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For more than a week, Israel mounted frequent aerial attacks on Gaza’s defenceless population, killing at least 25 and wounding dozens more.

Most of the casualties were civilians, and many of those injured were children. The dead included senior leaders from Hamas’s military wing and four militants from the Islamic Jihad group, killed in targeted assassinations.

The incessant aerial strikes through last weekend, which Israel said were aimed at militants, Hamas training camps, smuggling tunnels and weapons workshops, caused widespread destruction. They were the worst since Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008-2009. Since January 2009, there has been an informal ceasefire, and rocket attacks from Gazan militants had all but stopped.

Tensions started to escalate in March, however, due to Israel’s repudiation of peace negotiations and resumption of settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Violent settler attacks on Palestinians sparked the revenge killing of an Israeli settler family, with Israel launching retaliatory air strikes that killed two Hamas members. Hamas admitted responsibility for 15 minutes of rocket fire from Gaza, its first break of its informal two-year ceasefire. A bus bomb in Jerusalem that killed one was met with numerous air strikes that month.

The Qassem rockets and mortars fired into Israel have had little impact, landing for the most part in empty fields. Last week, a number of rockets were intercepted and blown to pieces mid-air by Israel’s Iron Dome rocket interceptors, the first time they have been brought into use. Since mid-March, Israel has launched a number of deadly attacks and fought gun battles on the border, killing at least 10 people.

Israel’s provocations prompted further rockets from Gaza, one of which hit an Israeli school bus that wounded the driver and a 16-year-old boy. This was a reprisal for Israel’s attacks that killed three Hamas military leaders on April 1, which Hamas said violated an earlier ceasefire. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said that the people who fired the missile were unaware that the target was a school bus.

Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu said the bus attack had “crossed the line…. Whoever tries to hurt and murder children, his blood will be on his own head.”

He authorised a wide air, artillery and tank assault on targets in Gaza.

The resulting carnage was so great that on Saturday, Hamas, which rules Gaza, declared a state of emergency. On Sunday, Hamas took the unprecedented step of broadcasting in Hebrew to the Israeli public to call for an end to the violence. Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister, said in an interview on Israel Radio, “We are interested in calm but want the Israeli military to stop its operations”.

Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza’s prime minister, also contacted Robert Serry, the United Nation’s special envoy for the Middle East, Egyptian intelligence officials, and two European countries in an effort to pressure Israel to stop attacking Gaza.

On Sunday, the Arab League condemned the attacks and called for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the crisis and impose a no-fly zone over Gaza. The UN and European Union have made a pro-forma call on both sides to cease the attacks.

Israel initially dismissed these appeals. Speaking at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said that Israel would respond even more ferociously if cross-border attacks continued. “Our policy is clear, if the attacks continue on Israel’s citizens and soldiers, the response will be much harsher.”

A ministerial committee authorised the army “to continue to act against those responsible for terrorism.” Ehud Barak, the defence minister, cancelled a planned visit to Washington.

While Israel continued its attacks, by Monday it appeared to have pulled back from a major escalation, after Serry arranged a ceasefire. Netanyahu said, “We intend to restore the quiet,” but threatened, “If Hamas intensifies its attacks…our response will be much more severe.”

Israel’s cabinet is bitterly divided even in the face of such a temporary cessation of hostilities. Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister and leader of the far-right party Israel Beiteinu, on which Netanyahu’s shaky coalition depends, opposed a ceasefire. He called instead for Israel to topple the Hamas government. Lieberman told Israel Radio that a ceasefire would contradict Israel’s national interests since Hamas would use it to smuggle more weapons into Gaza. Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom of Likud likewise said in an Army Radio interview that he wanted to expand the military operation in Gaza.

These elements believe that Israel has carte blanche to do whatever it likes against Gaza thanks to US backing, particularly after Judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired a UN Human Rights Council inquiry into Operation Cast Lead, repudiated the findings of his own report. Goldstone wrote an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, absolving Israel of criminal intent and instead castigated Hamas for intentionally targeting a civilian population with its rockets on Israel.

Israel’s provocations against Gaza follow bellicose warnings against Iran, which it accuses of arming Israel’s enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah in Lebanon, after Tehran sent two frigates through the Suez Canal to the Syrian port of Latakia last month.

Later, Israel seized a German-owned ship in international waters bound for Alexandria from Turkey and the Syrian port of Latakia, where the two Iranian frigates had recently docked. Israel claimed The Victoria was carrying weapons to Gaza from Iran.

On April 5, a missile attack on a car by an Apache helicopter near Port Sudan’s airport in Sudan killed two people. Initial reports suggested that the two men were arms dealers. It was similar to another attack on a convoy of suspected arms smuggled through Sudan in 2009 that killed scores of people and which was widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.

The Sudanese authorities have now identified the remnants of the rockets as having come from Israel. Sudan said that the helicopter had come in from the Red Sea, scrambled Sudan’s radar systems and followed Port Sudan airport flight paths. Sudan says that one of the two killed was a Sudanese citizen who had no links to Islamists or the government, and it was not clear why his car was targeted.

An Israeli military official told Time magazine that Israel was behind the attack, commenting, “It’s not our first time there”, implying that it had carried out the 2009 attack. Israel has long held that Sudan is an important route for smuggling arms from Iran into Egypt and ultimately Gaza, via tunnels under the border. Khartoum for its part has accused Tel Aviv of trying to scupper Sudan’s bid to get the US to remove it from its list of terrorist sponsors and normalise its relations with Washington.

13 April 2011

, NewAgeIslam.com

The French ban on the Muslim face veil that came into effect earlier this week has added new dimensions to on-going debates about secularism, democracy, religion, identity, the freedom of choice and gender justice. There is no simple answer to many of the troubling questions that the ban has provoked. Unequivocally approving or condemning the ban, to take any particular side in the fiercely polarised debate about the ban, is not an easy option.

The French government has justified the ban on the grounds that visible demonstrations of religious symbols in public are an affront to the supposedly unique brand of French secularism. That this could well be simply an excuse to single out and target Muslims, an already heavily stigmatised community, has not been lost on perceptive observers. Nor, too, is the fact that the ban is undoubtedly an assault on democracy and freedom of choice, which are meant to be cardinal principles of the Enlightenment project of which French secularists claim to be the heirs. The ban on the face veil, some critics insist, represents ‘secular fundamentalism’ at its most aggressive, seeking to efface all visible signs of religious affiliation and commitment, forcing everyone, believers included, into a single mould defined by a vision that is predicated on not just indifference, but, rather, visceral hostility, to religion. Such hostility, they contend, may have emerged from struggles against the Catholic Church in France but is now being used to target Muslims in particular. ‘If French women can be allowed to parade almost nude in public’, one commentator on a Muslim Internet chat site asks, ‘and this is considered the epitome of “liberation” and ‘”progress”, the ban on the face veil clearly suggests that hostility to religion, particularly Islam, is what is behind it.”

