The War against the Islamists

 Firoz Mahboob Kamal

Blair’s battle cry

Mr Tony Blair -the former British Prime Minister, has asked the Western leaders to take their firm stand against Islamists. He thinks the Islamists are the real threat against the world order and peace. On 23^rd April, 2014 in his speech in London’s Bloomberg office, he told, “At the root of the crisis lies a radicalised and politicised view of Islam, an ideology that distorts and warps Islam’s true message. The threat of this radical Islam is not abating. It is growing. It is spreading across the world. It is de-stabilising communities and even nations.” Mr Blair added, “It is undermining the possibility of peaceful co-existence in an era of globalisation. And in the face of this threat we seem curiously reluctant to acknowledge it and powerless to counter it effectively.”  His hyperbole on Islamic extremism went to the extent that he labelled it “the biggest threat to global security in the 21st century” and warned that “it is holding back development across Africa and the Far East”. On such conceptual premise, he urged a “wilfully blind west” to realise it and must take sides. He also advised to make common cause with Russia and China in the G20 to counter the Islamic extremism that lies at the “root of all failures of western intervention”.

Mr Blair’s true colour became public when he launched a genocidal war in Afghanistan and Iraq with his partner in crime Mr Bush –the former US President. Nearly half of the British consider him a war criminal, and was forced to resign from the premiership with disgrace. Now he is adding new dimension to his criminal expertise. His current engagement, as revealed in his speech, is to invent new grounds for a global war. He appears more Zionist than even a hard core Israeli expansionist who shows no appetite for peace in the Middle East. Anshel Pfeffer, a columnist on the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, tweeted, "The fascinating thing about Blair's speech today is that it could have been a Netanyahu (Israeli Prime Minister) speech, word-for-word, they share the same outlook." Mr Blair shows his frustration and worries.  He laments, instead of being eliminated or defeated the Islamists are getting stronger and stronger and posing the biggest threat to the Western interests in the 21^st century globally. As a former wartime Prime Minister, this is Mr Blair’s saddest realization. In both the World Wars, the British could achieve something to celebrate. But this time, Mr Blair and his cohorts could celebrate only the destruction of two countries and death of more than a million. Now he comes up with a formula of more deaths and destruction. He suggests, the Western countries must forget their mutual differences and should form a global coalition against the Islamists. He advised to take even Russia and China as a partner in the anti-Islamic coalition. In his own words: “Whatever our other differences, we should be prepared to reach out and cooperate with the East, and in particular, Russia and China.” Exactly the same suggestion was put forward by the Harvard Professor Dr Huntington in his book “The Clash of Civilisation”.

The advocacy for war

Mr Bair is not alone to do the advocacy for war against Islam and the Islamists. They are many who want to blow up Baitullah Ka’ba and Masjidul Aqsa, burn the Holy Qur’an and dismantle any emerging Islamic state.  Mr Blair cited 4 reasons for taking side in war against the Islamists. Firstly, to ensure the West’s energy supply. He says, “First and most obviously, it is still where a large part of the world’s energy supplies are generated, and whatever the long term implications of the USA energy revolution, the world’s dependence on the Middle East is not going to disappear any time soon. In any event, it has a determining effect on the price of oil; and thus on the stability and working of the global economy.”  Secondly, it is the close proximity of the Muslims World to Europe. He says, “It is right on the doorstep of Europe. The boundary of the EU is a short distance from the Levantine coast. Instability here affects Europe, as does instability in North Africa, in close proximity to Spain and Italy.”  Thirdly, it is Israel’s survival and security interest. Israel is an artificial implant in the Muslim heart land. Hence amidst the Arabs’ inherent immunity against such foreign graft, Israel always faces the chances of popular rejection.  

