Isn’t It Time Muslims Defended Islam?

If you’re never heard of Takfiris you soon will for they’re the Muslim equivalent of ninjas and they’re about to really stir things up in Pakistan.

Like the legendary ninja, the Takfiri is an assassin, but one religiously motivated to slaughter fellow Muslims they judge apostate for failing to embrace Islam strictly as revealed by Muhammed and his companions. Anyone deviating from the path is considered no longer Muslim and, hence, an infidel deserving of assassination.

Asia Times Online warns that a Takfiri force is about to be unleashed in Pakistan:

On the one side are US-backed President Pervez Musharraf and political parties such as Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (now headed by her 19-year-old son Bilawal) and Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League.

Against them are al-Qaeda ideologues such as Egyptian scholar Sheikh Essa, who are determined to stamp their vision on the country and its neighbor, Afghanistan.

Prior to 2003, the entire al-Qaeda camp in the North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas of Pakistan was convinced that its battle should be fought in Afghanistan against the foreign troops there, and not in Pakistan against its Muslim army.

That stance was changed by Sheikh Essa, who had taken up residence in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, where his sermons raised armies of takfiris (those who consider all non-practicing Muslims to be infidels). He was convinced that unless Pakistan became the Taliban’s (and al-Qaeda’s) strategic depth, the war in Afghanistan could not be won.

In a matter of a few years, his ideology has taken hold and all perceived American allies in Pakistan have become prime targets. Local adherents of the takfiri ideology, like Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq, have grown strong and spread the word in North Waziristan. Former members of jihadi outfits such as Jaish-i-Mohammed, Laskhar-i-Toiba and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have gathered in North Waziristan and declared Sheikh Essa their ideologue.

This is the beginning of the new world of takfiriat, reborn in North Waziristan many decades after having first emerged in Egypt in the late 1960s. On the advice of Sheikh Essa, militants have tried several times to assassinate Musharraf, launched attacks on the Pakistani military, and then declared Bhutto a target.

This nest of takfiris and their intrigues was on the radar of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the day after Bhutto’s killing Sheikh Essa was targeted by CIA Predator drones in his home in North Waziristan. According to Asia Times Online contacts, he survived, but was seriously wounded. Sheikh Essa had only recently recovered from a stroke which had left him bedridden.

Someone has to smash this radical, fundamentalist threat. The West already has its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan. Venturing into Pakistan could be a terrible debacle. Isn’t it time the very nations next in line to be targetted by these extremists – countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt – finally took some responsibility for defending Islam and moderate Muslim states from the ravages of these Islamist Jihadis? It’s not as though these countries don’t already feel threatened by the Wahabis, they do. The capricious Sauds have been playing both sides of this street for so long that they’re vulnerable to the very monster they themselves empowered. It’s not only Pakistan’s survival that’s at stake, it’s their own.

 

Blogging Tories – What Is Their Major Malfunction?

Anyone who runs a blog from the Liberal (moderate) side has to expect to be routinely attacked by seemingly fanatical right wingers. Their comments are notable for being full of sexual and scatological references. They tend to be jingoistic, unflatteringly aggressive and hostile, ill-considered and, ultimately, sophomoric, juvenile even.

I’m old enough to remember a time when Liberals and Conservatives could hold a civil dialogue without either side abusing the other or having to sacrifice its values and beliefs. We agreed to differ and we still respected each other.

Those, of course, were the days of Progressive Conservatism. Liberal or NDP or Progressive Conservative, there was always a common denominator of Canadian values that allowed us to make progress together.

Back when I was a member of the working press in Ottawa, I sometimes ran into political extremism. In those days that tended to come from the far left, the radical left. These types would rant and rave and spit fury without end, castigating anyone whose beliefs did not comport with their own.

Today, that very sort of conduct comes from Conservative supporters. The party, following Dick Cheney’s roadmap, has shifted to the right, to the far right. In the process it has energized the radical right who, true to course, resemble in their carrying on nothing so much as the radical left of the 60’s.

The voice that comes from these people is the voice of extremism, the strident screed, the impulse to try to heap ridicule and abuse on anyone who lies beyond their narrow, angry vision.

