The news of the exhibition of Holocaust cartoons in Tehran took me back to a moment in my childhood. In 1974, his first year at Tehran's Academy for Visual Arts, my brother mounted an exhibition of his own cartoons. The drawings were a novice's best attempt at political satire, but they were enough to alarm my law-abiding father into sending my brother away to America. Our family was never whole again.

Back then, I thought my father had made the decision out of fear of Savak, the shah's intelligence agency. Years later, I realized that it was not really fear but gratitude for all that a Jewish man had been able to achieve in Iran that prompted him to send my brother away.

Born and raised in the largely Muslim town of Khonsar, my father was admitted to university against all odds, got a master's degree, joined the military as a second lieutenant, went back to his village dressed in the first Western-style suit the locals had ever seen, then moved to Tehran to become a leading educator.

His childhood stories remain the most memorable features of our family gatherings. Once a bad mullah came to Khonsar, intent on making trouble for the Jews; two mischievous Jews drove him out by secretly spraying his prayer mat with liquor. Then there was the time a local fish peddler realized that my father had touched a fish, thereby "dirtying" the whole load. The peddler threw the rest away, providing a feast of free fish to the Jews of the town.

More than any religious instruction, these stories shaped my understanding of what it meant to be an Iranian Jew. In Persia, the land of Queen Esther, whose virtue overcame evil, one could, by wit or by wisdom, overcome every bigot.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rhetoric about the Holocaust may terrify people who don't know Iran. But those who do, find it, above all, tragic. By resuscitating symbols like the swastika and other Nazi-era relics, he is contaminating the Iranian social realm, where such concepts have scarcely existed. No doubt Jews have been mistreated in Iran throughout their long history, but to a degree incomparable to that suffered by Russian and European Jews.

Throughout its 2,000-year presence in Persia, the Jewish community has helped shape Iranian identity. Some major Persian literary texts survived the Arab invasion of the seventh century because they had been transliterated into Hebrew. Traditional Persian music owes its continuity to the Jewish artists who kept it alive when Muslims were forbidden to practice it. Yet Iranian Jews have had to hide their identity and restrain its expression.

Of all the pain that Muslim Iranians have inflicted upon the Jews, the most persistent is obscurity. We have always been admired for being "completely Iranian," the euphemism for being invisible, indistinguishable from Muslims. We speak Persian. We celebrate the Iranian New Year with as much verve as the next Iranian. Our kitchens smell of Persian cuisine. At our Jewish festivities, we dance to Persian music.

Yet Muslim Iranians, even those who have loved and befriended us, have never known us as Jews: in our synagogues, wrapped in prayer shawls, at our holiday tables recounting the history of our struggles. They lack even the proper vocabulary by which to speak about the Jews: "What shall I call you, 'Kalimi' or 'Johoud?'" they sometimes ask. These words are the Persian equivalents of "Jew" and "kike." And occasionally, as if to inflict punishment, they ask: "Do you consider Iran your real homeland?"

Iranian Jews remain obscure to non-Iranian Jews, too. Sometimes they are shocked when I say that my generation was on the streets chanting "Death to the shah!" But 1979 was a blissful, egalitarian moment when young people shed everything that defined them as anything but Iranian.

Four years later, the regime did its best to enact policies hostile to religious minorities. Water fountains and toilets at my high school were segregated, some marked with signs that read "For Muslims Only." But by and large, Iranians were not receptive to such bigotry. We crisscrossed among the stalls until the signs became meaningless.

The postrevolutionary regime has had the misfortune of ruling a people reluctant to embrace its radical message. That is why Iran remains home to the second-largest community of Jews in the Middle East - second only to Israel.

These days my father barely ventures out of his apartment in the New York borough of Queens. When my siblings and I scold him for not getting out enough, he says that there is nothing here he wishes to see. "Tell me we're going to Khonsar," he says, "and I'll see you at the door."

Roya Hakakian is the author of two books of poetry in Persian and the memoir "Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran."

Battle lines

The parallel Tehran wants us to see between its Holocaust-themed cartoons and the controversial Danish ones is not actually there.

August 22, 2006

An exhibiton of cartoons about the Holocaust has gone on display in a Tehran museum. Organisers say they want to test the west's commitment to free speech after the frenzy over cartoons mocking Muhammad published in a Danish magazine.

"Why is it acceptable in western countries to draw any caricature of the prophet Muhammad, yet as soon as there are any questions or doubts raised about the Holocaust, fines and jail sentences are handed down?" the head of the Iranian House of Cartoons asked.

Well, it's a fair question. Is our commitment to free speech as strong as we say it is? The first point to note is that the exhibit opened a week ago, and there are no reports of riots among Jews, Germans or other aggrieved parties; nobody is burning Iranian flags or boycotting Iranian products; no Jewish gunmen have taken over Iranian embassies.

But the parallel the Iranians want us to see is not really there. The Danish cartoons tended to mock Islam's claim to be a religion of peace while seemingly producing a disproportionate number of terrorists. Iranian cartoonists might aptly retort with cartoons highlighting killings by people or nations that profess Christianity: murders of abortion providers in the US, for example (or, come to think of it, legalised abortion itself, given Islam's view of abortion), or US bombings of Muslim countries, or the German killings of Jews. But the Iranian cartoons do not seem to attack the perpetrators of the Holocaust; instead they mock its victims or raise doubts about whether it happened. A parallel might be Danish, or other European, cartoons mocking Muslim victims of Israeli or US bombs. But we have not seen those.

If the controversy helps the Iranians see the benefits of free speech and a free press, all well and good. Of course, the test of that will be when they display not anti-semitic cartoons but the Danish ones - or at least allow cartoons mocking the ayatollah Khomeini and the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to be exhibited at the House of Cartoons.

Even in the west, too many people think a commitment to free speech somehow requires that newspapers publish such items as the Danish cartoons. But every editor makes judgments every day. Sometimes an editor rejects an article or a cartoon for being badly done, sometimes for not being interesting and sometimes for being offensive. Free speech does not require editors and publishers to be deliberately offensive. There are things that decent people do not want to read or view or publish. And I'd say cartoons mocking the victims of mass murder would fall into that category.

That's not to say that I would defend the laws in Germany and Austria that make Holocaust denial a crime. People should exercise good judgment and a decent respect to the opinions of mankind. But they should not go to jail when they flout those standards.

Let the Iranians display their vile cartoons. And let westerners mostly avert their eyes from the vulgar spectacle, as we have been doing for the past week. And let us hope that our "clash of civilizations" can be played out in duelling cartoons, not armies and bombs.

The Arc of “Ziono-Fascism” Forcing America To Pay and Die for Israel

By Mohamed Khodr  Al-Jazeerah, August 14, 2006 Opinion Editorials, August 2006

“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do” -Samuel Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order”

These are the worst of times for our nation, a nation allegedly governed by the consent of the people, yet surrendered its vision, liberty, intellect, and army to pursue the ends of the new world order, the order of “Ziono-Fascism” serving a higher purpose than the divine sanctity of life, America’s pursuit of worldwide friendship, and world peace. Such an order would not be possible without an American government run from within and without by men of greed, men of “Judeo-Christian” warmongers, men of arrogant uncompromising thought, men of singular purpose who take every “Ziono-Fascist” provocation to lie, deceive, demonize, and massacre any nation opposed to their tyranny; men who know the power of propaganda to spin their policies of murder into the spin of democratizing the world, spin death into a necessary sacrifice for liberty.

Who are these evil men of possessed intellect, evil hearts and blood stained hands?

“The Arabs are right when they paint America as a great Zionist conspiracy” -- Prof. Doughlas Rushkoff, N.Y. University “Wrestling with Zion” (Grove Press, 2003).

They are the Parrots of the powerful few “Ziono-Fascist”, who have today and for a long time in the future led this gullible naïve populace to die and pay for Israel; a nation artificially created by lies, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing; a nation that ferments provocations and hopes for more “wars with the Arabs” as Moshe Dayan said, to fulfill its agenda of a “Greater Israel”. Israel’s victory in the six day war of 1967 transformed the former “Anti-Semitic” Christian Fundamentalists into die hard supporters for Israel. For them, supporting Israel arises from their hate of the Jews as ones that must be totally exterminated (exception: 144,000 converted Jews) in the Battle of Armageddon to hasten the return of the ‘Prince of Peace”. A holocaust to save the masses; much like the Bush-Blair genocide of Iraq to save it from Saddam and the “Islamo-Fascists.”

Who are these “Ziono-Fascists”? The Parroters of the Israel Lobby: Bush, the NeoCongress, the Media, and Christian Fundamentalists.

The inherently Zionist, dictator wanna be single minded bipolar Bush who couldn’t recall a mistake he’s made, sees no contradiction between his Pro-Life Belief and Pro-Death policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, and the Occupied Palestinian territories.

This is a man who claims Jesus as his personal “philosopher”; while in reality his DNA’s spiritual guide and philosopher is the “Ziono-Fascist” Natan Sharansky, a human rights advocate who’s never met a Palestinian, Muslim or Christian, worthy of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Bush, the eternally confused, bares his intellectual depravity in this fashion: “I have opinions of my own -- strong opinions -- but I don't always agree with them."

But what drives these “Ziono-Fascists” to destroy the Muslim world, a world that will not succumb to precision bombs, abandon its faith, but contains 60% of the world’s oil reserves?

Buddha had the answer: “They are inflamed by greed, incensed by hate, confused by delusion, overcome by them, and obsessed by mind.”

No one should ever underestimate what J. J. Goldberg calls “Jewish Power.”

In fact, the Jewish American Professor Yuri Slezkine’s latest book is entitled: “The Jewish Century”.

The first sentence in his book’s introduction reads: “The Modern Age is the Jewish Age, and the Twentieth Century, in particular is the Jewish Century.”

Such power is acknowledged by Americans of all persuasions and vocations, many of them Jews, in addition to worldwide opinion. In fact, a poll found that fully 34% of Americans believe Jews have too much power in this country.

But that’s not all, such a belief is held by a great majority of Israeli Jews: "When [Israeli public opinion survey company] Hanoch Smith asked his Israeli respondents whether the Jews of America have control of important branches of the American economy, 73 PER CENT replied in the affirmative ... In a non-Jewish society, this would have aroused suspicion of anti-Semitism, but emanating from a Jewish society, it seemed both a matter of pride and bewilderment." --Colin Shindler, Ploughshares into Swords. Israelis and Jews in the Shadow of the Intifada, I. B. Tauris, London, 1991, p. 94-95

George Washington warned this nation of such a “passionate attachment” to a foreign country lest that country influences, even controls America’s foreign policy to serve its interests and fight its wars. Similarly Thomas Jefferson spoke of the danger of “foreign entanglements”. Woodrow Wilson who lamented the death of the League of Nations as “breaking the world’s heart” spoke of the power of “special interests” on our government as an “invisible empire set up above the forms of democracy”.

Wilson perhaps prophetically was referring to Washington D.C.’s power broker, Israel’s AIPAC, our capitol’s foreign government, when he said: “A little group of willful men, representative of no opinion but their own, have rendered the great government of the United States helpless and contemptible.” Indeed Israel has successfully made America the world’s most contemptible nation.

Eisenhower warned America of the power of the “military industrial complex” that has rendered the Pentagon a lobbying firm for Corporations of death selling arms, weapons, and technology to the highest bidder including Apartheid Israel, Saddam Hussein, the Shah, Suharto, Somoza, Noriega, Pinochet, China, and most of dictatorial Africa. America sells close to half of the world’s weapons while fighting for “world freedom and peace.” Israel and our government’s worst enemies are true democracies and their best friends are dictators, those who are easily bribed, intimidated, or killed.

The primary weapon for the “Ziono-Fascists” is the few but all powerful corporate media that formulate, dominate, and ensure popular compliance with domestic and foreign policies that serve Israel, not America. This is possible because our culture unquestionably ingests, regurgitates, is consumed by and lives by the sounds and images of an all powerful media and entertainment indoctrination. Advertising creates the “analytic mind” that chooses a brand of toilet paper or supports wars.

They advertise, therefore I think.

Recently I was sitting in a doctor’s office with about 20 patients awaiting my appointment. The television in the room was tuned into MSNBC. The main story was Israel’s total devastation of Lebanon and Hezbollah’s retaliatory strikes. Not one single person was looking at the television set or listening to the news; all were either flipping through magazines, reading local papers, conversing, or avoiding any eye contact. The news then turned to Mel Gibson’s drunken remarks. Suddenly, their minds awakened from a bored slumber, their eyes turned to the television with the keenest of interest, and smiles filled their once morbid faces. Dying children was of no interest to this group, but celebrity news was fascinating.

Professor Michael Parenti wrote of this disconnect between Americans and their governmental foreign policies for wars of hegemony, wars for wealth, and wars for Israel when he wrote: "The enormous gap between what US leaders do in the world and what Americans think their leaders are doing is one of the great propaganda accomplishments of the dominant political mythology."

How many manufactured wars were started by the “civilized west” that began with lies, propaganda, demonization, slander, and then genocide? Literally, hundreds.

Alexis de Tocqueville encapsulated America’s intellectual laziness, propensity to unquestionably follow the media and opinion makers---those doctors of murderous spin, and the parroting corrupt politicians when he wrote: “I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.” Today’s “ism” is “Ziono-Fascism”, a belief that Israel can do what it must toward the oppressed Palestinians, the pro-western weak Lebanon, the “next stop….Syria, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, the Gulf”; in essence, the entire impotent Arab Un-Leagued nations, while they must suffer what they must in “quiet”.

Israel is simply following the “Bush Doctrine” of “Pre-emption” against “Islamo-Fascists”; defined as those who oppose occupation, oppression, injustice, theft of land, resources, and wanton massacres by a “moral” army that does not kill, rape, abuse, burn, torture, starve, besiege, imprisons thousands, prevents free movement, forces pregnant women to deliver at checkpoints, abuse human rights, or disallow, food, water, life saving medicines, or baby formulas to “civilians.”

Israel gets away with murder because it has the protection of the Israel First Neo-Congress and media advocacy that grows in intensity each time Israel intensifies its killing spree against Arabs and Muslims. H.L. Mencken quipped that "freedom of the press is limited to those who own one". To Israel and America their victims are A.W.O.L.—Arabs With Out Life.

"International politics are conducted by the media in today's world. Israel must win this war." --Professor Amos Perlmutter

Underlying the entire history of western colonialism toward the “other” is pure RACISM.

It is the historical hallmark of “White Anglo Ziono-Fascism”, not of Islam. If Islam sought the total annihilation of Jews there would be no Jews alive today, rather, it was Islam that provided the safety, security, shelter, and opportunity to European Jews escaping the “peaceful” faith of Europe.

Today’s “Ziono-Fascists” are believers and followers of the mantra of Jules Harmand, the Indo-China French Colonialist (1910)

“We belong to the superior race and civilization… The basic justification of conquest over native peoples is the conviction of our superiority - not just economic and military but also moral…That quality underlies our right to direct the rest of humanity.”

Americans are fed up and disgusted by their government’s blind and pandering support of Israel, right or wrong. They’re sick of having their hard earned dollars be quietly siphoned to a powerful rich nation while their children go hungry, homeless and uninsured. They’re furious that American weapons, delivered by Israel courtesy of their taxes, are massacring innocent civilians at will in Palestine and Iraq. Shrapnels removed from the brains of innocent children carry the sign: “Made in America”

Only Jewish life is Holy in the Holy Land, non-Jews are second class expendable citizens. A recent poll showed 60% of Israelis support ethnically cleansing Israeli Arabs, Muslims and Christians, from Israel proper. America can no longer support or arm the Apartheid racist state of Israel that has never stopped fighting, killing, annexing, ethnically cleansing, and invading Arab nations since its founding. Palestine and America are now occupied territories.

The brave people of Connecticut dumped the Jewish Senator Joe Lieberman for his support of Bush’s Iraqi killing fields; now the entire nation must dump every Congressman who puts Israel’s interest above our national interest. We must end our quagmire with Israel and in Iraq to liberate our nation from the shackles of the “Ziono-Fascists”.

“The United States should seek to allay the deep resentment against it that has resulted from the creation of Israel. In the past we had good relations with the Arab peoples…..there was mutual confidence to mutual advantage….Today the Arab peoples are afraid that the United States will back the new state of Israel in aggressive expansion….expansionist Zionism”. --Secretary of State John Foster Dulles while visiting Palestine in 1953. - Donald Neff, “Fifty Years of Israel” pg. 259

War Backfiring on U.S., Khatami Says
Ex-Iranian President Also Calls Strikes Against His Country Unlikely

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 6, 2006; A04

NEW YORK -- On the eve of his first trip to Washington, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami warned that U.S. military action in the Middle East has backfired, producing greater terrorism, imperiling the future of Iraq and damaging America's long-term interests.

But the danger of even greater instability in the region will ultimately prevent the United States from launching military strikes against Iran over disputes about its nuclear intentions, he predicted. Although an attack on Iran would create "great damage," Khatami said, "prudence and wisdom" are likely to prevail because of the incalculable "detriment and damage" it would cause to both the region and the United States.

"America will not make the mistake of attacking Iran," he said, adding: "Iran is not Iraq."

In a wide-ranging interview Monday night, Khatami said Iran is not intent on eliminating Israel and accepts a two-state solution that includes both Israel and a new Palestine -- on terms acceptable to the Palestinians. He basically contradicted the recent angry rhetoric of his hard-line successor, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has denied the Holocaust and has called for Israel to be wiped off the map.

"The practical policy of the Islamic republic has never been to eliminate or wipe Israel off the map. And I don't believe that this policy has changed with the change of president," Khatami said in an interview in New York, where he is attending a United Nations conference. "You've never heard me reject the right of anyone to exist," added Khatami, who is scheduled to speak at the University of Virginia and the Washington National Cathedral on Thursday.

Khatami ran for office as a reformer and served the two-term presidential limit from 1997 until 2005. Many of his proposed domestic reforms -- from press freedoms to limiting the 12-member Council of Guardians' veto powers -- were blocked by hard-liners now in ascendance. Much of Iran's foreign policy, however, is formulated by consensus after intense debate among its disparate political factions.

Khatami called concern about nuclear proliferation generally "very justified" and insisted that Tehran has not rejected U.S.-backed incentives to end uranium enrichment for its nuclear energy program, a process that can be subverted to develop a nuclear weapon. A U.N. resolution called for Iran to suspend enrichment by Aug. 31 or face punitive action.

"The package has not been rejected," he said, adding that Iran does not yet trust guarantees from the international community that it will have long-term access to fuel for energy, given past failed promises. "The situation can best be resolved by not going toward action that could exacerbate the situation," he said.

On Iraq's future, he said all countries should "seriously and steadfastly" strive to prevent a civil war. He blamed the violence on terrorists who claim to act in the name of religion but instead undermine it.

He warned, however, that Iraq reflects the failure of U.S. policy. "So far, whenever the United States has tried to solve its disputes through military means, it has not achieved its objectives -- and also not solved the problem it meant to solve," he said.

A Shiite cleric who wears the black turban of a descendant of the prophet Muhammad, Khatami expressed regret that he and President Bill Clinton could not do more after both took tentative steps to heal relations severed by the 1979 U.S. Embassy seizure, when 52 Americans were held for 444 days.

"The misunderstanding and mistrust between the two sides was so deep that it could not be solved with these simple minor steps," he said. "The pressure that existed on both sides also meant that we had to proceed with caution." Khatami had publicly called for both sides to bring down the wall of mistrust and encouraged cultural exchanges, and Clinton lifted sanctions on carpets, pistachios and caviar from Iran.

