 100 percent. So what makes such lousy deals possible in Iraq, which has already suffered so much? Ironically, it is Iraq’s suffering — its never-ending crisis — that is the rationale for an arrangement that threatens to drain its treasury of its main source of revenue. The logic goes like this: Iraq’s oil industry needs foreign expertise because years of punishing sanctions starved it of new technology and the invasion and continuing violence degraded it further. And Iraq urgently needs to start producing more oil. Why? Again because of the war. The country is shattered, and the billions handed out in no-bid contracts to Western firms have failed to rebuild the country. And that’s where the new no-bid contracts come in: they will raise more money, but Iraq has become such a treacherous place that the oil majors must be induced to take the risk of investing. Thus the invasion of Iraq neatly creates the argument for its subsequent pillage. Several of the architects of the Iraq War no longer even bother to deny that oil was a major motivator. On National Public Radio’s To the Point, Fadhil Chalabi, one of the primary Iraqi advisers to the Bush Administration in the lead-up to the invasion, recently described the war as “a strategic move on the part of the United States of America and the UK to have a military presence in the Gulf in order to secure [oil] supplies in the future.” Chalabi, who served as Iraq’s oil under secretary and met with the oil majors before the invasion, described this as “a primary objective.” Invading countries to seize their natural resources is illegal under the Geneva Conventions. That means that the huge task of rebuilding Iraq’s infrastructure — including its oil infrastructure — is the financial responsibility of Iraq’s invaders. They should be forced to pay reparations. (Recall that Saddam Hussein’s regime paid $9 billion to Kuwait in reparations for its 1990 invasion.) Instead, Iraq is being forced to sell 75 percent of its national patrimony to pay the bills for its own illegal invasion and occupation. Oil Price Shock: Give Us the Arctic or Never Drive Again Iraq isn’t the only country in the midst of an oil-related stickup. The Bush Administration is busily using a related crisis — the soaring price of fuel — to revive its dream of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). And of drilling offshore. And in the rock-solid shale of the Green River Basin. “Congress must face a hard reality,” said George W. Bush on June 18. “Unless members are willing to accept gas prices at today’s painful levels — or even higher — our nation must produce more oil.” This is the President as Extortionist in Chief, with gas nozzle pointed to the head of his hostage — which happens to be the entire country. Give me ANWR, or everyone has to spend their summer vacations in the backyard. A final stickup from the cowboy President. Despite the Drill Here. Drill Now. Pay Less bumper stickers, drilling in ANWR would have little discernible impact on actual global oil supplies, as its advocates well know. The argument that it could nonetheless bring down oil prices is based not on hard economics but on market psychoanalysis: drilling would “send a message” to the oil traders that more oil is on the way, which would cause them to start betting down the price. Two points follow from this approach. First, trying to psych out hyperactive commodity traders is what passes for governing in the Bush era, even in the midst of a national emergency. Second, it will never work. If there is one thing we can predict from the oil market’s recent behavior, it is that the price is going to keep going up regardless of what new supplies are announced. Take the massive oil boom under way in Alberta’s notorious tar sands. The tar sands (sometimes called the oil sands) have the same things going for them as Bush’s proposed drill sites: they are nearby and perfectly secure, since the North American Free Trade Agreement contains a provision barring Canada from cutting off supply to the United States. And with little fanfare, oil from this largely untapped source has been pouring into the market, so much so that Canada is now the largest supplier of oil to the United States, surpassing Saudi Arabia. Between 2005 and 2007, Canada increased its exports to the States by almost 100 million barrels. Yet despite this significant increase in secure supplies, oil prices have been going up the entire time. What is driving the ANWR push is not facts but pure shock doctrine strategy — the oil crisis has created the conditions in which it is possible to sell a previously unsellable (but highly profitable) policy. Food Price Shock: Genetic Modification or Starvation Intimately connected to the price of oil is the global food crisis. Not only do high gas prices drive up food costs but the boom in agrofuels has blurred the line between food and fuel, pushing food growers off their land and encouraging rampant speculation. Several Latin American countries have been pushing to re-examine the push for agrofuels and to have food recognized as a human right, not a mere commodity. United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte