Geert Wilders has kept his word. He has circulated his film Fitna before April 1 and has, as he puts it, been ‘properly’ restrained. The film, which nevertheless appeared unexpectedly on the Internet on Thursday, is indeed not as shocking as expected during the hyped-up prelude to the premiere.

So the film seems like an anticlimax. It goes no further than making suggestive comments: the suggestion that the Koran is the source of all the violence in the world; the suggestion that Islam is a threat to everyone’s freedom, like Hitler and Stalin. But in Fitna, the Koran is not destroyed and the bomb in the prophet’s turban, drawn by the Danish cartoonist, doesn’t quite explode.

Has Wilders been successful in giving an example of his political and artistic skills with Fitna? Certainly not when it comes to his artistic capacity. Wilders doesn’t have enough creative talent and is sloppy in his approach.

This might still prove a problem and he will probably have to explain himself before the courts. For example he used material from the Danish cartoonist without asking permission and wrongly said a photograph of a rapper was the murderer of film-maker Theo van Gogh. And he has dragged others along with him – proof of a stunning lack of responsibility. The Dutch public prosecution department is also looking into whether Fitna incites hatred in the legal sense.

Freedom of expression, one of the fundamental concepts of every democratic state, can cope with this amateurish attack. This confidence is confirmed by the muted reactions to the film to date. Earlier prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende had almost precipitated a sort of emergency by using the word ‘crisis’. But when the hour of reckoning arrived, the prime minister limited himself to a declaration in which he said the government ‘regretted’ the film.

Representatives from Islamic organisations used a similar tone. Some reacted completely laconically. The question now is whether Fitna will be seen in the same way in less articulate circles in the Netherlands and abroad. After all, action and reaction belong together. Governments and individual agitators could use the film as an excuse to get even for other things. But the calm way the film has been received up to now gives hope.

Both left and right-wing politicians have dismissed the film as old hat. They saw ‘nothing new’ in the footage. But such comments show a misunderstanding of Wilders’ political goal. He doesn’t want to bring new insights or promote dialogue. Fitna is just a weapon in his propaganda war. His politics stand or fall with the concept of the ’self-fulfilling prophecy’. In this sense Wilders hasn’t done himself or the citizens of the Netherlands a service. And that too must be said in public.

//spiegel online//

By PAUL SCHEMM

Osama bin Laden accused Pope Benedict XVI of helping in a “new Crusade” against Islam and warned of a “severe” reaction to European publications of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that insulted many Muslims.

Bin Laden’s new audiotape message raised concerns al-Qaida was plotting new attacks in Europe. Some experts said bin Laden, believed to be in hiding in the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border area, may be unable to organize an attack himself and instead is trying to fan anger and inspire his supporters to violence.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said bin Laden’s accusation that the pope has played a role in a worldwide campaign against Islam is “baseless.” Lombardi said the pope on several occasions has criticized the cartoons, first published in several European newspapers in 2006 and republished by Danish papers in February.

The pope angered many in the Muslim world in 2006, when he cited a medieval text that characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as “evil and inhuman,” particularly “his command to spread by the sword the faith.”

The pope later said he was “deeply sorry” and stressed the remarks did not reflect his own opinions. He has since led a public campaign for dialogue with Muslims.

Bin Laden’s audiotape was posted late Wednesday on a militant Web site that has carried al-Qaida statements in the past and bore the logo of the extremist group’s media wing Al-Sahab.

“The response will be what you see and not what you hear and let our mothers bereave us if we do not make victorious our messenger of God,” said a voice believed to be bin Laden’s, without specifying what action would be taken.

He said the cartoons “came in the framework of a new Crusade in which the Pope of the Vatican has played a large, lengthy role,” according to a transcript released by the SITE Institute, a U.S. group that monitors terror messages.

“You went overboard in your unbelief and freed yourselves of the etiquettes of dispute and fighting and went to the extent of publishing these insulting drawings,” he said. “This is the greater and more serious tragedy, and reckoning for it will be more severe.”

The five-minute message, bin Laden’s first this year, came as the Muslim world marks the Prophet Muhammad’s birthday on Thursday. It made no mention of the fifth anniversary Wednesday of the U.S.-led invasion in Iraq.

A U.S. counterterrorism official in Washington said “CIA analysis assesses with a high degree of confidence it is Osama bin Laden’s voice on the tape” and that there was “no reason to doubt bin Laden is alive.”

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the intelligence matters involved.

On Feb. 13, Danish newspapers republished one of the cartoons, which shows Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban, to illustrate their commitment to freedom of speech after police said they had uncovered the beginnings of a plot to kill the artist. Critics argue that publishers use freedom of speech as a cover to spread Islamophobia as, for example, antisemitism is entirely illega including in the use of free speech/press.

Muslims widely saw the cartoons as an insult, depicting the prophet as violent. Islamic law generally opposes any depiction of the prophet, even favorable, for fear it could lead to idolatry.

The original 12 cartoons, first published in a Danish newspaper and then in several papers across Europe, triggered major protests in Muslim countries in 2006.

There have been renewed protests in the last month, though not as large or widespread. A few dozen university students waved banners and chanted slogans against Denmark on Thursday in Islamabad. The students said they had not seen the bin Laden message.

Ben Venzke, the head of IntelCenter, a U.S. group that monitors militant messages, called Wednesday’s message a “clear threat against EU member countries and an indicator of a possible upcoming significant attack.”

Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and security analyst, said bin Laden was likely too isolated to organize an attack. But the al-Qaida leader may be hoping to use anger over the cartoons to inspire violence, he said.

“Even if he has not got the capacity (to launch an attack), he will try to infuse hatred,” Masood said.

Denmark’s intelligence agency said Thursday that bin Laden’s warnings “don’t immediately give reason to change” its assessment of the threat level against the country.

Last week, the intelligence agency had warned that reprinting the cartoon had brought “negative attention” to Denmark and may have increased the risk to Danes at home and abroad.

//ap//

On March 7, 2008 John McCain repudiated any views of a prominent televangelist who endorsed him last month “if they are anti-Catholic or offensive to Catholics.”John McCain has won the GOP nomination. Can he win the hearts and minds of the Christian right? THE JOURNAL reports on popular conservative evangelist John Hagee and his controversial endorsement of McCain. Hagee, leader of the politically powerful group Christians United for Israel (CUFI), has been criticized for controversial remarks about Catholics and about America’s role in the Middle East. Some say his message is dangerous: “It is time for America to … consider a military preemptive strike against Iran to prevent a nuclear holocaust in Israel and a nuclear attack in America.” Find out more about the politics and philosophy of Hagee and CUFI below:

“If a line has to be drawn, draw it around Christians and Jews. We are united.”
-Pastor John Hagee, CUFI Founder

John Hagee, along with other Christian Evangelical leaders, created Christians United for Israel (CUFI) less than two years ago, yet it has already grown into one of the largest and most politically influential Christian grassroots organizations in the country.