Blair too has no doubt about Israel’s incompatibility and the mismatch of its body chemistry against the local Arabs and the Islamists. With the Islamic resurgence in the Middle East and Islamists’ election victory, such apprehension on Israel’s security has gone sky high. Hence Blair says, “The centre of this maelstrom is Israel. Its alliance with the USA, its partnership with leading countries of Europe, and the fact that it is a Western democracy, mean that its fate is never going to be a matter of indifference. Were the Israelis to be pulled into a regional conflict, there is no realistic way that the world could or would want to shrug it off.”  Blair’s enmity against Islamic resurgence is incurable. Hence he can’t embrace the new change in the Muslim world. For the sake of Western interest and Israel’s security, he denies even the survival rights of the Islamists –let alone democratic right. He discovers war against Islam and the Islamists the only option. He says, “It is in the Middle East that the future of Islam will be decided.” Hence Mr Blair feels it the prime time to crush the future of Islam by positioning him with the anti-Islamists’ war. In fact it is the key point of Mr Blair’s whole speech.  

 The fear and frustration

Mr Blair’s bitter frustration and fear of defeat in anti-Islamist war owes to his own experience in the longest war against two Muslim countries. In fact, no other British Prime Minister had such a long history of war involvement. Even Winston Churchill –the most known wartime British Prime Minister had half of Mr Blair’s tenure in war management. Mr Blair and his partner in war crime Mr George Bush –the former US President, jointly launched the longest Crusade against Islam and the Muslims. Firstly, it was started in Afghanistan, then extended to Iraq, and now has spread to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Mali and many more countries. They expected an easy victory and warm welcome from the people. But that didn’t happen.

The US army invaded Afghanistan on 7 October 2001. The British army joined them. They dropped thousands of bombs and missiles on cities, villages, bazars, and even on mountains. They could flatten hills, destroy houses and kill hundreds of thousands of men and women, but failed to eliminate the Islamists. Mr Blair and Mr Bush took military manpower from more than 40 countries, but utterly failed to fulfil the mission. The Islamists are stronger than ever. As a fall-out of the invasion, the Islamists now constitute the formidable political force not only in Afghanistan, but also in neighbouring Pakistan. After 13 years of war, the invading armies are left with no option but to come out of Afghanistan with disgraceful failure. Their failure in Iraq is no less deplorable either. On 20 March, 2003, the USA army invaded Iraq with heartless bombings on cities, bazars, roads, high ways and military barracks. The British army joined the aggression too. They killed more than 500,000 people in Iraq. 4,486 US soldiers also lost their life and many more thousands were maimed. The war costs more than $2 trillion to the US economy. After all these loss in human lives and money, the US and its ally couldn’t get any meaningful success. They had to withdraw their army with sense of defeat and humiliation. They handed over the country to the pro-Irani Shias. Their military aggression and atrocities made the Sunni Islamists more militant and powerful; they have spread to the neighbouring Syria to fight against the army of Bashar –the barbaric autocrat.

The immorality

The war in Afghanistan and Iraq had no legality. It was also highly immoral. No Afghan man or woman attacked the USA or UK soil. The USA government did not show any proof that any foreigner living in Afghanistan was involved in the attack on Twin Towers or in any other parts of the USA. Terrorism is defined as the use of force for any political, social or economic gain. Hence its needs weapons of violence. And who is having more power of violence than the USA and the other NATO countries? So they have established their own monopoly in the field. On the streets, the terrorists attack the weaker individuals; they do not produce any reason for that. The imperialists attack weaker states; they do not feel any need for showing reason for that either. In essence, both believe in the same ideology of coercion. In Bush and Blair camp, the obsession for dismantling Afghanistan - the only Islamist-held country was so strong that they overruled all other peaceful options. In war against Iraq, the greed for Iraqi oil prevailed over any other consideration. They didn’t show any respect for the public opinion. In the whole human history, the anti-war demonstrations were never more massive and global as was against the Iraq war. On 15^th of February, 2003, about 2 million people came to the street of London to show their anger against any war on Iraq. About 2 million people demonstrated in Rome. In more than 600 cities in the world, millions of people demonstrated against the war. But Mr Blair and his partner in crime Mr Bush didn’t pay any heed to such global conscience for peace; rather showed full disrespect. What an irony! Mr Blair – a man with such contempt of peace loving global majority has been employed as the peace mediator in the Middle East!

