THE US-CREATED ISIL TERRORISTS THREATEN ISLAM AND THE WORLD
THE US-CREATED ISIL OR ISIS TERRORISTS THREATEN ISLAM AND THE WORLD
by Syarif Hidayat*
More than 1430 years ago, the God Almighty Allah warned in Al-Qur’an, Surah Al-Baqara, Verse 120 about what is happening in the Muslim World today. In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. “Never will the Jews nor the Christians be pleased with you (O Muhammad Peace be upon him ) till you follow their religion. Say: “Verily, the Guidance of Allâh (i.e. Islâmic Monotheism) that is the (only) Guidance. And if you (O Muhammad Peace be upon him) were to follow their (Jews and Christians) desires after what you have received of Knowledge (i.e. the Qur’ân), then you would have against Allâh neither any Walî (protector or guardian) nor any helper.”
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist group, that is a completely fabricated enemy created and funded by the United States, threatens Islam and the world. Former CIA contractor Steven Kelley says that the ISIL terrorist group is a completely fabricated enemy created and funded by the United States. “This is a completely fabricated enemy,” he said in a phone interview with Press TV from Anaheim, California on Thursday, August 28, 2014.
“The funding is completely from the United States and its allies and for people to think that this enemy is something that needs to be attacked in Syria or Iraq is a farce because obviously this is something that we create it, we control and only now it has become inconvenient for us to attack this group as a legitimate enemy,” Kelley added. He made the remarks as US President Barack Obama is under pressure to seek congressional approval before expanding Washington’s military air campaign against ISIL targets from Iraq into neighboring Syria. The Pentagon has already launched at least 100 airstrikes on ISIL positions in northern Iraq since Obama authorized the use of force against the terrorist group earlier this month.
The White House insists it does not need explicit congressional authorization for those operations because they are intended to protect American personnel and interests inside the Arab country. White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Monday that Obama “will not hesitate to use his authority” to keep Americans safe, but added that the president was “committed to coordinating and consulting with Congress” on a decision to hit ISIL targets in Syria.
“If you want to get to the root of the problem and remove this organization, the first thing they need to do is to remove the funding and take care of entities responsible for the creation of this group,” Kelley said. “I believe that this ISIS group would probably go away, would be easily defeated by the armies of [Syrian President] Bashar Assad,” he said.
The US troops and CIA agents help ISIL terrorists
An American political commentator says there are hundreds of US troops or CIA agents with the ISIL in Iraq and Syria to help the terrorist group.
Don DeBar, an anti-war activist and radio host in New York, made the remarks in a phone interview with Press TV while commenting on a recent report which says there are as many as 300 American nationals fighting alongside ISIL members.
Senior US officials have told The Washington Times that the US government is currently tracking and gathering intelligence on American militants who could return to the homeland and commit terrorist attacks with skills obtained abroad. DeBar said the ISIL “group is a construct of the US military intelligence. This is a terrorist cell that was organized by the US in order to destabilize Syria and perhaps other countries – they even made a threat against Saudi Arabia whether that’s just to make them look like they are on a particular ideological plane, or if it’s an actual threat, it’s a proxy threat from the US to Saudi Arabia.”
“My belief is that there are Americans that are a part of ISIL/ISIS with the knowledge of the US government and an assignment by the US government,” he added. DeBar stated that there are perhaps 300 Americans fighting with ISIL “and then hundreds more US regulars, with CIA or whatever military formation they have, under the direction of US intelligence, that are a part of this. It doesn’t require that they are American nationals, of course, just that their paycheck is signed in Washington or Langley.”
“If you look at the outcomes of every action that this group has taken, they facilitate actions that the United States has wanted to take, has declared that it wanted to take a number of times, or has taken when it could, but it can’t get the authority from the [UN] Security Council to approve because they violate the integrity and sovereignty of either Iraq and/or Syria, and also would enable actions that violate a resolution that just passed the House of Representatives massively, last week or the week before, that attempt to constrains, at least on paper, the president from making anymore wars without specific authority from Congress,” he noted.
