In no way will any parts of this interview be aired in the U.S. or mainstream corporate media.
The crack-down on the internet is spurred from many quarters, one of them is to censor content such as this.
There’s no Arabic word for “Take-Away food” (I wonder if you spotted it?) otherwise the translation was very good.
I’ll let you make your own conclusions on the interview, from a man who is denied air time on the western media. We cry loudly about the great freedom of speech we have and at the same time block Al-Manar from broadcasting and even blocking their twitter account – thanks Israel.
The interview has had wider ripples across the British media.
The sandal wearing, recycled bean eating readership of The Guardian were treated to a hatchet job by Luke Harding who was given prominent positioning on the Guardian website to attack Assange as a “useful idiot” for Russia.
I haven’t seen so many bad elements of journalism incorporated into one article since The News of The World went out of business.
Firstly there is an element of competition between two rival media outlets, and if one side gets a big scoop, the other has to respond by dismissing it. Sadly, it’s becoming an ugly side of journalism that is becoming much more common.
For those with a memory will remember that The Guardian did it with the Murdoch Phone-hacking Scandal, running it for weeks on end. Not that it shouldn’t have been reported but there was a clear “conflict of interest” underpinning Britain’s second-best selling Newspaper (The Guardian) attacking Britain’s best selling Newspaper (The News of the World) until it was shut down.
The second bad journalism element is the “personel vendetta” that I charge The Guardian with running.
Less then two years ago The Guardian was working with Julian Assange and calling him a hero.
I’m sure everyone here remembers reading the Wikileaks stories on The Guardian website.
Now after a public falling out they are calling Assange “Russia Today’s Useful Idiot”.
Bitterness is never an attractive quality.
Simplicity will defeat complexity – shout out to the israeli encryptors!
While the people of Yemen risk life and limb in a year of bloody protests, the Sauds & the US carry out a “show election” for a new president.
With their being only one candidate standing unopposed, how do you expect Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi not to win. There wasn’t even a Yes or No option to be had on the ballot, the only vote was for Hadi, the only vote is a YES and there’s no chances he can lose.
This new dictator was vice president under Saleh for 17 years and while Saleh kicks back after his 33 years in charge, in New York under his immunity deal, his right hand man runs the country, while his family control the security apparatus.
“Yemen has proved its ability to move from the past to the present via ballot boxes”
I’m drawn between tears and laughter as to how exactly has Yemen become the model for peaceful transition that the Obama administration proclaim it to be.
Predictably, the corporate media has avoided coverage on this issue but chosen instead to focus on Putin’s fixed election in Russia, a tactic to deflect attention away from the role of “The West” in Yemen.
The fallout in Yemen has been instant, whilst America’s kleptocracy’s applaud the sham election the change that was wanted has not transpired. 85 deaths on Monday and another 185 dead today . This will of course be written off by the corporate media as being uppity Al CIAda types opposing democracy and freedom, what it really shows is that the US & her stooge elements want neither peace or stability in the region.
If they did, they would allow a full election with more than one candidate.
The only place where democracy is acceptable, is where America’s candidate is electable.
Just like Obama himself, this is another change that no one can believe in.
If you wish to get a further understanding on Britain’s colonial exploits in Yemen, I’d recommend you watch a documentary by Adam Curtis – The Mayfair Set
The first episode “Who Pays Wins”, tells the story of one Colonel Sir Archibald David Stirling, World War II British Army officer, founder of the Special Air Service and Mercenary.
Worried that Britain was losing its power after the War, Stirling organised deals to sell British weapons and military personnel to other countries, like Yemen & Saudi Arabia, for various privatised foreign policy operations. Stirling along with other associates formed Watchguard International Ltd. He was also linked along with an associate Denys Rowley in a failed attempt to overthrow Gaddafi of Libya in 1970/71.
Already Obama is under pressure from the military industrial complex to keep the troop numbers high. Despite Obama’s approval ratings riding high after the “deading” of Osama Bin Laden, what are the real chances of him still being President in 2013? seeing US presidential elections are due next year. This of course comes from a man who said Guantanamo would be closed as part of his election campaign – four years later, we’re still waiting.
The entire premise of foreign troops, especially American troops leaving a country they have invaded is an entirely false one. The media maybe reporting it as that, but what’s being said is that “Combat Operations” will cease. Just like combat operations ended in Iraq years ago, hasn’t led to a drawdown of troop numbers, Afghanistan will be precisely the same. No one builds the world’s largest “embassy” compound to leave it behind. The Second World War ended in 1945, yet American bases remain in the countries they invaded, principally Germany & Japan.