“When 50 million evangelical bible-believing Christians unite with five million American Jews standing together on behalf of Israel, it is a match made in heaven.”

>Watch an extended version of Hagee’s keynote address at A Night to Honor Israel, 2007

>Watch Senator John McCain’s address at A Night to Honor Israel, 2007

Dr. Hagee founded and is the Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, a non-denominational evangelical church that has more than 18,000 members. He is also the President and CEO of John Hagee Ministries, which he says boasts a television and radio audience of 99 million homes.

At the recent annual CUFI summit in Washington, D.C., prominent politicians were present to pledge support for this growing movement, including Senators John McCain, Joseph Lieberman, House Minority Whip Roy Blunt, as well as former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Lieberman particularly sang Hagee’s praise:

“He is a Ish Elokim, a man of God and those words really fit him…like Moses he’s become a leader of a mighty multitude, even greater than the multitude that Moses led from Egypt to the promised land.”

CUFI considers its defining issue to be the growing challenge of radical Islam, particularly as relates to the security of Israel and the United States. CUFI is incresingly concerned by Iran and its potential nuclear threats. Hagee often alludes to Nazi Germany in order to underline what he believes to be the gravity of the situation:

“Ladies and gentlemen, we are reliving history. It is 1938 all over again,” Hagee explains in a 2007 speech. “Iran is Germany. Ahmadinejad is Hitler. And Ahmadinejad, just like Hitler, is talking about killing the Jews.”

Increasingly, some American evangelical Christians have emerged to form an alliance with Israel. Citing Biblical prophecy, this group of evangelicals call for all ofthe West Bank to remain in Israeli hands, and they oppose any two-state solution. Sometimes called Christian Zionists, they believe that a Christian Messiah will returnto earth in Jerusalem. They have joined with conservative Israeli politicians to oppose any division of the city.Learn about the foundation of this movement through a greater understanding of some of the key components:

Evangelicalism:
Evangelicalism is the movement, especially in English-language theology, which places special emphasis upon the supreme authority of Scripture and the atoning death of Christ. According to Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, the term was originally used to refer to “those faith groups which followed traditional Christian beliefs, in contrast with two other movements: philosophical rationalism and legalistic Christianity.”

Today, evangelicalism generally refers to a broad spectrum of Protestant Christians.

Fundamentalism:
Comprising the most active, exclusive, and conservative wing ofEvangelicalism, fundamentalism draws its support primarily from the Baptist, Pentecostal and Independent Bible churches associated with individuals such as JerryFalwell, Pat Robertson, Hal Lindsey and Mike Evans.

Fundamentalist Christians typically believe that the Bible is the Word of God, internally consistent, andfree of error. Today, fundamentalists are the most vocal group in opposition to abortion access, laws making homosexuals a “protected category,”physician-assisted suicide, the use of embryonic stem cells for medical research, comprehensive sex-ed classes in public schools, etc.

Dispensationalism:
Many Christian Zionists subscribe to Dispensational Premillennism, a theological approach that claims that “God relates to human beings via different covenants (“dispensations”); in particular, dispensationalists believe that God’s covenant with Israel, including promises of land, continues in full force distinctive from Christianity.” (Donald Wagner, SOJOURNER, July-August 2003)

Paul Beran, lecturer at Northeastern University, explains that “in dispensationalism, history is an evolving pre-ordained plan that has certain marking points.” Each of these seven dispensations represents one of God’s tests for man on the path toward Christian salvation.

When Israeli statehood was declared in 1948, dispensationalists considered it an important prophetic event, or as Arno C. Gaebelein, editor of OUR HOPE described it, “the sign of all signs.”

Central to dispensationalism is the belief that all Israel will be saved; as theologist Stephen Sizer puts it, it is the belief “that the boundaries of the land promised to Abraham and his descendants will be literally instituted; and that Jesus Christ will return to a literal and theocratic Jewish kingdom centered on Jerusalem.”

Premillennial dispensationalists believe that Christ will return prior to the millennium (or 1,000 year reign) begins. There are also post-millennialists who believe that Christ will come after the 1,000 years and amillennialists who believe that God’s promises are figurative and will not be literally fulfilled.

Rapture:
This concept is from a literal interpretation of 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 in which Paul says, “For the Lord himself, with a word of command, with the voice of an archangel and the trumpet of God, will come down from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Thus we shall always be with the Lord.”

Rapture is the notion that in the last days believing Christians will be removed from the earth; it is literally explained as the time when Jesus calls thefaithful to heaven and believers are physically taken up.

To learn more about how Evangelical Christians became so closely aligned with Israeli Zionists, read Timothy Weber’s “How Evangelicals Became Israel’s Best Friend.”

//bill moyers journal//

Often Overlooked State Gains Importance in Tight Democratic Race

Barack Obama won the Democratic caucuses today in Wyoming, a state the party’s presidential candidates often overlook, but that in this nail-biter of a race saw heavy campaigning by both Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Obama came away with 61 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 38 percent.

Democrats in Wyoming get little respect. The sparsely populated red state is home to just 218,000 thousand voters, most of them Republicans, like Wyoming’s own Dick Cheney.

But this year, Clinton and Obama eagerly glad-handed voters across the state because even Wyoming — with its 12 delegates — counts.

The excitement about the Democratic race was evident at the Teton County Caucus, held in Jackson. Originally scheduled for the Virginian motel, the caucus had to be moved to the larger Snow King Resort to accommodate the crowds that turned out.

In previous years, no more than 200 Democrats had ever turned out in Teton County, but this year Democratic State Committee chairwoman Lesley Peterson estimated the overflow crowd at 1000 or more by early evening.

The high turnout among Wyoming Democrats is more evidence of how tight the race is between Clinton and Obama nationwide.

A Newsweek poll released Friday found the rival candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination in a statistical dead heat, with 45 percent of registered Democrats and Democratic leanings favoring Obama, and 44 percent favoring Clinton.

That marks the latest pendulum swing in a race that last year saw Clinton as the all-but-inevitable Democratic candidate, to Obama’s decisive lead during a sweep of February primary states. The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,215 registered voters March 5-6.

The Newsweek poll also shows neither candidate has an edge when it comes to voters’ number-one concern: The foundering economy, with 43 percent favoring Obama, 42 percent preferring Clinton.

The poll does show that seven in 10 Democrats want that dream team: Obama-Clinton or Clinton-Obama.

Today, former president Bill Clinton for the first time sent a clear signal that the Clinton campaign has given serious consideration to that dream ticket too, combining Obama’s urban appeal and Clinton’s rural appeal.

“You look at the map of Texas and the map in Ohio, and the map in Missouri,” Clinton said during a campaign stop on his wife’s behalf in Mississippi, “You look at most of these places — he would win the urban areas and the upscale voters, and she wins the traditional rural areas that we lost when President Reagan was president. If you put those two things together, you’d have an almost unstoppable force.”