“So, it’s no surprise for me that there are Americans in their units. There would be a surprise to me if they were all dupes and unemployed kids, who got duped, sucked into fight over there with a bunch of the crazies. It wouldn’t surprise me if you had good portion of units, including command and control, that would direct employees of the Pentagon and/or Langley,” DeBar concluded. ISIL controls large parts of Syria’s northern territory. The group sent its fighters into neighboring Iraq in June, quickly seizing large swaths of land straddling the border between the two countries.
The US military has begun planning for airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria after last week’s beheading of American journalist James Foley. The US has launched a limited air campaign against the terrorist group in Iraq since August 8.
ISIL is ‘a funded branch of US terrorist campaign against Syria’
Another American political commentator says the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), also known as Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), is one of the US terrorist groups funded against Syria. “ISIS is a funded branch of the US terrorist campaign against Syria and the US has been training ISIS in Jordan” and other countries, Daniel Patrick Welch told Press TV in a phone interview.
Commenting on US President Barack Obama’s recent remarks that he does not need congressional approval for possible air strikes in Iraq, Welch said, “The central problem of authorization of force in American politics is a non-story.” “Ever since Vietnam and increasingly in more recent years, the foreign policy apparatus in the war machine acts completely unreviewed and unintimidated by Democratic control and, if you notice, in this case Obama is just simply saying he doesn’t need it [and], you know, ‘You can all go to hell, I don’t need you.’ And of course Obama isn’t just Obama, he just a sitting US president,” Welch added.
Obama met with senior members of Congress and discussed options for helping Baghdad halt the advance of the militants of the al-Qaeda-linked ISIL towards the Iraqi capital. He told the top Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate that he would let them know what was going on.
Nevertheless, as the US says its military is ready for air strikes against ISIL militants in Iraq, some US officials, including the chairwoman of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California), and Republican Sen. John McCain say Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki should go before the use of US air power. Meanwhile, in response to a question from a reporter that asked if he had confidence in Maliki, Obama said on Thursday that it is “not our job” to choose Iraq’s leaders.
According to Welch, the US is “playing both sides as it always does.”
Welch also said Obama “doesn’t have much of a choice and the foreign policy establishment and the war party are ecstatic to have a president who would rather go golfing than do foreign policy because it makes him the perfect foil for the projection of imperial power.”
Congress must probe ISIL creation by US
A former US Senate candidate calls for a congressional investigation into the creation and funding of the ISIL terrorist group by the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia. “The entire world knows that this ISIS organization, also known as ISIL, was created by the United States, Saudi Arabic and Israel for the specific purpose of enacting regime change in Syria,” said Mark Dankof in an interview with Press TV.
“There needs to be a set of congressional hearings –honest ones which we are never going to see—that actually expose how this ISIS organization was created, who provided the funding, who provided the logistics, and why it is that this organization entered Syria and later Iraq principally to the auspices of two American allies; Turkey, a NATO member, and Jordan,” he added. Dankof characterized ISIL as “a foreign mercenary army” that has been “deliberately introduced into Syria” by the United States and its allies for the “nefarious purpose” of “regime change in Syria” and as “a prelude to a military attack on Iran which is what Israel has wanted all along.” US President Barack Obama is considering expanding the military air campaign against ISIL targets from Iraq into neighboring Syria.
Dankof said that Obama is using the terrorist group “to justify military actions in Syria which are as much aimed at President Assad of Syria ultimately as they are at ISIS.” “This is a classic case of ‘creating a problem and then offering a ‘solution’,” he said. Starting a war without congressional authorization is a violation of Article I of the US Constitution, Dankof pointed out. “The fact of the matter is Barack Obama knows that he can get away with this. He’s had a series of predecessors, who have gotten away with it.”
The White House insists it does not need explicit congressional authorization for military operations against ISIL positions in Iraq or Syria because they are intended to protect American interests. The United States began surveillance flights, conducted by manned and unmanned aircraft, over Syria which could pave the way for expanded military action against ISIL terrorists there.