Listening to Radio 4’s Today Show this morning was far more revelatory than a whole hour’s worth of BBC programming.
Simply listen to what Michael Semple, former Deputy to the EU Special Representative for Afghanistan and a key proponent of talking to the Taliban had to say on the subject:
I’ve lost count the amount of times I’ve had to explain to people that western military theory is based primarily on Carl von Clausewitz’s teachings, what is taught in every single military academy is;
“War is not merely a political act, but also a political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means”
War is a conduit to achieve a political objective, if you have no political objective to achieve, or the remit is changed regularly as has been the case in Afghanistan, then you are in a perpetual state of war, a never ending war, that has no end game in sight.
The Afghan War Logs showed the true nature of the Afghan War, one that the media doesn’t report on.
As Simon Jenkins, writing in The Guardian pointed out recently, it is not democracy that keeps western nations at war, but armies and the interests now massed behind them. Eisenhower’s farewell message to America was a simple warning against the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” of a military-industrial complex with “unwarranted influence on government”.
A burgeoning defence establishment, backed by large corporate interests, would one day employ so many people as to corrupt the political system. (His original draft even referred to a “military-industrial-congressional complex”.) This lobby, said Eisenhower, could become so huge as to “endanger our liberties and democratic processes”.
I wonder what Eisenhower would make of today’s US, with a military grown from 3.5 million people to 5 million. The western nations face less of a threat to their integrity and security than ever in history, yet their defence industries cry for ever more money and ever more things to do. The cold war strategist, George Kennan, wrote prophetically: “Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented.”
The war on terror fulfilled all Eisenhower’s fears, as America sank into a swamp of kidnapping, torture and imprisonment without trial.
The belligerent posture of the US and Britain towards the Muslim world has fostered antagonism and moderate threats in response. The bombing of extremist targets in Pakistan is an invitation for terrorists to attack us, and then a need for defence against such attack. A self fulfilling perpetual cycle of violence.
Meanwhile, the opportunity cost of appeasing the complex is astronomical.
Eisenhower remarked that “every gun that is made is a theft from those who hunger” – a bomber is two power stations and a hospital not built. Likewise, each Tomahawk Cameron drops on Tripoli destroys not just a Gaddafi bunker (are there any left?), but a hospital ward and a classroom in Britain.
As long as bullets are fired in war, there will be a company profiting from their sale, with the invention of the global war against terrorism, it provides a blank cheque opportunity for the defence industry – the military industrial complex – the scenery maybe variable – Iraq or Afghanistan – the money source remains the constant and the end result remains constant.
Most people think that the war between the Chechens and Russians in the remote mountainous region of the Caucasus is over, but this is not the truth.
Russia has waged a brutal war against Chechen separatists since the 1990s.
The violence began when a former Soviet air force officer seized power and declared independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia, though, was not prepared to give up the oil-rich prize without a fight.
What started as a nationalist independence movement soon became a rallying cry for Muslims around the world who wanted to establish an Islamic state in the North Caucasus.
The Mujahideen defeated the Russian army, but four years later the Russians came back with a vengeance.
At the same time, some of the former Mujahideen, like Ramzan Kadyrov, who is now the republic’s Russian backed president, changed sides, and took up arms against his once sworn brothers in arms.
Russia now claims to have finally defeated the Mujahideen, but the resistance continues, and many who have survived the battles and fled their homeland, still live in hope of a free Chechnya.
For the last four weeks, Channel 4 have been showing a weekly factual drama directed by Peter Kosminsky titled “The Promise” , which looks at the Nakba – the great catastrophe of losing their land for the Palestinian people.
This is the first and only time I can recollect that such a programme has been put together, which showed all of the zionist terrorist activities undertaken to murder the indigenous population and drive the British army out of Palestine.
The programme was at times both challenging and unwatchable, the scenes of the stern gang and the irgun pulling Palestinians out of their homes and machine gunning them down and blowing them up with impunity as they ethically cleansed the land, is a well documented fact, but one that has never been recreated on screen.
Almost a generation ago, a mini series titled “Roots” was aired in America. It told the story of generations of Muslim African’s who were captured and bought to America as slaves.
That programme too dealt with a past that most white americans simply didn’t want to acknowledge, yeah sure it happened, but let’s leave the past in the past, simply because race is still a divisive issue.
It was due to this mini series based on Alex Haley’s book that got people talking about white america’s brutal legacy in the slave trade, so it got me thinking, would “The Promise” have a similar impact?
After all we have been taught to view history as what happened last week.