Obama said Friday he’s not interested in holding the No. 2 slot on a Democratic dream team.

“You won’t see me as a vice presidential candidate,” Obama said in a radio interview.

Despite talk of a dream team, the bitter tone of the campaign for the White House is likely to get worse, with Clinton on the offensive and Obama walking a fine line, talking tough while trying to remain above the mudslinging.

“She has to take him down,” said Stuart Rothenberg of The Rothenberg Political Report. “He has to respond, look tough.”

If he does win the nomination, Obama will have to respond to Republicans, and to his conservative critics who pointedly refer to him using his full name, Barack Hussein Obama.

Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King gave a taste of what could lie ahead.

In an interview with KICD radio in Spencer, Iowa, the congressman virtually called him a terrorist ally.

“If he is elected president, then the radical Islamists, the al Qaeda, the radical Islamists and their supporters will be dancing in the streets,” King said. “They will be dancing in the streets because of his middle name.”

 //abc news//

Apparently, they’re a couple of decades behind the “liberal” West, and not so stuck after all.

By Joshua Holland

Before 9/11/01, the media relegated stories about women in Islamic societies to page B27, below the fold. Ever since 9/12/01, those same stories have screamed from the front pages in 100-point type. The shift in discourse coincided with the launch of Bush’s global “War on Terror,” when various hawks began using the plight of women in Islam to illustrate the supposed perfidy of our “enemies,” and to justify a series of military “interventions” — invasions — by Western powers.

In the United States, there’s now an almost universally held belief that most women in Islamic societies face wretched persecution and that Islam itself is wholly to blame. But there’s scant empirical evidence to support the claim — mostly, we’re treated to detailed reports of horrific abuses in theocratic states like Saudi Arabia and Iran, despite the fact that just six percent of the Muslim world live in those two countries. If you ask average Americans how they came to their beliefs about how badly women suffer in Islamic societies, most will reply that “everyone knows it.”

But I’ve seen no empirical data to suggest that an Islamic majority itself correlates with the subordination of women better than other co-variables like economic development, women’s ability to serve in government, a political culture that values the rule of law or access to higher education. In other words, you can use a comparison of women’s status in Saudi Arabia and Sweden to make an intellectually weak argument for Western superiority, but there’s little support for the notion that women living in “traditional” Islamic cultures enjoy a lower social status than those in orthodox Christian, Jewish or Hindu communities, to name a few examples. Think of the perfectly backwards Eastern Orthodox Church, the largest Christian communion in the world. Or consider the country where women may be brutalized more terribly than in any other, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is 70 percent Christian and 10 percent Muslim. Or go to Utah, where tens of thousands of Mormon fundamentalists believe that women are literally the property of their fathers or husbands. Of course, Mormon fundamentalists are the exception that proves the endless benevolence and equality of the West, while whatever despicable caricature of justice perpetrated on a woman by the House of Saud is breathlessly recounted as emblematic of Islamic culture as a whole.

Comparing the “Muslim world” to the rest of the world poses an intellectual problem — how does one even look at the role of Islam in a society, specifically, rather than dozens of other variables that might influence women’s outcomes?

I’d expect, for example, the structure of a country’s economy to play a far greater role in determining women’s status than the religion of its people. There’s quite a bit of research showing that in service and manufacturing economies — those of wealthier states — women enjoy a great deal of personal freedom and autonomy, civil and political rights and access to higher education. That’s because of the high value of their labor outside the home, in the workforce. Women earning their own bread out in the working world demand, and require, full political rights and legal protections. In poorer economies, most of which have large agricultural sectors and many of which rely on extractive enterprises — oil, mining, etc. — women tend to suffer a much lower social status, because their labor is more valuable coerced and sequestered close to home. That’s a structural, rather than a “Clash of Civilizations” explanation of women’s varying outcomes in different countries. It’s the latter view that I find little evidence to support.

None of this is a defense of Islam, or women’s place within it — I have little love for religion, any religion, and certainly no desire to defend any religious rites or customs. It’s about our loose definitions of the problem and tendency to idealize the “liberal” West.

March 8 is International Women’s Day, and a new global opinion poll was released to mark the occasion. The results will no doubt come as a surprise to many …

According to a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 16 nations from around the world, there is a widespread consensus that it is important for “women to have full equality of rights,” and most say it is very important. This is true in Muslim countries as well as Western countries.

In nearly all countries, most people perceive that in their lifetime women have gained greater equality. Nonetheless, large majorities would like their government and the United Nations to take an active role in preventing discrimination.

Support for equal rights is robust in all Muslim countries. Large majorities say it is important in Iran (78%), Azerbaijan (85%), Egypt (90%), Indonesia (91%), Turkey (91%) and the Palestinian territories (93%).

That’s no surprise to me, but I wouldn’t have bought into the “Yellow Peril” or “Communist Menace” narratives of earlier generations either. The U.S. political class did not suddenly develop an abiding concern for women’s equality in a vacuum. Like the promotion of human rights during the Cold War, there is a geopolitical goal being served. The United States has been in a state of permanent war since the 1940s — when not in a “hot” (real) war, we are, as a society, still under a constant cloud of threat, and our political leaders are all too happy to advance that narrative as long as it plays well politically. But it’s not enough to simply be under some ill-defined “threat” from ordinary rivals — that would just be basic geopolitics — we’re in a permanent fight for our very existence from forces that are wholly pernicious and bent on nothing less than our total destruction.

That’s become a central aspect of American political culture. We had a seamless transition from World War II to Cold War to Drug War to War on Terror, and in every instance, the unadulterated evil of our opponents has been a consistent theme, as has been our ability to turn a blind eye to the same offenses when perpetrated by the United States or our allies.

And now our existential enemies are the spooky brown people of the Muslim world, with their frightening and alien habits and supposed tendency towards “Islamofascism.” The problem with that storyline is clear: the Western, predominantly Christian world has far more economic and political influence than the “Muslim world” — much of which escaped the yoke of colonialism just in the past 50-75 years — and, more significantly, it has hundreds of thousands of troops on the soil of several predominantly Muslim countries, whereas the reverse does not obtain. In other words, the “threat” of an Islamic takeover of the West is as realistic as the threat of my sweet grandmother beating the Hell out of Mike Tyson.

Enter the endless — and relatively recent — fascination with the plight of women in Islamic societies. The complete perfidy of Islam — its supposed backwardness, slavish fundamentalism, brutality against the weak and, especially, expansionist tendencies — is necessary for (and perfectly suited to) the global war-on-whatever narrative, and therefore, I suggest, worthy of special scrutiny.

