Raping The Middle East Religions And Cultures
By G. Asgar Mitha
29 December, 2014
Countercurrents.org
In reference to the Israelis, the late Edward Said had written “You cannot continue to victimize someone else just because you yourself were a victim once—there has to be a limit” .
Edward W Said was a Palestinian American literary theorist and public intellectual who helped found the critical-theory field of postcolonialism. In his book Orientalism, he analysed the cultural representations that are the basis of orientalism, a term he redefined to refer to the West's patronizing perceptions and depictions of Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies.
The corrupt and rich Wahhabi Saudis, Qataris and Emiratis (UAE) want the USA to crush the Shiite Iranians, Iraqis, Syrians and Lebanese in the region. The Israeli too want the USA to wage a war against the Iranians and topple the Syrian regime of al-Assad. Both also want the USA to crush the Russians because they're supporting the Syrians and both have the financial resources and the political clout but neither can perform the feat alone. They need the western firepower. The Christian USA, Canada and UK are fearful of getting involved in the Middle East for fear that the Hezbollah, Russians and Chinese may get involved in the region. It seems that all three fear Iran because it has refused to be victimized politically like all Muslims and raped culturally like Arabs. Enter IS, the hope for the Wahaabists, Israelis and Christian nations against Iran but It now seems that IS is an entity with its own agenda and who have now conveniently become enemies of all three.
There is much discussion going on among Arab Muslims and Christians from Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan living in western countries regarding their cultural and religious victimization or rape as I may term it. I'd been having discussions with Canadian Arabs over some time predominantly relating to the agenda of the Islamic State (IS). I've read about ISIS in western medias and heard several opinions from the Arabs in Canada. Both are same in some ways but yet in many ways distinctly different. Recently I met a couple who'd returned from Jordan. I asked them if they were Christian or Muslim Arabs. The woman appropriately replied to me that though they were both Christians, that was irrelevant as first and foremost they are Arabs. ISIS, I was told, has nothing to do with either Shias and Sunnis but it is about the rape of an Arab culture. When the bombs rain down from the western jet fighters, they do not distinguish about their victims religion. They just kill indiscriminately. The same with the ISIS bullets. Both the bombs and the bullets are western.
The general opinion among Arabs in the west is that ISIS is Saudi Arabia's brainchild and financed to contain the expanding influence of Iran in the region. On the other hand Israel's ISIS agenda is similar to that of the Saudis in that Iran would hopefully become involved in a direct confrontation with the west and which would also result in the overthrow of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad. The Saudi and Israeli agendas have not been materializing simply because the western colonialist powers were too concerned that Russia and China would become involved in a larger regional conflgaration. To pacify both Saudi and Israeli agendas, the US, UK and Canada may have inadvertently allowed ISIS to be created to cause confusion and disorder among Muslims and in the melee a culture is being destroyed.
How did the Saudis, Israel and maybe the US, UK and Canada succeed in creating ISIS? Who're the ISIS fighters and their origin? Why is ISIS carrying black flags with the inscription "La-Illaha-Il-Allah" meaning "There is no god but God" when there is nothing Islamic about ISIS. Who is Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and what is his origin? I discovered that some of my queries before the Arab diaspora were answered but many others not. I'll present these opinions in the next few paragraphs and leave it to the reader to agree or disagree. One thing is quite clearly obvious and that is ISIS financing is being made available by the Wahaabists. The reader can refer to my two articles "The Ancient and Modern Parallels of Arabian Aristocracy" and "Middle East: The Regional Chessboard". These were published on countercurrents.org
I read a CNN article on 13 December titled "ISIS: Enslaving, having sex with 'unbelieving' women, girls is OK". The ISIS group cites the Quran and its view of Sharia law. In answer, Bernard Freamon, Seton Hall University law school Professor wrote "It is also an affront to right-thinking Muslims everywhere and a criminal perversion of Islamic law, particularly its primary source, the glorious Quran". Freamon is correct. Similarly, Ali (the cousin and son-in-law of Prophet Mohammed) had mentioned in one of his sermons in Iraq around 650 AD about the time mankind (referencing Muslims specifically) will have twisted the meanings of the Holy Quran to gain their sinful desires and will have given a false interprtation to the verses to suit their vicious ways. One Arab showed me an image of the black flag with the inscriptions and the star of David on it and asked me "is this another false flag?" The black flag was a standard of the Quraysh of Mecca. It used to be a solid black flag with no inscriptions. The black flag of Prophet Muhammad was also without designs or markings. The reader can refer to the 13 December article on http://www.cnn.com/2014/12/12/world/meast/isis-justification-female-slaves/index.html?hpt=hp_t1. So likely the black flag is falsified - a misleading tactic.