The media is agog with stories about irate Muslims thundering against the ban and denouncing it as an assault on Islam. Sadly, though not unexpectedly, numerous other voices, some that have welcomed the ban and others, more numerous, who have critiqued both the ban and the face veil, have been totally blacked out in the media which seems to be driven by an irrepressible urge to portray all Muslims as irredeemably misogynist patriarchs. Such voices fracture the image that some sections of the media, echoing irate conservative mullahs, ardently wish to reinforce—of the ban allegedly being perceived uniformly by Muslims as an assault on Islam itself, and, consequently, of all Muslims being up in arms against it.  The fact of the matter, however, is that not all Muslims see the ban on the face veil as ‘anti-Islamic’. This stems from the fact, quite ignored by the media, that not all Muslims believe that the face veil is indeed ‘Islamic’, and, therefore, binding and normative.

Complicating the Muslim response to the face veil ban are multiple voices, each claiming to authoritatively speak for Islam, revealing that there simply is no consensus on what precisely is the single ‘authentic’ Islamic position on the matter. It is true that some Muslims insist that the face veil is mandatory when Muslim women step out into public space. That, for instance, would be the position of conservative and viscerally patriarchal mullahs, such as those affiliated to the Wahhabi, Ahl-e Hadith, and Deobandi schools of Sunni ‘Islamic’ thought. These mullahs even go to the extent of insisting that women have to cover up not just their faces but even their voices, and refrain from speaking to ‘strange’, unrelated men. Some go so far as to insist that Muslim women should veil themselves even in front of non-Muslim women. Naturally, to these clerics and their supporters the French ban is nothing but yet another instance of what they regard as the Christian world’s sustained offensive against Islam, further ‘proof’ of what they insist are the never-ceasing ‘conspiracies’ by the ‘infidels’ against God’s chosen faith.

But such voices do not exhaust Muslim opinion, thankfully. A number of progressive Muslim scholars have argued that the face veil is not compulsory at all, and, in fact, that it is an Arab cultural relic that is not normative in (their understanding of) Islam. There is nothing in the Quran that sanctions the practice, they argue. They point out that the face veil is a symbol of Muslim women’s degradation and complete subordination that patriarchal clerics have ‘wrongly’ passed off as ‘Islamic’ in order to reinforce patriarchal rule. But such rule, in the eyes of progressive Muslim scholars, is wholly ‘un-Islamic’.

The face veil, progressive Muslim scholars note, is defended by its proponents on the grounds that it supposedly guarantees the ‘modesty’ of Muslim women. However, they point out, such appeals to ‘modesty’ are often just a crudely-disguised cover-up for women’s complete subordination to male authority. This, they explain, is premised on rendering women wholly unable to negotiate the public sphere autonomously and confidently. This inability is not biological, they insist, but, rather, constructed by men, through recourse precisely to such practices as the face veil. In other words, in the name of preserving women’s ‘modesty’, the face veil and the ideology that informs it, so such Muslim critics insist, are geared to reinforcing women’s abject dependence on and surrender to male authority.

The critique of the defence of the face veil that uses the trope of ‘modesty’ takes other forms, too. On the same Muslim online chat room referred to above, an irate Muslim woman wrote, ‘I know several married Muslim women who exploit the full burqa to flirt with their lovers, using the burqa to remain anonymous, their faces hidden from public view. Far from preserving their modesty, the face veil enables them to throw it to the winds!’ she helpfully adds.

Other Muslim critics of the face veil offer different arguments to support their stance. ‘The face veil marks women out as sexual beings, as sexually-charged objects, ironically in the name of desexualising them and protecting them from male lust,’ a perceptive Muslim observer wryly comments on the same cyber discussion portal. ‘It seeks to crush their spirit and humanity, denying them all innocent fun and joy by wrapping them in black garbs, the colour of death.’ ‘The face-veil also promotes the identity of Muslims,’ he goes on, marking them out as distinctly different from others, ‘almost like a separate species’, and, in this way, ‘reinforcing the worst negative stereotypes about Muslims.’

The face-veil, writes another Muslim man in the same cyber forum, is ‘bad for Muslim women’s health, besides denying them the possibility of studying or working outside the home and interacting normally with others.’ He cites the instance of the sister of a friend of his who was recently killed in a road accident. The woman, forced by her husband to veil from head to toe, failed to notice an oncoming vehicle, her ‘suffocating’ face veil ‘rendering her almost blind.’ ‘The face veil is calculated to make women deaf, dumb and wholly useless beings,’ he insists. ‘No wonder the mullahs, whose authority rests, among other things, keeping Muslims ignorant, are up in arms against the French ban.’

But even Muslim critics of the face veil, who insist that it has no sanction in their reading of Islam, do not necessarily support the French ban. ‘Both opponents as well as supporters of the ban are playing politics on the bodies of Muslim women. For both, the face veil is a useful tool to pursue their equally patriarchal agendas,’ notes an irate Muslim woman in a letter to a Muslim web-journal. ‘If the ban on the veil in France is atrocious, and I insist it is,’ she continues, ‘forcing women to veil, in self-proclaimed “Islamic” countries, like Saudi Arabia and Iran, is equally oppressive. Both represent an assault on the freedom of women to dress and live as they please.’

Other Muslim commentators, who do not regard the face veil as ‘Islamically’ normative and think it is enormously disempowering for women, suggest that banning the face veil is not the way to get rid of it. ‘Such a move will certainly be counterproductive,’ writes one critic. ‘It will embolden supporters of the face-veil, who will be bound to bandy the ban about as a supposed assault on Islam. That will only add to their strength, and will make people, including many women themselves, ever more wedded to the veil, using it as a symbol of defiance and assertion, a badge, as it were, of their “Islamic” identity.’ She harkens to failed attempts in the past, under Reza Shah in Iran and Kemal Attaturk in Turkey, to forcibly outlaw the face veil. ‘This only made people even more determined to resist the ban, using the veil to mobilise support against dictatorial regimes, which they portrayed as anti-Islam,’ she notes, adding that it was partially due to the efforts of the authoritarian regimes to ban the face veil that it has made such a comeback.

Banning the face veil by legal fait, such Muslim critics rightly suggest, is no way to promote Muslim women’s autonomy. It is bound to embolden patriarchal forces among Muslims, making the struggle for articulating gender-just understandings of Islam even more difficult than it is.

A regular columnist for NewAgeIslam.com, Yoginder Sikand works with the Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion at the National Law School, Bangalore.

From the April 11‚ 2011‚ issue

Joseph Eid / AFP

Less than three weeks after Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) forces, led by Saudi Arabia, entered Bahrain to aid the anti-democracy crackdown there, dignitaries from both oil-rich kingdoms did their separate rounds in Pakistan. The royal houses of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are nervous, and they need Pakistan’s mercenaries, and—if necessary—military muscle to shore them up.

This is a remarkable turn of events for Asif Ali Zardari, who had been trying since he was elected president in 2008 to secure Saudi oil on sweetheart terms. He had been unsuccessful in his efforts because the Sunni Saudis view his leadership with some degree of skepticism. It also doesn’t help that Zardari, a Shia, is big on improving relations with Shia Tehran. Riyadh now appears inclined to export oil on terms that better suit cash-strapped Islamabad. Manama, too, wants to play ball. It wants increased defense cooperation and has pledged to prioritize Pakistan’s hopes for a free-trade agreement with the GCC in return. But Zardari and his Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, should fight the urge to get mired in the Middle East.