The Bush administration's policies have since deepened tensions between Tehran and Washington, said Khatami, who now heads the International Center for Dialogue Among Civilizations, which is based in Tehran and Geneva. Although Iran favored the Taliban's ouster from Afghanistan and an Iranian-backed Afghan movement worked with U.S. Special Forces to topple it in 2001, Khatami complained that President Bush turned around three months later and labeled Iran a member of the "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea.

In Iraq, Khatami said Tehran had also recognized the U.S.-orchestrated transition governments and elections, while not insisting that the Shiite majority inherit power. "Why is it that Iran is still under so much pressure and is attacked so often by the U.S. administration, even though it cooperated in this manner?" he said. "Unfortunately, with these policies, more bricks will only be added to the wall of mistrust."

The Bush administration has repeatedly charged that Iran has undermined the political transitions in both neighboring countries while also arming and funding some of Iraq's illegal militias. Iran has long been on the State Department's list as the leading state sponsor of extremist groups, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

Khatami said Hezbollah's 34-day war with Israel has produced a surge of popularity throughout the Islamic world for Lebanon's Shiite movement. Most of Hezbollah's weaponry is provided by Iran.

Khatami's trip has become increasingly controversial since his arrival last Thursday. Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday ordered state agencies to refuse any form of support, including police escort, for Khatami's speech at Harvard on Sunday.

"State taxpayers should not be providing special treatment to an individual who supports violent jihad and the destruction of Israel," Romney said in a statement released by his office. Romney, a potential Republican presidential candidate, called Harvard's decision to invite Khatami a "disgrace."

As it does with current and former heads of state visiting the United States, the State Department's Bureau of Diplomatic Security is providing protection for Khatami's 13-member entourage, which includes two of his children, during his tour of New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston and Charlottesville.

In the most unusual stop of his visit, Khatami is scheduled to tour Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Charlottesville. Khatami has called Jefferson a "character dear to us all." The third president is particularly popular among Middle Eastern reformers because he wrote extensively about religion and democracy.

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Former Iranian President Met by Protest
By KEN MAGUIRE  09.10.2006  AP

On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami condemned Osama bin Laden and suicide bombings but also defended groups such as Hezbollah for what he characterized as resistance against Israeli colonialism.

In a 30-minute speech given under tight security at Harvard University, Khatami repeatedly praised the concept of democracy but said American politicians, since World War II, have been infatuated with "world domination."

Khatami said he was one of the first world leaders to condemn "the barbarous acts" of Sept. 11. Responding to a question from the audience about bin Laden, Khatami said he had two problems with the al-Qaida leader behind the attacks.

"First, because of the crimes he conducts," he said, "and second because he conducts them in the name of Islam, the religion which is a harbinger of peace and justice."

Khatami also denied that Iran helps fund the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, but defended the organization's right to exist. "Hezbollah today is a symbol of Lebanese resistance," he said.

Khatami was met by protesters when he arrived at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Many angrily called on him to stand up for human rights.

Police estimated that 200 were in the crowd that blamed him for failing to stop government crackdowns on student activists in Tehran during his two terms in office.

Several human rights organizations say the crackdowns are believed to have been initiated by his rivals and approved by Iran's ruling Muslim clerics.

"His speech is on ethics and violence. It would be very bizarre if he came here to speak on ethics and violence and did not acknowledge and discuss his own record in Iran," said Eric Lesser, 21, president of Harvard College Democrats, which teamed with their Republican peers for the protest. "Students were arrested and thrown in prison for speaking their mind in the same way we're doing right now."

Khatami was considered a reformist during his two terms as president that ended last year. His visit to the United States has been criticized by many, particularly amid concerns about Iran's nuclear program.

The visit angered Joshua Levin, 42. He said, "When someone this evil comes to your city you must oppose him. He's a fascist. He sponsors terror."

There were no major problems, but police presence was heavy, Cambridge police spokesman Frank Pasquarello said. One man was detained, although it was not immediately clear why.

Harvard has been criticized for the timing of its invitation to Khatami, who is taking a two-week tour of the United States.

Harvard professor Graham Allison, who moderated the program, noted that the university officially will commemorate the Sept. 11 attacks and defended the invitation by citing President Bush's remarks in a Wall Street Journal interview.

"I'm interested in learning more about Iran, the Iranian government and how they think," Allison quoted Bush as saying. "So are we," Allison added.

Khatami is the most senior Iranian to travel outside New York in the United States since Islamic fundamentalists seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held Americans hostage for 444 days. He was invited to the United States by the U.N.-sponsored Alliance of Civilizations, of which he is a founding member. The group strives to foster cross-cultural understanding between Western and Islamic states.

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Khatami slams Bush during US visit
By NATHAN GUTTMAN
NEW YORK Jerusalem Post  www.jpost.com

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami criticized President George W. Bush in interviews published Tuesday, as he joined Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and other leaders at the United Nations for a meeting of a group that promotes understanding between Western and Islamic states.

Khatami, in the middle of a two-week tour of the United States, refused to speak with the media as he went in and out of the room where the meeting of the Alliance of Civilizations took place at UN headquarters. The event was closed to the media.

Yet in interviews with CNN and USA Today, Khatami faulted Bush on several counts: He refused, for example, to back off a previous comparison between the American leader and Osama bin Laden. He also said the US was partly to blame for the turmoil in the Middle East.

"As a result of such wrong policies, such unilateral, violent policies, that is - the voice of logic has decreased and voice of terror and attractiveness of terror unfortunately among youth has increased," CNN quoted him as saying in an interview.

Khatami will spend a second day at the UN for the event. He spoke in the Chicago area over the weekend, and will attend two Islamic conferences as well as deliver a speech at the National Cathedral in Washington.

Khatami is the most senior Iranian to travel outside New York in the United States since Islamic fundamentalists seized the US Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and held Americans hostage for 444 days. He and his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have both addressed the UN General Assembly.

Khatami reiterated the government's claim that it is not seeking nuclear weapons. The United States insists that it is.

"Why should they not trust Iran?" CNN quoted him as saying. "See, at this moment, Iran is a signatory to the treaty, has declared many times it has no interest in building the nuclear bomb."

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan created the Alliance of Civilizations - headed by Spain and Turkey - last year as a vehicle to overcome the mutual suspicion, fear and misunderstanding between Islamic and Western societies that have been exploited by extremists throughout the world, according to its terms of reference. Khatami is a founding member.

The group is expected to report to Annan in the second half of 2006 on actions to counter extremism and promote mutual respect between civilizations and cultures.

Other members include the wife of the emir of Qatar, Sheika Mozza bint Nasser al-Misnid; former prime minister of Senegal Moustapha Niasse; and Rabbi Arthur Schneir, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation in New York.

Khatami distanced himself from comments by Ahmadinejad that Israel should not exist.

"I personally never said that Israel should be wiped off the map," he told CNN. "I always said and backed fair and equal peace in the region."

In a separate interview with USA Today, Khatami said US forces should remain in Iraq for the time being.

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U.S. Expects Iran Sanctions Within Weeks
By GEORGE JAHN The Associated Press  Friday, September 8, 2006; 11:52 AM

Mehmet Ayudin, right, and Federico Mayor, co-chairs of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations briefed journalists after their 2-day meeting

Mehmet Ayudin, right, and Federico Mayor, co-chairs of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations briefed journalists after their 2-day meeting at the offices of the Turkish Mission to the United Nations at the U.N. Headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2006. (AP Photo/David Karp) (David Karp - AP)

 

BERLIN -- The United States expects a Security Council agreement on U.N. sanctions against Iran within weeks unless Tehran agrees at the last minute to freeze uranium enrichment, a senior State Department official said Friday.

Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns also dismissed suggestions of cracks in the six-power coalition pushing Tehran to give up enrichment.

Speaking a day after those countries ended confidential discussions in Berlin, Burns said further talks were needed on how harshly to penalize Tehran for its refusal to freeze enrichment, as demanded by the Security Council. But he said a lot of progress was made.

Outlining the U.S. view of the timetable on Iran in the coming weeks, Burns said the six nations would further consult by phone on Monday and hoped to present a unified approach on sanctions to their foreign ministers by the time the U.N. General Assembly opens Tuesday.

"It's fair to say we have ... a lot more work to do," he told guests at an event staged by The American Academy in Berlin. "But I believe we will be successful in passing the sanctions resolution shortly" in the Security Council, he added.

"The American view is that following these discussions on Monday and perhaps some others early next week, we should move this to the Security Council and draft a resolution" on sanctions, he said.

Thursday's meeting in Berlin came amid efforts by key European nations to enlist world support in pressuring Iran to give up uranium enrichment.

In a confidential document obtained by The Associated Press and sent to dozens of capitals last week, Britain, France and Germany warned that Tehran's stalling tactics on whether it was ready to meet terms for new nuclear talks were an attempt "to split the international community."

But there were indications that France, a key U.S. ally in pushing for firm U.N. action against Iran, might be wavering.

While Iran has expressed a desire for negotiations, the six nations have insisted that Iran suspend enrichment before talks begin. The six countries _ Germany plus Security Council powers Britain, France, China, Russia and the U.S. _ have offered Iran a package of economic, political and strategic rewards to comply with the demand.

But French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy on Thursday appeared to suggest that demand was negotiable, saying: "The question is to know at what moment this suspension takes place compared to negotiations."

Burns dismissed suggestions of a split, saying all five permanent Security Council members insist negotiations should not start until Iran suspends enrichment.

"I have not heard from any government from this group that we should change the basic offer, that hasn't changed," he said, adding: "No one mentioned anything like this" during Thursday's meeting.

"The Iranians are in a very tough position," Burns said. "At first they thought, let's divide the United States from the EU-3 and that didn't succeed. The Iranians are obviously trying to divide Russia and China from the rest of us, and that hasn't succeeded."

Still, a diplomat familiar with the U.S. stance said Burns was worried about the French statement, which would weaken what has been a unified stance between the four Western countries in the six-nation coalition for a need to move to sanctions if Iran remains defiant.

Mohammed Khatami, the two-term former Iranian president, suggested that not only France but Russia and China _ which have been skeptical about sanctions _ were no longer insisting that an enrichment freeze had to precede negotiations.

"As far as I know, Russia, China and France are interested in pursuing the dialogue even without preconditions," he said Thursday in Washington.

Burns spoke on the eve of a crucial meeting between senior EU envoy Javier Solana and Ali Larijani, the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator. An Iranian official told the AP the talks were set for Vienna, with Larijani scheduled to arrive Friday evening.

The talks are considered a final attempt to find common ground to start negotiations between Iran and the six powers.

As the Americans and their allies worked at the Berlin meeting to overcome Russian and Chinese opposition to sanctions, the European document appealed to other countries for support.

The 1 1/2-page paper labeled "In Confidence" summarizes Iran's response to incentives package. The six powers have also asked Iran to consider a long-term moratorium on the technology, which can be misused to make nuclear arms.

Iran, which insists its nuclear program is meant only to produce fuel, refused suspend enrichment by an Aug. 31 deadline set by the Security Council. Its Aug. 22 response to the rewards offer has been kept confidential. But the United States and its allies have described it as unsatisfactory, primarily because of Tehran's refusal to consider freezing enrichment.

"The Iranian goal obviously is to split the international community," says the document, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany. While not specifically threatening U.N. sanctions, it says the Security Council will have to consider "further steps" if Tehran continues to defy the council.

Diplomats familiar with the document said it was drawn up to inform other nations of the substance of Iran's counteroffer and share the Western view that it was inadequate.

"The reply is along the lines of previous Iranian statements in that typically it neither accepts nor rejects outright" the six-nation proposal, said the document.
 

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Poll: Americans prefer multilateralism
The American public rallied around their president after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, but at this point they have largely grown tired of his unilateralism "that has created a disaster in Iraq, alienated our allies and allowed the proliferation of nuclear weapons to North Korea and Iran," according to a recent survey of voters. Among those who pay attention to foreign affairs, 60%, prefer to work through the United Nations, compared to the 31% who prefer the Bush administration's unilateralist approach.

The public does not support unilateralism

President Bush has traveled full circle.  In 2000, many harbored grave doubts about the foreign policy aptitude of a one-term governor who, by his own admission, could not find Kosovo on a map.  Heading into Election Day, Al Gore enjoyed a yawning 14-point advantage as the candidate better able to deal with foreign affairs.

Merely by virtue of holding office on September 11th, as a nation under attack rallied around its president, Bush was transformed into a font of foreign policy wisdom. Through the first half of 2002, 70 percent or more of Americans approved of the way he handled foreign affairs.

Today, with criticism swirling around his handling of Iraq, North Korea, Iran and the Hezbollah War, just 39 percent approve of Bush’s foreign policy.

Much of this disdain is performance based. It is difficult to approve of failure; tough to find something worthy of approval in a policy that has created a disaster in Iraq, alienated our allies and allowed the proliferation of nuclear weapons to North Korea and Iran.

However, public dissatisfaction also arises from a principled indictment of the underlying tenets of the president’s foreign policy. 

Where Bush is an inveterate unilateralist, Americans prefer multilateralism. Where Bush emphasizes force over diplomacy and persuasion, Americans prefer the latter tools whenever feasible. Where Bush abhors admitting mistakes, Americans want him to fess-up to his errors.

A survey we just completed among voters who pay attention to foreign affairs vividly illustrates public disagreement with the President’s policy.

Only 31 percent share Bush’s commitment to unilateralism, believing that it is better for the U.S. to “act on its own because we can act more decisively and effectively in our national interest.” Nearly twice as many (60 percent) prefer to “work through the U.N….”

Americans appreciate the power of multilateralism in confronting terror.  Just 25 percent accept Bush’s view that it is more important “for the U.S. to decide on its own whether and how to hit terrorists and the countries that support them.” Sixty-eight percent put the priority on having other nations “respect us and want to work with us in the war on terror.”

Just 23 percent say it is more important “for terrorists, and countries that sponsor them, to fear our power,” while 70 percent prioritize enhancing our international standing and working with other countries.

Voters most attentive to foreign policy understand that Bush has made us weaker, not stronger. They recognize that, in important measure, our power rests on the strength of our example and the cohesion of our alliances. Nearly half (48 percent), say Bush’s foreign policy has made the U.S. weaker, whereas just 28 percent accept the President’s contention that he has made America stronger. The public believes a positive image of America in the world is a strategic asset in the war on terror, but by 61 percent-15 percent, they maintain that image has deteriorated under Bush.

Voters are sure President Bush has made mistakes abroad and are angry at his refusal to admit it. More believe he is “too stubborn” and “unwilling to compromise” than say he is a “strong leader” or “tough enough to deal with terrorism.”

Thus, by a 16-point margin, Americans who pay attention to foreign affairs want to change the course of Bush’s foreign policy. Only by acknowledging he is changing course can the President begin to restore the public confidence he has lost.

My profession lost one of its greatest practitioners last week, Warren Mitofsky. His formidable intellect and encyclopedic knowledge set a standard to which the rest of us merely aspire. I learned more in five minutes listening to Warren than I could in years of trying on my own. Those privileged to know him are better for his friendship and diminished by his passing.

By Mark Mellman who is president of The Mellman Group and has worked for Democratic candidates and causes since 1982, including Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) in 2004. http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/Pollsters/MarkMellman/090606.html

Mr Annan said the mediator would work discreetly

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan says Israel and Hezbollah have accepted his offer to mediate in the dispute over two captured Israeli soldiers.

Hezbollah seized the soldiers during a cross-border raid in July, triggering the recent conflict with Israel.

The group has called for an exchange of prisoners with Israel.

Israel has repeated its view that the soldiers must be freed unconditionally and has said the UN will assist, rather than mediate, towards this end.

An Israeli spokesman Mark Regev told the BBC that Israel viewed the continued detention of the two soldiers as a violation of the ceasefire that ended the fighting, and expected the UN to facilitate their unconditional release.

The BBC's Jill McGivering in Jerusalem says it is politically awkward for Israel to endorse the idea that the UN is brokering negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel's public position is that it will not negotiate with Hezbollah, which it regards as a terrorist group.

However, our correspondent says many Israelis accept that a deal - of the kind struck over prisoners in the past - is likely.

UN resolution

A special mediator will be appointed but Mr Annan intends to keep his or her name, and the negotiations, secret.

Many areas are in ruins following the conflict

Mr Annan's spokesman said both parties had asked for mediation and that he had agreed "to play a role".

Mr Annan, his spokesman said, "has not only received a green light from the Israelis but they have also given him a contact point".

But the Israeli government said Mr Annan's announcement was not in line with its position on the prisoners.

"A mediator is not needed," an official told the Reuters news agency.

"The UN resolution determines that soldiers will be released unconditionally. The UN secretary general will assist - and not mediate."

In August, the UN Security Council passed a resolution backing the ceasefire after the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Resolution 1701 called for "a full cessation of hostilities", and for UN and Lebanese troops to replace Israeli forces in southern Lebanon.

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In an interview with Le Monde, Ehud Olmert says
Israel wants Peacekeepers

Département de l’information • Service des informations et des accréditations • New York

Alliance des Civilisations

Le Groupe de haut-niveau pour l’Alliance des civilisations poursuivra demain l’examen du projet de rapport qui devrait être présenté au Secrétaire général à la mi-novembre. 

Demain, à 13 heures, les coprésidents du Groupe, Federico Mayor de l’Espagne et Mehmet Aydin de la Turquie, tiendront une conférence de presse sur les travaux de l’Alliance. 

Alliance des civilisations : 'progrès significatifs' vers l'élaboration d'un premier rapport

7 septembre 2006 – Education, jeunesse, immigration, femmes et médias seront les priorités du premier rapport de l'Alliance des civilisations, un Groupe de sages créé l'année dernière par le Secrétaire général pour répondre aux divisions croissantes entre le monde musulman et l'Occident, qui s'est réuni pour la troisième fois cette semaine à New York.

La question de la politique d'intégration des immigrés dans leurs nouvelles sociétés sera également examinée dans le rapport, a indiqué le ministre turc Mehmet Aydin, qui co-préside le Groupe de haut niveau, lors d'une conférence de presse donnée hier à New York.

L'élaboration du rapport qui doit être remis à Kofi Annan à la mi-novembre était au centre de la réunion de l'Alliance des civilisations qui s'est achevée hier à New York. Le Groupe devra émettre des recommandations concrètes pour répondre collectivement à la montée de l'intolérance, de l'extrémisme, de la violence et du terrorisme.

Le ministre turc a affirmé que le Groupe avait fait des « progrès significatifs » vers un texte final, expliquant que le document couvrirait les questions de l'éducation, de la jeunesse, de l'immigration, des femmes et des médias.

Les participants à la réunion ont estimé que les Nations Unies et les organisations devaient jouer un rôle plus important dans la préservation de la paix et de la sécurité internationales, a encore rapporté Mehmet Aydin.

« Il y a un sentiment général que les droits de l'homme et les valeurs partagées communément dans notre monde doivent être soutenues, et aucune concession ne doit être faite, quelles que soient les circonstances, si ces valeurs communes sont menacées », a-t-il ajouté.

Coprésidé par l'ancien directeur général de l'UNESCO, l'Espagnol Frederico Mayor, et le ministre et professeur de théologie turc, Mehmet Aydin, le Groupe de haut niveau a tenu sa première réunion de travail en novembre dernier à Majorque en Espagne (voir notre dépêche du 28 novembre 2006).

