Saturday, 5 February 2011

The Power Of Nightmares

The Power Of Nightmares
Part one of the series explains the origins of Islamism and Neo-Conservatism. It shows Egyptian civil servant Sayyid Qutb, depicted as the founder of modern Islamist thought, visiting America to learn about the education system, but becoming disgusted with what he saw as a corruption of morals and virtues in western society through individualism. When he returns to Egypt, he is disturbed by westernisation under Gamal Abdel Nasser and becomes convinced that in order to save society it must be completely restructured along the lines of Islamic law while still using western technology. He also becomes convinced that this can only be accomplished through the use of an elite "vanguard" to lead a revolution against the established order. Qutb becomes a leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and, after being tortured in one of Nasser's jails, comes to believe that western-influenced leaders can justly be killed for the sake of removing their corruption. Qutb is executed in 1966, but he influences the future mentor of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to start his own secret Islamist group. Inspired by the 1979 Iranian revolution, Zawahiri and his allies assassinate Egyptian president Anwar Al Sadat, in 1981, in hopes of starting their own revolution. The revolution does not materialise, and Zawahiri comes to believe that the majority of Muslims have been corrupted not only by their western-inspired leaders, but Muslims themselves have been affected by jahilliyah and thus both may be legitimate targets of violence if they do not join him. They continued to have the belief that a vanguard was necessary to rise up and overthrow the corrupt regime and replace with a pure Islamist state.
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GregMitch Greg Mitchell

Okay, bookstore activists, time to get busy again and place the new Rumsfeld memoir in the "True Crime" section.

Julian Assange's message @ Federation Square, Melbourne yesterday evening

FREEDOM LOADING ██████████████████████░ 99% #Tahrir | #Cairo | #Egypt | #Jan25 | #Freedom

Ex-Taliban base commander collapses in Guantánamo shower, dies

A 48-year-old ex-Taliban commander dropped dead of an apparent heart attack after exercising on an elliptical machine inside Guantánamo's most populous prison camp, the military said Thursday.
The dead man, Awal Gul, had been in U.S. custody since Christmas 2001 and at the prison camps in southeast Cuba for more than eight years. He was designated by the Obama administration as one of 48 ``indefinite detainees,'' meaning the U.S. would neither repatriate him nor put him on trial.
Gul was working out Tuesday night in a collective cellblock at the cement penitentiary-style building called Camp 6, said Navy Cmdr. Tamsen Reese, a prison camps spokeswoman.
``He went to go take a shower and apparently collapsed in the shower,'' Reese said. ``Detainees on the cellblock then assisted him in getting to the guard station.''
From there he was taken to a prison camp clinic, then to the Navy base hospital, some miles away, but could not be saved despite what the commander called ``extensive life saving measures.''
Gul is the seventh war-on-terror detainee to die during the nine years the Pentagon has confined some 800 men and boys to the prisons at Guantánamo.
Gul had never been charged with a crime during his more-than-eight-year detention as a suspected base commander for the Taliban...

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Carol Rosenberg @'Miami Herald'

Read the comments & weep!

HA! (Longy - this one's for you!)

With democracy or against it: There's no in between

Friday, 4 February 2011

'The Shirt That Hurts'

Robbie Fowler of the Perth Glory A-League club poses in a Liverpool shirt with “Torres” on the back at AK Reserve on February 4, 2011 in Perth, Australia. Western Australian personalities are being encouraged to wear “The Shirt That Hurts” to help raise money for the Premier’s Disaster Relief Appeal, which will assist the rebuilding of Queensland after the recent floods. (Photo by Paul Kane/Getty Images)
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