has other ideas. In the same speech touting the US commitment to emergency food aid, he called on countries to lower their “export restrictions and high tariffs” and eliminate “barriers to use of innovative plant and animal production technologies, including biotechnology.” This was an admittedly more subtle stickup, but the message was clear: impoverished countries had better crack open their agricultural markets to American products and genetically modified seeds, or they could risk having their aid cut off. Genetically modified crops have emerged as the cureall for the food crisis, at least according to the World Bank, the European Commission president (time to “bite the bullet”) and Prime Minister of Britain Gordon Brown. And, of course, the agribusiness companies. “You cannot today feed the world without genetically modified organisms,” Peter Brabeck, chairman of Nestlé, told the Financial Times recently. The problem with this argument, at least for now, is that there is no evidence that GMOs increase crop yields, and they often decrease them. But even if there was a simple key to solving the global food crisis, would we really want it in the hands of the Nestlés and Monsantos? What would it cost us to use it? In recent months Monsanto, Syngenta and BASF have been frenetically buying up patents on so-called “climate ready” seeds — plants that can grow in earth parched from drought and salinated from flooding. In other words, plants built to survive a future of climate chaos. We already know the lengths Monsanto will go to protect its intellectual property, spying on and suing farmers who dare to save their seeds from one year to the next. We have seen patented AIDS medications fail to treat millions in sub-Saharan Africa. Why would patented “climate ready” crops be any different? Meanwhile, amid all the talk of exciting new genetic and drilling technologies, the Bush Administration announced a moratorium of up to two years on new solar energy projects on federal lands — due, apparently, to environmental concerns. This is the final frontier for disaster capitalism. Our leaders are failing to invest in technology that will actually prevent a future of climate chaos, choosing instead to work hand in hand with those plotting innovative schemes to profit from the mayhem. Privatizing Iraq’s oil, ensuring global dominance for genetically modified crops, lowering the last of the trade barriers and opening the last of the wildlife refuges … Not so long ago, those goals were pursued through polite trade agreements, under the benign pseudonym “globalization.” Now this discredited agenda is forced to ride on the backs of serial crises, selling itself as lifesaving medicine for a world in pain

Towards a Second American Revolution That existing government by engaging in criminal wars, embargoes, blockades and other black-listing of foreign nations has made the United States not just an international bully but a piranha, world’s leading perpetrator of genocide and dislocation of people By Ben Tanosborn 04/07/08 -- A Re-Declaration of Independence By the People of the United States of America On This Fourth of July 2008 When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with its own government, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the denunciation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, a new government must be instituted, deriving its just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience has shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. –Such has been the patient sufferance of the people of the United States of America; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their existing system of government. The history of the Executive in this government, exemplified and accentuated by the current administration; together with a long history of a lobbies-corrupted Legislature and a politically-appointed Judicial, are histories of repeated injuries and usurpations, not acting as to balance power but jointly providing a unified corruptive government, all having in direct object the establishment of a world empire and a domestic ruling class able to exercise absolute tyranny over the people. The present and recent past administrations of the United States of America are hereby deemed non-responsive to the interests and well-being of the people of this nation while also acting as an imminent and constant danger to the cause of peace in the world. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. …That existing government has made itself a self-perpetuating tyranny where the channels to change and impeachment are de facto blocked by the duopolistic party system. … That existing government operates under the auspices of special interest groups whose money influence the election of officials in such government, the enactment of legislation, and the way domestic and foreign policy are created and conducted. … That existing government has not only permitted but promoted the ever-widening gap between haves (20%) and have-nots (80%), with serious wealth and income inequality. … That existing government shows no concern for the well-being of the people as evidenced by the availability of healthcare, education and social welfare relative to other nations with similar or fewer resources. … That existing government is responsible for instilling fear in the population, making terror the underlying reason for curtailing freedoms, spying or even lying to the people. … That existing government maintains a military with a destructive capacity far in excess of that needed for self-defense; and to the detriment of public needs. And that such massive destructive capacity only serves to paint the United States as a coercive, imperialistic and terrorist nation. … That existing government by engaging in criminal wars, embargoes, blockades and other black-listing of foreign nations has made the United States not just an international bully but a piranha, world’s leading perpetrator of genocide and dislocation of people. … That existing government has in fact misgoverned domestically in every facet of governing; while abusing its power to promote mayhem internationally which has gravely damaged the reputation of the people of this nation before the eyes of the world. We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, in self-representation and joined in mind and effort, appeal to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name of one another with common joint interests, and self-exercising our authority as free people, solemnly publish and declare, that these United States of America are, and of right ought to be free from the tyranny of the existing government; that they are absolved from all allegiance to this existing Federal government, and that all political connection between them, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that the Fifty States making up this union immediately join forces to create and summon a Constitutional Congress for the sole purpose of enacting a new constitution and the formation of a new Federal government; representatives to that Congress to be judiciously chosen by the States in proportional numbers to population. The new constitution, and the government which will derive from it, to be exemplary models in morality and brotherhood; such government to have full power to work for peace and against war, to regulate all wealth-producing activities to guarantee a free but fair market, and to do all other acts and things which independent nations may of right do for the well-being of its citizens. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we, the people of these United States of America, pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Now, the US Neocons and Israel are seriously considering bringing a new Holocaust to the Middle East by attacking Iran, or is it another decoy to divert attention from another serious daylight robbery of another nation somewhere else? Nur

eNuri Introduces the Next USA President. Imagine, three men in a tent at a desert location somewhere in the Middle East, discussing the appointment of next American President. The Three men are: 1. Ehud Barak of Israel 2. Saddam Hussein of Iraq 3. Osama Binladin of Tora Bora The three men are discussing who should be the next President of the United States, since Americans elect their officials more for charisma and good sounding names, and less for substance, they discuss what name will be so captivating and memorable for voters during the Primaries and in November 2008? well, here is their imaginative Compromise: His First Name should reflect his total allegiance and unwavering support for Israel, and that can be attained if his first name sounds like the leader of the Likud Party of Israel, Ehud Barak. His Second Name, should reflect a Muslim name accepted by Sunni and sanctified by the Shia. Hussein was the Grand son of Prophet Muhammad Martyred in Karbalaa, the holiest Shia Shrine. His Last Name, should sound like Osama, since the Osama name and its sounding is the most recognized name for Corporate America during the 8 years of the Bush Administration. No name has created so much wealth (reverse Robin Hood, from the poor nations to the rich)! than Osama. The Ideal Presidential Candidate NAME shall sound like: Barak Hussein Obama! Reverend Martin Luther King's famous dream came true when black and White kids held hands for the election of a true colorful American son of African Muslim Immigrant, and a White Christian Girl. I also had a dream: In this dream, I was marrying a Jewish woman, I can't remember details of the marriage, when I got up that morning, It was shocking! an Islamist-Zionist Marriage? I cooled down, I realized it was only a dream, I quickly opened my Dream Interpretation guide book. Guess what was the interpretation? My book says " Marrying a Jewish woman in a dream means wealth/ money is about to knock on my door, It means Allah will bless me with worldly wealth". This is not bad after all, I am relieved. Now, If you ask me, unlike Martin Luther King, my Dream has not been realized, I am still waiting for my wealth, which I need for my Somali orphanages, and my beautiful Jewish bride! which can happen if Hamas and Israel dance together in Haifa streets. But I believe in miracles. From what I've heard about Jewish women, they are great