Parmi les 19 membres du groupe de haut niveau figurent l'ancien président iranien Seyed Mohamed Khatami, l'ancien ministre des Affaires étrangères français Hubert Védrine et le conseiller spécial du roi Mohammed VI du Maroc André Azoulay (dépêche du 2 septembre 2005).

Destinée à combattre les divisions entre les cultures, notamment islamiques et occidentales, qui menace de manière potentielle la paix dans le monde, l'Alliance des civilisations a été lancée par le Secrétaire général le 14 juillet 2005 (dépêche du 14.07.05).

Le Premier ministre espagnol José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero et le premier ministre turc Recep Tayyip Erdogan sont à l'origine de cette initiative.

http://www.un.org/apps/newsFr

Visite aux Etats-Unis de l'ancien président iranien Mohammad Khatami

NEW YORK (AP) -- L'ancien président iranien Mohammad Khatami va se rendre dans des universités, participer à une réunion aux Nations unies et assister à deux conférences islamiques au cours d'une visite de près de deux semaines aux Etats-Unis, a rapporté vendredi un responsable proche de l'ex-chef d'Etat.
M. Khatami est arrivé jeudi aux Etats-Unis après avoir bénéficié d'un visa accordé mardi par le Département d'Etat qui n'a imposé aucune restriction concernant ses déplacements. "Il n'y a pas de problème, il est entré aux Etats-Unis", a précisé le responsable au sujet de l'arrivée de M. Khatami dans la capitale américaine.
L'ancien président iranien a été invité par l'Alliance des Civilisations des Nations Unies, dont il est l'un des membres fondateurs et doit assister à une réunion prévue mardi et mercredi.
Il projette notamment de se rendre à l'Université Columbia à New York, mais pourrait devoir annuler ce déplacement en raison d'un problème d'emploi du temps.
Par ailleurs, M. Khatami doit se rendre à Chicago pour le congrès annuel de l'Islamic Society of North America au cours du week-end.
Jeudi, il doit prononcer un discours à l'Université de Virginia sur les rapports entre religion et politique. Puis il regagnera Washington pour une intervention à la Cathédrale nationale. Vendredi soir, il doit aussi s'exprimer devant le Council on American-Islamic Relations à Washington.
Dimanche 10 septembre, sa visite l'emmènera à Harvard, dans le Massachusetts où il doit à nouveau intervenir.
En pleine crise sur le dossier nucléaire iranien, Mohammad Khatami est le plus haut responsable iranien à se rendre aux Etats-Unis depuis la rupture des relations diplomatiques entre les deux pays après la prise d'otages à l'ambassade américaine à Téhéran en 1979. AP

http://archquo.nouvelobs.com/cgi/articles?ad=etranger/20060901

Le Pentagone redessine le monde

« Au-delà de ces affrontements se profile un danger majeur, celui du divorce entre les mondes, Orient contre Occident, islam contre chrétienté, riches contre pauvres». A deux reprises en quatre jours, le président Jacques Chirac a exigé d'Israël qu'il lève le blocus imposé au Liban en violation de la résolution 1701 du Conseil de sécurité, appelé à une relance des efforts diplomatiques pour régler les conflits libanais et israélo-palestinien, ainsi que la crise nucléaire avec l'Iran. A défaut, le président français annonce la reprise de la guerre et un « divorce entre les mondes » entre l'Occident et le monde musulman. On eût tant aimé la même clairvoyance et la même détermination chiraquienne s'agissant de la France et de l'Europe ! Si elle suit des chemins et des buts assez différents, la décomposition du Moyen-Orient va en effet de pair avec celle de l'Europe, au sens notamment où elle semble servir d'abord les intérêts stratégiques et économiques de la première puissance mondiale (Lire La France doit dénoncer la PESC et refuser de payer le chèque britannique et Proche-Orient, la position de la France est en train de s'imposer , de François Asselineau)

Rappelons qu'au lendemain des attentats de New-York, des spécialistes tels Aymeric Chauprade, avaient exposé comment et pourquoi les Etats-Unis, ayant désormais les coudées franches au nom de la lutte contre le terrorisme islamiste, entreprenaient sur plusieurs années un remodelage complet du Proche et Moyen-Orient. Excipant divers prétextes pour convaincre la communauté internationale à les suivre - ou au moins à les laisser faire -, les Américains allaient même utiliser la puissance militaire pour réaliser cette recomposition, au service de leurs intérêts géostratégiques bien compris. Nous avions repris son analyse au début 2003 (Lire Moyen-Orient : le monde attend la France , appelant le Président Jacques Chirac et son excellent Ministre des Affaires étrangères Dominique de Villepin, à faire usage du droit de veto français contre la nouvelle guerre d'Irak). Nous résumions ainsi l'enjeu : "Devenus économiquement ultra-dépendants du reste du monde avec un déficit commercial abyssal (450 milliards de dollars), les Etats-Unis sont le consommateur improductif de la planète. Or, à l'horizon 2015, aura émergé un géant économique : la Chine. Inquiets, ils ont donc entrepris en Asie son encerclement par la Corée du Sud, Taïwan, la Thaïlande, Singapour, les Philippines, le Japon et maintenant l'Asie centrale (depuis le 11 septembre). Ce faisant, ils bloquent à l'Asie nucléaire (Chine, Pakistan, Inde) la route des hydrocarbures de la mer Caspienne, alors même que les besoins de ces pays vont doubler pour soutenir leur demande intérieure. La mainmise d'aujourd'hui sur l'Irak, préalable au contrôle de l'Iran, s'inscrit naturellement dans ce projet. En d'autres termes, Washington a un intérêt stratégique à contrôler la pompe énergétique qui alimente la croissance asiatique, en particulier la croissance chinoise."

Décomposer les Etats - frontières, souveraineté et population - et recomposer la carte sur des critères régionaux et ethniques discutables et dangereux: telle est la logique de l'intégration supranationale en Europe... comme au Moyen-Orient. Si elle veut éviter le piège du "divorce des mondes" et du "choc des civilisations", la France, qui rêve d'un monde multipolaire - et on voit mal qui d'autre qu'elle, affranchie des entraves européennes, voudrait et pourrait mener cette résistance - doit gravement se poser la question de savoir s'il faut continuer à laisser les Etats-Unis recomposer la carte du monde.
En effet, dans la tribune ci-dessous, Pierre Hillard* révèle et commente une carte fort intriguante du Moyen-Orient, publiée par une revue militaire américaine (AFJ : Armed Forces Journal), en juin dernier, c'est à dire peu avant l'intervention Israélienne au Liban. Il s'agit d'une carte, pour l'instant, de politique-fiction, intitulée "Redrawing the Middle East Map" ("Before" et "After", à la suite du présent article) qui recompose le Moyen-Orient sur des critères ethniques, plus précisément tout ce qui se trouve dans un triangle Turquie-Afghanistan-Yemen, tel que les stratèges américains le souhaitent dans le cadre du fameux projet de remodelage d'un "grand Moyen-Orient" musulman jusqu'au Maroc. L'objectif annoncé : pacifier les "zones chaudes par les frontières prévues dans le nouveau monde démocratqiue, libéral et bien pensant de Washington" commente Pierre Hillard. Tiens, on croyait que faire la paix imposait d'abolir les frontières ?... ChB

La recomposition programmée du Moyen-Orient, par Pierre Hillard

 

 

Les deux cartes "Redrawing the Middle East Map" publiées par le "Armed Forces Journal" sont visibles en cliquant sur les liens Jpeg à la suite du présent article
 

 

            Les tensions et les violences qui secouent le Moyen-Orient depuis l’intervention israélienne au Liban, le 12 juillet 2006, ne sont que la partie visible d’un immense enjeu politique, économique, religieux et philosophique opposant l’Occident aux Etats islamiques de la région. L’occupation américaine de l’Irak en mars 2003 a permis le lancement d’un projet révolutionnaire en vue de remodeler une vaste zone géographique allant du Maroc au Pakistan: le Grand Moyen-Orient. Derrière cette appellation, c’est une recomposition profonde qui attend ces pays musulmans. Beaucoup de théories et de supputations courent sur les ambitions des Etats-Unis et d’Israël au sujet de la politique poursuivie par leurs dirigeants. Cependant, des signes avant-coureurs apparaissent et permettent d’apercevoir concrètement les plans en cours. C’est tout l’enjeu des cartes ci-jointes appelant à recomposer le Moyen-Orient.
 

            Ces cartes (« before » : situation en 2006 et « after » : situation après recomposition) sont parues dans une revue militaire américaine, AFJ (Armed Forces Journal), en juin 2006 sous la plume d’un lieutenant-colonel américain à la retraite, Ralph Peters. Ce dernier s’est illustré dans une division d’infanterie mécanisée à partir de 1976 pour, ensuite, poursuivre ses activités dans le renseignement militaire en 1980. Auteur de nombreux ouvrages traitant de la stratégie et des relations internationales, Ralph Peters s’est retiré officiellement de l’armée en 1999. Cependant, ses contacts restent étroits avec ce milieu puisqu’il fait partie de l’équipe dirigeante d’AFJ. Cette revue n’est qu’une partie d’un véritable empire de la presse militaire américaine. Fondé en 1863, ce mensuel s’adresse aux officiers des Etats-Unis traitant de sujets aussi variés comme : la technologie militaire, la logistique, la stratégie, la doctrine ou encore la tactique. En fait, AFJ est coiffé par une maison mère, Army Times Publishing Company, dont les publications s’articulent autour de trois axes :
 

1) The Military Times Media Group qui publie: Army Times, Navy Times, Air Force Times et Marine Corps Times.

 

2) The Defense News Media Group, groupe mondial des revues de défense et qui publie: Defense News, Armed Forces Journal (AFJ), Training § Simulation Journal et C4ISR Journal (renseignement, surveillance et reconnaissance).

 

3) The Federal Times, hebdomadaire d’informations traitant des nouvelles technologies et des sujets financiers.

 

            Depuis le 1^er août 1997, Army Times Publishing Company est une filiale d’un groupe encore plus puissant, la société Gannett. Fondé en 1906 par Frank Gannett, cet empire de presse et des médias publie aux Etats-Unis près de 90 quotidiens dont les plus connus sont USA Today et USA Weekend et contrôle 22 stations de télévision. Ses activités débordent aussi au Royaume-Uni puisque 17 quotidiens sont sous son influence. L’ensemble génère des revenus financiers colossaux estimés à 7,6 milliards de dollars pour 2005.

            Cette présentation permet de mieux saisir dans quel milieu la revue AFJ évolue et la signification des travaux de Ralph Peters. En effet, les propositions de ce dernier et les appels lancés à un changement radical des frontières du Moyen-Orient ne sont évidemment pas le résultat des réflexions d’un seul homme soucieux d’occuper son temps. De nombreuses études ont été lancées au sein des instances militaires américaines comme dans de nombreux think tanks appelant à revoir les limites frontalières de ces Etats. Comme le montre la carte (« after »), les modifications apportées aux frontières sont le fruit d’une lente mais sûre réflexion intellectuelle dont la publication dans une revue militaire américaine de haut rang n’est pas l’effet du hasard. Le but recherché est aussi de tester les réactions en particulier celles des musulmans de la région. Cela dit, il ne faut pas voir ce document comme définitif. En fait, c’est un prototype susceptible de connaître des changements que certains appelleraient des variables d’ajustement. En réalité, l’intérêt majeur de ces travaux est de révéler que les instances militaires et politiques des Etats-Unis se sont résolument engagées dans un domaine en n’hésitant plus à l’officialiser. En même temps, cette entreprise doit se faire en adéquation avec Israël concerné au premier chef par ces bouleversements. A l’égard de ce pays, Ralph Peters se définit comme un ami « de longue date » (New York Post, 22 juillet 2006).
 

            L’article de ce militaire américain, intitulé « Frontières ethniques, que faire pour améliorer le Moyen-Orient », part du principe qu’il faut lever le tabou de la sacro-sainte frontière inamovible. Pour l’auteur, les nouvelles frontières doivent se modeler en fonction du critère ethnique et confessionnel. Même s’il n’est pas possible de tracer des frontières respectant la totalité des particularismes en tout genre nombreux et numériquement très variables, il faut pour Ralph Peters se rapprocher au maximum de ce concept. Comme il le souligne : « Nous parlons de difformités énormes faites par les hommes qui n’arrêteront pas de générer la haine et la violence tant qu’elles n’auront pas été corrigées ». Dans son esprit, il s’agit de remettre radicalement en cause les frontières nées des Accords Sykes-Picot de 1916 préparant le démantèlement de l’Empire ottoman.
 

            En observant l’ensemble de cette zone en partant de la Péninsule arabique, on constate immédiatement le démantèlement du royaume d’Arabie Saoudite. Les propos de l’auteur sont très clairs à l’égard d’un pays qui a bénéficié de la protection américaine suite aux discussions entre le président Roosevelt et le roi Ibn Saoud, le 14 février 1945, à bord du croiseur USS Quincy. Désormais, le royaume d’Arabie Saoudite passe à la trappe. Deux grandes entités territoriales échappent à l’autorité de Riyad. Sur la côte Ouest, il s’agit de créer un « Etat sacré islamique ». Comme le précise Ralph Peters dans des propos lourds de conséquences : « La cause principale de la large stagnation du monde musulman réside dans le traitement réservé à la Mecque et à Médine considérés comme leur fief par la famille royale saoudienne. Les lieux saints de l’Islam soumis au contrôle de la police d’Etat de la part d’un des plus bigots et oppressifs régimes au monde ont permis au Saoud (ndlr : la famille régnante d’Arabie Saoudite) de projeter leur croyance wahhabite à la fois intolérante et disciplinée au-delà de leurs frontières. (...) Imaginez comme le monde musulman se sentirait mieux si la Mecque et Médine étaient dirigés par un Conseil représentatif tournant issu des principales écoles et mouvements de l’Islam dans le monde au sein d’un Etat sacré islamique – une sorte de super Vatican musulman – où l’avenir de la foi serait débattu au lieu d’être arbitrairement fixé ».
 

            Ce point est capital puisqu’il révèle la volonté de réformer l’Islam afin de l’adapter aux principes occidentaux. Une sorte « d’Islam des Lumières » élaboré au cœur de cet Etat sacré islamique permettrait de rayonner sur l’ensemble du monde musulman et de remodeler les esprits afin qu’ils épousent pleinement la philosophie mondialiste. Il est vrai que contrôler les esprits a toujours permis de contrôler les hommes. C’est d’ailleurs dans le même ordre d’idée que l’on retrouve ces mesures préconisées par la Fondation Bertelsmann, think tank allemand qui, dans ses travaux débattus dans le cadre des « Discussions de Kronberg » en 2002 et 2003 (Europe, the mediterranean and the Middle East, strengthening responsibility for stability and development et Die Zukunft der europäischen Politik im Nahen Osten nach dem Irak Krieg), relève l’inadéquation de l’Islam à l’évolution du monde moderne et prône une refonte des mentalités et la remise en cause des frontières. Ces recommandations allemandes soulignent aussi la convergence des buts à atteindre de part et d’autre de l’Atlantique pour refondre entièrement le Moyen-Orient. Il est vrai aussi que les concepts ethno-confessionnels développés par Ralph Peters cadrent parfaitement avec la vision ethniciste germanique.

Sur la côte du Golfe persique, c’est la province de Hassa dont la population est majoritairement chiite qui est détachée de l’Arabie Saoudite et intégrée à un « Etat chiite arabe », vestige d’un Irak littéralement explosé. L’application de cette mesure entraînerait la mort économique du royaume car c’est à cet endroit que se concentre l’essentiel de l’extraction des hydrocarbures autour de la triade Dammam-Dharhan-Al-Khobar. L’Etat chiite arabe verrait ses réserves pétrolières et gazières monter en flèche et deviendrait incontournable car, outre les vastes ressources de Hassa et de la production off-shore, il faudrait ajouter celles de la région de Bassora (ex-Irak) et des provinces arabes iraniennes, détachées de Téhéran, riches en hydrocarbures jouxtant le Chatt el-Arab (Arabes chiites du Khouzistan et Arabes sunnites du Bouchir). De plus, Riyad perdrait ses provinces du Sud (Jizrane, Najran et l’Assir) au profit du Yémen, territoires acquis en 1934 lors du Traité de Taëf, et qui ont conservé leur identité yéménite. Enfin, la curée sera complète avec l’octroi d’une façade maritime à la Jordanie, Etat pro-occidental, en arrachant à l’Arabie Saoudite les provinces de Tabouk et une partie du Jouf.
 

La destruction du royaume des Al Saoud affichée par la carte (« after ») de Ralph Peters n’est que la confirmation de projets élaborés au sein de certaines instances américaines. David Rigoulet-Roze, spécialiste du Moyen-Orient, dans son ouvrage « Géopolitique de l’Arabie Saoudite » (Editions Armand Colin) le souligne clairement : « Il y eut notamment la publication le 6 août 2002, par le Washington Post, d’un briefing qui a eu lieu le 10 juillet 2002 au Defense Policy Board (DPB, ndlr : organisme de planification stratégique créé en 1985 par Donald Rumsfeld), alors dirigé par le très influent Richard Perle, surnommé le Prince des ténèbres lorsqu’il officiait au Pentagone entre 1981 et 1987 sous l’administration Reagan. Au cours de ce briefing, l’Arabie Saoudite avait été qualifiée par Laurent Murawiec, un analyste du prestigieux centre de recherches stratégiques de la Rand Corporation, de pays ennemi. (…) Pire encore, Murawiec avait évoqué la légitimité de sanctions, dont le gel des avoirs saoudiens, voire … la scission de la province orientale du royaume renfermant ces gisements et ces réserves pétrolières qui font de l’Arabie le maître du quart des réserves d’or noir. (…) Quelques temps seulement après l’affaire Murawiec, c’était au tour d’un think tank proche des néo-conservateurs, le Hudson Institute – dont Perle est membre, et où officie désormais Murawiec – de reprendre et de développer les idées avancées par le DPB. Etait alors ouvertement évoqué un plan de démantèlement de l’Arabie Saoudite qui, en réalité, existe depuis la fin des années 70, à l’initiative d’Henry Kissinger, alors Secrétaire d’Etat de l’Administration Nixon. (…) C’est également dans le même ordre d’idées que semble s’inscrire un rapport remontant à la fin de l’année 2002, circulant au plus haut niveau dans les milieux officiels de Washington. Il envisagerait rien moins que le démembrement pur et simple de l’Arabie Saoudite selon le scénario suivant : les Lieux saints de la Mecque et de Médine se verraient confiés aux Hachémites qui, en tant que descendants du Prophète, bénéficient d’une légitimité qui fait largement défaut à la dynastie des Al Saoud et la province du Hassa serait poussée à faire sécession dans le but de se constituer en Emirat pétrolier ».

Les révélations de ce spécialiste français continuent sur la même lancée puisqu’il affirme la volonté des Etats-Unis de favoriser une « recomposition politique radicale du Moyen-Orient qui passerait notamment en Irak même par une dévolution du pouvoir à la majorité chiite par les grâces d’une démocratie arithmétique ». C’est justement ce que révèle la carte (« after ») de Ralph Peters où l’Etat irakien a disparu au profit d’un Etat chiite arabe et d’un résidu appelé « Irak sunnite » que le militaire américain propose même d’unifier à la Syrie qui, entre-temps, a perdu sa façade maritime au profit d’un Grand Liban. Il est même évoqué sous sa plume la renaissance de l’antique Phénicie (Phoenecia reborn) tandis que l’Etat d’Israël est conservé dans ses frontières d’avant 1967. Il est étonnant de constater, en raison du véritable chambardement des frontières au Moyen-Orient, que Ralph Peters conserve le territoire de la Cisjordanie (west bank) au rang de statut indéterminé. Peut-être que le statut définitif de Jérusalem, siège de trois grandes religions, nécessite de ne pas révéler tout de suite l’avenir d’une zone éminemment convoitée.