Consider for a moment the “Islam is stuck in the 12th century” narrative so popular now in the mainstream discourse — a narrative for which women’s civic participation is deemed a vital benchmark. The problem isn’t that Islam is being described unfairly, the problem lies with the implication that the “West” made so much progress in the 13th century. The truth is that universal suffrage came to Iran in 1979, five years before women in Liechtenstein got the vote. It came to Bahrain in 2002, 12 years after the Swiss Supreme Court ordered the stubborn Canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden to accept women’s suffrage. Portuguese women got the vote in 1976, Swiss women in 1971 — both in my lifetime — and in my baby-boomer mother’s lifetime, women in Italy, Belgium and Japan first got the franchise.

As far as women’s political participation goes, parts of the Muslim world — no, it’s not monolithic — are a few decades, not centuries, behind parts of the West. Is there evidence that the Islamic world is “stuck”? Not at all; in this young century, suffrage has been extended to women in Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. Active women’s rights movements exist in every country on the planet; women were never given rights anywhere without a fight.

And when comparing apples and apples — among economically developed Western democracies — the United States has very little standing to criticize anyone else about the status of women. We rank 71st in the world in terms of the proportion of women serving in our legislature, with just 16 percent. That’s significantly worse not only than the European countries, it’s also a poorer showing than Sudan, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and Uzbekistan.

According to the Wall Street Journal, women with similar experience and qualifications earn 16 percent less than their male counterparts worldwide; in the United States, the gender “earnings gap” is 22 percent. A study by researchers at the University of California found that women occupied only 11 percent of the seats on corporate boards in the oh-so-progressive state of California and held about one in 12 executive jobs. And, as I’ve written before, while the American economy has seen enormous benefits from large numbers of women entering the work force, our corporate culture has done far less than just about every other country — including supposedly “backward” states — to adapt to today’s work force:

According to Harvard’s Project on Global Working Families, the United States is one of only five countries out of 168 studied that doesn’t mandate some form of paid maternal leave. The only other advanced economy among those five was Australia’s, where women are guaranteed an entire year of unpaid leave. That puts the United States — the wealthiest nation on the planet — in the company of Lesotho, Papua New Guinea and Swaziland.

So you may have come a long way, Western Baby, but you’re not there yet, or even close.

The bottom line here is that increasing women’s civic, political and economic participation is a good fight, and an incredibly significant one. Focusing primarily on the status of women in Islamic countries to rid ourselves of the stigma of our own inequalities or to justify Western hegemony over the rest of the world is not.

//alternet//

By Michael Conlon

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The controversy caused by a photograph of Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama dressed in turban-topped African garb points to deeper anti-Muslim sentiment in U.S. society, some observers believe.

Ever since the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington Arabs generally and Muslims in particular have become the No. 1 villain in movies and television, according to Jack Shaheen, author of “Guilty – Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11.”

“There’s no balance. It makes as much sense as projecting Asian or African-Americans as terrorists,” he said.

One of the most disturbing trends, he said, is that what started in Hollywood movies spread to television, and has gone from Arabs to Muslims in general.

“It’s the fact that he’s black, let’s be blunt about it,” and that the Somali tribal garb in the picture taken when Obama was on a visit to Kenya, his father’s homeland, reminds people of Muslim dress, Shaheen said.

The Obama campaign accused the campaign of rival Democrat Hillary Clinton of “the most shameful, offensive fear-mongering” when the photograph of the Illinois senator, turned up on a Web site this week.

The Clinton campaign denied releasing the photo.

Obama, a Christian, has fought a whispering campaign from fringe elements that say he is a Muslim. The Democratic front-runner’s middle family name — Hussein — has been used by some to draw a link between him and late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

“But it’s interesting,” Shaheen said, “no one has said so what? What if he were a Muslim?”

“PLAIN BIGOTED”

Ahmed Rehab, executive director of the Chicago Chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said the photograph incident sent a poor message to any Muslim growing up in the United States with hopes of running for president.

“It goes against all that I advocate that the mere rumor of a person being a Muslim — let alone actually being one — could be a tool to destroy political aspirations,” he said in a commentary in the Chicago Tribune.

“When it comes to Muslims, the divisive rhetoric coming out of this year’s election ranges from the exclusionary to the just plain bigoted,” he said, adding that neither Obama nor any other candidate had adequately addressed the anti-Muslim climate.

Rehab said the photograph of Obama will be discounted by a large chunk of the electorate. “What I’m seeing now is a sense of cynicism .. you’ve had seven years of this crap,” he said.

“It is a sign of America’s progress that Obama is not eliminated from the public’s consideration because of his race,” remarked Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page in a recent commentary in that newspaper.

“Yet he is vulnerable to other prejudices,” he added, and impressions can tip the balance among those who are undecided.

Further attacks focusing on religion and identity seem likely as Obama becomes the favorite to win the Democratic nomination and compete in the November general election.

The Tennessee Republican Party this week put out a news release featuring the Obama photo, headlined “Anti-Semites for Obama” and referring to the Democrat as “Sen. Barack Hussein Obama.”

via//Reuters

related//Dallas Morning News, Huffington Post,  IPS

Christian extremists are preaching a war against tolerance to target and persecute all Muslims, including the 6 million who live in the U.S.

Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem and Zachariah Anani are the three stooges of the Christian right. These self-described former Muslim terrorists are regularly trotted out at Christian colleges — a few days ago they were at the Air Force Academy — to spew racist filth about Islam on behalf of groups such as Focus on the Family. It is a clever tactic. Curly, Larry and Mo, who all say they are born-again Christians, engage in hate speech and assure us it comes from personal experience. They tell their audiences that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world’s population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims. Their cant is broadcast regularly on Fox News, including the Bill O’Reilly and Neil Cavuto shows, as well as on numerous Christian radio and television programs. Shoebat, who has written a book called Why We Want to Kill You, promises in his lectures to explain the numerous similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, how “Muslim terrorists” invaded America 30 years ago and how “perseverance, recruitment and hate” have fueled attacks by Muslims.

These men are frauds, but this is not the point. They are part of a dark and frightening war by the Christian right against tolerance that, in the moment of another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would make it acceptable to target and persecute all Muslims, including the some 6 million Muslims who live in the United States. These men stoke these irrational fears. They defend the perpetual war unleashed by the Bush administration and championed by Sen. John McCain. McCain frequently reminds listeners that “the greatest danger facing the world is Islamic terrorism,” as does Mike Huckabee, who says that “Islamofascism” is “the greatest threat this country [has] ever faced.” George W. Bush has, in the same vein, assured Americans that terrorists hate us for our freedoms, not, of course, for anything we have done. Bush described the “war on terror” as a war against totalitarian Islamofascism while the Israeli air force was dropping tens of thousands of pounds of iron fragmentation bombs up and down Lebanon, an air campaign that killed 1,300 Lebanese civilians.

The three men tell lurid tales of being recruited as children into Palestinian terrorist organizations, murdering hundreds of civilians and blowing up a bank in Israel. Saleem says that as a child he infiltrated Israel to plant bombs via a network of tunnels underneath the Golan Heights, although no incident of this type was ever reported in Israel. He claims he is descended from the “grand wazir” of Islam, a title and a position that do not exist in the Arab world. They assure audiences that the Palestinians are interested not in a peaceful two-state solution but rather the destruction of Israel, the murder of all Jews and the death of America. Shoebat claims he first came to the United States as part of an extremist “sleeper cell.”