mothers and wives. In the 1981 movie, carbon Copy, a memorable quote by Walter Whitney says: " I'm Jewish, my son is Black and my lawyer smokes pot. Don't tell me I'm not in trouble " Like Walter Whitney, Obama, the Democratic Presidential hopeful has done his best to keep Muslims at arms length just like Mr. Whitney who was embarrassed when Roger Porter (His illegitimate black son) unexpectedly shattered His suburban affluent lifestyle when he knocks on his door while Walter was happily dining with his picture perfect wealthy white Jewish family, shocking him with his doomed greeting" Hi, Dad !" Which partially explains why the Obama campaign is uneasy about the "Muslims" name and the " Hijab" to be seen around Obama? You see, my dear Nomad, The Jewish owned Media has already tainted Islam and Muslims beyond repair as bunch of Terrorists in the American mind, I mean, the Media has succeeded in painting on American voters heads that Muslims were responsible for 911 tragedy, the war In Iraq and the Weapons of Mass Deception, The crazy Taliban of Afghanistan, The Somalia Banana Threat on America's sanity. You name any foreign trouble for the USA, and somewhere, lurks a Muslim name. When you deliver such a message in the morning paper with every bottle of milk , how can the same media moguls convince Americans to vote for a candidate with the most difficult sounding name since the discovery of America? even if that precisely serves the interest of Corporate America the best? Well, Hillary accused Obama of being a Muslim, since being "Muslim" today in America, is like being a Jew in Germany circa 1935. That accusation was met by the following denial from the Obama camp, "Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.". Translated : "Obama is a good clean shaven church going friend of the Likud Party of Israel" instead, the Party should have defended the morals it hypocritically says it champions, that all men ae created equal! a dignified stand against the very principle of bigotry, in other words, if what has been said about Muslims is said about Jews today, it will spell the end of a career, and income for any hopeful. (That is why marrying a Jewish Woman will keep You rich, at least in dreams). Hence, poor Muslims, are the International "Looma ooyaan". The principle of "looma ooyaan" was invented in Somalia during the un-Civil war. As different clans battled out, the sanctity of the dead was classified according to the power of their clan, so, its easy to know which funeral belongs to the strong clan, usually, a louder wailing and crying is heard if the dead belongs to a powerful clan, while, the weak clans funerals is quiet and subdued, no one cries in their tent, hence the term "looma ooyaan" translation " The dead who no one cries for" Also, the level of crying in a funeral is equivalent to the level of expected revenge to answer the killing of this loved son. The louder the crying, ( American Media), the deadlier the revenge! So, it becomes natural to always be careful who you violate their sanctity, because, as the Somali saying goes, "Ninuusan warankiisu ku gelin, weedhiisu kuma gasho" meaning: " He whose spear can not penetrate (your heart, to kill you), can not force his words to penetrate your mind , in negotiations". Which is the principle that explains why America and Nato are huffing and puffing against Iran's purported shish-kabaab kitchen bomb, when the same can not be said against Russia who has some 4000 mobile nuclear ICBMS all pointed at the West's capitals. Its Ironic that after 911 incident (When America shot itself in the foot, like its soldiers in Vietnam), that the son of A Muslim and a white Christian woman, whose name rhymes with Osama, and His Middle name reminds Americans Saddam Hussein, is seriously the front runner for Presidency. What happened to the Anglo Saxon Dominance of American politics? during last election, it was Lieberman ( Jewish American), and this time around, a woman and a black? America is becoming very colorful if you ask me, but as a Muslim, I am still color blind, I see the world as believers and non believers! If my guess is right, The Democratic Party is in dire need to reinvent itself, it must please everyone (except you know who): They need the following minimum scores to win in November: 1. 50% of white Vote, 2. 70% Of Latino Vote. 3. 90% of African- American Vote, 4. 60% of Christian Vote, 5. 50% of Jewish Vote, 6. 