A Canadian Arab originally from Samarra in Central Iraq told me that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is a mad man, a psychotic and insane person, the monster that USA inadvertently allowed to be created. They nurtured him and then turned him loose little knowing that he would create such mayhem. He told me Baghdadi has met Saudi al-Nayaf or Bandar bin Sultan with promises of financing and power if al-Baghdadi would do their bidding of involving Iran with the west in the Shia-Sunni chess game. It was hard to believe what the Samarri Iraqi was telling me some 2 months ago till I tumbled upon an article by Martin Chulov and Salaam Riazzak in The Guardian of 11 December 2014. I've read through that article and another of Chulov's article dated 23 May 2010 also in The Guardian titled "Iraq prison system blamed for big rise in al-Qaida violence". This is when I decided to write this article. Both articles can be read on http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/11/-sp-isis-the-inside-story and http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/23/iraq-prison-al-qaida-violence . The Samarri Iraqi told me that the US has managed to revive al-Qaeda in the Middle East. Chulov maintains that the USA has done so inadvertently.
Instead of hailing Osama as a hero for defeating the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the man was hunted, victimized and finally killed by the USA. Why? Because he knew too much. Doubtless, the same fate will be meted out to al-Baghdadi.
It is difficult to penetrate the brain of a mad and psychotic person. Why does he kill? Why is he ruthless? Why is he doing what he is doing? Chulov has answered those questions in his articles. Chulov's source about Baghdadi is also a Bucca camp inmate Abu Ahmed (nom de guerre). According to Chulov Baghdadi was born Ibrahim ibn Awwad al-Badri al-Samarrai in 1971, in the Iraqi city of Samarra. It'd seem that my Samarri "source" may've known about Baghdadi since he also hailed from Samarra. Baghdadi was caught in Samarra by the Americans and imprisoned in 2004 in the southern Iraqi Bucca camp where he exercised considerable influence and control over several al-Qaeda prisoners to the satisfaction of the American camp administrators. Chulov continues on about Baghdadi's influence and role in Bucca till July 2014 when ISIS finally made the headlines. The article is lengthy and makes very interesting reading. Chulov maintains that the Americans knew about IS activities in Syria and Iraq and now in the role of Dr. Frankenstein they're clearly trying to kill it with the help of the Canadians and the British because ISIS has set its own agenda and bit the hand that has been feeding it. Several of the IS recruits are from the US, Europe and Canada. It is not clear what has attracted them in this so called jihad. Maybe they're confused.
One of the very interesting narration by Abu Ahmed to Matin Chulov in his article is “He (Baghdadi) was respected very much by the US army. If he wanted to visit people in another camp he could, but we couldn't. And all the while, a new strategy, which he was leading, was rising under their (American) noses, and that was to build the Islamic State. If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would be no IS now. Bucca was a factory. It made us all. It built our ideology.” Abu Ahmed continues that "We all agreed to get together when we got out. The way to reconnect was easy. We wrote each other's details on the elastic of our boxer shorts. When we got out, we called. Everyone who was important to me was written on white elastic. I had their phone numbers, their villages. By 2009, many of us were back doing what we did before we were caught. But this time we were doing it better.”
In an interview with Jennifer Hunter published in The Star on 21 November, 2014, Karen Armstrong stated- what I'd agree - that "religion is never the root cause of violence" and "In ISIS, a significant number of the members are either thugs without any Muslim credentials or former soldiers from Saddam Hussein's army. That is what makes ISIS so effective on the battlefield." Are suicide and terrorism really due to human failings and a response to the invasion of a people's homeland? Her latest book, Fields of Blood: Religion and the History of Violence, looks at religion through time and around the world, from ancient Sumer to modern Pakistan. Look at what happened in Pakistan on 16 December 2014 when militants attacked a school and massacred over 130 innocent children. That heineous and unjustified crime by the Taliban was not committed in the name of religion but as a reprisal against the military.
Interestingly, the Syrian regime of al-Assad should survive because the game rules have changed due to ISIS agenda which is to establish a pseudo Islamic state, not along Islamic principles but along their own twisted ideology to gain power in the region. No Muslim would support the ISIS ideology. The western powers led by the US are interested in destroying the ISIS monster. The Wahaabist regime are emerging the losers, not only potically but also financially due to the collapse of oil prices. Iran will continue to become militarily and politically stronger and should emerge as the winner in the region. The rape and victimization of Muslims and Arabs not only by others but by Muslims and Arabs themselves continues and so does that of cultures. Where is the limit? Will it be when the US turns upon the Wahaabists or will it be as Iran becomes stronger and the others become weaker? Or will it be when a leader in the form of a saviour from among Muslims and Arabs stand up to the tormentors and say "we are one. Now leave us alone". Till then the carnage will continue.
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