Pulling Imran Khan off a plane in Canada, and making him miss his Eid fundraising lunch in New York, is pretty crass of the United States, a country that claims its foreign policy is motivated by freedom. The idea that low level US immigration operatives needed clarificiation on Khan’s well-known views on killings by US drones in Pakistan is plainly nonsense. But this wasn’t routine or an error; Khan wasn’t questioned at a desk on arrival in New York, he was pulled off a plane by US operatives in Canada. It was an exercise in humiliation.
But if you look under this event you find some interesting, creepy crawly creatures.
From the Toronto Sun report linked above:
The American Islamic Leadership Coalition from Phoenix, Ariz. wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton earlier this week, pressuring her to revoke the U.S. visa granted to Khan because of his sympathetic views towards the Taliban.
The American Islamic Leadership Coalition followed this up with a press release with the notably un-Islamic contact name of Gregg Edgar of Gordon C James Public Relations.
From Wikipedia on Gordon C James:
James grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and moved to Iowa in 1969 where he served several years in the Iowa National Guard. James worked in the real-estate management business in Des Moines, renting space to presidential candidates in town for the caucuses. In 1978, he met and rented space to former President of the United States George H. W. Bush (then Ambassador Bush).[1]
After the 1988 election James worked as Lead Advance Representative at the White House for two years under President George H.W. Bush and Director of Invitations and Ticketing for the 51st Presidential Inaugural Committee.[2] James was also employed as deputy director of events for the 54th and 55th Presidential Inauguration.[3] In 1990 he founded the public relations firm Gordon C. James Public Relations.
In 2004, James was employed by former U.S. Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to improve U.S. public relations in Iraq during the transition of governments.[4] For more than five months he served as the Director of Advance and Special Events in the Office of Strategic Communications and Director of the Presidential Palace Studio for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, Iraq. While there he advised Ambassador Paul Bremer and was responsible for coordinating the Ambassador’s relations with Western and Pan-Arab media outlets and produced several events including the signing of the Tal (Iraq’s Declaration of Independence) and 100 Days to Sovereignty, the countdown to the transfer of power from the CPA to newly founded Iraqi government.[5]
In 2004 James assisted in several political stops with the Bush-Cheney campaign and in 2005, he was employed as lead advance representative for President George H.W. Bush and President Bill Clinton’s tour of the Tsunami-hit regions of Indonesia.[6]
James has traveled to five continents as a lead advance representative for President George W. Bush and First Lady Laura Bush.
There are some Muslims in the American Islamic Leadership Coalition. In Phoenix with Gordon C James is M Zuhdi Jasser, of Syrian origin but for eleven years a medical officer in the US Navy. And the AILC has another interesting Syrian, leader of “The Reform Party of Syria”, Farid Ghadry. The AILC website includes the quote:
“Gossip is he is the next president of Syria”
Ghadry lives in Washington and is the author of such fascinating blog posts as “Israel Builds for Nobel Prizes, Arabs are Suicide Bombers”.
Like the Quilliam Foundation in the UK, doubtless the AILC has hoovered up plenty of public funds for its useful work for the security services. BUt the idea that it genuinely represents a strand in Islamic thinking is ludicrous. It is marvellous what being an establishment shill can do for your media profile though. Zuhdi Jasser addressed his largest mass rally of supporters – highly optimistically estimated by the media as three dozen – in a New York rally in support of NYPD’s controversial surveillance and agent provocateur operations against Muslims. Rather than laughing at it, the tame mainstream media covered it infinitely better than they cover anti-war rallies 1,000 times larger, and portrayed it as a genuine sign of Muslim community support for the surveillance.
Just as none of the mainstream media reporting the current Imran Khan story – most of whon quote the AILC – say anything about who the AILC really are. What do people working in the mainstream media think the purpose of their existence actually is?
O/T
Savile ‘Was Barred’ From Children In Need
(via Twitter)
http://news.sky.com/story/1004247/savile-was-barred-from-children-in-need
I am convinced Roderick Russell that media censorship is absolute and tangible in the West. Not quite a case of journalists having to submit their work to state censors before publication, no, much more subtle than that.
In fact it is my own research project to unveil the contrivance that slams the truth in concrete for 70 years, that issues the ‘D-Notice’ to editors, that redacts the evidence, that for instance blocks Charles’ spidery rants, that weakens public inquiries – you get my drift.
From your evidence Roderick the ‘establishment’ has a ligature on main stream publication and broadcasting and the intelligence services hold the final stamp of approval. That entity must be either destroyed or reformed – and we, the people must do it, large.
Suhayl’s comments on Pakistan are very astute and well-founded. Its worth noting his highlighting the military’s role.