Muslims condemn ISIS as un-Islamic
Paul Brandeis Raushenbush, in his article titled “ISIS and the crisis of meaning” published in Huffington Post, writes News of the horrific violence perpetrated by members of the group ISIS, or IS, on Muslims, Christians, and other minorities continues to shock the world. Within the past weeks, ISIS has beheaded the journalist James Foley, brutally attacked Christians and Yazidis in Northern Iraq using rape as a weapon of terror, and slaughtered occupants of a Syrian military base. In each of these instances, ISIS has used social media to post gruesome photos of its violence to increase the reach of their terror campaign.
In this context, the news that American citizens have joined ISIS and died fighting on its behalf is deeply troubling. The US government has confirmed that Douglas McArthur McCain, an American originally from Minneapolis, was killed in a recent battle in Iraq and it appears that another American also died in the same battle. Virtually every Muslim around the world has condemned ISIS as un-Islamic. This includes Egypt’s most influential cleric Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, who described ISIS as “an extremist and bloody group that poses a danger to Islam and Muslims.” Yet despite wide condemnation, it is estimated that there are up to 11,000 foreign fighters in Syria, dozens of whom are Americans and clearly, some of these Americans have found their way into the ranks of ISIS and are dying there.
ISIS is a serious threat that must be stopped and part of the solution requires force. The recent air attacks by the United States in coordination with Kurdish and Iraqi forces on the ground have reversed the tide somewhat in Iraq and similar measures are now being considered in Syria as ISIS makes gains in that tragically war torn country. However, as Ed Hussain told a group of journalists on a conference call with the Council on Foreign Relations, the long-term solution will not come through the military but rather by understanding the appeal of ISIS to those who join, and working to cut off its supply of potential recruits. In other words, while military tactics can be effective in the short term, you can’t bomb an ideology. You have to combat it with better ideology.
According to Hussain, who is a senior fellow at CFR, there is a profile that describes many of those who join ISIS. They tend to be young people aged 18-25 who lack a strong network and are seeking a sense of belonging and identity. The allure of a group like ISIS is that it gives these seekers a sense of purpose and being a part of something larger than themselves. It also gives them an outlet for their sense of injustice in the world and the opportunity to be part of a global struggle against injustice — with the target being “The West,” capitalism, or what they see as corrupt Muslim governments.
This view of ISIS is also held by Prof. John Esposito who stressed in an excellent piece on The Huffington Post called “The Challenges of Defeating ISIS” that the “drivers of radicalization include moral outrage, disaffection, peer pressure, the search for a new identity, and for a sense of meaning, purpose and belonging.” What struck me in these expert assessments is the continued use of the word “meaning,” and how a lack of a sense of meaning and purpose in life, coupled with the experience of alienation within one’s society, has led to many young (mostly) men, to turn towards such deadly violence.
Much of my professional life has been spent in churches, universities and now online, trying to help people wrestle with questions of identity, meaning and purpose. The current draw of young people to radical, violent groups such as ISIS reminds me that this work is as pressing now as it has ever been. Counterintuitively, religion offers solutions for meaning in the face of alienation. Mehdi Hasan, political director for HuffPost UK, explained that many people attracted to groups like ISIS are actually ignorant of the basics of Islam. … Hasan shared a quote leaked from MI5’s behavioral science unit to the Guardian explaining that: “Far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practice their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could… be regarded as religious novices.”
The knowledge that potential recruits actually are ignorant of the religion they claim to be defending offers an opportunity. Prof. Omid Safi, director of the Duke Islamic Studies Center wrote to me in an email that “part of the solution is more through, deeper, and more rigorous religious education from figures that actually carry credibility in the Muslim community.” Safi went on to offer a way to explain how a more informed, deeper understanding of religion can be a force for good in the world and one that resists violence:
As far as what I say to young people, my own message is fairly simple: Religion has always been and remains today a tool. It can be used to prop up the pharaoh; it can give voice to the deepest anguish and aspiration of the slaves. It is important to re-invest in the prophetic dimension of all of our religious traditions, so that young people can come to see religion as a way of standing up to tyranny, to occupation, to poverty, to violence, to sexism, to every form of degrading human dignity. And yet we have to keep insisting that the means to get there have to be resonant with our noble ideals. In other words, it is vital that we pursue that opposition to tyranny and violence in means that are themselves not tyrannical or violent.