En tout cas, la partition de l’Irak sur la carte (« after ») commence à prendre forme sur le terrain. L’ambassadeur britannique à Bagdad, William Patey, et le général américain John Abizaid ont clairement affiché leurs craintes d’une guerre civile suivie d’une division du pays comme l’a révélé un document confidentiel publié par la BBC (Spiegelonline, 3 août 2006). Leurs affirmations ne font que confirmer les propos du journal d’Istanbul, Vatan, qui évoquait les propos tenus à des représentants turques par des responsables américains, début 2006, au sein des think tanks de Washington : « Arrêtez de vous soucier de l’intégrité territoriale de l’Irak. En réalité, ce pays est déjà divisé ! Vous [les Turcs] feriez mieux de vous préoccuper maintenant de votre Sud-Est [région à majorité kurde]. Essayez d’imaginer quelles seront les répercussions de l’autonomie du Kurdistan irakien dans votre pays » (Courrier International n°805). C’est d’ailleurs le même son de cloche de la part des dirigeants européistes de Bruxelles qui susurrent à Ankara que « Si la Turquie se séparait de son Sud-Est, elle entrerait plus facilement dans l’Union européenne » (Courrier International n°805). L’ethno-régionalisme prôné par les instances bruxelloises ne ferait qu’accélérer le phénomène de décomposition de l’Etat turc. Finalement, les propos de Ralph Peters ne font que confirmer ces prises de position puisqu’il ajoute qu’un cinquième de la partie Est de la Turquie est un « territoire occupé » et qu’un « Kurdistan libre, s’étendant de Diyarbakir jusqu’à Tabriz deviendrait l’Etat le plus occidental entre la Bulgarie et le Japon ».

La création d’un Etat kurde (Free Kurdistan) construit à partir des territoires Sud-Est de la Turquie, du Nord de la Syrie et de l’Irak, et de l’Ouest de l’Iran aboutirait à l’émergence d’un bloc estimé à environ 30 millions d’habitants. Fort des installations pétrolières de Kirkouk, cet Etat kurde pro-américain serait avec l’Etat chiite arabe les deux grands pôles de la production d’hydrocarbures et de gaz du Moyen-Orient. L’importance de cet Etat kurde serait d’autant plus grande que l’oléoduc BTC évacue le pétrole de la Mer Caspienne à partir de Bakou (Azerbaïdjan), passe par Tbilissi (Géorgie) pour, ensuite, traverser tout le Sud-Est de la Turquie et aboutir à Ceyhan en Méditerranée. Les Kurdes seraient donc les grands maîtres de ce corridor énergétique voulu par les Américains en 1994. En plus du pétrole, il faut ajouter l’autre grande richesse, l’eau. Le « Grand projet anatolien » (GAP) poursuit l’objectif, grâce à 22 barrages, de dompter le Tigre et l’Euphrate qui prennent leurs sources dans les montagnes kurdes. L’achèvement de ce projet qui doit avoir lieu vers 2013, permettant l’irrigation de 1,7 million d’hectares et la production d’électricité, sera une arme redoutable aux mains de l’Etat kurde et pèsera lourdement sur la vie des habitants de tout le Moyen-Orient.
 

A l’Est des Etats kurdes et chiites, l’Iran est remodelé en fonction des critères ethniques. Après avoir cédé sa partie kurde, la zone turcophone du Nord est octroyée à l’Azerbaïdjan. En revanche, la province iranienne du Khorasân s’agrandit vers l’Est en acquérant le territoire Ouest de l’Afghanistan, la région de Hérat, en conformité avec la volonté de Ralph Peters de reconfigurer la région selon les critères ethno-linguistiques. Comme le confirme Bernard Hourcade, directeur au CNRS (équipe de recherche : monde iranien), dans son ouvrage « Iran, nouvelles identités d’une République » (Editions Belin) : « L’immense province de Khorasân, (…) les limites anciennes incluaient les régions de Hérat dans l’actuel Afghanistan et celles de Samarcande et Boukhara en Ouzbékistan ». Enfin, un « Baloutchistan libre » (Free Baluchistan) est créé à partir des deux entités iraniennes et pakistanaises tandis que l’Afghanistan se voit agrandi au dépens du Pakistan jusqu’au fleuve Indus afin d’y rattacher les populations pachtounes. L’Etat pakistanais réduit de près de la moitié de sa superficie verrait sa puissance économique fortement amoindrie au point d’être incapable de servir d’allié de revers au profit de la Chine face à l’Inde. Sur ce point, les Etats-Unis seraient gagnants. Seuls des Etats comme Oman, le Qatar, les Emirats arabes unis et le Koweït échappent à ces modifications. Cependant, cette carte (« after ») étant un prototype, rien n’interdit à leurs concepteurs de se rattraper. En tout cas, la finalité américaine est de contrôler tout ce Moyen-Orient par la parcellisation ethnique et religieuse selon le bon vieux principe « diviser pour régner ». Les Etats-Unis, cherchant à s’assurer la production d’hydrocarbures à leur profit, seraient en mesure de priver la Chine, puissance montante et rivale, de l’arme énergétique si nécessaire à son accession à la cour des grands.
 

L’impression générale qui se dégage du remodelage annoncé par cet auteur comme de la part de nombreux think tanks américains et allemands est celle d’un bouleversement mettant à feu et à sang ces pays du Moyen-Orient. En effet, on ne voit pas ces Etats se laisser charcuter, voire disparaître, sans se laisser faire. Comment réagira, par exemple, le Pakistan qui possède l’arme nucléaire ? En réalité, l’objectif est d’intégrer ces immenses territoires à la sphère d’influence occidentale. Le discours de Joschka Fischer à la 40è Conférence de Munich sur la politique de sécurité dans le cadre de l’OTAN, le 7 février 2004, annonçait la volonté du monde occidental de mettre ces pays du Moyen-Orient aux normes euro-atlantistes. Ces mesures furent confirmées par « l’alliance germano-américaine pour le XXIè siècle » signée, le 27 février 2004, entre le président Bush et le chancelier Schröder à Washington, annonçant la couleur : « Nous devons construire un véritable partenariat qui relie l’Europe et l’Amérique aux Etats du Proche et Moyen-Orient (…) ». Cette immense construction politique et métaphysique doit obligatoirement obéir à des règles communes qui sont politiques, économiques et civilisationnelles. Une logique, mais une logique folle, anime les concepteurs de ce projet. C’est le think tank German Marshall Fund (GMF) qui, indirectement, a révélé l’engagement profond des instances atlantistes. En effet, il s’est engagé sous l’égide du très influent Bruce Jackson à développer une nouvelle politique en Mer Noire intitulée « A new euro-atlantic strategy for the Black Sea region ». Il s’agit en liaison avec l’Union européenne de créer une eurorégion de la Mer Noire qui doit voir le jour pour 2007 selon les affirmations de Giovanni di Stasi, président du Congrès des Pouvoirs Locaux et Régionaux d’Europe (CPLRE). Or une « petite » phrase résume tout. Paru en 2004, le rapport du GMF dans sa préface précise que « La Mer Noire est la nouvelle interface entre la communauté euro-atlantique et le Grand Moyen-Orient ». Une « interface » géographique obéit aux lois de la physique. Pour fonctionner et jouer pleinement sa mission de charnière, cette interface doit s’articuler entre deux mondes, le bloc euro-atlantiste d’une part, et le bloc moyen-oriental d’autre part, régis par les mêmes lois et les mêmes concepts édictés par la philosophie mondialiste. Cela suppose nécessairement une refonte généralisée de cet espace arabo/perse musulman pour qu’il y ait adéquation. Pour réussir cette entreprise, les moyens mis en œuvre risquent d’aboutir à un chaos inimaginable dans cette région et, par ricochet, à l’échelle planétaire. Tout compte fait, les adeptes de cette politique ne font qu’appliquer les fameux vers du poème de Goethe, « l’apprenti sorcier », qui rappelaient : « Les esprits que j’ai réveillés ne veulent plus m’écouter ».
 

Pierre Hillard, docteur en sciences politiques, B.I n°113 (*) est professeur d'histoire-géographie. Il a publié différents articles dans Le Figaro, Géostratégiques, Conflits Actuels, Intelligence et Sécurité, Balkans-Infos.

 

Il est notamment l'auteur de "La décomposition des nations Européennes : de l'union euro-atlantique à l'Etat mondial", (éditions Francois-Xavier De Guibert, 2005) ainsi que "Minorités et régionalismes dans l'Europe Fédérale des Régions : Enquête sur le plan allemand qui va bouleverser l'Europe" (Francois-Xavier De Guibert, 2001)  Acheter en ligne 

Du même auteur sur ce site : La géopolitique secrète de la Constitution européenne
 

Ci-dessous, les cartes "Redrawing the Middle East map" au format Jpeg :

Redrawing the Middle East map - BEFORE.jpg  (113.1 KB)
Redrawing the Middle East map - AFTER.jpg  (125.4 KB)

http://www.observatoiredeleurope.com/Le-Pentagone-redessine-le-Moyen-Orient_a521.html

The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world's largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they've lived since Xenophon's day.

The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad's fall. A Frankenstein's monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq's Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq's Kurds would vote for independence.

As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to "mountain Turks" in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara's hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world's legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.

A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.

A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family's treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam's holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world's most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.

While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam's holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world's major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia's coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.

Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.

In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.

Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.

Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region's self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.

From the world's oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.

If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.

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www.turkishforum.com

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Bu Harita Uzerinde Cok Konusulan Ve Buyuk Ortadogu Projesine (BOP )Veya Amerikalilarin Deyisi Ile PNAC (Project For The New American Century)  Projesine Kismende olsa Bagli Denilmektedir.

PNAC Hakkinda Gerekli Bilgileri Ingilizce Olarak Www.Newamericancentury.Org.Htm Web Sitesinde Bulabilirsiniz. Kisaca:

ABOUT PNAC

THE PROJECT

FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY

http://www.newamericancentury.org/aboutpnac.htm

Established in the spring of 1997, the Project for the New American Century is a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership. The Project is an initiative of the New Citizenship Project (501c3); the New Citizenship Project's chairman is William Kristol and its president is Gary Schmitt.
Project Directors    William Kristol, Chairman     Robert Kagan      Bruce P. Jackson     Mark Gerson     Randy Scheunemann

Project Staff     Ellen Bork, Acting Executive Director    Gary Schmitt, Senior Fellow    Thomas Donnelly, Senior Fellow    Reuel Marc Gerecht, Senior Fellow, Director of the Middle East Initiative   Timothy Lehmann, Assistant Director    Michael Goldfarb, Research Associate

Statement of Principles
http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm 

June 3, 1997

American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.

We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global
responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;

• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;

• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;

• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Elliott Abrams    Gary Bauer    William J. Bennett    Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney    Eliot A. Cohen    Midge Decter    Paula Dobriansky    Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg    Francis Fukuyama    Frank Gaffney    Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan    Zalmay Khalilzad    I. Lewis Libby    Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle    Peter W. Rodman    Stephen P. Rosen    Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld    Vin Weber    George Weigel    Paul Wolfowitz

International borders are never completely just. But the degree of injustice they inflict upon those whom frontiers force together or separate makes an enormous difference — often the difference between freedom and oppression, tolerance and atrocity, the rule of law and terrorism, or even peace and war.

The most arbitrary and distorted borders in the world are in Africa and the Middle East. Drawn by self-interested Europeans (who have had sufficient trouble defining their own frontiers), Africa's borders continue to provoke the deaths of millions of local inhabitants. But the unjust borders in the Middle East — to borrow from Churchill — generate more trouble than can be consumed locally.

While the Middle East has far more problems than dysfunctional borders alone — from cultural stagnation through scandalous inequality to deadly religious extremism — the greatest taboo in striving to understand the region's comprehensive failure isn't Islam but the awful-but-sacrosanct international boundaries worshipped by our own diplomats.

Of course, no adjustment of borders, however draconian, could make every minority in the Middle East happy. In some instances, ethnic and religious groups live intermingled and have intermarried. Elsewhere, reunions based on blood or belief might not prove quite as joyous as their current proponents expect. The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant "cheated" population groups, such as the Kurds, Baluch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities. And one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.

Yet, for all the injustices the borders re-imagined here leave unaddressed, without such major boundary revisions, we shall never see a more peaceful Middle East.

Even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries between the Bosporus and the Indus. Accepting that international statecraft has never developed effective tools — short of war — for readjusting faulty borders, a mental effort to grasp the Middle East's "organic" frontiers nonetheless helps us understand the extent of the difficulties we face and will continue to face. We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected.

As for those who refuse to "think the unthinkable," declaring that boundaries must not change and that's that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now (as ambassadors and special representatives avert their eyes to study the shine on their wingtips).

Oh, and one other dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.

Begin with the border issue most sensitive to American readers: For Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbors, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. But the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes. Where all parties have turned their god into a real-estate tycoon, literal turf battles have a tenacity unrivaled by mere greed for oil wealth or ethnic squabbles. So let us set aside this single overstudied issue and turn to those that are studiously ignored.

The most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East (the figures are imprecise because no state has ever allowed an honest census). Greater than the population of present-day Iraq, even the lower figure makes the Kurds the world's largest ethnic group without a state of its own. Worse, Kurds have been oppressed by every government controlling the hills and mountains where they've lived since Xenophon's day.

The U.S. and its coalition partners missed a glorious chance to begin to correct this injustice after Baghdad's fall. A Frankenstein's monster of a state sewn together from ill-fitting parts, Iraq should have been divided into three smaller states immediately. We failed from cowardice and lack of vision, bullying Iraq's Kurds into supporting the new Iraqi government — which they do wistfully as a quid pro quo for our good will. But were a free plebiscite to be held, make no mistake: Nearly 100 percent of Iraq's Kurds would vote for independence.

As would the long-suffering Kurds of Turkey, who have endured decades of violent military oppression and a decades-long demotion to "mountain Turks" in an effort to eradicate their identity. While the Kurdish plight at Ankara's hands has eased somewhat over the past decade, the repression recently intensified again and the eastern fifth of Turkey should be viewed as occupied territory. As for the Kurds of Syria and Iran, they, too, would rush to join an independent Kurdistan if they could. The refusal by the world's legitimate democracies to champion Kurdish independence is a human-rights sin of omission far worse than the clumsy, minor sins of commission that routinely excite our media. And by the way: A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.

A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq's three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon: Phoenecia reborn. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.

A root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family's treatment of Mecca and Medina as their fiefdom. With Islam's holiest shrines under the police-state control of one of the world's most bigoted and oppressive regimes — a regime that commands vast, unearned oil wealth — the Saudis have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders. The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been the worst thing to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the time of the Prophet, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman (if not the Mongol) conquest.

While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam's holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world's major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed. True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia's coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that subregion, while a southeastern quadrant would go to Yemen. Confined to a rump Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh, the House of Saud would be capable of far less mischief toward Islam and the world.

Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Baluchistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today's Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan's Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren (the point of this exercise is not to draw maps as we would like them but as local populations would prefer them). Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baluch territory to Free Baluchistan. The remaining "natural" Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.

In each case, this hypothetical redrawing of boundaries reflects ethnic affinities and religious communalism — in some cases, both. Of course, if we could wave a magic wand and amend the borders under discussion, we would certainly prefer to do so selectively. Yet, studying the revised map, in contrast to the map illustrating today's boundaries, offers some sense of the great wrongs borders drawn by Frenchmen and Englishmen in the 20th century did to a region struggling to emerge from the humiliations and defeats of the 19th century.

Correcting borders to reflect the will of the people may be impossible. For now. But given time — and the inevitable attendant bloodshed — new and natural borders will emerge. Babylon has fallen more than once.

Meanwhile, our men and women in uniform will continue to fight for security from terrorism, for the prospect of democracy and for access to oil supplies in a region that is destined to fight itself. The current human divisions and forced unions between Ankara and Karachi, taken together with the region's self-inflicted woes, form as perfect a breeding ground for religious extremism, a culture of blame and the recruitment of terrorists as anyone could design. Where men and women look ruefully at their borders, they look enthusiastically for enemies.

From the world's oversupply of terrorists to its paucity of energy supplies, the current deformations of the Middle East promise a worsening, not an improving, situation. In a region where only the worst aspects of nationalism ever took hold and where the most debased aspects of religion threaten to dominate a disappointed faith, the U.S., its allies and, above all, our armed forces can look for crises without end. While Iraq may provide a counterexample of hope — if we do not quit its soil prematurely — the rest of this vast region offers worsening problems on almost every front.

If the borders of the greater Middle East cannot be amended to reflect the natural ties of blood and faith, we may take it as an article of faith that a portion of the bloodshed in the region will continue to be our own.

• • •

WHO WINS, WHO LOSES

Winners —

Afghanistan

Arab Shia State

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Free Baluchistan

Free Kurdistan

Iran

Islamic Sacred State

Jordan

Lebanon

Yemen

•

Losers —

Afghanistan

Iran

Iraq

Israel

Kuwait

Pakistan

Qatar

Saudi Arabia

Syria

Turkey

United Arab Emirates

West Bank

Kofi Annan salue la participation de la Turquie à la FINUL

6 septembre 2006– Dans la capitale turque Ankara, le Secrétaire général a salué la décision de la Turquie de participer à la Force Intérimaire des Nations Unies au Liban (FINUL), estimant que cette contribution était « un signe de solidarité internationale ».

Kofi Annan s'exprimait lors une conférence de presse donnée à l'issue d'une rencontre avec le Premier ministre turc Recep Tayyit Erdogan, a indiqué son porte-parole à New York.

En Turquie, le Secrétaire général a également rencontré le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Abdullah Gul, et le président, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, avec lesquels il a discuté de l'application de la résolution 1701 du Conseil de sécurité et de la participation turque à la FINUL renforcée.

Il s'est ensuite envolé pour Madrid, ultime étape de sa tournée où il doit rencontrer le Premier ministre José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero et d'autres hauts responsables espagnols, avant de rentrer à New York.

Un premier contingent de 880 soldats italiens est arrivé au Liban ce week-end, indiquait hier la FINUL dans un communiqué publié à Naqoura.

Le total des troupes composant la FINUL est estimé actuellement à 3 100 soldats.

La FINUL avait par ailleurs annoncé que les Forces de défense israéliennes s'étaient retirées hier de plusieurs zones du Sud Liban. Le bataillon ghanéen a pu ainsi établir sept nouveaux points de contrôle et effectué d'intenses patrouilles dans la région, confirmant ainsi ce retrait.

Plus tôt dans la journée, l'armée libanaise était entrée dans Bint Jubayl, une ville située au sud du pays où elle ne s'était plus rendue depuis trois décennies. Ce retour est intervenu un jour après que les soldats de l'ONU eurent pris position dans la ville évacuée par les forces israéliennes.

La FINUL rapportait enfin qu'au cours des 24 dernières heures, huit violations de l'espace aérien libanais par Israël avaient été signalées par la FINUL.

« Je m'attends à ce qu'avant la mi-septembre, nous ayons une force internationale d'environ 5 000 hommes sur le terrain, déployée avec 16 000 soldats libanais dans le sud », a déclaré lundi le Secrétaire général, lors d'une conférence de presse donnée à Jeddah en Arabie Saoudite.