Pakistan already has a presence in Bahrain: a battalion of the Azad Kashmir Regiment was deployed there over a year ago to train local troops, and retired officers from our Navy and Army are part of their security forces. Media estimates put the number of Pakistanis serving in Bahrain’s security establishment at about 10,000. Their removal has been a key demand of protesters in the kingdom. Last month in Islamabad, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani reportedly assured Bahrain’s foreign minister, Sheikh Khaled bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, that Pakistan would offer more retired manpower to help quell the uprising against Bahrain’s Sunni rulers by its Shia majority. Gilani’s spokesman was unable to confirm the pledge.

Islamabad’s support to the tottering regime in Manama is not ideal. “It’s like our version of Blackwater,” says Talat Masood, a former Pakistan Army general, referring to Bahrain’s recruitment drive in Pakistan. “We’re doing [in Bahrain] exactly what we have been opposing here,” he says. Pakistan, he maintains, has no business in trying to suppress a democratic, people’s movement in another country. Short-term economic gains cannot be the only prism through which Pakistan views its national interests, he says.

Pakistan has a long history of military involvement and training in the Arab world. Its pilots flew warplanes in the 1967 Arab-Israeli conflict, and volunteered for the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Involvement in Bahrain’s current strife would not be the first time that Pakistan has used its military might to thwart an Arab uprising against an Arab regime. In 1970, future military dictator Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, then head of the Pakistani military training mission in Jordan, led his soldiers to intervene on the side of Amman to quash a Palestinian challenge to its rule.

Some Bahraini opposition groups have called on the U.S. to intervene to get the GCC troops out of their country, fearing it could become a battleground in a Saudi-Iranian battle for regional supremacy. They stress that they share no real affinity with the theocratic regime in Shia-majority Iran, while noting that a number of Bahraini Sunni Muslims have also come out in the streets to call for greater reforms. Pakistani involvement, therefore, could result in it being embroiled in a proxy war, with serious implications for its own security interests.

The issue of Iran is important, but there’s a deeper issue, according to author Noam Chomsky. “By historical and geographical accident, the main concentration of global energy resources is in the northern Gulf region, which is predominantly Shia,” he told Newsweek Pakistan. Bahrain, he points out, neighbors eastern Saudi Arabia, where most of the latter’s oil is. “Western planners have long been concerned that a tacit Shia alliance might take shape with enormous control over the world’s energy resources, and perhaps not be reliably obedient to the U.S.”

Bahrain, which like Pakistan was designated a major non-NATO ally by the George W. Bush presidency, is home to the Fifth Fleet. It is the primary U.S. base in the region and allows Washington to ensure the free flow of oil through the Gulf, while keeping checks on Iran. Chomsky believes that Pakistani presence in Bahrain can be seen as part of a U.S.-backed alliance to safeguard Western access to the region’s oil.

“The U.S. has counted on Pakistan to help control the Arab world and safeguard Arab rulers from their own populations,” says Chomsky. “Pakistan was one of the ‘cops on the beat’ that the Nixon administration had in mind when outlining their doctrine for controlling the Arab world,” he says. Pakistan has such “severe internal problems” that it may not be able to play this role even if asked to. But the real reason that Pakistan should avoid this role is so that it can stand on the right side of history, alongside those who are fighting for democracy.

To comment on this article, email letters@newsweek.pk

, Sunday, April 17, 11:01 PM

The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups say scores of people have been killed by Assad’s security forces since the demonstrations began March 18; Syria has blamed the violence on “armed gangs.”

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Damascus at risk.

Syrian authorities “would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change,” read an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Damascus at the time. “A reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-[government] factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive,” the cable said.

It is unclear whether the State Department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010. While some of that money has also supported programs and dissidents inside Syria, The Washington Post is withholding certain names and program details at the request of the State Department, which said disclosure could endanger the recipients’ personal safety.

Syria, a police state, has been ruled by Assad since 2000, when he took power after his father’s death. Although the White House has condemned the killing of protesters in Syria, it has not explicitly called for his ouster.

The State Department declined to comment on the authenticity of the cables or answer questions about its funding of Barada TV.

Tamara Wittes, a deputy assistant secretary of state who oversees the democracy and human rights portfolio in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said the State Department does not endorse political parties or movements.

“We back a set of principles,” she said. “There are a lot of organizations in Syria and other countries that are seeking changes from their government. That’s an agenda that we believe in and we’re going to support.”

The State Department often funds programs around the world that promote democratic ideals and human rights, but it usually draws the line at giving money to political opposition groups.

In February 2006, when relations with Damascus were at a nadir, the Bush administration announced that it would award $5 million in grants to “accelerate the work of reformers in Syria.”

But no dissidents inside Syria were willing to take the money, for fear it would lead to their arrest or execution for treason, according to a 2006 cable from the U.S. Embassy, which reported that “no bona fide opposition member will be courageous enough to accept funding.”

Around the same time, Syrian exiles in Europe founded the Movement for Justice and Development. The group, which is banned in Syria, openly advocates for Assad’s removal. U.S. cables describe its leaders as “liberal, moderate Islamists” who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Barada TV

It is unclear when the group began to receive U.S. funds, but cables show U.S. officials in 2007 raised the idea of helping to start an anti-Assad satellite channel.

People involved with the group and with Barada TV, however, would not acknowledge taking money from the U.S. government.

“I’m not aware of anything like that,” Malik al-Abdeh, Barada TV’s news director, said in a brief telephone interview from London.

Abdeh said the channel receives money from “independent Syrian businessmen” whom he declined to name. He also said there was no connection between Barada TV and the Movement for Justice and Development, although he confirmed that he serves on the political group’s board. The board is chaired by his brother, Anas.

“If your purpose is to smear Barada TV, I don’t want to continue this conversation,” Malik al-Abdeh said. “That’s all I’m going to give you.”

Other dissidents said that Barada TV has a growing audience in Syria but that its viewer share is tiny compared with other independent satellite news channels such as al-Jazeera and BBC Arabic. Although Barada TV broadcasts 24 hours a day, many of its programs are reruns. Some of the mainstay shows are “Towards Change,” a panel discussion about current events, and “First Step,” a program produced by a Syrian dissident group based in the United States.

Ausama Monajed, another Syrian exile in London, said he used to work as a producer for Barada TV and as media relations director for the Movement for Justice and Development but has not been “active” in either job for about a year. He said he now devotes all his energy to the Syrian revolutionary movement, distributing videos and protest updates to journalists.

He said he “could not confirm” any U.S. government support for the satellite channel, because he was not involved with its finances. “I didn’t receive a penny myself,” he said.

Several U.S. diplomatic cables from the embassy in Damascus reveal that the Syrian exiles received money from a State Department program called the Middle East Partnership Initiative. According to the cables, the State Department funneled money to the exile group via the Democracy Council, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit. According to its Web site, the council sponsors projects in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America to promote the “fundamental elements of stable societies.”