Now I know there are many intelligent, informed and thoughtful Conservatives out there and we should be glad to have them. Unfortunately they have not held their own, their part of the centre, but have surrendered their voice to the Cheneys and the Harpers and their followers, the far right.

It won’t last, if only for the simple reason that the uber-right is at odds with core Canadian values. Study upon study shows that. Reality, however, is of no moment to these types. Long denied the limelight by sensible conservatives, the ultra-right nutjobs are now released onto their rampage and intent on making sure all of us know it.

Relax, they’ll be gone soon enough.

 

The Trouble With Stephen Harper

Adbusters has published an interview with Dr. Michael Byers who holds the Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law at the University of British Columbia:

His most recent book is Intent for a Nation: What is Canada for?, a title inspired by conservative philosopher George Grant’s influential 1965 work, Lament for a Nation, in which Grant grimly predicted the inevitable absorption of Canada by the United States.

On Stephen Harper:

“The first thing to understand is that Mr. Harper is an economist, so he thinks that economics are of paramount importance. And I’m pretty sure that he buys Grant’s thesis, and that there’s not really much we can do to avoid it because we are so dependent on the US economically. So the question for Mr. Harper would be how to manage dependency. I really don’t think that he’s capable of believing that Canada can chart an independent course. Add to that the fact that ideologically he is essentially an American Republican, he wouldn’t see a whole lot of downside to going along with the policy decisions of the Bush administration. For him, it’s a convenient default position.

“I’ll give you the three most obvious examples. One, Harper’s long-standing position on climate change, which he has recently altered – ostensibly – because he’s finally realized the political reality that lots of Canadians are beginning to care a great deal about climate change, and that it has become hard to deny at a scientific level, especially for an Arctic country like Canada. But Stephen Harper as a policy wonk has always doubted the reality of human-caused climate change, and has resisted any effort to deal with it, especially in a multilateral manner involving any international organizations. In that respect, he shares an awful lot with key members of the Bush administration.

“The second example concerns the use of the military abroad, and what Mr. Harper has sought to do with the Canadian forces – his absolutely gung-ho support for the counter-insurgency mission in Afghanistan, his public criticism of Jean Chrétien’s government for not sending troops to Iraq in 2003. This is a man who believes that foreign policy at a primary level involves shooting people overseas. He’s not a peacekeeper. He’s not a diplomat. He shares the tough-guy position of the Bush admin, in the belief that the way you exert influence is by exerting military power.

“I guess the final issue that stands out is Mr. Harper’s aggressive policies on the Middle East, such as his comment that Israel’s response to Hezbollah’s abduction of an Israeli soldier last summer was “measured.” And his refusal to back down from that, even after eight Canadian citizens were killed in the bombings. That was staggering for me, because the Middle East was one of the important areas in which Canada had traditionally and successfully steered a different course, all the way back to 1956 and the Suez Crisis. That was Lester Pearson and Canadian diplomacy’s greatest moment, using middle-road, pro-active diplomacy and the imaginative construction of solutions – in that instance, the pioneering of un peacekeeping. That’s what we did. That’s why we have the reputation we have. There was no need for Mr. Harper to make that comment, and to side unequivocally with the Israeli Defense Forces last summer. Even within Israel there was a lot of public discomfort with what the IDF was doing, but you would never have suspected the slightest doubt in the Canadian government. We’ve seen similar things happen with the issue of funding the Palestinian Authority or the listing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. And as a result of this, the Harper government is essentially writing Canada out of the script in the search for Mid-East peace. We don’t matter anymore.

“The Bush administration’s greatest failing, I think, is missing the importance of soft power. Mr. Harper makes the exact same mistake, but it’s magnified ten-fold by the fact that Canada relies much more on soft power than the US. It’s the one thing that has really made us matter in the past. The combination of our size, our location, our resources, with a very sophisticated use of soft power – that’s what enabled us historically to “punch above our weight.” The Harper government doesn’t get that. It’s our most treasured asset, and it takes decades to build it up and only months to waste it away.”