“These three jokers are as much former Islamic terrorists as ‘Star Trek’s’ Capt. James T. Kirk was a real Starship captain,” said Mikey Weinstein, the head of the watchdog group The Military Religious Freedom Foundation. The group has challenged Christian proselytizing in the military and denounced the visit by the men to the Air Force Academy.

The speakers include in their talks the superior virtues of Christianity. Saleem, for example, says his world “turned upside down when he was seriously injured in an automobile accident.”

“A Christian man tended to Kamal at the accident scene, making sure he got the medical treatment he needed,” his Web site says. “Kamal’s orthopedic surgeon and physical therapist were also Christian men whom over a period of several months ministered the unconditional love of Jesus Christ to him as he recovered. The love and sacrificial giving of these men caused Kamal to cry out to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob acknowledging his need for the Savior. Kamal has since become a man on a new mission, as an ambassador for the one true and living God, the great I Am, Jehovah God of the Bible.”

This creeping Christian chauvinism has infected our political and social discourse. It was behind the rumor that Barack Obama was a Muslim. Obama reassured followers that he was a Christian. It apparently did not occur to him, or his questioners, that the proper answer is that there is nothing wrong with being a Muslim, that persons of great moral probity and courage arise in all cultures and all religions, including Islam. Christians have no exclusive lock on virtue. But this kind of understanding often provokes indignant rage.

The public denigration of Islam, and by implication all religious belief systems outside Christianity, is part of the triumphalism that has distorted the country since the 9/11 attacks. It makes dialogue with those outside our “Christian” culture impossible. It implicitly condemns all who do not think as we think and believe as we believe as, at best, inferior and usually morally depraved. It blinds us to our own failings. It makes self-reflection and self-criticism a form of treason. It reduces the world to a cartoonish vision of us and them, good and evil. It turns us into children with bombs.

These three con artists are not the problem. There is enough scum out there to take their place. Rather, they offer a window into a worldview that is destroying the United States. It has corrupted the Republican Party. It has colored the news media. It has entered into the everyday clichés we use to explain ourselves to ourselves. It is ignorant and racist, but it is also deadly. It grossly perverts the Christian religion. It asks us to kill to purify the Earth. It leaves us threatened not only by the terrorists who may come from abroad but the ones who are rising from within our midst.

Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. He spent seven years in the Middle East and reported frequently from Iran. His latest book is American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.

via//AlterNet

Barack Obama is not a Muslim.

We know this because he has told us so.

We know it because there is no credible evidence to suggest otherwise.

We know it despite a campaign of lies and whispers from various bloggers, pundits and head cases.

Barack Obama is not a Muslim. But, what if he were?

Same guy, same charisma, same inspirational idealism. But also, a Muslim. Not a crazy Muslim. Not a guy prone to strapping bombs to his chest in hopes of meeting virgins in heaven. A Kareem Abdul-Jabbar-type Muslim. A Dave Chappelle, Ahmad Rashad, Shaquille O’Neal-type Muslim. A guy you like and admire who just happened to be, you know … Muslim.

Would it matter? Should it?

The question bears answering because of the creepy, are-you-now-or-have-you-ever-been attitude toward Islam that seems to be seeping into the public dialogue lately. As in that campaign of lies and whispers that keeps showing up in my inbox — claims that Obama won’t salute the flag, took his oath of office on a Quran, belongs to a terror cell and other assorted idiocy.

NBC News anchor Brian Williams has apparently been getting the same e-mails. In moderating a recent Democratic debate, he asked Obama about rumors “that you are trying to hide the fact that you’re a Muslim … “

The senator laughed a heard-that-a-few-times-before laugh. Then he replied that he is a Christian, that he is a victim of Internet rumor, and that he trusts the American people to “sort out the lies from the truth.”

What bothered me is that, by its phrasing, Williams’ question presupposed there is something wrong with being a Muslim. And Obama’s answer left the presupposition unaddressed.

What if he were a Muslim? What then?

A 2007 Pew Research Center survey found that 43 percent of us have a favorable opinion of Muslims (make it Muslim Americans and the number rises to 53 percent). Which may sound not so bad, except when you compare it with favorable ratings of other religious groups. Jews, for instance, are at 76 percent. Even evangelical Christians manage 60. And that ranking for Muslims represents a 5-point drop since 2004.

It’s no mystery why the nation’s opinion of Muslims is becoming less favorable. In a word, terrorism. And, frankly, Americans are right to fear Muslim fanatics who embrace violence as a means of getting what they want.

But see, the key word there is not Muslim. It’s fanatic. Yet some of us still think Muslim is the brand name for crazy. Me, I think the only difference between religious fanatics here and in the Middle East is that Middle Eastern nations tend to be theocratic (i.e., the word of the holy book has the force of law) and to be intolerant — sometimes, violently so — of dissent. So no one dares tell them no.

But if Pat Robertson, to name an American Christian fanatic not quite at random, had the force of law behind him and the ability to silence those who disagree, don’t you think he would be as scary as the scariest ayatollah in Iran?

I do. That’s why I would never want him to be president. Which is not quite the same as saying I’d never want a Christian to be president. I just prefer my presidents — regardless of their religion — reasonable. And sane. That seems a fair standard.

Yet it’s a standard some of us now discard. The ongoing whisper campaign against Barack Obama, against his very American-ness, is a shameful appeal to ignorance and fear. Against that, I offer a simple statement the world’s most famous and well-loved follower of Islam made just after the Sept. 11 attacks.

“I am a Muslim,” said Muhammad Ali. “I am an American.”

That says it all. Or at least, it should.

Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr.’s column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: lpitts@herald.com

via//Seattle Times

Giuliani ad invokes Iran, Pakistan; Plus: Romney and McCain duke it out

WASHINGTON – While much of the political world’s attention has been myopically focused on the state of Iowa, Rudy Giuliani was conspicuously absent from the Hawkeye State this week. With a renewed reliance on his strategy of capturing wins in the Florida and Feb. 5 primaries, the Republican presidential candidate returned to what was once considered the bedrock of his campaign — his leadership in fighting terrorism — in a new ad airing nationally on cable.

The current turmoil brewing in volatile regions in the Middle East and Asia is making national security one of the top issues in the ‘08 race. In the wake of the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last week and newly released video footage of Osama bin Laden, Giuliani seems to be banking on a return to security issues in his risky national campaign strategy.

Opening with a montage of riots and violence, the ad paints a grim picture of “hate without boundaries” and “a religion betrayed.” As the announcer warns of “a nuclear power in chaos” and “madmen bent on creating it,” a photo of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears on the screen. The ad, which debuted just one week after her death, also features footage of Bhutto.