80% of The Young (students and professionals) 7. Zero Percent of Muslim Vote! They are like the bad cholesterol, the lesser involved in the campaign, the better! So, Who can deliver the above targets except a candidate who has studied at Ivy league ( hence his friendship with Corporate America), Unqualified support for Israel, ( First US President to openly endorse the occupation of Muslim Jerusalem as the undivided Capital of Israel, who also has Oprah Winfrey's support)! So, Now you can see the value of Obama to his investors, a man who is black and white, staunch friend of Israel (most important qualification for any politician), a church going Christian, salable to naive Muslims as their ( closet Muslim , when appropriate), and the first black American who is not a descendant of slaves ( Whites feel no guilt toward Obama), as he was born of a free Kenyan Muslim Father and a White Christian Mother, both well educated and Intellectuals. The above explains, the mechanics of wealth, power and the presidency in the good old US of A. Is Obama going to win the election in November? Well, I predict he will be the next US President, and if my other dream (which I cant share *) proves to be true, Obama will resign early during the first 24 months of His Presidency due to an internal conflict involving his white house staff. Nur 2008 eNuri Forecasting Services. Bringing You The Future! One Step Closer! -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------ * Reason I cant share this dream is because of an incident that took place in Somalia during the Siad Barre administration; Story has it that a man had a dream of a coup that overthrew the Siad Barre Regime, the dreaded NSS, arrested the man and interrogated him Guantanamo style ( we Somalis take honor teaching America about interrogation skills). The interrogating officer questioned the man to describe the people who he has seen in his dream that were the plotters of the coup, after water-boarding him in the Indian Ocean, the man had no choice but to cherry pick passersby from the streets to alleviate his pain"

A Declaration Of Independence From The Government Of The USA By Anonymous This article is from an anonymous woman now living in South Africa. It was sent to me by a third party, and I have no reason to believe that it's bogus. In any case, I believe its relevance to the present moment is stunning.--Carolyn Baker 03/07/08 "Carolyn Baker" -- - Through my signature below I hereby withdraw my consent to be ruled by the organization that has called itself the Government of the United States of America. A government is empowered through the consent of the governed to serve a sacred purpose, namely, to create a bright and sustainable future for its people and a biodiverse garden of its region. This purpose is possible. If a government no longer serves its intended purpose then it is proper that each individual formally withdraw his or her consent to be ruled by that government. Through a consistent stream of actions the United States Government has proved itself to be corrupt, having turned away from serving its original purpose. The United States Government has therefore failed, and is de facto illegitimate. Consequently, all of its authorities over me are hereby removed and the United States Government is hereby disbanded in its entirety. All branches, the legislative, executive and judicial branches, including all offices and resources, political, military, informational and financial, are hereby disenfranchised and replaced by local, self-organizing, bioregional governments and currencies that promote sustainable infrastructures and demonstrably serve the principles of integrity, transparency, interdependence, consciousness and the sustainable well being of their entire ecology. Human beings carry an inalienable responsibility for choosing to whom or what they pledge their allegiance. From this moment forward I no longer pledge my allegiance to the organization that has called itself the Government of the United States of America. We are dissociated. I disallow that organization to legislate, adjudicate, use money, or make agreements in my name, either nationally or internationally. I hereby withdraw my franchise from the United States Government and I no longer submit myself to its authority. I hereby abandon my United States Passport as worthless, null and void because through its own actions the United States Government has invalidated itself. This document recognizes that the United States Government has Irredeemably abolished itself by no longer fulfilling its true purpose. This document announces that I take my authority back from that failed organization. The United States Government no longer has authority to represent me, tax me, detain me, question me, or in any way rule over me. It can no longer take any actions in my name. From this moment forward I take back my autonomy. I hereby declare my independence from the organization that has called itself the Government of the United States of America. Although I alone, without reason or circumstance, am responsible for my decision to withdraw my franchise and allegiance from the organization that has called itself the Government of the United States of America, I am willing to name examples of how this organization has betrayed the purpose for which it was originally created: 1. The Government of the United States of America (herein referred to as the Government) has consistently legislated in favor of a carbon-based economy that multiplies corporate profits while disregarding the increases in greenhouse gas concentrations to the point where the future of all of humanity is now seriously threatened by the consequences of global warming. 2. The Government has promoted the use of nuclear powered electric generation plants creating millions of tons of lethal nuclear waste products that can never be safely stored, and creating decommissioned power plants that remain radioactive for eternity. 