Turning around Pakistan’s economy is going to be a mammoth task, magnified by endemic corruption , bureaucracy, petty politics and the inertia poor processes and systems. Alas, the issue is not how Pakistan might thrive again but will it survive in its present federation?
I should add, i don’t know if any Pakistani politician is equal to the challenge, but from the present lot Imran may as well as have his turn as the others haven’t delivered a fig.
Komodo.
I appreciate that giant lizards cannot do all the tricks that dogs can do and you don’t do God. I am a Muslim and I have absolutely no idea or interest what Bahais or Wabbahais or Buddhists or Christian monks think or believe. Is Islam not enough for them?
I have discovered from personal experience that most Muslim leaders have been deceived into thinking that politics, lying, spying on people in the privacy of their homes will help Islam to gain power and strength, while in fact it will only give them personally a false sense of empowerment from being oppressors rather than oppressed. For a change.
That false confidence inspires other people with false confidence. Every group making whooppee about their own little soapbox and encouraging outside observers to come to the conclusion that Islam has not a shred of cohesion or coherence.
In spite of all of that it does.
Mark;
There are 3 elements to being a Shaman: intent, emotional control and impeccable skills. Here we will look at intent.
“Intent is not a thought, or an object, or a wish. Intent is what can make a man succeed when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated. It operates in spite of the warrior’s indulgence. Intent is what makes him invulnerable. Intent is what sends a shaman through a wall, through space, to infinity.” – Carlos Castaneda
It sounds Shamanistic, to me. You might prefer the term, Existentialism.
Mark Golding
“Barksdale Nukes” may just have been thwarted by a whistle-blower, if only 911 had been as well. Now we have to grin & bear endless set up shoe, underwear, curry bombers (all without detonators) and subway ads, etc,etc for the next fifty years as they bury the WTC7 smoking gun. Akin to the Diary of Ann Frank,Hitlers diaries,etc,etc with which they have been burying the holohoax over the preceding sixty.
Guano – you mentioned Baha’is in a list of Muslim groups. So I thought you were including them in Islam. So I just wondered what you thought.
You “have absolutely no idea or interest what Bahais or Wabbahais or Buddhists or Christian monks think or believe. Is Islam not enough for them?”
Evidently not. Or they would be Muslims. I am assuming of course that “Wabbahais” is your own jovial invention.
So what are you saying? The fragmentation of Islam is deplorable? Agreed. If you could settle the issue of the twelfth Imam, you could probably spit the West out of the Middle East, and good luck to you. But that is a fundamental issue, not least to the enlightened and high-minded hierarchy in Saudi Arabia, guardians of the faith. If your politicians weren’t corrupt? As another discussion points out on this thread, it is the scum that rises, and no-one has yet found a way to get round that. If every Muslim isn’t a Muslim’s brother, kindly don’t blame me. I’m just a lizard. Unlike dogs, I don’t bark at the moon either.
Here’s a Christian fundamentalist looking for a piece of the power. The problem isn’t just Islam’s.
http://defendproclaimthefaith.org/blog/?p=2984
One for the connoisseur, I think.
@Guano-
Regarding your thoughts on Sufism. Let me start off by saying that I have lived Salafism a part of my life and I am currently a Sufi. Having gotten a chance to look at both schools of thought up close, I would at least like to dispel the rumor that Sufism is about worshipping the worship or swapping this life for the hereafter. Let’s just say that if you read scholars such as Ibn-Al-Arabi, Al-Ghazali (Algazel), and Rumi, you will agree that the issue of Divinity has been examined by them in a detail that is not observable in other schools of thought. To the second point, Sufis have been famous through out history for denouncing obsession with the hereafter. There is a reason saints from Rabia Basri (a female saint from 8th century) to Saadi and Shirazi are considered the teachers of love. What good is a love that can be distracted by the matter (be it this world or the hereafter)?
No Ben, intent is a purpose and in the case of the shaman it is a commitment to self, to overcome one’s own perceived weaknesses either physical or mental. Intent can be carved in stone.
Intention is temporal, an initial aim that assumes form, becoming a scheme that multiples and evolves as minds combine. That is the power of intention.
Komodo,
old dragon, cannot you ever sleep? You must be an addict of wikipedia, a dubious source, I have been warning everybody about. Do not ever try to lick at that poisoned apple again. Do you actually know what the word “patriarch” means? I suppose not. Your 71 patriarchs, that would be far too many even in our inflationary times, were in fact ordinary archbishops, most of them probably not older than 12. From my own sources it seems that there were just two patriarchs present at the council, the patriarch of Constantinople and Jerusalem. Unless you can show me that you have a diploma from the Pontificia Università Lateranense, stay away from any theological discourse with me.