Un tel déploiement devrait permettre un retrait d'Israël de la région, avait-t-il estimé (dépêche du 05.09.06).

Selon la résolution 1701, la FINUL pourra compter jusqu'à 15 000 hommes. A Bruxelles le 25 août, Kofi Annan a obtenu des pays européens plus de la moitié des effectifs autorisés.

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Déplacements du Secrétaire général

M. Kofi Annan s’est entretenu aujourd’hui, à Ankara, avec le Ministre des affaires étrangères de la Turquie, Abdullah Gul; le Premier Ministre, Recep Tayyip Erdogan; et le Président Ahmed Necdet Sezer.  Lors de cette rencontre avec les dirigeants turcs, il a évoqué la mise en œuvre de la résolution 1701 du Conseil de sécurité et le déploiement de troupes turques au sein de la Force intérimaire des Nations Unies au Liban (FINUL).

Lors d’une conférence de presse donnée à la suite de son entrevue avec le Premier Ministre Erdogan, M. Annan s’est réjoui de la décision de la Turquie de rejoindre la FINUL renforcée, notant que cette contribution était la manifestation d’un sens de la solidarité internationale. 

Le Secrétaire général va se rendre aujourd’hui à Madrid, en Espagne, dernière étape de la tournée dans laquelle il s’est lancé en vue d’accélérer l’application de la résolution 1701.  Il compte rencontrer le Premier Ministre espagnol, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, et d’autres hauts responsables de ce pays.  M. Kofi Annan sera de retour à New York demain, jeudi 7 septembre. 

Le secrétaire général de l’ONU annonce l’envoi d’un médiateur d’ici à la fin de la semaine pour la libération des soldats israéliens

Le secrétaire général de l’ONU Kofi Annan s’est félicité hier de la décision du gouvernement israélien de lever le blocus sur le Liban.
Dans une déclaration faite à Madrid où il se trouve actuellement, M. Annan a indiqué : « Je suis satisfait du fait que le gouvernement israélien ait accepté de lever son blocus sur le Liban jeudi, à 18h. La levée du blocus permettra au Premier ministre libanais Fouad Siniora et son gouvernement d’accélérer le redressement économique et leur programme de reconstruction. Je voudrais remercier les gouvernements qui ont aidé à rendre cela réalisable. Je continuerai à déployer tous les efforts pour assurer l’application complète de la résolution 1701, permettant au gouvernement du Liban d’étendre son autorité sur tout son territoire et d’exercer son entière souveraineté. »
M. Annan avait poursuivi hier ses efforts – finalement récompensés par l’annonce d’Ehud Olmert – pour obtenir la levée du blocus. En visite à Ankara, où il s’est entretenu avec le Premier ministre, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, le chef de l’État Ahmet Necdet Sezer (opposé à l’envoi de troupes au Liban) et le ministre des Affaires étrangères, Abdallah Gül, M. Annan a affirmé qu’il avait « toujours espoir que le blocus aérien, maritime et terrestre soit levé d’ici aux prochaines 36 à 48 heures ». « Je travaille sur ce point avec les parties en question », avait-il notamment dit lors d’une conférence de presse conjointe avec M. Erdogan.
Par ailleurs, M. Annan a déclaré qu’un médiateur – on parle d’ailleurs de Lakhdar Ibrahimi – sera dépêché cette semaine au Proche-Orient pour évoquer la libération des soldats israéliens enlevés.
Le responsable onusien a précisé à la presse que le médiateur « sera dans la région d’ici à la fin de la semaine ».
M. Annan a par ailleurs remercié le gouvernement de M. Erdogan pour sa contribution à la Finul Plus, dont les détails seront arrêtés dans les prochains jours.
« Nous travaillons minutieusement sur les détails techniques » du déploiement turc, a souligné mercredi le porte-parole du ministère turc des Affaires étrangères.
M. Annan a assuré les dirigeants turcs que la Finul n’aura pas pour mission de désarmer le Hezbollah. « Le rôle des militaires de la Finul n’est pas de désarmer le Hezbollah (...), l’objectif est de renforcer et d’élargir la souveraineté du Liban », a-t-il affirmé.
Kofi Annan s’est ensuite rendu en soirée à Madrid où il doit rencontrer aujourd’hui les dirigeants espagnols pour discuter notamment de la situation au Liban.
M. Annan a été accueilli à l’aéroport de Madrid par le chef de la diplomatie espagnole, Miguel Angel Moratinos, qui entamera dimanche une tournée de quatre jours au Proche-Orient.
Le secrétaire général de l’ONU sera successivement reçu par le roi Juan Carlos, puis par le chef du gouvernement José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero et M. Moratinos.
La situation au Liban, où l’Espagne va envoyer un millier d’hommes après le feu vert de son Parlement, attendu aujourd’hui en fin d’après-midi, sera le principal thème de cet entretien, avec l’évolution du dossier nucléaire iranien.
La rencontre de M. Annan avec MM. Zapatero et Moratinos sera suivie d’une conférence de presse.
Le secrétaire général de l’ONU devrait remercier le gouvernement espagnol de sa décision de contribuer ainsi au renforcement de la Finul.
Auparavant, le secrétaire général de l’ONU avait indiqué au New York Times voir trois étapes pour parvenir à la levée rapide du blocus par Israël au Liban.
La première étape devrait débuter avec la surveillance des côtes libanaises par l’armée française. La deuxième étape consiste à ce que le Premier ministre Fouad Siniora adresse une lettre à M. Annan autorisant formellement les Allemands à prendre position au Liban (ce qui a été fait hier). La troisième et dernière étape du plan de M. Annan est une annonce par Israël de la levée du blocus (ce qui a également été fait hier).
M. Annan a dit espérer que la présence temporaire de navires français, italiens et grecs au large du Liban donnera à Israël l’assurance nécessaire que le trafic d’armes vers le Liban sera bien arrêté après la levée du blocus.

www.lorient-lejour.com.lb/page.aspx?page=article&id=321343

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Les alibis du terrorisme

Dans sa lutte contre les terroristes, l'Occident doit cesser de prôner la démocratie au Nord tout en soutenant les dictatures corrompues du Sud.

Par Baali Ali

Mercredi 28 novembre 2001 www.liberation.fr/dossiers/11septembre/entretiens/202779.FR.php
 

Baali Ali est colonel, porte-parole du Maol (Mouvement algérien des officiers libres), organisation clandestine d'officiers dissidents.

Le rêve démocratique des peuples musulmans a-t-il été enseveli sous les décombres des Twin Towers? La question mérite d'être posée. La riposte légitime des Américains et la lutte à l'échelle planétaire contre les réseaux terroristes ne doivent pas être un parapluie protecteur pour tous les dictateurs. La condamnation sans réserve de l'acte criminel du 11 septembre et des attentats ne peut dispenser d'une remise en cause totale de la grille de lecture du phénomène terroriste et de ses causes réelles.

Le profil des suspects de la tragédie américaine nous montre la fragilité de la thèse selon laquelle la pauvreté et l'illettrisme conjugués à une lecture rigoriste des textes de l'islam sont à l'origine de la dérive terroriste. Le monde occidental a ouvert les yeux sur une réalité terrible: l'universitaire, le pilote et des hommes riches peuvent devenir des soldats au service d'une secte d'assassins! Comment expliquer le lien entre un individu qui vit en Occident, maîtrise la technologie avec un illettré illuminé vivant au Moyen Age, comme le mollah Omar? Le raccourci voudrait qu'on se contente du lien religieux existant entre l'universitaire Mohamed Atta et le fou de Kandahar. Mais ce n'est pas si simple. Et seule une étude approfondie des facteurs historiques, politico-économiques et surtout socio-psychologiques des sociétés musulmanes permettra de décoder ce mystère. Zarathoustra ne disait-il pas que «chaque peuple parle son langage du bien et du mal que son voisin ne comprend pas. Il s'est inventé le langage de ses coutumes et de ses droits!»

L'ampleur de la tragédie américaine ne doit ni aveugler les Occidentaux sur leur propre responsabilité, ni dédouaner les musulmans de la leur. Les prophètes de la «guerre des religions» ou les théoriciens du «choc des civilisations» oublient que l'incompréhension actuelle est le fruit amer de ces deux absurdités qui sont les croisades et le colonialisme. Mais le monde musulman porte une responsabilité énorme dans la dérive meurtrière d'une minorité qui se revendique du radicalisme islamique. La faillite des systèmes «importés» - socialisme de Boumediene en Algérie ou nationalisme autoritaire de Nasser en Egypte -, les défaites successives dans les guerres contre Israël, la dépravation et la corruption des princes de la péninsule arabique et du Golfe, le suivisme des intellectuels ont poussé les masses à se retourner vers un passé mythique. L'émergence dans les années 80 d'un courant politique moralisateur et mobilisateur appelé islamisme a coïncidé avec trois événements majeurs qui vont bouleverser la donne, particulièrement dans le monde musulman:

1. La révolution populaire en Iran, confisquée par les mollahs, a donné l'illusion aux peuples musulmans qu'aucune puissance ne peut se maintenir au pouvoir face à une révolution religieuse.

2. L'invasion soviétique de l'Afghanistan a créé le climat favorable à une alliance tripartite: d'un côté, les pétrodollars des princes saoudiens et de leurs alliés du Golfe menacés par la révolution iranienne, de l'autre les religieux wahhabites en quête de terrain pour le jihad, enfin la CIA motivée par la lutte contre l'expansion du communisme et la position stratégique de l'Afghanistan.

3. La crise pétrolière a fait prendre conscience aux régimes arabes et à leurs protecteurs que la manne pétrolière ne peut à elle seule acheter la stabilité dans la région.

La victoire des moudjahidin et de l'allié américain avait précipité la décomposition de l'empire soviétique, alors qu'un vent de liberté soufflait sur les pays de l'Est et certains pays africains. On observait un durcissement des régimes arabes et une vague de répression contre les opposants en général et les islamistes en particulier. Alors que le monde occidental ouvrait grand les bras aux nouveaux venus dans l'espace démocratique, le monde arabe plonge dans une guerre absurde provoquée par le dictateur de Bagdad, la présence en masse des forces américaines dans la région du Golfe et la défaite de Saddam. L'embargo qui a suivi avec son cortège de morts, de malades et d'affamés, et l'injustice subie par le peuple palestinien ont exacerbé le sentiment antioccidental. Ce sont là les raisons conjoncturelles - mais non exhaustives - de l'émergence de la ligne jihadiste au sein du monde musulman.

Mais la raison structurelle, c'est l'absence totale de démocratie et de liberté d'expression dans les pays arabes et musulmans. La fenêtre offerte par les télévisions du monde via le satellite aux peuples musulmans a conforté une idée qui fait des ravages. A savoir que l'Occident, qui vit dans une certaine opulence et où liberté d'expression et démocratie sont les deux piliers principaux de la société, soutient des régimes fossilisés sans aucune légitimité, autoritaires et répressifs.

Comment expliquer à un Algérien - qui voit les soldats américains rétablir le père Aristide par la force à son poste de président de Haïti avec la bénédiction des chancelleries occidentales - qu'on applaudisse au même moment, chez lui, l'arrêt d'élections libres et pluralistes par une junte militaire? Que dire à un Soudanais qui se voit accuser à longueur de journée de vivre sous un régime intégriste détestable méritant des sanctions, quand tous les dirigeants du monde occidental se précipitent dans les palais des princes wahhabites, où la femme n'a même pas le droit de conduire une voiture! Que pense l'islamiste qui entend Bernard Henry Lévy vendre comme un humaniste éclairé feu le commandant Massoud et l'Alliance du Nord, responsables des hordes sauvages qui ont massacré des civils et violé des femmes lors de la prise de Kaboul? Il pense simplement que les GIA ont alors une chance d'être réhabilités!

L'Occident doit conjuguer sa lutte contre la menace terroriste avec un combat courageux contre ses propres contradictions. Il ne peut être partisan de la démocratie au Nord et maintenir au Sud, notamment au nom de ses intérêts économiques, des dictatures qui se distinguent par leur incurie et leur mépris du peuple. L'Amérique a les moyens de débarrasser les peuples musulmans des vrais géniteurs de terroristes qui sont les dirigeants en place dont le règne a l'âge de Ben Laden!

Le mariage illégitime des régimes autoritaires et corrompus avec les intérêts économiques égoïstes des Occidentaux a engendré - et engendrera encore - des générations de terroristes qui nous dévorent. La tragédie du 11 septembre, si on veut qu'elle ne se reproduise pas, doit être, au-delà de l'indignation et de l'incompréhension, la pierre angulaire du village planétaire démocratique. C'est aussi le prix de la globalisation.

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Miembros de la Alianza de Civilizaciones se reúnen en Nueva York con la presencia de Jatami

ONU. IRNA. 6 de septiembre de 2006

Miembros de la denominada Alianza de Civilizaciones se han reunido en la sede neoyorquina de la ONU para debatir los temas más candentes antes de entregarle su informe final al secretario general de este organismo, Kofi Annan.

Seyyed Mohammad Jatami, ex presidente de Irán y actual presidente del organismo internacional Diálogo de Civilizaciones y Culturas, es una de los 18 miembros de este grupo cada uno de los cuales ha sido elegido a dedo por el secretario general de las Naciones Unidas.

El objetivo que persigue este grupo, como ya ha anunciado en varias ocasiones Annan, es llevar hacia delante la idea del Diálogo de Civilizaciones, rellenar las brechas y acabar con los prejuicios y malentendidos que han creado, según sus palabras, “un peligro potencial para la paz mundial.”

La reunión de ayer martes en la ONU tuvo lugar a puerta cerrada y sin la presencia de la prensa, con la que no estuvieron dispuestos a hablar los miembros una vez terminada la sesión.

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onu-alianza de civilizaciones 06-09-2006

Grupo de Alto Nivel presentara en noviembre su propuesta a Annan

El Grupo de Alto Nivel de la Alianza de las Civilizaciones presentará sus propuestas al secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan, en un acto previsto a principios del próximo noviembre en Estambul.

El anuncio lo hicieron hoy los copresidentes del Grupo, el ex director general UNESCO el español Federico Mayor Zaragoza y el ministro turco de Asuntos Religiosos, Mehmet Aydin, en una rueda de prensa que convocaron en la sede de la ONU en Nueva York.

Según precisó Mayor Zaragoza, el documento incluirá 'mecanismos' de carácter general para impulsar el entendimiento entre las diferentes culturas, religiones y grupos étnicos mediante la educación, los flujos migratorios y la prensa.

El ex director general de la UNESCO afirmó que en el texto se apostará por el 'multipolarismo', y subrayó la importancia de las propuestas del Grupo 'en este crucial momento de tensión y de turbulencias internacionales'.

Destacó la 'independencia' de la instancia y resaltó que una de las conclusiones a la que ha llegado es la necesidad de combatir los 'estereotipos' como germen de discriminación y racismo.

'Hemos descubierto, por ejemplo, que durante la crisis provocada por las caricaturas de Mahoma, solo un tres por ciento de los musulmanes se manifestaron o reaccionaron de manera violenta. El 97 por ciento la vivió con absoluta normalidad', explicó.

'Ese resultado es contrario a la imagen que se proyectó en aquellos días de que todos los musulmanes son violentos', dijo.

Aydin reveló que algunos de los aspectos que han causado mayor debate en el seno del Grupo son 'cómo abordar algunos temas desde la perspectiva de la educación y el análisis político', así como 'el asunto de la terminología'.

'Han sido sólo dos o tres puntos porque al final de cada jornada de trabajo hemos estado de acuerdo con lo esencial', aseguró el ministro turco de Asuntos Religiosos.

Mayor Zaragoza y Aydin hicieron el anuncio antes de concluir la cuarta reunión del Grupo, que se prevé concluya esta noche y se inició el martes pasado en Nueva York.

La cita es la cuarta que celebra la instancia, tras las mantenidos en Palma de Mallorca (España), Doha y Dakar.

Entre la veintena de miembros del Grupo figuran el ex presidente iraní Mohamed Jatami, el arzobispo sudafricano Desmond Tutu, el principal asesor del Rey Mohamed VI de Marruecos, el judío Andre Azulay, y el ex primer ministro senegalés Mustafa Naumkin.

La idea de la Alianza de las Civilizaciones fue lanzada por el presidente del Gobierno español, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, en la Asamblea General de la ONU en septiembre del 2004, en una iniciativa a la que luego se unió el primer ministro turco, Recep Tayip Erdogan, y que Annan asumió como un proyecto del organismo mundial.
Terra Actualidad - EFE

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El Líbano advierte de que romperá el bloqueo que le impone Israel si no lo levanta en 48 horas

06/09/2006 - IBLNEWS, AGENCIAS

El ministro de Relaciones Exteriores libanés, Fawzi Salloukh, ha advertido de que su país podría romper el bloqueo impuesto a la fuerza por Israel si Tel Aviv no lo levanta en el plazo de 48 horas dado por el secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan.

"Esperaremos a las 48 horas dadas por Annan, y si la situación se resuelve, le daremos las gracias. Si no, el Gobierno libanés tomará las medidas necesarias y quebrará el bloqueo con todo nuestro poder", dijo Salloukh a los periodistas durante un receso en la reunión de ministros de Relaciones Exteriores árabes en El Cairo (Egipto).

Israel dijo que podría levantar gradualmente el bloqueo mientras las fuerzas libanesas y de la ONU controlen los puntos de entrada para evitar que las guerrillas de Hizbulá se rearmen, pero no indicó cuándo aliviaría las restricciones.

Annan dijo el martes a periodistas en el puerto egipcio de Alejandría que esperaba noticias "positivas" dentro de las próximas 48 horas en sus esfuerzos para persuadir a Israel de que levante el bloqueo marítimo y aéreo impuesto al Líbano.

Hoy, miércoles, Annan ha vuelto a repetir que esperaba que esto sucediera en las próximas 36 a 48 horas. Esta vez lo ha hecho desde Ankara (Turquía), en la última escala de su viaje por Oriente Medio para analizar la aplicación de la resolución 1.701 del Consejo de Seguridad —que establece las condiciones del alto el fuego vigente desde el pasado día 14 en el Líbano— y el despliegue de la fuerza multinacional en el sur de este país.

El secretario general de Naciones Unidas llegará esta noche a Madrid, donde el jueves se entrevistará con el Rey Juan Carlos y con el presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.

Annan rechaza desarmar a Hezbollah a la fuerza

Por otro lado, desde Turquía, en la última escala del viaje por Oriente Medio de Kofi Annan, dijo en Ankara que "es posible desarmar a un grupo sin usar la fuerza. Ya pasó en España en el caso de ETA. Pues tiene que hacerse del mismo modo en el Líbano. Esa es la dirección en la que nos deberíamos mover".

En una rueda de prensa conjunta con el primer ministro turco, Recep Tayip Erdogan, Annan, que descartó que se pueda desarmar a Hezbollah por la fuerza, recalcó que las Fuerzas Provisionales de Naciones Unidas en Líbano (FPNUL) no tendrán ese objetivo.

"Líbano ha aceptado el desarme de todos los grupos armados. Una reconciliación nacional es necesaria para que eso se produzca. El desarme será a través de un acuerdo político y una reconciliación nacional. No creo que el Ejército libanés pueda realizarlo con el uso de la fuerza", aseguró.

Asimismo, Annan anunció que la semana que viene, Terje Roed Larsen, enviado especial de la ONU a Líbano, viajará a la región para tratar con las autoridades sobre un posible intercambio de prisioneros.