3. The Government has abused its leadership position in the world by promoting fear-based military force as the international culture of America, rather than a culture of innovation, compassion, respect, and mutual support of humanity. 4. The Government over and over again, and still now is using illegal DU (Depleted Uranium) weapons and devices in direct opposition to signed United Nations agreements, degrading the United States of America to a renegade country, likely to have its leadership regime brought to war crimes trials and capitally punished. 5. The Government has promoted an unsustainable consumerism culture that multiplies corporate profits while devouring the future's natural resources and producing mountains, rivers and seas of toxic unrecyclable wastes. The consumer economy never did have a future and still the government promoted it wholeheartedly. 6. The Government has promoted covert military actions and subterfuge that includes traffic in illegal drugs, illegal weapons trade, assassinations, illegal takeovers of corporations and governments, and ruthless competition rather than intelligent cooperation or creative collaboration. 7. The Government has allowed itself to be infiltrated and corrupted by corporate and elite regimes that now direct the branches of Government to serve purposes contrary to the true and proper purpose of government. 8. The Government has turned over control of the currency of the United States of America (the original world currency) to private individuals who manipulate it for their own personal benefit rather than for the benefit of the world. 9. The Government has promoted a system of education that keeps people ****** rather than developing their innate potential and well being so they can create satisfying lives, fulfilling relationships and loving families in the 21st Century. The Government has allowed corporations and organized religions to control school curriculums, and has permitted drugs, gangs and guns to define the school experience for many children. 10. The Government has promoted economy over humanity in a value system that shamelessly sponsors injustice, inequity, and slavery, not only in America but around the world, regarding people in developing nations not as brothers and sisters but as sweatshop slaves for producing cheap clothes and the latest technological devices. 11. The Government has designed cities and towns around automobiles and roads rather than around people, cutting people off from their own community and trapping people in suburbs that are not sustainable. 12. The Government has consistently sponsored an imbalanced budget and has accrued a national debt over one trillion dollars that future generations must somehow pay back, meanwhile losing track of an additional trillion dollars. 13. The Government has greedily destroyed the future of civilization by developing an infrastructure, energy, food, housing and transportation systems relying entirely on consuming vast quantities of hydrocarbons that exist in limited supply, thus building a dangerous house of cards that will now tumble down as oil, gas and coal supplies dwindle. If half of the war budget would have been redirected towards developing renewable power for the last twenty years, the entire country would be oil free by now. 14. The Government has promoted a diet of fat-saturated fast-foods, and hormone and antibiotic saturated beef, pigs, poultry, and dairy products that endanger the health and general well being of its people, ground water and farmlands. The Government has also promoted fishing grounds to be exhausted to near extinction, and promotes deforestation and dependence on pesticides and fertilizers that undermine foreign economies but makes huge profits for corporations. 15. The Government has promoted the so-called patenting and engineering of the genetic designs of life forms to be used for the profit of corporations while endangering the future of the humanity. 16. The Government has promoted the introduction of genetically modified organisms into the general food chain for the profit of corporations while endangering the future of humanity. 17. The Government has used military force, assassination, and political manipulation to overthrow other governments as a desperate attempt to control remaining oil supplies for the purpose of maintaining the illusionary value of a world petro-dollar to assure profit for the corporations rather than assuring a bright future for the people. 18. The Government has promoted a medical establishment that profits pharmaceutical corporations and has blocked the development of less profitable but more humanistic, holistic and intuitive healing modalities. 19. The Government has persistently implemented legislation and presidential orders to override constitutional rights, and has built and staffed over 600 new prison camps across the country prepared to imprison citizens who might be regarded as the enemy of Government. These and other actions reveal that the United States Government has irredeemably abolished itself by no longer fulfilling its original and true purpose.