The council’s founder and president, James Prince, is a former congressional staff member and investment adviser for PricewaterhouseCoopers. Reached by telephone, Prince acknowledged that the council administers a grant from the Middle East Partnership Initiative but said that it was not “Syria-specific.”

Prince said he was “familiar with” Barada TV and the Syrian exile group in London, but he declined to comment further, saying he did not have approval from his board of directors. “We don’t really talk about anything like that,” he said.

The April 2009 cable from the U.S. Embassy in Damascus states that the Democracy Council received $6.3 million from the State Department to run a Syria-related program called the “Civil Society Strengthening Initiative.” That program is described as “a discrete collaborative effort between the Democracy Council and local partners” to produce, among other things, “various broadcast concepts.” Other cables make clear that one of those concepts was Barada TV.

U.S. allocations

Edgar Vasquez, a State Department spokesman, said the Middle East Partnership Initiative has allocated $7.5 million for Syrian programs since 2005. A cable from the embassy in Damascus, however, pegged a much higher total — about $12 million — between 2005 and 2010.

The cables report persistent fears among U.S. diplomats that Syrian state security agents had uncovered the money trail from Washington.

A September 2009 cable reported that Syrian agents had interrogated a number of people about “MEPI operations in particular,” a reference to the Middle East Partnership Initiative.

“It is unclear to what extent [Syrian] intelligence services understand how USG money enters Syria and through which proxy organizations,” the cable stated, referring to funding from the U.S. government. “What is clear, however, is that security agents are increasingly focused on this issue.”

U.S. diplomats also warned that Syrian agents may have “penetrated” the Movement for Justice and Development by intercepting its communications.

A June 2009 cable listed the concerns under the heading “MJD: A Leaky Boat?” It reported that the group was “seeking to expand its base in Syria” but had been “initially lax in its security, often speaking about highly sensitive material on open lines.”

The cable cited evidence that the Syrian intelligence service was aware of the connection between the London exile group and the Democracy Council in Los Angeles. As a result, embassy officials fretted that the entire Syria assistance program had been compromised.

“Reporting in other channels suggest the Syrian [Mukhabarat] may already have penetrated the MJD and is using the MJD contacts to track U.S. democracy programming,” the cable stated. “If the [Syrian government] does know, but has chosen not to intervene openly, it raises the possibility that the [government] may be mounting a campaign to entrap democracy activists.”

whitlockc@washpost.com

16 April, 2011
Earlywarn.blogspot.com

The OPEC MOMR came out late yesterday, but it adds to the picture from the IEA report mentioned yesterday morning. In particular, I can now present revised graphs for total liquid fuel production. Here’s the last three year view (not zero scaled):

Note that the rise that’s been going in since last fall has now been abruptly interrupted by the Libyan situation, and total oil production has fallen by about 0.5mbd. This is about 0.6% of global production, but given that the world economy has been growing rapidly and needing about another 0.5mbd/month, the shortfall over what would have happened in a counterfactual world with no Middle Eastern unrest is more like 1.2% of global production.

In terms of the price production picture, this has put us much more into territory akin to the 2005-2008 oil shock:

We can put the situation almost entirely down to two things: the fact that Libyan production has plummeted, and that Saudi Arabia has made no significant move to compensate. In fact, Saudi Arabia slowed down production increases that it had been making in prior months. First, here’s all the Libyan data currently available:

So the world has abruptly lost something like 1.3mbd of oil production between mid February and March. Now there were a lot of news reports in the business press at the time this was first happening that Saudi Arabia was going to make up the difference. For example, according to Reuters at the time:

Saudi Arabia has increased its oil production to more than 9 million barrels per day (bpd) to compensate for disruption to Libyan output, an industry source familiar with the kingdom’s production told Reuters on Friday.

“We have started producing over 9 million barrels per day (bpd). We have a lot of production capacity,” the source said, but said he could not say when the change had taken place.

Oil prices spiked to a 2-1/2 year peak of nearly $120 a barrel on Thursday, stoked by concern the wave of revolutionary unrest gripping world No.12 oil exporter Libya could spread to big oil producing countries in the Middle East.

A report out of Washington by industry publication Energy Intelligence late on Thursday said Saudi Arabia had made the change quietly to try to avoid stoking regional tensions.

“The Saudi move has not been announced publicly, most likely because of the political sensitivities in the region and the internal dynamics of OPEC,” Energy Intelligence wrote.

Now that the stats are out, we can see that this was total bull. Will that fact be all over the business press? My bet is you’ll have to read some obscure blog called Early Warning to find out what really happened. First off, here’s all the Saudi production data I have (not zero scaled to better show changes):

Indeed Saudi production has increased to around 9mbd, but the timing makes it clear this has nothing to do with Libya. For better comparison, I have put both the Libyan and Saudi averages on the same graph (only since 2005), with the scales adjusted to allow easy comparison. In particular, note that the size of the units on both scales is the same, so similar vertical moves in both curves mean the same amount of oil, but the Saudi scale (left hand scale) has been shifted to put the Saudi curve next to the Libyan one (right scale):

I have circled the March data in each case. You can see what was going on. The Saudis were slowly increasing their production from last fall through February, presumably in response to growing global demand and rising prices. But then, in March, when Libyan production went into freefall, they put on the brakes and did almost nothing to make up for the shortage.

The burning question is: why? Back in 2006, when their production started to gradually decline from 9.5mbd even as global oil prices were in the worst spike since the 1970s, I was an advocate of the view that the decline was largely involuntary: they’d never produced more than 9.5mbd, they’d underinvested for decades, and some of their big fields were getting very tired (particular northern Ghawar and Abqaiq) and they were starting a big rash of new projects and ramping up their rig counts at the same time.

I see current events differently. The reduction in late 2008 was clearly voluntary to support prices in the face of the great recession. There’s no new projects announced, and the rig count hasn’t taken off. So my take is that the failure to increase production to compensate for Libya is deliberate. We can only speculate, but my guess is that, having watched how the west has helped to ease Mubarak and Ben-Ali out of power and is intervening in Libya to the same end, the Saudi regime is in no mood to care about our desire for more oil. Instead, they are very much in the mood to build as large a war chest as possible with which to appease their own population, strengthen their defense measures, etc.

So, instead of Saudi production increasing to compensate for Libya, total world production decreased, and oil prices went up sharply to enforce the necessary conservation on the world’s oil consumers.

If you want further evidence, I note that on February 24th, I wrote a post suggesting, based on my reading of press coverage, that perhaps the Saudis were not planning on increasing production. Looking at the spread of Saudi grades of oil to Brent prices. I said:

The real tell will come in a couple of weeks when we see what happens to these discounts once the Libyan situation comes out in the data. Will Brent spike while the prices of these Saudi grades languish, since after all, it’s only the light sweet stuff that’s in short supply?