CBS News reports that, in his initial response to Bhutto’s death, Giuliani said, “It should not be viewed in a political light…. I don’t think that would be the most appropriate thing right now to talk about.” Giuliani campaign spokeswoman Maria Comella defended the use of the slain leader’s image in the ad, telling CBS “that the ‘right now’ part of [Giuliani's] statement is the most noteworthy, and that the mayor’s intention was to stress that it should not be politicized ‘that day’.”

NBC News/National Journal reporter Matthew E. Berger notes that the spot also “paints a haunting picture of terrorism in more than one language,” using an Arabic chant in the background that translates to, “Instead of me, you carried a bomb in your hands. My love will not be merely words. I am following in Mommy’s footsteps.”

“In a world where the next crisis is a moment away, America needs a leader who’s ready,” the ad concludes. Giuliani appears briefly on-screen at the close, which features his new slogan: “Tested. Ready. Now.” Slated to run nationally on FOX News as well as in Florida and New Hampshire, the ad was released on Wednesday — the same day Giuliani unveiled his plan to double U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

A rumble brews in the Granite State
The long, hard slog for votes in Iowa has barely ended, but the candidates are already shifting their attention to New Hampshire, which on the Republican side is quickly shaping up to be a heated contest between Mitt Romney and John McCain .

Once counted out, McCain has in recent months surged to second place in New Hampshire, and he leads the GOP field in one new national survey [PDF]. A first-place showing in New Hampshire could make the Arizona senator, who tied for third in Iowa, the “comeback kid” of the GOP race, and that possibility has already made him a prime target for Romney.

Having already released spots criticizing McCain’s positions on immigration and taxes, Romney’s latest ad features interviews with New Hampshire residents who praise the Vietnam veteran’s service to his country, but go on to say that McCain has had his chance in Washington to fix immigration and taxes, but has failed. The ad does not mention Romney’s own positions on issues.

Never one to back down from a fight, McCain has responded to Romney’s attacks with two TV ads of his own. “You know, I find it ironic Mitt Romney would attack me on the issue of immigration,” the Arizona senator says in one spot, turning his rival’s own words against him. “This is the same Mitt Romney who called my plan ‘reasonable.’”

On the campaign trail, McCain has lashed out against the Romney campaign’s attacks on his record and Huckabee’s. In congratulating Huckabee on his win Thursday night, McCain said the lesson of Iowa was that “negative campaigns don’t work.” But while he hasn’t purchased any airtime for negative ads, the senator has unleashed direct attacks against Romney on the Web, where a 30-second video highlights the former Massachusetts governor’s recent assertion that “a president is not a foreign policy expert.”

via//MSNBC

One of the most disturbing things to me during any election cycle is the tendency for surrogates of campaigns to drop outrageous talking points to drive home misconceptions and fear that the candidates themselves would never utter. They’re usually far enough away from the candidate – state co-chair, errant campaign worker – that the campaigns can say that they can’t control what comes out of every single spokesperson’s mouth.

However these opportunities occur with such disturbing frequency the closer you get to the actual match-ups, that you really have to wonder whether or not the campaigns don’t offer a sly wink and a nod to them.

The latest entry in fear-mongering cheap shots comes from John Deady, the New Hampshire co-chair of Veterans for Rudy. Mr. Deady was interviewed as part of a series of documentaries The Observer of London is filming in New Hampshire. TPM Election Central’s Greg Sargent reports this:

He’s got I believe the knowledge and the judgement to attack one of the most difficult problems in current history and that is the rise of the Muslims, and make no mistake about it, this hasn’t happened for a thousand years. These people are very dedicated and they’re also very very smart in their own way. We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them.

Here’s the video:

Now you might think this xenophobic utterance is restricted to just the “Islamofacists” or terror jihadists. In an interview with TPM’s Sargent, Deady stands by his comments and then some:

Asked if he stood by his comments in the earlier Guardian interview, Deady said: “I most assuredly do. I’ve been very concerned about this Muslim thing for quite awhile. The average American does not know beans about what the Muslims are about. I am talking about the Muslims in general. I don’t subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims. They’re all Muslims.“
In the earlier interview with The Guardian, Deady said of Muslims: “We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or in other words get rid of them.”
When I asked Deady to elaborate on his suggestion that we need to “get rid” of Muslims, Deady said: “When I say get rid of them, I wasn’t necessarily referring to genocide. What I was referring to is, stand up to them every time they stick up their heads and attack us. We can’t afford to say, `We’ll try diplomacy.’ They don’t respond to it. If you look into Islamic tradition, a treaty is only good for five years. We’re not dealing with a rational mindset here. We’re dealing with madmen.” When I asked Deady if this was also a reference to all Muslims, he said: “I am talking about Muslims in general.“

So by playing to the fears of those who are awaiting the next 9/11, Deady presses the idea that A) all Muslims lived in caves and need to go back there and B) the Mayor of 9/11 who hopes to be the President of 9/11 is the only one that can protect us from these ungodly, terroristic hoardes that live in our midst!

Rudy’s campaign eventually responded to Deady’s comments, artfully dodging any responsibility for the remarks and certainly not “necessarily referring to genocide”. The New York Daily News got this from the Giuliani campaign:

The Giuliani campaign said it would ask Deady to resign “if these quotes are accurate.” “They are inappropriate and not reflective of our campaign,” said Wayne Semprini, Giuliani’s New Hampshire chairman.

Whew! Glad that’s all straightened out.

via//AOL News

LOS ANGELES: Is the Los Angeles Police Department snooping on Muslims?

Critics say a police counterterrorism effort to identify and map Muslim communities amounts to religious and racial profiling — investigating residents based on what they look like, or where they worship.

But city officials defended the effort Friday, depicting it as “community engagement” aimed at welcoming sometimes insular Muslim groups into all aspects of city life. It is about transparency, not clandestine surveillance, they said.

Police respect “the civil and human rights of Muslims,” Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said.

Deputy Chief Michael P. Downing said objections are coming from people who “don’t really understand what we are doing.”

“We are not looking at individuals. We are looking at groups and communities,” the chief said. Police want to be viewed as “trusted friends.”

There are an estimated 500,000 Muslims in Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties. The Police Department is trying to identify the location of Muslim enclaves to determine which might be susceptible to “violent, ideologically-based extremism,” Downing said Thursday.

The intent, he said, is to “reach out to those communities,” including Pakistanis, Iranians and Chechens.

Several Muslim groups and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California sent Downing a letter expressing “grave concerns.” It was signed by representatives of Muslim Advocates, a national association of Muslim lawyers; the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California; and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

“Singling out individuals for investigation, surveillance, and data-gathering based on their religion constitutes religious profiling that is just as unlawful, ill-advised and deeply offensive as racial profiling,” the letter said.

Testifying before Congress in October, Downing said his bureau wanted to “take a deeper look at the history, demographics, language, culture, ethnic breakdown, socio-economic status and social interactions” of the city’s Muslim communities.