Religion is one important means for helping young people find meaning and belonging, but it is not the only one. Religious leaders are not the only way to reach young people, as Mr. Hussain said in his call. The task also requires the family, the local community, teachers, pop culture, and people of good will online and offline. Long term, ISIS and the lure of other violent extremism in Islam and other religions will only be stopped if we are all invested in reaching out to young people. We have to be available to listen to their concerns, empathize with their sense of alienation, and help them find constructive ways to engage societal injustice. It is all of our responsibility to empower this generation with the knowledge and support they need to find a meaningful life and a positive identity that they can embrace and be proud of.
ISIS and other radical groups are deadly serious about reaching out to young people with their skewed version of meaning that leads to death and destruction. Are we just as serious in reaching out to offer meaning that results in affirming life and creating a better world?
Takfiri Terrorists threaten Islam
Dr. Kevin Barrett in his article titled “Takfiris threaten Islam – and the world” writes Islam is a religion of moderation and inclusion. Today, it is threatened by a Takfiri ideology of extremism, fueled by fanatics with misplaced faith in their own exclusive access to ultimate truth. Yesterday, one of the Takfiri rebel groups in Syria, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) executed the secretary general of the so-called Free Syrian Army (FSA), Ammar al-Wawi. The ISIL and the FSA are supposedly fighting on the same side. But the roughly 1000 rebel groups fighting against the Syrian government seem to hate each other as much as they hate Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Takfiris execute Christians as well as Muslims. They have been brainwashed to hate anyone who doesn’t think exactly as they do.
The fragmented Syrian opposition, mired in internecine conflict, is getting mopped up by government forces. The Syrian government, unlike the opposition, has managed to create a united front including Christians and secular-oriented people as well as Sunni, Shia and Sufi Muslims. Ironically, this is more in keeping with Islamic tradition than the “my way or the highway” attitude of the self-styled Islamic-extremist Takfiris. Saudi Arabia, the world’s chief sponsor of Takfiri extremists, and its ally Israel, are both panicking. The Saudis are launching a last-ditch effort to save their Syrian mercenaries by throwing six billion dollars at them. That is how the Saudis always try to solve problems.
The Israelis, meanwhile, are lobbying the US government to support the Saudi effort to save the doomed Syrian insurgents. The US establishment is split between those bought and paid for by the Saudis and Israelis, versus those committed to some version of the US national interest. The latter group is getting increasingly fed up with Takfiri and Zionist fanaticism.
Takfirism is an angry ideology of aggression
Takfirism, like Zionism, is an angry ideology of aggression and exclusion. Both the Takfiris and the Zionists define themselves by excluding and hating “the other.” Takfiris exclude and hate all non-Takfiris. Zionists try to exclude all non-Jewish natives of Palestine from their “Jewish state,” and hate everyone who dissents from Zionist orthodoxy. Both the Takfiris and the Zionists are aggressively expansionist. The Takfiris dream of taking over the whole Ummah (Islamic nation) by force. The Zionists keep grabbing more and more land as they dream of annexing everything between the Nile and the Euphrates. As the Zionists dream of a final ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, the Takfiris dream of a final religious cleansing of non-Takfiris. These deranged dreams are nightmares for the whole world. The Takfiris, who pose as radical Muslims, are a threat to Islam – and to the Islam-inspired politics of the Islamic Awakening.
Islam has always prospered by its inclusiveness, its reasonableness, and its ability to forge coalitions. From the early days when the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and his companions created the Constitution of Medina and forged alliances with a wide variety of tribes of different faiths, Islam has always included a respected place for the religious and ethnic “other” within the Islamic system. Most Muslim societies have always protected non-Muslim minorities and respected pluralism among the legal schools of Islam.
During the heyday of the Ottoman empire, thousands of Jews and Christians fled Europe to the Muslim lands to escape religious persecution. Andalusia (Islamic Spain) was even more pluralistic and tolerant than the Ottoman empire – and in many ways more tolerant than any modern society, as Maria Menocal explains in her book The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain.