Here’s my guess. When multiple major news sources run apparently independent stories at the same time, all propagating the same plausible but completely false line, I get suspicious and cynical. I think we are seeing the effect of someone’s (rather successful) P.R. push. Someone, probably the Saudis, wants us to think that Saudi production can’t be substituted for Libyan, and it isn’t their fault. If that’s true, then I hypothesize:

>> Saudi production is not going to increase in response to the Libyan cutoff, or not enough, anyway

>> Prices for Saudi grades of oil are going to spike in a very similar manner to Brent

So, here’s the latest data on the discount of the three Saudi grades of oil, to Brent (with a seven week moving average applied to reduce noise):

You can see that these discounts have actually fallen sharply in recent weeks to levels usually seen only in the depths of recessions when the Saudis are trying to raise prices. So rather than trying to flood the market with their oil to help supplies post Libya, the Saudis are ramping back and extracting every dollar they can get.

16 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

I seems that this President has turned his back on everything he touted during his campaign. Yet, as mature individuals we should have expected it…after all he’s a politician and most politicians lie through their teeth, right? You must remember, closing Guantanamo, having a more “transparent” government, working for peace in the Mid-East, talking to Iran, etc., etc., etc.

I hate to shatter anyone’s bubble, but he hasn’t done anything except reward the perpetrators of the Wall Street crash, expand the War in Afghanistan and move it over to Pakistan to boot. We still have troops in Iraq and we are considering putting troops in Libya where we have no national interests at all. Funny what that “Commander-in-Chief” title can lead you to do.

Yes, since the Congress declared “The Global War on Terror”, the executive branch has almost unlimited resources and power. “Hail Caesar!” I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little bit tired of him moving our military around the World like he’s playing some kind of chess game. You can bet that the military personnel are getting a little sick of it too.

I found out that the reason we are so down on Iran is because they are the sworn enemy of Saudi Arabia. Gee, I didn’t know that. I should have figured it out. When the Saudi’s sent troops into Bahrain to put down a popular movement against the princes of the oilfields, it became quite clear that America is certainly for freedom in the Mid-East, but only in certain parts. We supply Saudi Arabia with 3.5 Billion dollars of military equipment every year. Do they pay for it? Let me guess…no. Between Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia we give them more that 10.5 Billions of dollars in military hardware.

We have a situation where we spend more on our military than all the other nations on Earth combined. We are doing it today, and what are our fearless leaders talking about in Congress? How to reduce the average Americans entitlements! They have absolutely no qualms about spending more than half the tax dollars they get, but want to cut programs that American taxpayers put money into! If what I heard tonight is true, 40 cents of every tax dollar received goes to finance the debt. If that’s true, between financing the debt and paying for our military, that only leaves 10 cents of every dollar to actually spend. Is it any wonder why we are going bankrupt?

How about Libya? Who the F**K authorized us into that war? Just what are the people of the U.S. going to gain from it? The U.S. has a new toy called AFRICOM and they want to use it. Some say that Somalia, Yemen and Sudan will be next. Just what is going on and why aren’t Americans screaming their fool heads off?

Look, I didn’t use any big words and everything I’ve said here can be easily verified. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that this nation is in a fatal spiral of debt that will eventually have us go the way of the Soviet Union. Where are all the lefties? Where are the people that don’t want Medicare and Social Security cut? Why isn’t there uproar over our out of control military spending? Do you realize the two largest air forces are the U.S.Airforce and secondly the U.S. Navy? Did you know that it takes approximately 50 Billion dollars to operate one nuclear powered aircraft carrier and we have eleven of them? There are two nations; Italy and Spain the closest to us in numbers have 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_carriers_by_country

So why do we have so many carriers? Just what real good are they doing? Off the coast of Somalia American and other nations ships are routinely captured by pirates in fast boats. How do you hide a two football field long tanker from an aircraft carrier? Doesn’t this make you sit up and say WTF?

We’re fighting a war in Afghanistan to root out what the U.S. admits are only 50-100 al Qaida. The average cost of having one set of boots on the ground there for a year is One Million Dollars http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114294746 , just what are we doing? Opium production there has risen 400% since the U.S. landed troops there. Some sources say it is now over 6000 metric tons yearly. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/6239734.stm There are entire families addicted to the stuff. War is hell and opium makes it less so. If we gave them a democracy (which isn’t the real mission there) they wouldn’t know what to do with it. Between depleted uranium and opium, the Afghani’s will never forget us.

Forget about the class war here in America where the top 1% of the population owns almost 40% of the wealth and the other 19% together with the1% hold 83% of the nation’s wealth, leaving the bottom 80% of us with a whopping 7% of the total wealth. Never mind that the middle class has seen wages fall steadily over the last two decades while the upper 10% have had a 13% increase. Don’t tax the rich! According to the GOP that will mean that they can’t hire anyone. (What …like an extra maid or butler?)

So when are we going to do something about it? Obama, with his minions from Goldman Sacks aren’t going to break the status quo. Anyway, he’s Commander-in-Chief! I say do something. If things progress the way they are, we will have the largest armed forces in the world, but they will all be mothballed. (And maybe that’s a good thing). The government wants to cut everything under the sun, but the military is sacrosanct. It’s about time we brought the subject up loud enough for these cowards in Washington to hear us. Don’t you think?

Timgatto@hotmail.com

15 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

NATO aircraft are routinely equipped with anti-armor missiles fitted with depleted uranium war heads. It has been widely reported that NATO has fired hundreds of anti-armor missiles in many parts of Libya, including in the immediate environs of the Libyan capital Tripoli. This means that thousands of kilos of depleted uranium have been used in Libya in the past weeks.

Depleted uranium, or D.U., ignites when it strikes armored vehicles. Ignition causes D.U. to break down to a microscopic powder, measured in microns or millionths of an inch. Upon impact D.U. creates a fireball in many cases that rises hundreds of feet into the atmosphere where the wind helps spread it over large areas.

D.U. is a very dangerous, long term poison. It is radioactive and when ingested internally causes a host of problems to its victim. It is nonspecific and generational in impact, meaning that it does not distinguish between friend or foe and the damage it does goes on for generations into the future.

Large quantities of D.U. were used during the attack on Iraq in 1991 and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The damage done by D.U. to the Iraqi population is well documented and continuing.

The use of D.U. constitutes a war crime and crime against humanity, just as poison gas and dumdum bullets were designated in their time. The Libyan people are the latest victims of this western inflicted plague.

Irradiate the Libyan people to save the Libyan people? How else could you describe the NATO attack on Libya?

Thomas C. Mountain

Asmara, Eritrea

thomascmountain at yahoo dot com

In a previous life Thomas C. Mountain was the editor of the Ambedkar Journal and is presently the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006

15 April, 2011

Countercurrents.org

A previous article explained that America’s led NATO war on Libya was long-planned. All military interventions require months of preparation, including:

— strategy and conflict objectives;

— enlisting coalition partners;

— selecting targets;

— promoting political and public support;

— deploying troops;

— in Libya, recruiting, funding, and arming so-called rebels; and

— post-conflict imperial plans.

Washington wants one despot replaced with another, a useful puppet to salute and obey orders, not independent-minded ones like Gaddafi who went along most often but not always on all issues, some major enough to want him ousted. An important overlooked one is discussed below.