@ Mark Golding. It’s no secret that the UK press is very easily censored on stories relating to power-elites – and, of course it’s done voluntarily, or so some say; the media is just too happy to oblige. The famous UK publicist Max Clifford has said on many occasions that he could keep stories out of the press and I believe him. Indeed in September the Economist quoted Mr. Clifford in saying that it’s become even easier to censor the press than it used to be. Who are we to disagree with Mr. Clifford’s views on press censorship, particularly when our largest media baron Rupert Murdoch seems to agree with him when he tweets “no such thing as free press in UK”.
.
As you know my view is that censorship is much worse today than it used to be and, indeed, that press freedoms are continuing to deteriorate further. And I think it is no longer just voluntary censorship. I would suggest that we are reaching a point where power-elites are using our intelligence/security apparatus as a secret police. It’s been reported that MI6 alone runs a section called IOPS to manipulate the press and public opinion, and former agents have said that there is “a spy in every newsroom”. Now manipulating public opinion is not the role for an honest intelligence/security service – It is the role of a secret police. No country can have a free press and a secret police since they are mutually exclusive.
The Greatest Generation speaks. (caution; very spicy language, heh)
http://front.moveon.org/a-moving-message-about-the-election-from-a-97-year-old-and-her-friends/
Mark;
I still think the Chopra ‘intention’ is a by-product of the Yaqui Shaman, but bow to your superior intent.
English Knight,
Yes treason indeed yet we are legion and many minds will seduce lies that are surely tenuous and intangible. No, we will not forget or forgive.
Expect us…
Komodo
Bahai is nothing to do with Islam. Wahabism is an pejorative term for those who follow the Gospel and Qur’an commandments that following the instructions of the prophet of your time peace be upon them all = worshipping God. assalamu ‘alaykum Falcon. I disagree completely with you about Sufism.
Sufis ignore the heavy responsibilities placed on Muslims in their behaviour towards others and float on a cloud of mysticism.
Water is good, but not in the subways of Manhattan. Devotion is good, but not if it pushes out justice. I was recently employed by a man whose background was Sufism and whose present leanings are Salafist. To the Sufi sin of ignoring his own injustice to others while considering himself to be extremely pious, he then added the Salafi sin of pride that Allah had educated him more than the Sufis who brought him up.
On topic: Imran Kahn is a politician. Politics is about deceit. His bad treatment in the US is a sure sign that the US is funding and supporting him. Some Salafists believe that the education they have received in the instructions of the prophet peace be upon him is a solid castle from which they can safely continue to engage and do business with the Zionist powers.
No. no no no. The purpose of education in the instructions of Islam is not give you a respectable castle from which to continue the sin of seeking the world of this life from the enemies of Islam. It is to follow the instructions on justice to others in practice and achieve paradise.
That means no politics with the enemies of Islam, no spying and no lying except in the context of the battlefield or complimenting your wife.
Komodo/Falcon
As in the parable of the Sower Gospels Matthew 13.
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. 8 Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. 9 Whoever has ears, let them hear.”
Great work Craig. Whatever one thinks of IK, and I personally see him as pretty moderate and well intentioned, it is Craig’s point about the sheer hypocrisy and vindictiveness of his targeting which is crucial. The blatant use and overt support of drone attacks marks a shift in US military strategy in Afghan-Pakistan area which no-one forsaw as the election of Obama cast it’s rosy glow! It is an abhorrent and counter-productive military strategy. Just watching the scene in the movie ‘Syriana’ where the joystick jockey in Nevada takes out a convoy in the ME made my skin crawl! How many potential extremists have been lured into becoming ACTIVE extremists by these attacks and their ‘collateral damage’? Can you blame them? I am well aware of the reason behind it’s popularity in Washington (no body bags but plenty of kills – remember the ghosts of Vietnam!. The Taliban are no longer the entity brought to life by Mullah Omar back on the road to Kandahar in the nineties – they include countless different factions and individuals who have a myriad of motives. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is a central figure in the support of their work in Afghanistan. He was a favoured son of the CIA back in the 80’s as a mujahadeen chief, then a warlord with power and influence at the centre of the first post-soviet government. He and his family are again at the centre of ‘insurgency’ as they lurk in the dark world outaide Karzais corrupt administration with the drug cartels and links to fellow extremists over the border. A vicious and complex area of the world which should have the full light of the MSM shone upon it…….not a chance! That was Craig’s plea methinks.
Deputy US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Hoagland tweeted about the incident saying, “Nothing to do with drones — he brought it up.”
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-18486-Canadian-clarification-on-Imran-episode-sought
Villager at 7:11pm, thanks.
Ben Franklin, at 6:05pm, 29.10.12.