Those pesky Palestinians threw a firework over the border, so the Israeli’s can go in and drop a 1,000lb daisy cutter and flatten the entire neighbourhood.
The context of people’s grievances are never shown.
That is precisely what The Promise did, it showed the actions of the zionist movement in the mid 1940’s through a soldier serving in Palestine and twinned it with a modern day story of his grand daughter in today’s occupied territories.
It’s precisely the actions committed more than 60 years ago that continue to have their ramifications felt across Palestine and the occupied territories today.
That’s why The Akh feels that both Peter Kosminsky and the commissioners at Channel 4 should be applauded in getting this programme created and aired.
It doesn’t surprise me anymore how fast and how strongly the zionist hasbara comes out to fight for their corner.
They’re going to town on this series to try and point out it’s so called one sidedness and misinformation, so if you have watched the series, go and drop a comment thanking Channel 4 and fight back against the zionist campaign of misinformation.
During this revolutionary fervour tearing throughout the Middle East, Western governments have chosen their words very carefully when commenting, fearful for being accused of diktats from abroad, a stark contrast to Iran’s so called “Green Revolution” of 2009.
It turns out that behind the scenes, the US state department and the British government have long been engaged with youth groups from Iran, Egypt and elsewhere, coaching them in how to make the best of online tools – how to effectively harness the social networks to mobilise mass support for a cause.
There’s no doubt that the Egyptian revolution is testament to grass roots activism, but any suggestions that it is entirely leaderless, like has been generally reported, is well wide of the mark, as events have been driven by a key group of activists.
The leaders of the movement were highlighted in detail, in Al Jazeera’s documentary “Egypt Seeds of Change”
It shows how these young activists used mobile phones, twitter and facebook to call for support.
Six months after the strike, one of the leaders of the April 6th movement was invited to attend a workshop in New York, run by The Alliance for Youth Movements.
There he joined a network of international activists, who gathered to discuss ways in which to support non-violent demonstrations against authoritarian regimes across the world.
“I believe that God has planted in every human heart the desire to live in freedom. And even when that desire is crushed by tyranny for decades, it will rise again.”
Exporting democratic values was central to the Bush administrations ideology, Iraq was meant to be part of that, but there was also more subtle work going on.
This 74 minute lecture by James Glassman at the New American Foundation, can be summed up as:
“We developed a different way to communicate, I called it public diplomacy 2.0 and the idea was that we would be conveners or facilitators of conversations…big conversations, broad, deep conversations, in which our views would be one of many that would be expressed. So that was the idea and luckily technology was on our side, because this is what social media do and is what social networks are all about”
So what you have is a congruent coming together of the US state department, with partners like YouTube, Google and Facebook, to take advantage of social networking technology to tell America’s story and to encourage young people with political grievances to find outlets for their protests.
The US state department had been inspired by the successful grass roots demonstrations in Columbia against FARC guerillas in February 2008, that were organised via facebook.
It was this enthusiasm for social change that made the US state department fund The Alliance for Youth Movements inaugural conference in October 2008.
Social networking also played a huge role in the Moldovan revolution of 2009, as JurnalTV’s video above demonstrates.
The New York based Alliance for Youth Movements also provides assistance via Skype conferencing to it’s activists, this time in Pakistan.
As well as being funded by the US state department, it has also seen funds from the British Government and is now seeking money from Google, amongst others for future projects.
“We don’t have a political agenda, and we appreciate that, that, it’s a, it’s a (stuttering) tight line, our goal and our mission is to enable civil society and, um, in putting those tools out there and showing how they can be used”
Facilitating non-violent protest often dovetails with western strategic goals.
Back to James Glassman:
“We are not ashamed to be Americans, we are not ashamed to have strong values that we want to espouse and promote around the world, but we also want to be effective and, um, ah, the most effective means of communicating and influencing, lets not kid ourselves, that’s what public diplomacy is all about, influence to meet strategic goals. It’s a lot easier to be influential if other people rather than US government officials are making the pronouncements and joining the conversation”
Once these networks are unleashed, no one can be sure what direction they will travel in, for libertarians under George Bush this is no problem, because they believe that their arguements about freedom and democracy will win the day.
It’s also true that the west has backed dictators under the name of stability and counter terrorism.
This means this path is not a straight forward one.
We’ve seen the hard power of shock and awe in Iraq.
Are we witnessing across the Middle East right now a form of soft power?
A shock and awe 2.0 where American social networks drive the change rather than laser guided missiles?
On Monday night, BBC2 screened a shocking programme about how some Jewish extremists and Israel have been secretly behind the rise of the notorious Fascist Geert Wilders.