Other objectives are to colonize Libya, balkanize it like Yugoslavia and Iraq, prevent democracy from emerging, privatize its state enterprises, exploit its people, establish new Pentagon bases, and control its oil, gas and other resources, a key one getting little attention – Libya’s Great Man-Made River (GMMR).

The Nubian Sandstone Aquifer System (NSAS) lies beneath four North African countries – Chad, Egypt, Sudan and Libya, called the world’s largest fossil water system because it’s ancient and non-renewable. In fact, the Qur’an’s (Koran) Surah 2, Verse 74 says:

“For among rocks there are some from which rivers gush forth; others there are which when split asunder send forth water.”

In fact, three major aquifers lie beneath the Sahara, NSAS the largest, containing an estimated 375,000 cubic km of water.

Covering two million square km, it’s an ocean of water beneath the desert for irrigation, human consumption, development, and other uses. At 2007 consumption rates, it could last 1,000 years. Gaddafi calls NSAS the “Eighth Wonder of the World.” Its web site says it’s the largest global underground network of pipes and aqueducts, consisting of:

— over 1,300 wells;

— 7 million miles of pre-stressed steel wire to strengthen 12-foot diameter pipes;

— 3,500 km of pipeline covering an area equal to Western Europe;

— four pipelines – two east and two west, connecting with links north; and

— thousands of miles of roads between and connecting its various lines and infrastructure, supplying 6.5 million cubic meters of fresh water daily to Libyans and others in the region. Extracting water at a depth of from 1,600 – 2,500 feet, the system purifies and supplies it mainly to populated coastal cities.

Conceived in the late 1960s, feasibility studies were conducted in 1974. Construction then began in 1984, divided in five phases, each largely separate, then combined into an integrated system. Funded by Gaddafi without loans from other nations or Western banks, the project cost $25 billion so far.

Inaugurated in August 1991, phase I provides two million daily cubic meters of water along a 1,200 km pipeline from As-Sarir and Tazerbo to Benghazi and Sirt, via the Ajdabiya reservoir. Phase II delivers one million daily cubic meters from the Fezzan region to the fertile Jeffara plain in the Western coastal belt, also supplying Tripoli.

Phase III is in two parts. Its first adds an additional 1.68 million cubic meters daily through another 700 km of pipeline and pumping stations. It also supplies 138,000 more cubic meters daily to Tobruk and the coast from a new Al-Jaghboub wellfield through another 500 km of pipeline.

The final phases involve extending the distribution network by pipelines linking the Ajjabiya reservoir to Tobruk, then connecting Eastern and Western systems at Sirt into a single integrated network. When fully operational, Gaddafi hopes to make the desert as green as Libya’s flag.

The project is owned by the Great Man-Made River (GMMR) Authority, funded by Gaddafi’s government as explained above. However, with war raging, the system is jeopardized as well as Gaddafi’s dream to turn the desert green.

On April 3, AFP headlined, “Libya warns of disaster if ‘Great Man-Made River’ hit,” saying:

If GMMR is bombed, it could cause a “human and environmental disaster.” Libya has three underground pipeline systems, for oil, gas, and water. If one is hit, the others are affected, potentially disastrously. According to project manager Abdelmajid Gahoud:

“If part of the infrastructure is damaged, the whole thing is affected and the massive escape of water could cause a catastrophe,” depriving millions of Libyans of fresh water, 70% of 6.5 people for human consumption, irrigation, and other purposes.

Moreover, if Gaddafi is ousted, the enterprise will be privatized, making water unaffordable for many, perhaps most Libyans. In other words, neoliberal control will exploit it for maximum profits.

A Final Comment

On April 13, Ellen Brown’s Truthout article headlined, “Libya: All About Oil, or All About Banking?” raised an important easily overlooked issue, saying:

“Libyan rebels took time out from their rebellion in March to create their own central bank (the Central Bank of Benghazi),” suggesting others with sophisticated know-how had it on the shelf ready to go months earlier.

A previous article quoted General Wesley Clark’s book, “Winning Modern Wars,” saying Pentagon sources told him two months after 9/11 that war plans were being prepared against Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia, Sudan and Libya.

“What do these seven countries have in common,” asked Brown? None (as well as Afghanistan) are “listed among the 56 member banks of the Bank for International Settlements.”

It’s the central bank for central bankers, a banking boss of bosses accountable to no government, privately owned by its members, the most powerful with most influence.

Outliers, of course, put “them outside (its) long regulatory arm.” Months before America attacked Iraq, Saddam Hussein began selling oil in Euros, not dollars, threatening its reserve currency and petrodollar dominance. Gaddafi “made a similarly bold move,” an initiative toward replacing the dollar with “the gold dinar,” hoping for “a united African continent (under) this single currency.”

Many Arab and African countries endorsed the idea, but not America or the West, “French President Nicolas Sarkozy calling (Gaddafi) a threat to the financial security of mankind.” He wasn’t deterred.

Moreover, “the Central Bank of Libya is 100% State owned.” In other words, it creates its own money, the Libyan Dinar, interest free to be used for productive economic growth, not profits and bonuses for predatory bankers.

As a result, imperial Washington, Britain and France included Libya on their “globalist (hit list to integrate it into) its hive of compliant nations,” at the expense of its own internal interests. They include oil and gas development, projects to make the desert green, as well as providing free education, healthcare, and other essential social services from oil revenues and Central Bank of Libya created money.

“So, is this new war all about oil or all about banking,” asked Brown? “Maybe both – and water as well,” noting that with “energy, water and ample (interest-free) credit to develop the infrastructure to access them, a nation can be free (from) foreign creditors,” especially predatory Western ones, entrapping countries in debt for greater profits.

Perhaps that was Saddam’s real threat, now Gaddafi’s and other nations on the Pentagon’s hit list.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com

The Mullah and the torch-bearer

Hail from the same stock;

They give light to others,

And themselves are in the dark.

(Bulleh Shah, Sufi, revolutionary and poet)

The shrill opposition of many ‘Muslims’ to the French ban on the face veil has only reinforced my conviction that a thorough reform, indeed nothing less than a complete paradigm shift, in the ways in which ‘Muslims’ understand Islam is more than overdue. My point is simple: ‘Muslims’, by and large, are guilty of equating their own historically-produced and conventionally-understood readings of Islam as equivalent to and wholly synonymous with Islam itself or the Divine Will per se. Since these understandings are humanly produced, and, hence, necessarily flawed and limited, to insist that these represent ‘true’ Islam or the Divine Will itself is to be guilty of the cardinal sin of shirk or ‘associationism’. Such a claim is, in effect (even if this is not the perceived intention), tantamount to equating humans with God by equating God’s word with human, and therefore, necessarily flawed, understandings of it.