Downing plans to meet with Muslim leaders Thursday.

Salam al-Marayati, executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, said he would withhold judgment until hearing more from police next week.

“Muslims should be treated as partners, not suspects,” he said.

Chief William Bratton said the initiative is intended to get officers into communities, meeting with people and learning the local landscape.

Source:  International Herald Tribune

This week, student organizations at nearly 150 American colleges and universities will be organizing events for “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” a national right-wing exercise in irrationality orchestrated by The David Horowitz Freedom Center and the Terrorism Awareness Project.

The mission of the campaign, according to their Web site, is “to confront the two Big Lies of the political left: that George Bush created the war on terror and that Global Warming is a greater danger to Americans than the terrorist threat.” The site further alleges that the academic world is responsible for creating and perpetuating lies about the war in Iraq, the message of Islam, the treatment of Muslim women, and—my personal favorite—the importance of global warming. With just one invented hyphenation, the title “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” alone manages to assign 1.4 billion people radical political ideology by virtue of their religion.

Luckily, the event is not being hosted at Harvard, despite false claims online to the contrary (which were exposed and later corrected) and despite the organizations’ attempt to sign up the Harvard College Republicans (HCR) as sponsors. HCR president, Jeffrey Kwong ’09 had the sense to refuse, recognizing that the event sent the “wrong message, which associates an entire religion with a terrorist political agenda.” Unfortunately, students at many of our peer institutions did not.

The website also lists campus Hillels as possible cosponsors, despite the fact that Jewish student groups frequently work with Arab and Muslim student groups on campus to facilitate dialogue. Both Harvard Hillel and the Progressive Jewish Alliance have asserted their opposition to the event. Horowitz’s suggestion—that, by virtue of their religion and culture, Jewish students would support such outright racism against Muslims—only exacerbates the polarization between Arabs and Jews, and indiscriminately conflates religions, ethnicities, and political allegiances.

It is difficult to argue with those reduce intellectual discourse of complicated issues within Islam to mere sensationalist phrases about the religion itself. No credible academic—on either side of the aisle—would so completely ignore socio-political, historic, and economic issues that are fundamentally entrenched in the idea of Islamo-fascism.

I hesitate to even dignify such clearly ignorant rhetoric with a response, but I fear the profound implications that can and often do materialize from the repeated misconceptions heralded by Horowitz’s brand of “awareness.” Sadly, such a notion of “enlightenment” seeks to teach the academic left lessons such as, “There is no distinction in the American Muslim community between peaceful Muslims and jihadists.” As Sa’ed Atshan, a Palestinian citizen and head teaching fellow for Government 1206, “Contemporary Political Islam,” said, “People in the world and American Muslims are just as concerned about terrorism. People in the Muslim world are the primary victims, frequently, of what’s going on.”

In Horowitz’s attempt to “enlighten” the academic left, The “Student’s Guide to Organizing Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” recommends both a “Teach-In on ‘The Oppression of Women in Islam’” and “sit-ins in Women’s Studies Departments and campus Women’s Centers.” This is completely ill-informed: Feminist scholars have been among the foremost analysts and critics of women’s systematic mistreatment in all Judeo-Christian societies, including Islamic ones. Moreover, feminist academics—especially in the last 30 years—have been explicitly dedicated to self-criticism, acknowledging their own biases and situated knowledge, as well as the complexity of even speaking about “women’s oppression.”

The use of women as a synecdoche for an entire religion, society, or nation—especially in combination with Orientalist and Social Darwinist notions of Western superiority—is unbelievably dangerous. Subsuming the geographies, histories, and experiences of millions of women into the stereotypical image of the veiled, Arab (and, one assumes, “subordinate”) woman is simply inaccurate (there are over 110 million Muslim women living in the more liberal Indonesia alone). By creating a singular entity of Muslim women, Horowitz allows himself to adopt the voice of the “Muslim woman” and use her oppression for his political aims. The cruel irony that the “feminist” Horowitz fails to realize is that in protesting the “silence about the oppression of women in Islam,” he himself both silences and oppresses Muslim women, depriving them of agency.

Harvard’s own Professor Leila N. Ahmed (who is pointedly critical of medieval Islamic society’s treatment of women), wrote at length of what she calls “colonial feminism”: a part of the “civilizing” mission of the British, whereby British colonial presence in Egypt was justified with claims to liberate “native” women from oppression—all while Englishwomen still lacked the right to vote. Horowitz’s logic is nothing more than colonial feminism in today’s neo-colonialist era.

Unsurprisingly, Horowitz himself has a fairly accepted reputation for being a racist, most famously for his commentary on “the melodrama of black victimization and white oppression.” And it comes as no surprise to discover that the David Horowitz Freedom Center—a 501(c)(3) non-profit—is funded by explicitly far-right private foundations, many of which made their millions from Gulf Oil (according to mediatransparency.org), and thus would have a vested interest in continuing to shore up support for the “War on Terror” and American intervention in the Middle East.

Nothing constructive can come of “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week.” In a post-9/11 environment, it is increasingly difficult to be an American Muslim, and efforts like this only serve to further marginalize those living daily on the defensive. Frankly, as a liberal, feminist, American Muslim, immersed in an institution of the academic left, I am upset, but also confused—for I seem to be both victim and oppressor in Horowitz’s Manichean world.

Nadia O. Gaber ’09, a crimson editorial editor, is a history and literature concentrator in Kirkland House. She is president of the Society of Arab Students.

Source: The Harvard Crimson

Neoconservatives are great observers of war and warriors, though they are sometimes not in complete agreement about the numbering of the conflicts that they send other people’s sons and daughters to fight. Norman Podhoretz, the patriarch of the neocons, believes that the Cold War was World War III and that the U.S. is now fighting World War IV against “Islamofascism.” He intends to expand World War IV by slating Iran as the next domino to fall to America’s military might. Podhoretz undoubtedly sees the current global conflict as something that is good and necessary, both containable and winnable, but as his judgment on Iraq was fallible, his prediction of Iran’s rapid destruction is also unreliable. It might be useful to imagine just how war with Iran could play out if the Iranians don’t roll over and surrender at the first whiff of grapeshot.

It might start with a minor incident, possibly involving an American Marine patrol operating out of the new base at Badrah near the Iranian border. The Marines are surrounded by superior Iranian forces claiming that the Americans have strayed inside Iranian territory. The Marines refuse to surrender their weapons and instead open fire. The Iranians respond. Helicopter gunships are called in to support the Marines, and artillery fire is directed against Iranian military targets close to the border. President Bush calls the incident an act of war and, in an emotional speech to the nation, orders U.S. forces to attack. A hastily called meeting of the UN Security Council results in a 17-1 vote urging the United States to exercise restraint, with only Washington voting “no.” In the UN General Assembly, only the U.S., Israel, Micronesia, and Costa Rica support the military action. The U.S. is effectively alone.