The West subjugated both Andalusia and the Ottomans through a “divide and conquer” strategy. By forging alliances with first one Muslim city-state and then another, the forerunners of the Spanish Inquisition were able to pick off the Spanish Muslim societies one by one. The Andalusians, and their fellow Muslims around the world as well as non-Muslim allies, failed to unite to defend what many believe was the most advanced society that has ever existed on Earth.
The West used a different kind of divide-and-conquer against the Ottomans. It took advantage of conflict between the Ottoman and Persian empires, and stoked the rabid fires of nationalism among the many tribal and religious groups of the Ottoman lands – while enslaving the rulers through usury. One of the Europeans’ favorite tribal nationalist groups was the Wahhabis of Arabia – the forerunners of today’s Takfiris. Beginning in the late 18th century, the British imperialists encouraged an alliance between the Wahhabis and the House of Saud. The British were delighted when Wahhabi fanatics massacred the people of Karbala in 1802, sparking conflict inside the House of Islam. And they were even more delighted to see the Wahhabis and their Saudi patrons become a permanent thorn in the side of the Ottomans.
During World War One – a Rothschild-sponsored holocaust designed to destroy the Ottoman empire and plant a toxic Zionist entity in the heart of Islam – the British sent their agent T.E. Lawrence to open a Saudi-Wahhabi front against the Ottomans. The destruction of the Ottoman and Persian empires, following the earlier British demolition of the Mughal empire in India, subjugated the entire Islamic world to the Rothschild-funded European imperialists.
Today, Islam is rising as the Western sun slowly sets. Hard-line Zionist strategists, inspired by British Orientalist Bernard Lewis, are fighting a rear-guard battle to stymie the Islamic resurgence and preserve and expand the Zionist empire. Once again, the Takfiris and their Saudi sponsors are doing the imperialists’ dirty work.
The modern day “Jāhilīyyah”
Jāhilīyyah, in Islām, the period preceding the revelation of the Qurʾān to the Prophet Muḥammad PBUH. In Arabic the word means “ignorance,” or “barbarism,” and indicates a Muslim evaluation of pre-Islāmic life and culture in Arabia that was negative as compared to the teachings and practices of Islām. Facts speak for themselves correctly and objectively nowadays that some of the Arab leaders (kings, presidents and prime ministers) including Egyptian military (coup) leaders, Libyan rebel leaders, Syrian rebels (ISIL, ISIS, Takfiri and Al Qaeda) leaders and Iraqi (ISIL, ISIS, Takfiri and Al Qaeda) rebels leaders are political baboons who could be easily fooled, drugged and dragged and finally deceived by the Imperialist and Zionist ploys into supporting their interests to sow discord among Muslim countries and intervene in the other Arab countries as well as make them fight each other at the expense of their own fellow countrymen … and the winners are the Zionist and Imperialist corporate world!
I am very sorry for my Arab brothers and sisters who have become victims of their easily western-fooled and corruptible leaders!
As the West’s dominant Zionist faction continues to encourage the rise of the Saudi-funded Takfiris, dissenting voices point out the potential for “blowback.” These realist foreign policy experts argue that the Takfiris and their radical Zionist allies are out of control and “bad for business.” The realists have managed to stop the US from bombing Syria. They have succeeded in getting a preliminary nuclear agreement with Iran, despite the opposition of the Zionist faction. Whether they will manage to rein in the extremists permanently remains to be seen. In this case, what is good for Islam is good for the world.
If Muslims can return to their traditions of inclusiveness, tolerance, and coalition-building, and avoid the Takfiri temptations of extremism and obscurantism, political Islam will continue to rise as a force for justice; and the religion of Islam will spread even faster as the reality, rather than the Takfiri distortion, becomes better known throughout the world. (T/P3/IK)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
*Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) (He can be contacted via emails: [email protected] and [email protected])
Sources:
1. http://www.presstv.ir/
2. https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/
3. http://www.aljazeera.com/