El Parlamento turco aprobó este martes el envío de tropas a Líbano para unirse a la FPNUL aunque el mandato de la Cámara especifica que los uniformados turcos no participarán en el desarme de los grupos locales.

Un día después de ser adoptada esta decisión, un grupo de unos 20 manifestantes ha sido arrestado mientras participaba en una marcha de unas 300 personas contra el envío soldados turcos.

Annan pide a Francia, Italia y Grecia que patrullen las costas de Líbano 

EL PAÍS  -  Internacional - 06-09-2006

El secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan, redobló ayer sus esfuerzos por lograr el levantamiento del bloqueo israelí marítimo sobre Líbano, al pedir a Francia, Italia y Grecia que patrullen las costas del país durante dos semanas para impedir la llegada de armas a Hezbolá.

El levantamiento del bloqueo, declaró Annan a los periodistas que lo acompañan en su gira por Oriente Próximo, es esencial para crear "un clima de confianza" y consolidar el alto el fuego en el sur de Líbano, principal objetivo de su viaje.

A iniciativa del secretario general de la ONU, el Gabinete del primer ministro libanés, Fuad Siniora, ha decidido pedir a Alemania que se haga cargo de la vigilancia de sus costas, con la única condición de que Israel levante antes el bloqueo. Los alemanes, explicó Annan, tardarán en llegar a la zona al menos dos semanas desde que reciban la petición formal libanesa. Para ganar tiempo, el secretario general ha pedido a Francia, Italia y Grecia, que ya tienen buques en la zona, que se encarguen de patrullar en el litoral libanés durante ese periodo de tiempo.

Annan, que esperaba anoche la respuesta del presidente de Francia, Jacques Chirac, trató también del asunto con Siniora; el primer ministro israelí, Ehud Olmert, y la secretaria de Estado de EE UU, Condoleezza Rice. Israel impide la llegada de aviones y barcos a Líbano desde el pasado 13 de julio, un día después de que milicianos de Hezbolá atacasen un puesto fronterizo del Ejército israelí y secuestraran a dos soldados.

El secretario general de la ONU, que llegó anoche a Ankara tras entrevistarse en Alejandría con el presidente de Egipto, Hosni Mubarak, y el presidente de la Liga Árabe, Amr Musa, trata de lograr un resultado tangible antes de regresar a Nueva York. Annan se entrevistará hoy con el primer ministro turco, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, y con el ministro de Asuntos Exteriores, Abdulá Gül. El Parlamento turco aprobó anoche el envío de tropas a Líbano como parte de la fuerza internacional. El Gobierno contempla desplegar un máximo de mil soldados.

Desde Ankara, Annan volará hacia Madrid, donde mañana conversará con el rey Juan Carlos y con el presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a quienes agradecerá la aportación española a la fuerza internacional de la ONU.

Kofi Annan inicia una gira diplomática para acelerar el despliegue de las tropas 

"Hay una oportunidad para una solución duradera", asegura un portavoz de Naciones Unidas

EL PAÍS  -  Internacional - 28-08-2006

El secretario general de Naciones Unidas, Kofi Annan, emprende hoy en Beirut una frenética gira por ocho países de Oriente Próximo con el objetivo de recabar el mayor apoyo posible al despliegue de la fuerza internacional encargada de velar por el cumplimiento del alto el fuego entre Israel y Hezbolá. Preocupado por el peligro de que los combates se reanuden en cualquier momento, Annan quiere que los cascos azules pisen suelo de Líbano cuanto antes para apoyar al Ejército de este país en la creación de una zona libre de armas en el sur del país.

Detrás de la ofensiva diplomática de Annan, que visitará también Turquía, Qatar y España, está la sensación de que cuanto más tarde en desplegarse el contingente internacional en el sur de Líbano, mayor será el riesgo de que los soldados israelíes y los milicianos de Hezbolá vuelvan a las hostilidades.

Antes de partir hacia Oriente Próximo, el portavoz de Naciones Unidas Ahmad Fawzi explicó en Ginebra que el principal objetivo del viaje es garantizar el cumplimiento de la resolución 1701, aprobada el pasado 11 de agosto por el Consejo de Seguridad y que puso fin a 33 días de guerra. Fawzi declaró que Annan tratará también de propiciar el levantamiento del bloqueo aéreo y marítimo con el que Israel sigue castigando a Líbano.

Jerusalén y la Cisjordania ocupada serán los siguientes destinos de Annan, para quien solucionar el conflicto palestino-israelí sería dar un paso de gigante en la estabilización de todo Oriente Próximo.

"Tenemos la oportunidad de abrir la puerta a una solución duradera", dijo Fawzi. En Israel, el secretario general de la ONU se reunirá con los familiares de los soldados israelíes capturados en julio pasado por Hezbolá -incidente que desencadenó las hostilidades- y del militar capturado semanas antes en Gaza por radicales palestinos.

Damasco, etapa clave

Damasco será una etapa clave de la misión del máximo dirigente de Naciones Unidas, que hará todo el viaje en un avión puesto a su disposición por el Gobierno español. Annan tratará de convencer a Siria -principal patrocinador de Hezbolá, junto a Irán- de la necesidad de no poner trabas al trabajo de los cascos azules.

El presidente sirio, Bachar el Asad, ha amenazado con cerrar los accesos a Líbano si los soldados de Naciones Unidas se despliegan en la frontera, mientras que Israel considera que la vigilancia de esa zona por parte de la fuerza internacional es condición indispensable para retirar sus tropas del sur de Líbano, pues de Siria llegan los cargamentos de armas destinados a Hezbolá.

El periplo del máximo responsable de la ONU incluye también Jordania, Egipto y Arabia Saudí. El aumento de la popularidad de un movimiento chií como Hezbolá entre la población musulmana de todo el mundo tras la guerra con Israel ha puesto en una situación incómoda a estos países llamados "moderados", aliados de EE UU y de población mayoritariamente suní. Además, los regímenes autoritarios de Ammán, El Cairo y Riad no ocultan su preocupación por el papel cada vez más preponderante de Irán en la zona.

Precisamente Teherán será otra de las etapas del secretario general de la ONU. Allí pedirá también el apoyo del régimen de los ayatolás a la misión de paz en Líbano y abordará el pulso que Teherán mantiene con los países occidentales a cuenta de su programa nuclear.

Visita a Madrid

La gira concluirá con una visita al primer ministro de Turquía, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a quien Annan pedirá que envíe tropas a Líbano. La participación en la misión de paz de Turquía, un país musulmán no árabe con un potente Ejército, daría al contingente internacional la "robustez" tan deseada por el secretario general, pero en vísperas de un año electoral, el Gobierno islamista moderado de Erdogan es reticente a enviar soldados a Líbano, especialmente si es bajo mando de un general europeo.

Antes de regresar a Nueva York, Annan visitará Madrid, donde se entrevistará con el Rey y con el presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a quien agradecerá la aportación española, de unos mil soldados, al esfuerzo pacificador en Líbano.

[Por otro lado, el secretario general de la ONU mantuvo ayer una conversación telefónica con el primer ministro israelí, Ehud Olmert, para comunicarle que el despliegue de la fuerza internacional se iniciará "de aquí a una semana, aproximadamente", según un comunicado que la oficina del jefe del Gobierno israelí difundió anoche, informa Reuters. "Israel concede una gran importancia al despliegue de una fuerza multinacional en la frontera de Siria con Líbano y en los principales puntos de entrada por mar y por tierra a territorio libanés", precisó el mismo comunicado].

Zaragoza dice multilateralismo clave en Alianza de Civilizaciones

El copresidente del Grupo de Alto Nivel para la Alianza de las Civilizaciones, el español Federico Mayor Zaragoza, consideró hoy que el multilateralismo es 'esencial' para cerrar la brecha entre sociedades y religiones.

Mayor Zaragoza participa en la cuarta reunión del Grupo de Alto Nivel que se celebra en la sede de la ONU en Nueva York y que está preparando para antes de fines de año un informe con un plan de acción para promover el entendimiento y superar las diferencias entre el mundo occidental y oriental.

'Lo más importante que hemos discutido en el encuentro es el enfoque de los grandes temas políticos y de las raíces del extremismo y de la violencia', dijo a Efe Mayor Zaragoza.

Para el ex director general de la UNESCO, el fomento del multilateralismo es 'esencial' para el plan de acción, con recomendaciones concretas, que el grupo prevé presentar.

En este sentido, declaró que la 'ONU debe tener realmente la autoridad que requiere para intervenir y no estar supeditada a las grandes potencias o a un poder hegemónico como en estos momentos'.

Mayor Zaragoza se mostró optimista sobre los resultados de la reunión, que concluirá mañana, en la que consideró que se producirán importantes avances en el borrador del informe.

'Hemos explorado todos los mecanismos que pueden llevar una serie de acciones por parte de los gobiernos, la sociedad civil, los Parlamentos, que permitan actuar muy rápidamente cuando hay un peligro de conflicto, posiciones extremas, así como situaciones que pueden desembocar en una confrontación bélica', agregó.

Del mismo modo, indicó, existen otra serie de medidas más específicas que se han debatido relativas a la juventud, con el fin de impulsar las asociaciones juveniles de todo el mundo para que sean las que transmitan el mensaje de moderación y de entendimiento entre culturas.

En la reunión participó el ex presidente de Irán Mohamed Jatamí, así como el arzobispo surafricano Desmond Tutú, que integran el Grupo de Alto Nivel, quienes evitaron dar declaraciones a la prensa.

'La participación del ex presidente Jatamí representa un llamamiento a la moderación, a la necesidad de que se debe ir con cuidado con lo que uno dice, porque luego puede haber repercusiones, como ha sucedido en el caso de Irán', acotó Mayor Zaragoza.

Otros participantes en el encuentro son el asesor del rey Mohamed VI de Marruecos, André Azoulay, el rabino Arthur Schneier, y el ex primer ministro de Senegal Mustafá Naumkin.

Mayor Zaragoza indicó que se requerirán de otras reuniones para concluir el informe, y que espera que ya pueda presentarse oficialmente en la cita que tendrán en Estambul (Turquía), programada para noviembre.

Las anteriores reuniones plenarias de este Grupo de Alto Nivel, que fue nombrado el pasado diciembre por el secretario general de la ONU, Kofi Annan, tuvieron lugar en Palma de Mallorca (España), Doha (Qatar) y Dakar (Senegal).

Mayor Zaragoza copreside este grupo de expertos, junto con el ministro turco para Asuntos Religiosos, Mehmet Aydin, quien también estuvo presente en la reunión.

España y Turquía fueron los dos países que apadrinaron la iniciativa desde que fue propuesta por el presidente del Gobierno español, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, en la Asamblea General de la ONU en septiembre del 2004, y luego Annan la asumió como un proyecto del organismo mundial que dirige.
Terra Actualidad - EFE

Irán.- Rajoy pide el cese del representante del Gobierno en la Alianza de Civilizaciones por defender los planes de Irán

MADRID, 4 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS)

http://www.noticiaspyme.com/sec/sec.actu/noti_nac.asp?idn=95538&pon=3&ids=25

El representante de Zapatero en la Alianza de Civilizaciones cuestiona que Irán no pueda disponer de armamento nuclear

UIMP.- España y Turquía defienden la "urgencia" de la Alianza de Civilizaciones y la búsqueda "valores comunes"

¿Alianza de civilizaciones?

Unamuno www.diariodirecto.com/OPINION/LECTORDD5/16082006-Unamuno.html  16/08/06

Desde luego que no. Occidente no puede aliarse con los musul - manes, y no lo puede hacer no por que no quiera, sino por la razón de que el Norte del islam es la destrucción del modo de vida nuestro.

No hay un islam moderado y otro salvaje, barbaro y asesino; los dos son iguales. Lo que existe son diferentes estrategias. Es aquello del policía bueno y el malo.

Si se lee el Coran, entero, no por partes, ni aquello que se nos señale, se observará sin ningún género de duda, que el objetivo de los musulmanes es destruir a Occidente, matar al infiel, y si para ello el musulman tiene que inmolarse, pues se inmola, su destino es el paraíso.

Y atención, no son uno ni dos, son miles los descerebrados/as dispuestos a entregar su vida, a matar occidentales, el premio es el paraíso ¿qué descerebrado musulman no está dispuesto al sacrificio, si el premio es tan magnífico?. Para un occidental, esa manera de comportamiento es mons - truoso, irracional, inentendible. Hay personas de buenas volun - tad que creen poder llegar a un acuerdo con estos seres irracio - nales. Imposible.

Occidente está cavando su tumba. En la manifestación de ayer en San Sebastián, ondeaban banderas de Palestina y el Líbano ¿cómo se puede tener una visión tan miope? . Los musulmanes están en guerra a muerte contra nuestra civilización. La integración o la multicultura, es un cuento de hadas. Los musulmanes ni se integran ni es posible la coexis - tencia con ellos. El ejemplo de Inglaterra es nítido, el de Francia, también. Aprender de los errores del vecino es algo sa - ludable. Esconder la cabeza en la tierra, es ir camino del sacrifi - cio, como les ocurrió a los judios al creer las mentiras de los nazis.

Occidente despierta.

Islamic Fundamentalism according to Winston S. Churchill III

http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200608220451

Editor's note: Seldom I disregard the editorial policy of dealing exclusively with issues of my country. The recent escalation of violence in the Middle East against Israel however merits our attention for the issue goes far beyond a dispute between the Islamofundamentalists of Hezbollah and Israel; it isn't about Israel's future and safety anymore, rather a 'holy war' between deranged people and freedom; between terror and the values and liberties the civilised and rational inhabitants of this world hold dear. Someone sent the following speech -originally published March 03, 2006, which I have decided to post for it couldn't have expressed my feelings on the subject better.

RALEIGH — Winston S. Churchill III maintains that Islamic fundamentalism is as destructive as the malevolent "isms" of the 20th century: Nazism, Communism and Facism. In a speech on Feb. 10 at the John Locke Foundation's anniversary dinner, the grandson of Winston Churchill urged the West to stay the course in the fight against extremist Islam.

Here is the text of his speech:

It is both an honor and a pleasure to be your guest here tonight and to have the privilege of addressing the John Locke Foundation. First and foremost, may I congratulate you for honouring the memory of John Locke, who was very much involved in the establishment of the Governments of the Carolinas and who, most important of all, was one of the great philosophers of the English-speaking world.

Locke’s message — the vital importance of resisting authoritarianism — is as relevant to the strife-torn times of the world in which we live, as it was in the strife-torn times of the 17th Century. Authoritarianism constantly rears its ugly head, even within our own societies on both sides of the Atlantic, in so many guises and disguises, and in every field, be it religion, government or the military.

At its most extreme, authoritarianism is exemplified by the isms of the 20th Century — Communism, Fascism and Nazism. The Fascists and Nazis were responsible for the deaths of more than 30 million human beings, while more than 50 million are estimated to have been murdered by Stalin and the Russian Communists, while Mao-Tse-Tung and the Chinese Communists are believed to have accounted for some 80 million.

But today a new challenge — another ism — confronts us, and that is the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism. Extremist Islam has declared war on the rest of the world, as evidenced by their ruthless attacks across the globe — overwhelmingly targeted at innocent civilians. Beside the outrage of 9/11, the bombings in Madrid, in Bali, in London and, most recently, in Jordan come to mind.

Those who have declared jihad against the West, and Western values, such as freedom of speech, are doing all in their power to mobilize against us the large Muslim communities living in our midst. In North America, there are an estimated six million Muslims in the USA, plus a further three-quarter million in Canada; while in the European Union, they number an estimated 20 million, including nearly 2 million in Britain. Unlike most other categories of migrant, the Muslims are reluctant to assimilate and, all too often, wish to pursue their own agenda.

Unbelievably, Washington is urging Europe to admit Turkey to the EU. Were that to happen, the Muslim population of Europe would skyrocket to 100 million — an act, in my view, of consummate folly. Already Judeo-Christian Europe is under siege from a tidal wave of Islamic immigration. The admission of Turkey would hasten its demise. While I have a great regard for the Turks, the only democracy in the Muslim world and stalwart members of NATO, I am firmly opposed to their admission to the EU. I would accord them most-favoured nation status, but not the right to settle in Western Europe and become EU citizens.

The scale of the problem confronting Europe today is epitomized by France, which has a Muslim community of some 6 million, or 10 percent of its population. But, if you take the population aged 20 and below, the figure rockets to 30 percent, such is the birthrate of the immigrant communities. In other words, within one further generation, France will be a Muslim country — a truly horrifying prospect.

At the same time it is vital that, in our pursuit of the men and women of terror — we do all we can, not to alienate these large Muslim communities already established among us. For, without the active support of the Muslim communities, we shall never excise this deadly cancer in our midst.

Intriguingly, the dangers of extremist Islam were foreseen by Winston Churchill all of 85 years ago, as I discovered to my amazement, while compiling my most recent book NEVER GIVE IN! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches.

Churchill is, of course, well-known for his gift of prescience and, specifically, for being the first to warn of the menace of Hitler and Nazism as early as 1932, and of the Soviet threat in his famous Iron Curtain speech in 1946 in Fulton, Mo. But how many know that he also warned the world of the dangers of Islamic fundamentalism? I certainly did not!

On 14 June 1921, hard on the heels of the Cairo Conference, at which he had presided over the re-shaping of the Middle East, including the creation of modern day Iraq, he warned the House of Commons:

A large number of [Saudi Arabia’s King] Bin Saud’s followers belong to the Wahabi sect, a form of Mohammedanism which bears, roughly speaking, the same relationship to orthodox Islam as the most militant form of Calvinism would have borne to Rome in the fiercest times of [Europe’s] religious wars.

The Wahabis profess a life of exceeding austerity, and what they practice themselves they rigorously enforce on others. They hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children. Women have been put to death in Wahabi villages for simply appearing in the streets.

It is a penal offence to wear a silk garment. Men have been killed for smoking a cigarette and, as for the crime of alcohol, the most energetic supporter of the temperance cause in this country falls far behind them. Austere, intolerant, well-armed, and blood-thirsty, in their own regions the Wahabis are a distinct factor which must be taken into account, and they have been, and still are, very dangerous to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina…

In Churchill’s day, of course, the viciousness and cruelty of the Wahabis was confined to the Saudi Arabia peninsula, and their atrocities were directed exclusively against their fellow Muslims, whom they held to be heretics for not adhering to the Wahabi creed — but not anymore.

Today the combination of the oil wealth of Saudi Arabia and the supine weakness of the Saudi royal family which — as the price for not having their own behavior subjected to scrutiny and public criticism by these austere, extremist clerics — has bank-rolled the Wahabi fundamentalist movement, and given these fanatical zealots a global reach to their vicious creed of hatred and extremism.

The consequence has been that the Wahabis have been able to export their exceptionally intolerant brand of Islamic fundamentalism from Mauritania and Morocco on Africa’s Atlantic shores, through more than two dozen countries including Bosnia, Chechnya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, to as far afield as the Philippines and East Timor in the Pacific. This is the stark challenge that today confronts the Western world and I fear it will be with us, not just for a matter of years, but perhaps even for generations.

Just in the past two weeks the temperature in the Middle East has risen markedly with three significant developments. First, we have seen the wild and furious reaction, whipped up by firebrand clerics throughout the Islamic world, to the publication some five months ago in a Danish newspaper of a cartoon depicting the prophet with a smoking bomb in his turban, as tattered suicide bombers were being greeted at the Muslim pearly gates by a gate-keeper shooing them away and shouting: “Get lost! We’ve run out of Virgins!” The fury that this mild piece of satire engendered, epitomizes the clash of civilizations that is the key factor confronting us today.