At the outset, let me clarify that although I am convinced that the face veil has no sanction whatsoever in the Quran and I agree that it is extremely debilitating and degrading for women, I am not convinced that banning it by law is the best way to reform the custom out of existence. That said, I also insist, contrary to what many ‘Muslim’ critics of the French ban argue, that banning the veil is not tantamount to an attack on Islam, although it may be an assault on ‘Muslim’ communal sentiments that seem, in this case, to be premised on the visible degradation of ‘Muslim’ women. To claim, as, for instance, the ignorant mullahs of Deoband recently did (in an appeal to the Government of India to sever ties with France) that the face veil is an integral part of Islamic belief is wholly erroneous. This ridiculous argument only reflects the general tendency, pointed out earlier, of ‘Muslims’, led by their ignoramus mullahs, daring to equate their own fallible and humanly-conditioned understandings of Islam with Islam or the Divine Will per se.

It would be obvious to anyone reading the Quran that nowhere does it specify that ‘Muslim’ women should wear a specific sort of dress. Neither does it state that women should cover their faces. It is true that the Quran lays down certain principles of modesty in dressing, but it does not specify precisely what people should wear, this being left to personal discretion and open to variation depending on local custom. Such principles apply both to males and females, and are not specific to females alone. Unlike what the mullahs urge, based on rules that they have themselves devised, the Quran does not insist that ‘Muslim’ women must be wrapped up in black sacks. To insist that this is compulsory uniform for Muslim women is to be guilty of inventing rules and restrictions that have no Quranic warrant. To impose such rules in the name of Islam is a crime, for it is tantamount to claim to know the Quran better than The One whose word it is believed to be.

To insist, as the mullahs do, on a trap-like medieval Arab dress for women that effectively subjects them to enforced domesticity and abject subservience to men reflects another painful reality of conventional ‘Muslim’ (mis-)understandings of Islam: the notion that Arab culture is somehow integral to Islam and inseparable from it. Hence, the widespread belief that Arabs are more ‘authentic’ ‘Muslim’s than we are, that Arabs are superior to non-Arab ‘Muslims’ (hence the prohibition on Arab women marrying non-Arab men in some schools of fiqh), that the Arab Syeds have special privileges and deserve particular honour, that Arabic mosque architecture is more ‘Islamic’ than other styles, that Arab dates are more ‘holy’ than non-Arab dates, that Arabic is the language spoken in heaven, and so on.

Arab cultural supremacism has played havoc with the notion, so integral to the Quran, of Islam as the universal faith—as the faith not just of the Prophet Muhammad but, indeed, that of all the other prophets of God, whom God has sent to every people, only few of whom were possibly conversant in Arabic, prayed and preached in that language or called their faith by the particular Arabic term ‘Islam’ ( I suppose that if they used any term to define their ‘Islam’, it would have been in their own languages and would have conveyed the same sense as what ‘Islam’ means in Arabic, i.e. submission to God). To privilege Arabic culture in the manner that many ‘Muslims’, including those hollering for the face veil, do is surely a form of cultural idolatry (defined by the Oxford Dictionary as ‘extreme admiration, love, or reverence for something or someone’) that has no warrant in the Quran whatsoever.

By conflating Islam with Arabic culture, and, on that basis, insisting that the face-veil is normative for all ‘Muslim’ women and for all time, the mullahs and their ignorant followers effectively declare that to be ‘Muslim’ one must conform to, or at least privilege, seventh century Arabic cultural practices and norms. In making this audacious claim that freezes lived Islam into a fixed cultural mould and renders it incapable of adjusting to new cultural contexts, the ignorant mullahs are completely unmindful of the immense practical difficulties as well as psychological traumas that their ridiculous pronouncements produce for non-Arab ‘Muslims’, who happen to form the vast majority of the world’s ‘Muslim’ population.

Much has been written about the shameless hypocrisy of many ‘Muslim’ men, brainwashed by their ignorant and scheming clerics, in insisting on rules of ‘modesty’, including in matters of dress, for ‘Muslim’ women while conveniently ignoring that modesty, as the Quran suggests, is for both the genders to observe. I do not wish to revisit that debate here, but only want to point to the blatant double-standards of the champions of the face veil. Women, they insist, based on some (probably fabricated) hadith reports (and NOT the Quran), is wholly awrah, something to be concealed fully and hidden from public gaze, allegedly because women are by definition, by their very biology as it were, sources of temptation and fitnah (strife). Even their voices, they quote another hadith as declaring, are awrah, and so no woman should speak to an unrelated man. The justfication the mullahs proffer for this horrendously misogynist prohibition is that women are supposedly so sexually stimulating that if men not just see their faces but even so much as hear their voices, they would be thrown into the throes of sexual excitement. And that would cause the entire edifice of ‘morality’ to come tumbling down.

Those who have read the Quran (without the lenses supplied by the mullahs) will know that there is nothing in the Quran that sanctions this perspective. If men are so weak and so sexually charged that the mere sound of a woman’s voice will drive them astray by exciting their sexual desires, why should women be punished for the sexual obsession of men? The Quran (and logic, too) insists that no one shall bear the burdens of the sins of others. That being the case, why must women be punished—hidden behind veils, locked up in their homes,  denied access to the public sphere, left economically and educationally completely deprived and therefore utterly dependent on sexually-frustrated men—just because men are supposedly unable to control their over-charged  libidos? To force women to pay for the sins of men is certainly unjust by every reasonable standard. It definitely contradicts the clear Quranic declaration: ‘No soul bears the sins of another soul. Every human being is responsible for his own works.’ (53: 38-39). But will the mullahs, wedded to their own created interpretations of Islam instead of to the Quran, listen to the voice of reason?

Anyone who travels in the Middle-East, the supposed ‘heartland of Islam’, will be confronted by the gross violation of the above-mentioned Quranic dictum on a massive scale. He or she will be faced with the frightening spectacle of women forced to hide behind black sheets, their faces completely invisible, because, the mullahs have declared, this is how women must ‘preserve’ their modesty. On the other hand, ‘Muslim’ men will dress as they please, in as revealing and as immodest a manner as they like, including in the latest Western fashions. (It is a different matter that many Middle-Eastern women sport the skimpiest of mini-skirts and even the most tantalising belly-dance costumes under their burqas, and that vast numbers of of them, as in Iran, so I hear, simply itch to throw off the veils that have been forced on them by the mullahs—such is the hypocrisy these gendered dress codes necessarily generate).

The fact that women, and not just men, have sexual desires and that they, too, could be sexually excited seeing ‘strange’ men, does not seem to matter a whit to the mullahs, who dare not impose on ‘Muslim’ men the same harsh rules they can on women. If the absurd logic of the mullahs, that the mere sight or voice of a woman is bound to sexually excite men and set off fitnah on an uncontrollable scale, and that, therefore, the former must be silenced by compulsory veiling (not just of the body, including the face, but of the voice, too), is to be taken to its logical culmination, let them order men, the guilty gender, to be locked up in their homes rather than punish women for men’s crimes.

The neurotic (there seems no better word for it) obsession of the mullahs and their blind followers with the constant policing of ‘Muslim’ women constantly reinforces the deeply-rooted notion that women are simply tantalizing sexual objects and that men constantly obsess about sex. In this way, this discourse completely over-sexualises men as well as women. This has become so ingrained in the general ‘Muslim’ psyche as to be transformed into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Curiously, this notion is wholly absent in the Quran, but fully present in the Hadith and in other humanly-crafted texts (which are replete with misogynist narrations that completely defy and contradict Quranic logic), which the mullahs in effect privilege over God’s word by insisting that the Quran can only be read in the light of their pronouncements.