The culture of invasion

The Western imperialists’ appetite for stealing wealth of weaker countries looks unquenchable. It has generated a strong culture of military aggression, colonisation and exploitation. Exploitation needs political occupation of the target countries, hence needs military invasion. Hence, war of aggression against the weaker nations and the consequent occupation has been the West’s prime contribution to the human history. So, imperialism, colonialism, capitalism, ethnic cleansing, genocidal massacres, World Wars, atomic weapons, chemical weapons, unmanned drones and many other weapons of mass destructions have been the main inventions of the West. And in such genocidal brutality, they surpassed all previous records. Only in the two World Wars, they killed more than 75 million people, and brought huge destruction to cities, houses, highways industries and other physical infrastructures. But after all these destructions, their appetite for further wars of destruction has never abetted. Hitler, Mussolini, Churchill, Truman  were not the only killer leaders in their stock, the killing machine of the present days’ killers like Georg W Bush, Tony Blair and Barack Obama are no less brutal either. Hence the West’s unprecedented carnage didn’t end with the end of World Wars or wars against Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq.

The chain of Mongol or Tartar invasions has ended thousand years ago. But the Western invasion and killings show no sign of ending. The terrorists can’t survive without terrorism. The imperialists too can’t survive without invasions. The British and the US troop are still in Afghanistan. But before the withdrawal, the West is now desperate to discover grounds for another invasion. Blair proposes the next war against the Islamists. He is the official envoy of the Western powers, as well of the UN to find peace in the Middle East. Hence, whatever he says, he says on behalf of the West –especially on issues related to Muslims. But it appears from Mr Blair’s speech, finding peace in the Middle East is not his mandate, rather to invent some new theatre of war against the Islamists. Therefore, Mr Blair shows his desperation to find a recipe for such a war. In fact, the proposed war is not waiting in the pipe line; it has already started with a global dimension. As a part of that war, the US drones have already dropped thousands of bombs and missiles on the Islamists in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia and other parts of the world. The Islamists are being arrested and killed in the Egypt, Bangladesh, Syria, Saudi Arabia, UAE and many other countries in the world. Even in the UK, the British Prime Minister David Cameron, like Mr Blair, has taken the side against the Islamists. He has ordered an "investigation" into the Muslim Brotherhood to find its links with "violent extremism" both in Britain and abroad. He is hunting enough clues for banning it as a terrorist organisation. His anti-Islamist motive gets exposed by the appointment of Britain's ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Sir John Jenkins as the head of the enquiry. Both the Saudi and the Egyptian autocratic regimes regard the election-winning Brotherhood as a mortal threat to their autocratic rule, hence have designated it a terrorist organisation. Both the regimes have started brutal war against Muslim Brotherhood.  Mr Blair has unashamedly supported such stand of those dictators. Mr Cameron too has taken the same route.  

The coalition against Islamists

In the past, the invading enemies always enjoyed the support of home-grown collaborators in Muslim lands. In June 1757, Mir Zafar –the head of the Muslim army of Bengal did a heinous betrayal against his own country and helped the British invaders to win the war without even fighting. During invasion of Arab, the British Army had Sharif Hussain, his collaborating sons and many other partners. While occupying Palestine and the holy city of Jerusalem, most of the foot-soldiers of the British army were non-British. Mir Zafar and Sharif Hussein have died. But a new generation of Mir Zafars and Sharif Husseins have taken their place in almost all Muslim countries. Hence the crime of betrayal has not died. These home-grown collaborators have joined the US led coalition to fight the Islamists. They are killing the Muslims in the same way as the Americans and the British killed them in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor do they run in shortage of most advanced killing machines. In fact, to enhance the killing power, the US has arranged a quick delivery of Apache helicopters to the Egyptian army and Hellfire missiles to President Maleki of Iraqi. Like General Sisi of Egypt, Maleki is so brutal in killing the Sunni Islamists that even the people belonging to close circle of the great Ayatullah Sistani call him a Shia Saddam. The Western leaders talk about democratic values, but they never took any stand against the atrocities of the autocratic rulers of the Middle East -like Saudi king, sheikhs of the Gulf countries and military dictator of Egypt. Neither do they condemn the Israeli atrocities against Arabs. On the contrary, they quickly and constantly replenish the lethal arsenals of these brutal rulers.