I was referring to political complexity. But if I were asked to give a simple distillation wrt Pakistan, it would be this: Pakistan has always been owned and oppressed by the feudal-military class. The military are in cahoots with Saudi-backed Islamists, as a mechanism of social and geostrategic control. Unless all of that changes, unless feudalism and military rule definitively go, and unless Saudi Arabian/’Gulf’ money and influence/Islamist leaders, financiers and preachers have all their assets appropriated and/or are barred and expelled, nothing will change, except for the worse. In this context, NATO is just one more problem, they can never be part of any solution. One is aware of the history vis a vis the US/UK role in the cultivation of Islamist paramilitaries (surely, the deadliest ‘poppies’ of all) during the 1980s and so on, but I’m really just concentrating here on the ‘now’.
One does not have to be a communist to understand this and to enjoy the music of politically-inspired ‘Laal’ (‘Red’), led by the excellent Taimur Rehman:
http://www.laal.com.pk/Laal/Home.html
The US media’s hysteria on the effect of ‘Sandy’ demonstrates that Americans do not like mayhem being heaped upon their country even when it is caused by a natural phenomenon. This is in stark comparison to their disregard of the mayhem that they have heaped abroad upon Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Syria in recent times and possibly upon Iran in the future.
Here is a interesting conversation.
Resurrecting the Anti-war Movement
Interview with Gareth Porter
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/10/resurrecting-the-anti-war-movement/
Karel, lol. I won’t follow up the 71 patriarchs. Struck me as being something of an overestimate at the time, but I happily concede I know s.f.a about the Lateran Councils. Or less. Hence Wiki.
Guano, thanks for your responses. So you’re saying Wahhabi Saudi is bad but there’s nothing much wrong with Wahhabis in general? Sorry to be dense, but I think you need to spell it out. I’m trying to say that people will inevitably follow different sets of rules, and that this needs to be tolerated in the context of a greater unity. Agree? Disagree?
The kind of Sufi you describe is not a Sufi. I know enough about it to be able to say that definitively. Just as Christianity has obscured its own original purpose – awareness of the divine – behind the personality cult of Jesus (pbuh) and lost it in later power struggles; at risk of being offensive, I suggest that Islam has concentrated on the prophet (pbuh) and the ritual rather than the message. And that real Sufis, as opposed to the self-indulgent frauds and hippies often claiming the title, try to return to the central issue, which is a greater awareness of God.
David Swanson unveils commitment Mary:
http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/10/military-commander-gets-court-order-to-protect-himself-from-peace-activists/
PS
‘The Messenger has believed in what was revealed to him from his Lord, and [so have] the believers. All of them have believed in Allah and His angels and His books and His messengers, [saying], “We make no distinction between any of His messengers.” And they say, “We hear and we obey. [We seek] Your forgiveness, our Lord, and to You is the [final] destination’ (Surah al-Baqara – 2:285)
Further, the affidavit we witness is in itself an authoritarian snap-shot of a rapidly degenerate American establishment, an obscenity that violates human justice, fairness, goodness and respect for life itself.
We must at all cost prevent this corruption from further tainting our own legal system.
http://dissidentvoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/protection.jpg
Suhayl
Who could disagree with your summary of the problem? What I have realised from this last decade of UKUSIS intervention is that for colonialism to succeed, someone has to sell their own country. In the case of Afghanistan whether they were conned by Saudi or Zionists or both working together, Allahu a’alam/ God knows.
On a lighter note – or in a different dimenschion –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/oct/30/louise-mensch-austin-mitchell-twitter
Must have missed the reports of her SOH bypass.
Komodo
Salafism is like a new city that builds a three lane motorway bridge twenty years before building the road. The intercity road is not much better than a dirt track full of potholes. They think becasue they can see the way forward everybody else can, Sufis Shi’a Atheists Christians. You cannot pressurise people to follow your idea by force. You have to use reason and diplomacy first and that requires more patience than most humans possess.
As to Sufism, only a part of the awareness of God is remembrance of His existence. The other part is the remebrance of His rules which the Sufis conveniently forget while they are contemplating the Divine. In my opinion. Thanks for the discussion.
And thank you. Does Salafism permit us to agree to disagree?
A little nearer topic – I see the US immigration people who made Khan miss his flight in Canada (wtf were they doing there? They don’t have jurisdiction, surely) now deny that the purpose of their enquiry was Khan’s feelings on drones. They state that he, not they, brought the topic up: Deputy US Ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Hoagland tweeted about the incident saying, “Nothing to do with drones — he brought it up.” A US official on the condition of anonymity added that the agency had no mandate or jurisdiction to question anyone on their views about the drones..
More here:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-13-18486-Canadian-clarification-on-Imran-episode-sought
Curiouser and curiouser.