The un-Quranic notion of women as simply sexual beings pervades ‘Muslim’ cultures and societies worldwide, making for all sorts of enormities: the inability of ‘Muslim’ men and women to relate to each other sensibly, or even to see each other in other than just sexual terms. It leads to an enormous and painfully exaggerated obsession with sex on the part of men. The more women are ‘sexualised’ by being perceived as sexual beings and subjected to all sorts of ridiculous restrictions on that account, the more men’s obsession with sex mounts, producing a completely neurotic personality. The more women are denied access to the public sphere, together with chances of normal, non-sexual interaction with men, the greater the inability to conceive of the possibility of interaction between the genders in anything but sexual terms.

This accounts, in large measure, for the general impression of ‘Muslim’ men as sexually-frustrated and sex-obsessed creatures. That is not to say, of course, that this is a specifically ‘Muslim’ issue, hypersexuality being glorified in many non-‘Muslim’ cultures, too.  I admit this is a somewhat exaggerated stereotype. Yet, all stereotypes, to gain acceptance, must contain at least a grain of truth. Denied any opportunity for interacting on even a non-sexual level with women, ‘Muslim’ men, the mullahs insist, must inhabit an entirely male public space. That, in turn, leads to all sorts of complications and frustrations, including unhappy marriages that women find themselves trapped in because ‘Muslim’ men are trained to perceive women as sexual beings and are generally rendered incapable conceiving marriage as an egalitarian relationship between two equals based on reciprocity.

In their dogged commitment to the fiercely patriarchal and misogynist laws that they have themselves generated and falsely attributed to the Quran and God, the mullahs and their ignorant blind followers simply do not care what havoc they have created and continue to insist on creating. And if any one dares to challenge them, calling them back to the Quran and appealing to them to desist from passing off their ideas and rules as the word of God, they quickly pounce on him or her as a ‘heretic’ and impute all sorts of false motives. That being the case, the prospects for reasoned debate on the women’s question in ‘Muslim’ societies remains, as ever, an almost impossible one.

Experts say human rights unlikely to improve as laws that are equally dreaded remain in place.

Hugh Macleod and a reporter in Syria Last Modified: 20 Apr 2011 19:12

Pro-democracy protests across several cities have shaken the Syrian regime [EPA]

Syrian authorities may have decided to lift the dreaded emergency laws in force in the country since the ruling Baath Party took power in 1963, but experts and analysts say the move will do little to improve human rights.

According to them, many of the draconian charges on which opponents of the regime are routinely imprisoned exist either within the Penal Code itself or as special laws or articles in the constitution, and courtesy them, Syria would continue to be run as a virtual police state.

Click here for more in-depth coverage of Syria

“There are 15 branches of security in Syria and all of them will remain immune from prosecution, even after emergency laws are lifted. The security services are above the law,” said Haithem Maleh, a former judge and veteran human rights campaigner, imprisoned many times in Syria for his work.

The lifting of emergency laws has been a major demand of the month-long unprecedented protest movement against the regime.

Shaken by the protests, Bashar al-Assad, the president, pledged a few days ago to lift the laws. And on Tuesday, the Syrian cabinet approved the move.

It was initially thought the authorities would bring in a new set of draconian laws to replace the emergency laws.

But according to a leading Syrian newspaper owned by the president’s brother-in-law, no new anti-terrorism law is on the anvil.

The existing criminal laws of Syria’s Penal Code have been deemed sufficient to counter the threat of terrorism, said an article in Al Watan newspaper, owned by Syria’s most powerful businessman, Rami Makhlouf, on Wednesday.

“What will be issued by the President of the Republic will not be a law for combatting terrorism only that to lift the state of emergency,” said the paper, quoting an anonymous senior official. “The special articles contained in the Syrian Penal Code related to terrorism are sufficient.”

What is deemed sufficient by the authorities should ring the alarm bells for ordinary Syrians.

Immunity intact

In 2008 President Assad extended immunity from prosecution to all branches of Syria’s security services under a presidential decree which will remain unaffected by the lifting of emergency laws.

Maleh said separate security services played overlapping roles as domestic policemen.

“We’ve had recent cases of air force intelligence arresting 100 people on charges of corruption. Army and air force intelligence should work only on military matters. They have no right to interfere in civilian life.”

Radwan Ziadeh, Director of the Damascus Centre for Human Rights Studies and a visiting scholar at the Carr Centre for Human Rights at Harvard University, said emergency laws could be lifted without security services losing any of their iron grip over the country.

“They are trying to give everything they can but without touching the foundations of the totalitarian regime,” said Ziadeh. “What Syria needs is a new constitution that makes a clear explanation of executive, judicial and legislative powers. Now they are all mixed up in the powers of the president.”

The lifting of emergency laws would not mean an end to the arrest of political opponents, said Ziadeh, pointing out that it was under criminal laws, not emergency laws, that member of the Damascus Declaration, the first unified opposition movement in Syria, were jailed in 2005.

Key signatories of the Declaration were jailed for up to five years on charges including “weakening national sentiment”, “belonging to a secret society” and “spreading false news”.

All of the charges refer to Syria being “at war or expecting a war”, but rather than being articles of the emergency laws – whose half century extension officials regularly justify because of Israel’s occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights – the charges are inside the Penal Code and so will be unaffected when emergency laws are lifted.

Also unaffected will be Law 49, making membership of the Muslim Brotherhood a crime punishable by death, and certain articles of Syria’s Constitution – written in 1973, a decade after the declaration of emergency law – such as Article 8 which gives the Baath Party the right to be “the leading party of state and society”.

A law protecting the Baath Party revolution, passed in 1965, will also be unchanged by the lifting of emergency laws, meaning citizens can still be imprisoned on charges of “working against the goals of the revolution”.

The legal right of the Baath Party Regional Command to nominate candidates for president also remains unchanged.

Little relief

Sami Moubayed, a Syrian historian and editor of Forward magazine, argued that without comprehensive political and economic reforms, the lifting of emergency laws would do little to meet the demands of protesters.

“Lifting emergency laws without increasing economic prospects is absolutely useless. There also needs to be a political solution: An end to one party rule, political freedom and a strong and serious campaign against corruption.”

Moubayed said he believed a law allowing multi-party politics in Syria for the first time under Baath Party rule would come into force ahead of this year’s parliamentary elections, due to be held in May but likely to be postponed until September.  But he cautioned over-expectations of dramatic change.

“The Party’s Law will make no real difference until 2015. No party this year will have time to mount a real challenge to the Baath Party, which has some 1.5 million members,” he said.

For at least one protester in Baniyas, taking to the street on Tuesday night after news broke of the cabinet decision to lift emergency laws, the concession was too little too late.

“It wasn’t the government who lifted the emergency law, it was the people,” he said. “According to the emergency law the security forces are not justified in using massive force against people, but they do. They were shooting before it was lifted and they were shooting after it was lifted.”

Source: Al Jazeera