Mr Blair supported the military coup in Egypt that deposed the elected President Dr Muhammad Morsi. Military coup is a blatant robbery of people’s democratic right. It is the army’s terrorist attack to remove a constitutionally elected government. In a civilised country, like an armed robbery, army coup is also a punishable crime. Only the criminals with the wicked enmity against democracy can support such violence against an election president. But such enmity of the Western governments is not hidden. They made it public by supporting the army takeover. Mr Blair and Mr Obama were not alone to show their hatred against the Egyptian people’s democratic choice, all the NATO countries did the same. Their naked contempt of the popular votes was thus exposed.

To the Western imperialists, election, democracy and constitutional rule have a special meaning. Being elected by landslide popular votes and forming a constitutional government do not carry any value or significance to them. The elected government must serve the West’s geopolitical and economic interest. They must be their partner in war against Islamists too. Otherwise, they enjoy no legality in the West. Rather, they take every step for a quick overthrow. Hence electoral victory of the Nazimuddin Arbakan’s Islamist Rafah Party in Turkey, victory of Islamic Salvation Party in Algeria and victory of Hamas in Palestine didn’t receive any Western support. The Wests’ friends in the bureaucracy, army, judiciary and media did everything to undo their election victory. Muslim Brotherhood also met the same fate in Egypt. Hence, democratic route has not been given an option for them. The West rather prefers the unelected brutal dictators as the closest ally, if they comply with their geo-political objectives. Therefore, General Abdul Fattah Sisi –the coup leader in Egypt receives the West’s full support. His soldiers killed more than 2,500 innocent people in a single night, and a single judge of his court has announced death sentence for 683 people on a single day. But such crimes are conveniently overlooked.

The policy of subversion

The imperialists occupied the Muslim lands for more that hundred years. The aim was not to promote democracy, education or industry, rather plunder and subversion. In Bengal, the 190 years of the British occupation started in 1757 and ended in 1947. But the first and the only university in the whole territory of Bangladesh was not built before 1922. In those days, the greatest subversion was against Islam and the Islamists. During the whole tenure of British rule, they didn’t allow the Muslims to learn the original Islam as revealed in the holy Qur’an and as practised by the prophet. Hence the prophetic Islam with its jihad, khilafa, sharia is a stranger in Bangladesh. It was indeed the worst casualty during the British rule. And that was true in every occupied land. Not only they allowed the growth of deviation and perversion in the name of Islam, but also sponsored such deviation and perversion in every possible way. The Qadiani perversion thus got its growth and nurture during the British rule.

The imperialists still pursue the same policy of subversion in the Muslim world. And the targets are still Islam and the Islamists. To pursue such subversion, Mr Blair and the alike have got another partner in crime in the Arab world. He is President Mr Bashar Al-Assad -the brutal mass murderer and destroyer of Syria. Saddam didn’t do any genocidal war against his own people. Hence he didn’t destroy the Iraqi cities. But Assad’s army is flattening the Syrian cities and villages. He has already killed more than 150,000 Syrian people. Since he is killing the Islamists and breaking the backbone of a historic Muslim country, his other crimes are forgiven. Israel -since its creation in 1948 has produced a lot of mass murderers who killed thousands of innocent civilians and children in Palestine. They have bulldozed hundreds of Arab villages in the occupied Palestine. But none of the crimes of these criminals have been condemned by Bush, Blair or other Western leaders. Rather protecting and sponsoring these genocidal killers gets higher importance to these Western leaders. Saving the lives of the innocents and ensuring their basic human rights do not receive any priority over promoting their own interest. So, Bashar Al-Assad is preferable to the Islamists. Mr Blair didn’t hide such view. The reason is simple. He is neither a threat against the Western interest, nor against Israel. He is only a threat to Islam and democracy. Hence the imperialists have common causes to work with him. The Western hypocrisy is thus nakedly exposed.