The programme was remarkable because it goes behind the superficial Nazi ranting of Wilders to uncover how some Jews are the real organ grinders and Wilders along with his fellow travellers in the EDL and Pamela Geller are simply the Monkeys.
Everyone needs to watch the programme in its entirety to establish how we Muslims have been targeted and set upon by some very powerful Jewish extremists. First Louis Theroux exposes “ultra Zionists” and now this excellent BBC 2 programme, good to see all our collective criticism of BBC’s pro israel bias getting through.
Ironically in Europe, Jews were the oppressed but have now become the oppressors of Muslims. The entire programme is about 1 hour and The Akh urges you to watch it all, however, if you are simply interested in the Israel connection then have a look at the segment from the show above.
Louis Theroux spends time with a small and very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. He discovers a group of people who consider it their religious and political obligation to populate some of the most sensitive and disputed areas of the West Bank, especially those with a spiritual significance dating back to the Bible.
Throughout his journey, Louis gets close to the people most involved with driving the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement – finding them warm, friendly, humorous, and deeply troubling.
There’s also a couple of video clips from the show to whet your appetite.
Whenever you read something negative about Muslims in the press, it is often followed by someone saying: “Where are all the moderate Muslims? Where are all the Muslims who are against terrorism, against extremism … why aren’t we hearing from them?”
The reality is that Muslims have been working against the extremists in the their community way before 7/7 or even 9/11.
Documentary maker Masood Khan explains why he was inspired to make Muslim Resistance, a series of films examining British Muslims’ efforts to combat extremism.
It is the reason why the likes of Abu Hamza and Omar Bakri, the now exiled leader of al-Muhijiroun, were shunned by the Muslims up and down the country way before they became the known faces of Islamic extremism.
It is also why their followers number in the hundreds rather than in the hundred of thousands.
But nobody talks or writes about that.
There is a perception out there that Muslims are bad, or that they are extremists, or terrorists – or do not take the threat of terrorism seriously. What I wanted to show by making these films was that Muslims of all persuasions were as keen as any other citizen to rid Britain of Islamist extremism. I want to challenge the perception that Muslims are not doing their bit to take on extremism.
"Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil & believes in Allah has grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold that never breaks. And Allah hears & knows all things."
(The Qur'an, Al-Baqara, 2: 256)
“Political authority & religion are kin brothers, neither would stand but by its companion; because religion is the foundation of political power & its pillar, & political power is the guardian of religion; political power is not established with a foundation & religion cannot be implemented without authority.”
- Shaykh Muhammad al-Yaqoubi
"War is not merely a political act, but also a political instrument, a continuation of political relations, a carrying out of the same by other means" - Clausewitz
"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things)."
(The Qur'an, Al Hujurat, 49: 13)
* Al-Quran.
* The Sealed Nectar - Ar-Raheeq Al-Makhtum.
* Muhammad: As a Military Leader.
* The rare and excellent history of Saladin, or, al-Nawādir al-Sulṭāniyya waʾl-Maḥāsin al-Yūsufiyya.
* Islam in Britain, 1558-1685.
* Hadji Murat.
* Imam Shamil The First Muslim Guerilla Leader.
* The Autobiography of Malcolm X
* Manufacturing consent : the political economy of the mass media.
* Unspeak : words are weapons.
* The bear trap : Afghanistan's untold story.
* Soldiers of God: Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan & Pakistan.
* Unholy wars : Afghanistan, America & international terrorism.
* Orientalism.
* Bad news from Israel.
* Image and reality : the Israel-Palestine conflict.
* American dream, global nightmare.
* The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy.
* The Holocaust Industry: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering.
* The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.
* The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
* McMafia : crime without frontiers.
* Confessions of an economic hit man.
* Freakonomics.
* The Watchmen.
* Footnotes in Gaza.
* Safe area Goražde: The War in Bosnia 1992-1995.
* Palestine forward by Edward Said.
* Pride of Baghdad : inspired by a true story.
* Shooting War.
* Islam, the West & the challenges of modernity.
* iMuslims - Rewiring the house of Islam.
* Yo, Blair!
* Churchill and the Jews.
* The Jews of Britain, 1656 to 2000.
* Weimar and the rise of Nazi Germany 1918-1933.
* The Invention of the Jewish People.
* The Middle East since 1914.
* Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos.
* Clausewitz in the Twenty-First Century.
* Strategy and History.
* Energy Security and Global Politics.
* The State of the World Atlas.
* The Prophet.
* Warrior of the Light: A Manual.
* Art of War.
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