In the first few days, overwhelming American air and naval superiority destroy Iran’s principal air, naval, and army bases. Iranian Revolutionary Guard facilities are particularly targeted and are obliterated, as are the known Iranian nuclear research and development sites. Population centers are avoided, though smart weapons destroy communications centers and command and control facilities. There are nevertheless large numbers of civilian casualties and widespread radioactive contamination as many of the targeted sites are in or near cities. Infrastructure is also hit, particularly bridges, roads, and power generation stations close to known nuclear research centers and military sites. The U.S. media, which had supported the administration’s plans to engage Iran, rallies around the flag, praising the surgical attacks designed to cripple Tehran’s nuclear weapons program. Congress supports the bombing, with leaders from both parties praising the president and commenting that Iran had it coming.

The Pentagon and White House call the attacks a complete success, but Iran strikes back. With five years to prepare, Iran has successfully hidden and hardened many of its military and nuclear facilities, a large percentage of which are undamaged. The aircraft carrier USS Eisenhower operating in the Persian Gulf is hit by a Chinese Silkworm cruise missile and grounds itself in shallow water to avoid sinking. Three other support vessels are also hit and severely damaged when they are attacked by small craft manned by suicide bombers. Pro-Iranian riots break out in Beirut, where the government is forced to call in soldiers to shoot at the crowds. In the south of Lebanon, Hezbollah fires salvoes of rockets into Israel. Israel responds by bombing Lebanon and Syria, which it blames for the attacks. Iranian Shahab-3 missiles also strike Israel, killing a number of civilians. The Israeli Defense Forces are mobilized, and troops are sent to the northern border. Syria and Lebanon also mobilize their forces. Rioters in Baghdad attack US. .troops and the American embassy and are driven back only after the soldiers open fire and call in helicopter gunships. Snipers attack American soldiers all over Iraq. Shi’ites sympathetic to Iran sabotage Saudi Arabia’s eastern oil fields. The Saudi fields suffer some damage, and hundreds of alleged saboteurs are shot dead by Saudi security forces. An oil tanker out of Kuwait is hit by a Silkworm close to the Straits of Hormuz and runs aground. Another hits a mine planted by Iran. Insurers in London refuse to cover any tankers transiting the Persian Gulf. Oil shipments from the region, one quarter of the world supply, stop completely, and oil goes up to $200 a barrel. Wall Street suffers its biggest loss in 20 years, with the Dow Jones index plummeting by more than 800 points.

The U.S. offers Iran a cease-fire, which Tehran rejects. Two days later, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is assassinated under orders from Tehran. Fearing that he will be next, Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf flees to Dubai. Order breaks down in both countries. The Pakistani army declares a state of emergency. Several leaders in the Pakistani tribal areas that are sheltering Osama bin Laden declare themselves independent. Fighting increases in Iraq with U.S. soldiers being targeted by both leading Shi’ite militias. U.S. troops evacuate Baghdad, fighting their way out with heavy casualties. There are reports of Iranian soldiers and militiamen massing at the border. Rioters in Basra succeed in cutting the main roads leading to Kuwait that supply U.S. forces.

The U.S. scrambles to contain the damage, pressuring the Pakistani army to put down the riots and secure the country’s nuclear arsenal, while at the same time trying to restore order in Kabul through the multinational force. Several NATO allies balk at using their soldiers in what they see as a burgeoning civil war, and the U.S. suffers heavy losses in street fighting before withdrawing to its bases. Taliban-backed militias take over much of Kabul and Kandahar. Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif, which is largely Shi’ite, declares itself part of Iran. Waves of Iranian soldiers and militiamen cross the border into Iraq, where they are welcomed by the Iraqi militias. U.S. troops are under siege countrywide and are forced to withdraw into their bases where they can be supplied by air. The Iraqi government resigns and is replaced by a group of Shi’ite clerics. The government in Lebanon falls and is replaced by a coalition headed by Hezbollah. A salvo of Iranian Silkworm missiles sets the Saudi Arabian eastern oil fields ablaze. Saudi Arabia sends an urgent message to Tehran declaring that it is “neutral” in the fighting and will not assist the U.S. in any way. Kuwait sends the same message, as does Egypt. Kuwait refuses to allow the U.S. to use its men and supplies at Camp Doha against Iran. In Bahrain, rampaging Shi’ite crowds depose Sheik Khalifa al-Khalifa and set up an Islamic Republic which immediately demands that the U.S. Fifth Fleet dismantle its headquarters and go home. The Dow Jones index loses another 1,000 points.

The U.S. attempts to get China and Russia to mediate with Iran to end the fighting, but they refuse to do Washington any favors, noting that they had opposed the attack in the first place. Suicide bombers attack London, Washington, New York, and Los Angeles. The attacks are poorly planned and inflict only a few casualties, but panic sets in and the public demands that the respective governments do something. The U.S. tells the Iranian government that unless resistance ceases, nuclear weapons will be used on select targets. India and Pakistan are alarmed by the U.S. threat and put their own nuclear forces on high alert, as does Israel. Russia and China also increase their readiness levels to respond to the crisis.

Iran refuses to concede defeat, and the Iranian people rally around the government. The U.S. public clamors for action. Oil prices continue to surge, and even the long term viability of petroleum supplies is in question as the Straits of Hormuz continue to be closed. Another U.S. ship is sunk by suicide attackers in the Persian Gulf. U.S. troops are under fire nearly everywhere in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Anti-American rioting takes place in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, and Dhaka. The U.S. consulate general in Karachi, Pakistan, is overrun and sacked. Forty Americans are killed, along with hundreds of Pakistanis. The Pakistani army announces that it can no longer protect Americans. There are frequent terrorism scares in a number of American cities, which are under red alert security lockdown, though there are no new attacks. As a preventive measure, Muslim leaders and some antiwar activists are arrested and detained at military prisons, including Guantanamo. Israel continues to be bombarded from inside Lebanon and Syria. Its air attacks on targets in both countries inflict major damage on civilians but are unsuccessful in stopping the rockets. Rioting rocks the West Bank and Gaza. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas flees to Cairo. India threatens to attack Pakistan if there is any question about the security of Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal.

The United States uses a neutron-type bomb against the main Iranian nuclear research center at Natanz, which it had already bombed conventionally and destroyed. It vows to bomb again if Iran continues to resist. Iran is defiant and fires another wave of Silkworms at U.S. ships, sinking one. Suicide bombers hit U.S. targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Russia and China place their nuclear forces on high alert. Pakistani militants take over parliament, aided by radical elements in the army and the intelligence service. India launches a preemptive strike against the main Pakistani nuclear centers at Wah and Multan, where the country’s arsenal is believed to be concentrated. Pakistan has hidden some of its nukes elsewhere, however, and is able to strike back by bombing New Delhi. World War III has begun.

Source: AntiWar.com