The imperialists are doing good business with the killer regimes of Bangladesh and Burma. In Afghanistan, they didn’t find any problem in working with the worst war criminals. They supported and sponsored a proven war criminal called General Rashid Dostam -the Uzbek warlord. Even the US and the European press reported his horrendous war crimes. He killed many hundreds of unarmed Taleban prisoners while being transported in trucks like packed sand bags in freezing cold. They died on the way before reaching the destination. The US occupiers didn’t find any reason to investigate such crime. Rather these killers are taken as the coalition partners in the war against Islam and the Islamists. In such mission, the imperialists can go to any extent –even can support the crime of the proven devils. That happened in the days of last prophet of Islam too. The Arab Jews supported the barbaric pagans to dismantle the nascent Islamic state in the early days of Islam. Now they are pursuing the same strategy to annihilate the Islamists.       

The fabrication and the Islamic compulsion

Mr Blair and other Western imperialists desperately need a war against Islam and the Islamists. They feel, only such a war can serve their strategic interests. Mr Blair argued: “It is in fact a struggle in which our own strategic interests are intimately involved.”  Hence to make a case, they need massive fabrication against Islam and the Islamists -as was needed to launch war against Iraq and Afghanistan. They have already started telling lies against the basic teachings of Islam. To do so, Mr Blair has appeared as a Mullah. He has invented two sets of Islam. According to him, the real Islam is not the Islam of the jihadi Islamists. To him, the true Islam is the Islam that is practised by dictators like General Sisi of Egypt, Hasina of Bangladesh, Bashar of Syria, the kings of Saudi Arabia, the sheikhs of Gulf countries and other brutal Muslim rulers. Sharia, jihad, khilafa and unity of the Muslims have no place in this Islam. The believers of this Islam have no complaint against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, US occupation of Afghanistan, Russian occupation of Chechnya and Indian occupation of Kashmir. According to Mr Blair, Islam that teaches sharia, khilafa, unity and jihad against the internal and external occupation is non-Islam. He labels it medieval barbarity. His judgement on individual’s human and civilizational worth is based on his compatibility with the Western values and culture. Since the practitioners of the Qur’anic Islam do not show such compatibility are labelled uncivilised.

Mr Blair and the likes have their own definition of terrorism too.  Whoever challenges the West’s political and cultural occupation and shows steadfastness in implementing sharia is labelled terrorist. In fact, this is the core pathological problem of the imperialists. Mr Blair is not alone with such paranoid view. They fail to understand that the fundamentals of Islam can’t be practised within the confines of individual life, neither within the premise of a prayer mat. It obligates a state like bigger space for its full practice. Indeed, it is the major area of difference between Islam and other religions. The religious obligations like the practice of sharia, jihad, Islamic education and culture can’t be practised without full incorporation of the state and the powerful state institutions. Hence Muhammad (pbuh) -the last prophet of Islam was not only a devoted man on prayer-mat in the mosque, but also the most engaged head of the Islamic state. Every follower of the prophet has no option but to follow this prophetic tradition; otherwise he can’t claim to be true Muslim.

Hence, for a true believer in Islam, taking the control of the state and the state institutions is not mere politics, rather the highest level of spirituality and servitude (ibadah) to Allah -the Almighty. Islam can only impact on all aspects of human life with its overwhelming Divine teachings through such full incorporation of the state in the Islamic fold. Only this way Islam can deliver the Divine blessings to the mankind. A true believer can’t make iota of compromise on that point. The early Muslims made the heaviest sacrifice to reach that limit of servitude (ibadah) unto Allah. But the enemies of Islam call it political Islam. Mr Blair and his cohorts label it terrorism. Hazrat Ibrahim (AS)’s mission in Nimrod’s court and Hazrat Musa (AS)’s mission in the court of Pharaoh did not receive any better attribute either. Hence it is not the problem of Islam, rather the problem of looking at Islam with a paradigm of ignorance. So, it is no wonder that the enemies of Islam will launch war against Islam on false accusations. The Islamists –like their faithful ancestors in all ages, enjoys no option but to fight such war.  Indeed, it is the part of the same Qur’anic package that was practised in the early days of Islam. 03/05/14