Secondly, the stunning election victory in the Palestinian elections of Hamas — a terrorist organization committed to the destruction of Israel — provided a rude shock to those in Washington who naively imagined that democracy would provide the answer to the problems of the Middle East. For many within the Beltway, free elections have been an article of faith, even though it was in a free election that Hitler first came to power, before establishing his Nazi dictatorship.

Such is the anger of the Moslem world against the West, inflamed by extremist clerics and fanned by the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabia television networks, that truly democratic and free elections would result in the election of fundamentalist governments throughout the Muslim world. It is a frightening fact, that in 50 Muslim countries countless millions of Muslims tell pollsters that they regard Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri as more trustworthy than President Bush.

The third and by far the most serious development, is the decision of the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to remove the U.N. seals from its nuclear research facilities. He it is who not only denies the Holocaust ever happened, but who declares that Israel is a “tumor” that should be “wiped off the map”! Some Western analysts state that the Iranian president doesn’t really mean what he says. There were, of course, many who said just that of Hitler’s Mein Kampf, and we saw the result.

Having reported events — including two wars — in the Middle East over the past 45 years, I think I know the Israelis well enough to say that Israel is not about to wait to find out whether or not the Iranian president means what he says. In 1981 Israel took decisive steps to take out Saddam Hussein’s Osirak nuclear facility with a long-range air strike. I do not see how she can fail to do the same in the case of the even greater threat posed to Israel by a nuclear-armed Iran.

This time it will not be so easy, as the mullahs have dispersed their nuclear facilities across 16 sites and built them deep underground, making them far more difficult to attack. But with 500 ‘bunker-busting’ bombs from the U.S. and precision-guidance technology they will certainly make a mess of the place. The whole Muslim world will be enflamed with outrage and Iran’s reaction may well be to deploy 100,000 guerrilla fighters to Iraq to fight the Americans and British — not a happy thought.

But even before these developments, siren voices could already be heard on Capitol Hill, raising the cry: “Bring the Boys home.” I tell you: Nothing could be more disastrous than if, at this juncture, the United States were to cut and run. It would, at a stroke, undermine those forces of moderation we are seeking to establish in power, betray our troops as they fight a difficult, but necessary, battle, and break faith with those of our soldiers who have sacrificed their lives to establish a free Iraq.

Gravest of all, we should be handing a victory of gigantic proportions to our sworn enemies. Let no one imagine that by pulling out of Iraq, the threat will simply evaporate. On the contrary, it will redouble, it will come closer to home and our enemies will have established in Iraq the very base that, by our defeat of the Taliban, we have denied them in Afghanistan. We shall see a desperately weakened United States, with its armed forces undermined and demoralized, increasingly at the mercy of our terrorist enemies.

Precipitate withdrawal is the counsel of defeatism and cowardice, which, if it holds sway, will immeasurably increase the dangers that today confront, not just America, but the entire Western world. It is something for which we shall pay a terrible price in the years ahead. When great nations go to war — and they should do so only as a last resort — they must expect to suffer grievous losses and must commit to war with an unconquerable resolve to secure victory.

In Iraq the United States has lost some 2,200 men and women, Britain just over 100. Compare that to the first day of the Battle of the Somme — 1 July 1916 — when the British Army in a single day, nay, before breakfast, lost 55,000 men killed, wounded or missing in action. Did we talk of quitting?

What has happened to the mighty United States? Is it going soft? Are the elected representatives of the American people ready to surrender to those who threaten their homeland — indeed their civilian population — with death and destruction? I pray that they are not, and I call to mind the words of my grandfather, addressing the Canadian Parliament on New Year's Day 1941, in which — referring to the British nation dwelling around the globe, but it applies equally to our American cousins today — when he declared:

We are a tough and hardy people! We have not travelled across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains & across the prairies, because we're made of sugar candy!

In conclusion, I would remind you — and especially the legislators on Capitol Hill — of Winston Churchill’s words to the House of Commons on becoming prime minister in May 1940, which applies every bit as much to the situation that confronts us today.

You ask: What is our aim? I can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror. However long or hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.

Provided we have the courage to stay the course, I am convinced that we can, in the end, prevail. Any alternative is too terrible to contemplate. There are no quick, easy solutions; on the contrary it will be a long, hard slog. But more leadership is needed from on high and, above all, more guts and determination if we are to see this through to victory.

Let us fight the good fight — and let us fight it together! How pleased my grandfather would be to know that — 40 years on from his death — the Anglo-American alliance is still strong and that British and American soldiers stand shoulder-to-shoulder in Iraq and in Afghanistan, confronting the peril of the hour! Long may we stand together! God bless America!

Common Ground: Media and Muslim dialogue

By EKO MARYADI  - OPINION  www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view

JAKARTA, Aug. 14 2006 (UPI) -- The fluctuating relations between the Muslim and Western worlds are now seemingly more difficult, especially since the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York City on September 11, 2001, popularly known as 9/11. Right after the tragedy which resulted in thousands dead and thousands more injured, condemnation emerged from around the world. Soon after that, Western media began what has been called the "opinion war" which tended to blame Muslims unreservedly for the attacks.

Through quoting U.S. President George W. Bush extensively, Western media became a funnel for anger toward Islam which, unassailably, was the religion of the bombing suspects. In response, the media in many Muslim countries embarked on counter-attacks by mobilizing negative reactions toward any issue pertaining to the Western world. Suspicion, distrust, anger and hatred were suddenly spreading between these two different civilizations.

Besides repeatedly presenting news coverage on the one big topic of "Islam and Violence" while employing words such as "Islamic terrorist", "fundamentalist", "extremist", "radical Islam" or "militant Muslim", Western media also became a pivotal means of campaigning for the "Global War on Terror". Meanwhile, massive military "counter" attacks on Muslim countries were launched, such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. Western media also got involved in this scene by sending several journalists to report live on how Western military operations were destroying terrorist networks. Since then, it seems that the former "Holy War" of Muslim against Christian has given way to the war of "Western media against Muslim terrorists."

As part of the global community, Indonesian media also absorbed Western media news coverage, which increasingly tended to be anti-Islamic. The prejudice and hatred exchanged between Muslims and Westerners in Indonesia became stronger, especially after the first Bali bombing, of Oct. 2002. Even though most Indonesian media tried to present balanced and prudent news, some tried to pump up the anger of Indonesian Muslims toward the West. These kinds of media sources also presented analytical articles which sided with Muslims and criticized Western leaders, interviewed Indonesian Muslim figures who were for the attack and who even supported similar "jihadist" attacks in the future.

These days are the hardest for the media in Indonesia, finding themselves in a conflict of interest as relating to Islam and the West. It is difficult for the media to present balanced and impartial news and opinions as the majority of the audience in Indonesia is Muslim. Many media sources want to appeal to their Muslim readers and as a result, some Indonesian media deliberately choose to become partisans of Muslim voices.

When ethnic and religious conflicts broke out in Ambon (1999), Poso (2000), Sampit (2001) and Aceh (1989-2005), some Indonesian media became a strategic means of public communication for Muslim groups. Rather than act as mediators and conflict transformation agents, some media -- both printed and electronic -- actually got involved in the dissemination of provocative ideas and language. The saying of a Bosnian journalist that "the journalist who hides behind pens and microphones to propose wars is actually more wicked than the people who kill each other" rings true and certainly applied to Indonesia at that time.

By keeping their position independent and at a distance from religious prejudice, media can actually play an important role in encouraging dialogue between the Muslim and Western worlds. By creating balanced public dialogue opportunities, sharing togetherness and broadening the room for tolerance through their news coverage, media can bridge the gap and encourage the common need to live side by side peacefully.

Just as the public needs an atmosphere of sound dialogue, media needs professional and mature journalists as well. Media and its journalists should obey journalism's code of ethics, maintain information sources accurately, look for competent persons as resources and write their reports using professional news coverage techniques.

It is interesting to note that recently, an Indonesian newspaper was named by a research institution as the most popular media outlet because of its prudent and anti-violence way of reporting. This newspaper, which is surely reporting on the same Muslim-Western conflict issues in Indonesia, does not present any form of pro-Western or even pro-Muslim coverage. When asked why his paper has chosen this impartial style of reporting, a senior journalist said, "We just try to write with integrity and keep our messages away from prejudice. We run the risk of being labelled cowards, of being accused of not being involved or sometimes even of being anti-Islam by the majority of our readers because we do not show favouritism toward them. We just carry out our belief that media should not be involved in any conflict."

Perhaps that should be the role of media in the "clash of civilizations" era, as a channel of balanced, constructive and solution-oriented messages between the Muslim and Western worlds. Furthermore, as the relations between the two are volatile, the media should create an honest, equal and transparent dialogue venue for the public. Media should focus not on the conflict itself, but on the creation of peaceful dialogue and the usage of non-violent means to resolve conflict and ease tensions. By doing this, we hope that media will play an important role in encouraging dialogue between Muslims and the West.

(Eko Maryadi is a freelance journalist for international media outlets and Coordinator of Advocacy in the Indonesian Journalists Alliance.)

(Distributed by the Common Ground News Service -- Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).)

As the global political landscape continues to quake in the midst of its current great transition, religion is emerging as a powerful force to be reckoned with.

“No divisions among men … are as unbridgeable as the chasm between the faithful and those they call infidels, between Jew and gentile, or Christian and pagan” (The Great Ideas—A Syntopicon of Great Books of the Western World, vol. ii).

Religion is highlighted as one of the great ideas of man, as perceived by the editors of The Great Ideas series of classics, Mortimer J. Adler and William Gorman. Yet, as they admit in the above statement, of all the ideas that man has generated in the evolution of civilization, religion is the most divisive.

In Western society, religion, which underpinned the development of its civilization for millennia, became increasingly unfashionable during the 20th century. Godless Marxist-Leninist thought swept like a huge wave over Anglo-American educational institutions, particularly in Britain, where church buildings by the score started to close down and convert into bingo parlors. Many students of the day began to quote Karl Marx’s dictum: “Religion … is the opium of the people.” The church went into general decline. Where it did remain fashionable, such as in the southern U.S., religion took on a corporate, commercialist flavor with the rise of the televangelists.

As time went on, liberalism penetrated the Roman Catholic Church, particularly in Latin America. It seemed that the seeds of German rationalism sown in the 19th century had germinated and, following the two great world wars, were producing a great harvest of skepticism, materializing into agnosticism and culminating, during the mid-20th century, in an outright rejection of religion in many circles.

“God is dead,” had declared Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher. This became the campus catchcry of many a student from that time up to the 1970s. This pervasive, evolutionary godlessness produced fertile ground for the spread of communism, socialism and left-wing thought in the halls of academia, within the Anglo-American sphere in particular.

Religion often thrives in a time of great social, economic and political disruption. Such disruption occurred at the transition into the final decade of the 20th century.

Religion on the Rise

In the late 1970s the decline of religion was suddenly reversed. Islam, Christianity (Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism) commenced a resurgence that has continued to this day, and has accelerated, in particular, since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Many reasons have been advanced for this wave of religiosity sweeping the world. But one overwhelming factor contributed to it: the grand failure of secular atheism foisted onto the 20th century by 19th-century modernists who sought to accommodate religion to contemporary thought. As Samuel Huntington, one of the West’s most eminent political scientists, put it, “The most obvious, most salient, and most powerful cause of the global religious resurgence is precisely what was supposed to cause the death of religion: the processes of social, economic and cultural modernization that swept across the world in the second half of the 20th century” (The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order).

The assumption that intellectual elites made during the 19th and 20th centuries was that what they perceived as the rituals, superstitions, myths and the irrational practices of religion would be overridden, in time, by rationalism, pragmatism and scientific method. Their thought was that, in time, a society would arise which, as a result of their theories, would be tolerant, rational, pragmatic, progressive, humanistic and secular.

They were wrong. As globalism spread economically, industrially, corporately and socially, a strange thing happened: Religion commenced a global revival. The same technologies that accelerated economic, corporate and social globalism worked universally to spread the message of the more powerful religions, in particular Islam and Roman Catholicism.

Author Gilles Kepel observed, “A new religious approach took shape, aimed no longer at adapting to secular values but at recovering a sacred foundation for the organization of society—by changing society if necessary. Expressed in a multitude of ways, this approach advocated moving on from a modernism that had failed, attributing its setbacks and dead ends to separation from God” (Revenge of God).

Roman Catholicism’s revival into a mighty religio-political force was triggered by the ascent to the papal throne of perhaps its most political of all popes, John Paul ii, in 1978. He powerfully boosted the cause with his timely appeal to Eastern European nations to “return to your [Catholic] roots,” launching what Kepel called “a second evangelization of Europe” at the time of Soviet disintegration.

The hibernating power of Islam was unleashed by the rise of fundamentalist ayatollahs and imams (religious leaders), aided by the polarizing factor of the Palestinian cause, and helped in no small way by the collapse of Soviet rule in its western satellite states. Though the ayatollahs and imams taught differing versions of Islam throughout the Muslim nations, one message rang shrilly through their sermons. Rather than heed the goading of the West to modernize Islam from its many practices rooted in the Middle Ages (the time of its birth under its prophet, Muhammad), their call was to “Islamize modernity”—in a sense, a collective Muslim call to return to their roots.

Another religion given a boost back into prominence by the Soviet Union’s implosion was that of orthodoxy. The Russian, Eastern and Southeastern Orthodox churches, which split from Rome in the 12th century, went into decline for over 70 years under the Soviet Communist regime, as did Russian Jewry. Yet, within five years of the lifting of the Soviet boot off their neck, total active churches in Moscow alone grew from 50 in 1988 to 250 in 1993. By 1994, 30 percent of Russians under 25 years of age declared that they had swung from atheism to belief in God.

Meanwhile, at the same time that the Slavic nations were witnessing religious revival, Central Asia saw the crescent of Islamic resurgence sweep across that Third World region. At the time of the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989, preceding the Soviet implosion, only one Islamic seminary and 160 functioning mosques were evident in Central Asia. Just four years later there were about 10,000 mosques and ten seminaries.

Religion, Politics and War

The most articulate historians, political scientists and analysts of current events are tending to agree on one significant phenomenon: During the current decade, most particularly this past year, we moved into unprecedented times. Never in history is there a precedent to match that of a nation of such overwhelming economic and military power as the United States being held to ransom, psychologically, by so few. Over the past ten years, weak, Third World countries such as Rwanda and Somalia have beaten off the power of the U.S. militarily. Two men in a rubber boat have immobilized a U.S. warship in broad daylight. Most recently, 19 men with a few flimsy pieces of steel in their possession changed the whole psychology of America in a matter of moments.

Religion, politics and war are indivisible in the minds of the extremists who populate the front-line shock troops of terrorist organizations. Be it the Irish Republican Army (ira), the Tamil Tigers, Hamas or Al-Qaeda, all use terror in the name of religion to pursue national or international political power.

Take al-Qaeda for instance. They see their mission as an international revolution to bring about a global government under Islamic rule. They call it the Khalifa, and its strength is gained via a new universal creed that fuses Leninist revolutionary tenets with the religion of Islam.

What is intriguing is that many of al-Qaeda’s operatives gained their education on the liberal-socialist campuses of the universities of the West. With middle-class backgrounds, these university-educated converts to militant Islam are the new wave of youthful, bored offspring of a generation which has matured within or under the structure of soft, corrupt elites. Ripe for the plucking, just as the turned-off Western youth of the 1960s and ’70s were to their Marxist-Leninist revolutionary mentors, these young people have been easy meat for brainwashing by fundamentalist mullahs intent on jihad against the West. Nurtured by the widespread Islamic resentment of the power and prosperity of the West, they rationalize the miserable political, social and economic record of Islamic countries by swallowing the neo-Marxist theories that explain Third World poverty as being the result of exploitation by the West.

The worrying thing is the level of popular support which their murderous actions have garnered, courtesy of their religious teachers. “All the perpetrators [of the September 11 attacks] believed themselves to be pious Muslims fighting in a holy war and headed directly to Paradise; they were given support in this belief by some Muslim clerics; a significant section of Islamic opinion has applauded what they did …” (National Review, Nov. 5).

One nation stands out, in particular, as employing a fusion of religion and politics to wage terrorist warfare on Western civilization: Iran.

Iran’s chief long-term foreign-policy goals are the eviction of the U.S. from the Persian Gulf and the marginalization, if not the obliteration, of Israel. Given that Israel and U.S. firepower greatly exceeds that of Iran, the Tehran administration has opted for terrorism as its weapon of choice.

It was religion in politics that created the terrorist group Hezbollah. Not long after their rise to power, Iran’s ayatollahs created Hezbollah as an instrument of terrorist warfare to menace Israel and to force the U.S. out of Lebanon. To say they enjoyed spectacular success in this effort is an understatement. By bombing the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, Hezbollah put the world’s most powerful nation on the run. The U.S. military simply packed up and withdrew. Ultimately, Israel also abandoned Lebanon.

Cleverly, the ayatollahs have nurtured terrorist cells in the gulf states and directed them against U.S. targets. The slaughter of 19 U.S. airmen at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia demonstrated how Tehran could avoid the inference of direct involvement by having the act carried out in another country. As one astute commentator has noted, “We should be under no illusions: Despite the fractious nature of Iran’s politics, its foreign-policy machinery is highly centralized, and all key decisions—including the selection of terrorist targets—are approved by the spiritual leader (currently Khamenei). This terrorism is not a rogue operation; it serves national-security interests and represents a cool, calculated state decision” (ibid.; emphasis mine).

But Iran is not alone in fusing religion, politics and war into an instrument of foreign policy.

A Case Study

The past decade witnessed a classic case study of the power of religion in politics within Europe.

As this magazine has consistently pointed out, the very first foreign-policy initiative enacted by the newly united Germany in 1991 was to recognize, against all global opinion, the Balkan countries of Slovenia and Croatia as nation-states separate from the Republic of Yugoslavia. This commenced the breakup of Yugoslavia, finally completed by the middle of this year with the imposition of an externally administered security force to maintain stability in Macedonia.

What is not generally highlighted in this scenario is the power and influence of Catholic Germany, under Vatican guidance, in the whole affair.

“The response of the West was defined by Germany, and the response of Germany was in large part defined by the Catholic connection. The Bonn government came under pressure to act from the German Catholic hierarchy, its coalition partner the Christian Social Union party in Bavaria” (Huntington, op. cit.).

As author Samuel Huntington observes, the Bavarian media were heavily leaned upon by the “strong, assertive Bavarian Catholic Church which had close connections with the Church in Croatia ….” This led to a very one-sided approach in television coverage of the war with the Serbs.

The German administration readily embraced former Nazi-sympathizer Franjo Tudjman as Croatia’s leader, considering him “something of a German foreign-policy protégé,” as one German scholar observed in 1995.

The Vatican laid its political cards clearly on the deck, with Pope John Paul declaring Croatia to be the “rampart of [Western] Christianity,” preceding the Catholic-dominated EU in extending diplomatic recognition to Slovenia and Croatia. In a public ceremony in Zagreb that would have been unthinkable half a century ago, the pope seemingly endorsed the murky World War ii politics of the Vatican by honoring Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac, an associate of the fascist Croatian regime which persecuted and murdered Serbs, gypsies and Jews during the war.

Make no mistake about it: Ethnic and religious roots run deep—very deep. This is particularly the case when it comes to conflict between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Revival in the Balkans

The power of religion, forced underground during the Cold War period, in the Soviet-dominated territories, has undergone a dramatic resurrection since the Soviet collapse. It has quickly penetrated the heart of politics. Witness the effect east of the Balkans: “The Yugoslav wars also produced a virtually unanimous rallying of the Orthodox world behind Serbia. Russian nationalists, military officers, parliamentarians and Orthodox Church leaders were outspoken in their support for Serbia, their disparaging of the Bosnian ‘Turks,’ and their criticism of Western and nato imperialism” (Huntington, op. cit.).

In the Islamic Balkan country of Bosnia, the resurrection of religious identity in politics has become very evident since the Balkan breakup. The Balkan Peninsula is replete with a cross-section of multiple identities in its population mix. But as Mr. Huntington eloquently points out in his masterful study of the current conflict of civilizations, during war multiple identities fade. The identity which is central to the conflict becomes dominant. Almost always that identity is defined by religion. “Psychologically, religion provides the most reassuring and supportive justification for struggle against ‘godless’ forces which are seen as threatening” (ibid.).

Communal identities in Bosnia had not been very strong, historically. Muslims, Croats and Serbs lived together in peace, and inter-faith marriages were quite common. Religious identifications prior to the Balkan wars were weak. However, as soon as the Vatican-German initiative began to split the Balkan Peninsula politically, the broader Yugoslav identity collapsed. Religion took on a renewed significance, particularly as fighting intensified in the resultant wars. Each group, Muslim, Croat and Serb, began to identify with its own cultural and ethnic community, defining itself in religious terms.

When the shakeout occurred in Bosnia, it was the Muslims, though not in the majority, who rose to the surface under the devout Islamic leader Izetbegovic. The pressure of Muslim domination led to the flight of Bosnian Serbs and Croats to more friendly territory. Those who remained found themselves largely disenfranchised from employment in the new Islamic state. “Islam gained greater importance within the Muslim national community, and … a strong Muslim national identity became a part of politics and religion” (ibid.).

As Huntington declares, Bosnia was transformed, by the conjoining of religion, race and politics, from being the Switzerland of the Balkans to becoming the Iran of the Balkans.

The recent history of the Balkan Peninsula is a dramatic example of the power of religion, fused with politics, spiced with race (ethnicity), under the pressure of war, to change the whole face of nations.

A Religious War?

Many world leaders have gone out of their way to try and sway global opinion to their claim that the terrorist war declared on the U.S. and the West is not a religious war. But if this be the case, why are they trying so hard to convince us? Perhaps there is more to this than meets the electronic eye of TV. It is time we faced the facts that fly in the face of the pope’s declaration that “religion must never be used as a reason for conflict” (Agence France Presse, Sept. 23), the Archbishop of Canterbury’s statement that the war against terrorism is an “issue of justice” and not a confrontation between Christianity and Islam (Daily Telegraph, Nov. 3), the leaders of the ten asean countries’ endorsement of a declaration at their recent conference “rejecting an attempt to link terrorism with any religion or race” (Malaysian News Agency, Nov. 4), and the statements of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and U.S. President George Bush maintaining that the war against terror is not a war on Islam.

Islamic author Salman Rushdie bluntly declared in a November 3 Guardian article, “Let’s start calling a spade a spade. Of course this is ‘about Islam.’” Rushdie highlighted a fact that the Bush and Blair spin has tried to play down, that there have been “worldwide demonstrations in support of Osama bin Laden ….”

What Salman Rushdie says is right: This is a religious war! It has been declared, loud and strong, by one of its principle antagonists as such. In a videotaped message aired over Arabian television stations, Osama bin Laden said, “This war is primarily a religious war.” Appealing to Muslims worldwide, he said, “Rise in support of your religion. Islam is calling you” (Toronto Star, Nov. 4). This is the opposite message to the one President Bush is seeking to put across to those Muslim states he hopes to retain in the coalition against terrorism.

Salman Rushdie argued that “paranoid Islam” is the fastest-growing religion in the world today. He rightly maintained that to a vast number of Muslims, Islam stands “not only for the fear of God—the fear more than the love, one suspects—but also for a cluster of customs, opinions and prejudices that include their dietary practices, the sequestration or near-sequestration of ‘their’ women, the sermons delivered by their mullah of choice, a loathing of modern society in general, riddled as it is with [perverted] music, godlessness and sex …” (op. cit., Guardian).

Herein lies the problem for Anglo-America. While in the general sense it may be true to say that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were attacks against all humanity and even civilization itself, as many have claimed, there is no doubt that the U.S. was singled out by representatives of Islam as the specific target.

Generalizing the target of these attacks, in the way that so many have, as being “Western civilization,” or “humanity,” or “the social order,” trivializes the extent to which sheer blind hatred of America is a real part of the equation.

The United States is a nation hated both for its successes and its excesses, and those who least understand this are U.S. citizens themselves. They have no mind to comprehend it. There is a false morality pervading the whole of American society which is embodied in the U.S. president’s statement in a recent speech: “I’m amazed that people would hate us …. I am like most Americans—I just can’t believe it, because I know how good we are.”

Is American society indeed “good”? Are American citizens on the whole “good”? Is American culture “good”? Is American music “good”? Is the output that the American entertainment industry, which reaps multiple billions in profit each year, exports to the world “good”?

What about its legal system? Is the American judiciary wholly just, or is it downright corrupt, open to the influence of financial incentive to win a case, despite the facts, despite the truth? Is not America one of the largest illegal drug-using cultures in the world? Are not its divorce, teenage pregnancy, sexual deviancy, homicide, rape, theft, arson, embezzlement and general crime statistics a great blot on its national character? Where is this goodness in the great United States today?

To be sure, the nation was founded on the best of human intentions and the best of constitutional principles: “one nation under God.” But that was over 200 years ago. American society today is a far cry from the American society of its Founding Fathers. In fact, an apt description of the state of America today is found in the prophecy of Hosea.

“Hear the word of the Lord, ye children of Israel: for the Lord hath a controversy with the inhabitants of the land, because there is no truth, nor mercy, nor knowledge of God in the land. By swearing, and lying, and killing, and stealing, and committing adultery, they break out, and blood toucheth blood” (Hos. 4:1-2).

Simply put, Islam has a case. Even Hashemi Rafsanjani, former leader of Iran, had a point when he railed against the U.S. for “exporting perversion in the guise of entertainment all over the world.”

But does this justify the murderous terror tactics of extremist Muslims against the U.S.? Does this justify jihad? It seems so to the fundamentalist Muslims. For theirs is an intolerant religion that labels all unbelievers as infidels and has a history of converting people by force. Islam’s history is a history of war! It is not a pretty picture. Its history is anything but a history of peace!

Drugs, Guns and Religion

The terrorist cells of the world are drawn together by a web of religious intrigue woven through the drug- and gun-running cartels of the underground. Stretching from Albania to Algeria, Berlin to Bogotá, from Beijing to Bazra, the drug- and gun-running merchants peddle their wares for profit. In the process, the supply lines of armaments to the czars of terror remain open, oiled by huge profits from illegal drugs.

Paradoxically, one of the larger suppliers of heroin to the Western markets is the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, ostensibly an ally of the West in the Afghan conflict. But then again, we should remember that the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (kla), ally of the West in the conflict against Serbia, had as one of its chief goals in the Kosovo campaign the seizure and control of the drug- and gun-running corridor which runs from Mitteleuropa via the Balkans clear down to Colombia and points beyond.

It takes a lot of money to run a war. The ira-Sinn Fein alliance found this out quite early and have since largely funded their wicked enterprise through drug-running. Members of the provisional ira turned up recently in Colombia, a chief supplier to the illicit-drug market via its own terrorist cells.

Small wonder, then, that reports should start to emerge linking the ira, its offshoot the Real ira, the Basque terrorist group eta and al-Qaeda. The revered, Islamically religious bin Laden is known to control huge quantities of raw heroin and opium. It is reported that the Real ira has been laundering cash processed via bin Laden’s drug deals. The laundered cash then goes to purchase guns, bombs and other weaponry for use in the “holy” war.

“The overnight rise of heroin trafficking through Kosovo—now the most important Balkan route between Southeast Asia and Europe after Turkey—helped also to fund terrorist activity directly associated with al-Qaeda and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Opium poppies, which barely existed in the Balkans before 1995, have become the number-one drug cultivated in the Balkans after marijuana” (Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1).

This illegal drugs trade, lubricating the passage of illicit arms from as far afield as Iran, China and Russia, is flourishing under the ever-widening religious umbrella of Wahhabi Islam—the puritanical brand of the Muslim religion endorsed by bin Laden, fast becoming the dominant variety of Islam in the Balkan Peninsula.

Even in the Balkans, the seeds are being sown for the fulfillment of a dramatic biblical prophecy: “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over” (Dan. 11:40). Students of biblical prophecy are aware that this “king of the south” is a powerful leader of the Islamic nations. The king of the north refers to a final resurrection of the Holy Roman Empire, even now in the advanced stages of reforming in Europe.

In the not-too-distant future, this European empire will feel the heat of Islam at its southern doors and will move in blitzkrieg fashion, “like a whirlwind,” to overthrow the Muslim nations. That will be some holy war!

But just as we see the drug- and gun-running activities of these nations being exploited in the interests of Islamic fundamentalist terror, it has its parallel in the Christian world.

In a clear breach of the arms embargo slapped on all former Yugoslav republics in 1991, under the eye of the Vatican, Catholic countries such as Germany, Poland, Hungary, Panama, Chile and Bolivia channeled arms into Croatia to give it the edge in the northern Balkan wars.

As the war heated up, Croatia gathered extra military strength from arms exported from Catholic Spain, that old haven of neo-Nazism, ostensibly in a scheme largely controlled by Opus Dei, the secretive and extremist right-wing Roman Catholic organization. (Opus Dei’s modus operandi in Europe is to seek placement of its members in positions of political power so they can progress the papal agenda for a united Catholic Europe.) These armaments were quickly dispersed not only to the Croatian Defense Forces but to the many Catholic volunteers who rallied to the Croatian cause.

“The Croatian Defense Forces were joined by hundreds and perhaps thousands of volunteers ‘from Western Europe’ who were eager to fight in ‘a Christian crusade against both Serbian communism and Islamic fundamentalism’” (Huntington, op. cit.).

In the meantime, the Orthodox Church went to work to rally its troops behind Orthodox Serbia. Volunteers from Russia, Romania and Greece flocked to join their fellows of the Orthodox faith to fight what they declared were “Catholic fascists” and “Islamic militants.” As with the Catholics and Croatia, the Orthodox friends of Serbia ignored the arms embargo and opened up corridors of supply to send arms shipments to Serbia.

Romania, Bulgaria and the Ukraine were prime sources of supply. The Russians also artfully diverted UN supplies to the Serbs. Russian mafiosi aided with the drug deals to help finance the Orthodox war.

Drugs, guns and religion—the three combine to prosecute and perpetrate the ethnic, religious and terrorist aims of religio-political power groups globally.

Jihad and Crusade

President Bush was roundly condemned for his slip in using the word “crusade” to describe the West’s approach to the war on terrorism.

This war is not, and will not turn into, a “crusade” by Anglo-America against Islam. Anglo-America does not have the heart, the morale, the backbone or the will to crusade for any good that might remain in its decaying culture.

Millions of Muslims live in Anglo-American countries and practice their religion freely, even engaging in aggressive on-campus evangelizing at Western universities. Yet it was evangelizing for their brand of Christianity, not peddling pornography, that drafted Americans onto death row in Afghanistan.

Western democracies’ tolerance of Muslims is hardly reciprocated in Muslim nations. In reaction to this situation, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi declared, “We should be confident of the superiority of our civilization, which … guarantees respect for human rights and religion. This respect certainly does not exist in Islamic countries” (National Review, Nov. 5).

Parroting the pope’s own words, Berlusconi urged Europe to “reconstitute itself on the basis of its Christian [Catholic] roots.”

This response by the prime minister of a Catholic country, within which is domiciled the papal state that rules 1 billion Catholics, shows the clear division between the sides in this war. The initial attacks have been deliberately aimed at the U.S., but Bible prophecy indicates that they will broaden into a far wider theater.

Berlusconi’s reconstructed Europe, based on its traditional Catholic roots, is emerging rapidly. The push by Islam across European frontiers will only accelerate this trend. As European Commission President Romano Prodi mused, “These events have happened at a crucial point in the building of Europe. … The current crisis favors integration by highlighting the need for more intense action. The events of September 11 oblige us to act resolutely and rapidly …” (Daily Telegraph, Oct. 12).

A formidable force is gathering to the north. An ancient crusading empire is rising steadily to power into a position of global dominance economically, militarily and religiously. This power will not draw back as America has when it is challenged to jihad by the collective force of the Muslim nations in the future. That prophesied push by the king of the south will attract a retaliatory crusade that will thrust all previous crusades by the Holy Roman Empire into pallid insignificance.

And it will all consummate in Jerusalem—that troubled, strife-torn city over which Muslim, Orthodox, Christian and Jew have fought for so long.

As our editor in chief has written, “We can see that religion is shaping both the king of the south and the king of the north. …

“These prophecies are exploding on the world scene right now at a dizzying pace. This world is about to be plunged into its greatest suffering ever! … It will all begin in the Middle East. Still, there is great hope” (The King of the South).

In 1994, Pope John Paul ii expressed the hope that at the dawn of the 21st century, “Jerusalem will become the city of peace for the entire world and that all the people will be able to meet there, in particular the believers in the religions that find their birthright in the faith of Abraham” (Parade, April 3, 1994).

Gerald Flurry commented in The King of the South on that statement by the pontiff: “The pope was very accurate in this statement: ‘Jerusalem will become the city of peace for the entire world,’ but not the way he believes. … The Bible says we are about to see a religious clash that will stagger this world! This prophecy is yet to be fulfilled. … Jesus Christ will be here in the very near future. And He will bring peace to the entire world! … What a glorious future man has. And all of that glory is going to emanate from Jerusalem!”

OPINION

First Published 2006-09-06, Last Updated 2006-09-06 09:03:25

'Who Is Losing from Lebanon?'

 
'Just about everyone', answers Prof. Paul Sullivan. So it is time to rethink assumptions and take a really hard look at what is real and what is imagined in current strategies.

Lebanon is a small country, with a small population, and a small economy. However, in recent events, as well as in the past, it has been punching way above its weight in its effects on stability and security in its region and beyond. One of the reasons for this is its geographical position: it is right smack in the middle of one of the most politically heated and disputed areas of the world. It is also a mixed society with most of its people being Shia, but large populations of Sunnis, and various Christian groups. There are also large Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Lebanon went through a horrific civil war from 1975 to 1991, when over 196,000 people were killed and about 2 million were either internally displaced or left the country. Given that its population today is only about 4 million that is quite a hit. Many Lebanese left the country over many years of violence and displacement. There were billions of dollars of damage, and massive psychological and social traumas inflicted on the Lebanese people. Then there was the 1982 invasion of Lebanon by Israel, with Israel leaving in 2000. Hezbollah came out of the smoke and fires of this invasion, but also found some of its impetus in the battles amongst various groups within the country. It is a Shia group, and like in Iraq, the Shia in Lebanon have often been the downtrodden and the least politically and economically represented. Political representation in many such countries involves more than just being part of the government. It was just in the last few years that the Shia have found such representation growing in the government and also in the “street” and in the informal power networks that dominate over the government in Lebanon.

National Defense University and Georgetown University (All opinions expressed are those of the author alone.)

Shared values

By Tulin Daloglu  Published September 5, 2006

Women hold the key to the debate over whether Christian and Muslim civilizations can coexist in harmony. Yet the tension between the East and West, between modernity and extreme traditionalism, that feeds radical Islam and Islamic revival is not going away any time soon. And it isn't helped by the fact that ideas and impressions of Western culture and values are spread throughout the world largely through Hollywood.
    Many in the Muslim world form their opinions about the West based on what they've seen in movies and television. It is time to talk about the values that the cultures shared. When it comes to dignity, honor and motherhood, there is no distinction between women of different religions, race and ethnicity.
    Those values, however, are a question even in Turkey -- a Western country whose population is majority Muslim and where an Islamic revival is taking place. One undeniable symbol of it is the increasing number of veiled women. It is crucially important to understand the social norms that lead women behind covers.
    Last month, there were headlines in Turkey about Pinar Altug, a woman who won a beauty contest almost a decade ago and has since become an actress. She played characters that Turks admired, but in real life the ad hominem arguments she creates bring out a ferocious character. The insignificant debate she raised was about her attraction to younger men. Since the Prophet Mohammad's first wife was 15 years older than him, Muslim women should feel comfortable dating younger men. But because Miss Altug is in her early 30s, Turks seem to be having difficulty accepting her attraction. It became a huge subject for debate, particularly as numerous famous Turkish couples have followed suit.
    The real focus of the controversy, however, is that she cheated on her husband, dated another younger man and ended her marriage. She then cheated on that person to date someone even younger, and then someone even younger. Some Turks called Miss Altug's actions "revolutionary." In this patriarchal society, social norms tolerate men who cheat on their wives or girlfriends but don't show the same attitude toward women. That said, there's really nothing revolutionary about her behavior. It is plain unfaithfulness.
    What's more, we all fall into the same trap of loving the celebrities and talking about the details of their lives as if we know them. Paris Hilton and Pinar Altug are, in their spheres, incredibly talked-about women. However, that doesn't mean that either of their societies embraces their lifestyles or their values. When Carl's Jr., a burger franchise mainly on the West Coast, decided to hire Miss Hilton to sell its product, Bill O'Reilly, the famous conservative talk-show host, questioned the wisdom of the decision -- especially when it was claimed that she is an "intriguing cultural icon."
    The bottom line is that for religious and reactionary Turks, Miss Altug represents Westernized women and the erosion of Turkish family values. Fathers and brothers pressure women in their families by saying that western values detract from women's dignity and honor.
    Meanwhile, there are extreme examples in ordinary life. Last month in Turkey, police rescued 24-year-old Meryem Sak after a month of torture by her boss, Mustafa Kivrik. When the police raided the house, they found her chained by the throat, and her hands were handcuffed to the bed. Miss Sak's nails had been pulled out, and her toes and her pubic bone had been crushed with hammer. Why? Kivrik, with the consent of Miss Sak's mother and brother, wanted to teach her a lesson about being a "good woman," because she had male friends. He claimed there was evil inside her. In a sick twist, Miss Sak's mother was having an affair with Kivrik. Now the courts will decide case, and it should be the liberated world's demand that the judge examines the clash between Western and extreme values, as well.
    This example does not represent the norm in Turkish society, despite the many pressures women face. Looking at this case as representing Turkish values would be like saying American men tend to murder their pregnant wives, as in the case of Scott and Laci Peterson.
    It's important to understand that the extreme examples in order to understand the society's tendencies. They constitute evidence about the risks we take over values. The increasing number of women in Turkey who wear headscarves could be seen as a reaction to Western values and lifestyles, and as a way to argue that religiously pious Islamic women have higher morals and ethics than their Western counterparts. Free individuals can dress as they wish, but if dressing makes a statement about societal values, it is important to look at the issues at hand and really begin talking about how each "world" understands the other's culture, values and priorities.
    
    Tulin Daloglu is a freelance writer http://washingtontimes.com

MIDDLE EAST:  CRADLE OR GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRE?

Ardeshir Mehrdad | 23.07.2006 http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/regions/sheffield/2006/07/345867.html

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[ OCTOBER 2006 - Updates ]