http://www.presstv.ir/detail/242180.html


US declares 'total war' on Islam
By Ismail Salami
Sun May 20, 2012 6:25PM GMT


In an organized act of brutality, a number of US soldiers went on a house-to-house shooting spree in Zangabad village, Kandahar in March and massacred 16 people including nine children while they were sleeping and all Washington had to say were a few words of condolence and apology nonchalantly strung together in order to appease the overwhelming public rage in Afghanistan. Western media however reduced the number of the killers to one.


The bodies were reportedly wrapped in blankets and were set on fire.

US President Barack Obama said he was deeply saddened, "I offer my condolences to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives, and to the people of Afghanistan, who have endured too much violence and suffering. This incident … does not represent the exceptional character of our military and the respect that the United States has for the people of Afghanistan."

As contradictory as these words seem, the very 'exceptional character' of the US military had earlier urged them to burn copies of the Holy Quran, an incident which saddened the hearts of Muslims all across the world.

These and earlier incidents are not coincidental and well attest to a prevailing mindset in the US military and a dominant policy in Washington. It is clear that the US government has commenced a large-scale campaign against Islam with the express intention of debilitating the Muslim community.

In fact, the war on Islam started in 2001 when the then US president George Bush made a crass reference to his so-called war on terror as ‘crusade’. He warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile." Bush’s politically untoward remark rang alarm bells in Europe and the Muslim world although it went barely noticed in the American community who took the word for its sound rather than for its meaning.

Gradually, Washington instilled a sensation of anti-Islamism in America and Europe by attributing the nine-eleven tragedy and ensuing terrorist operations to the Muslims. Soheib Bensheikh, Grand Mufti of the mosque in Marseille, France said Bush’s use of the word ‘crusade’ was most unfortunate and that “It recalled the barbarous and unjust military operations against the Muslim world" by Christian knights.

A delusional man who was overwhelmed with the idea of a messianic mission, George Bush wittingly or unwittingly dragged the world to the margins where a clash of civilizations was imminent.

The legacy of hatred which was started by George Bush was later continued in the form of classes and organized trainings.

In line with this Islamophobic policy funded by Washington and the powerful Zionist groups in the country, the US military has long been involved in fomenting anger and hatred against the Muslims by teaching its future leaders that a “total war” against the Muslims would be necessary to protect America.
According to hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents obtained by Danger Room (wired.com), the US military held a course at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College and taught the students that they had to use a Hiroshima-style in Muslim counties and target the “civilian population wherever necessary.”

The officer in charge of the hate lessons was Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley who still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia College. Sadly, those who sat in his classes are now in the top positions in the US military.

The course ‘Perspectives on Islam and Islamic Radicalism’ was offered five times a year for groups of 20 at a time, the course may have been taught to as many as 800 mid-level and senior US military officers.

In a July presentation, Dooly said, “We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam. It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

In his ugly lessons, he taught that “International laws protecting civilians in wartime are no longer relevant,” and that mainstream Muslims are dangerous, because they’re violent by nature. He also called for a Hiroshima-style destruction of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Those who sat in his classes and patiently listened to his mad remarks are the ones who are now serving in Afghanistan and teaching the same hate lessons to their subordinates and even encouraging them to wipe out the Muslim community.

The atrocities perpetrated by the US military in the Muslim countries over the past 11 years or so are closely associated with and inspired by these appalling teachings.

Washington and the Zionist groups have long been making relentless efforts to depict Islam and the Muslims in dark shadows. An in-depth investigation into Islamophobia ‘Dubbed as Fear, Inc. The Roots of the Islamophobia Network in America’ was carried out by the Center for American Progress in the United States. The report sheds light on the collective efforts of the Zionist groups funded by the United States in pedaling a hatred for and a fear of Islam in the form of books, reports, websites, blogs, and carefully crafted talking points. According to the report, these wealthy donors and foundations also provide direct funding to anti-Islam grassroots groups.

The project of Islamophobia which has cost more than $40 million over the past ten years has been funded by seven foundations in the United States: 1. Richard Mellon Scaife Foundation; 2. Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation; 3. Newton and Rochelle Becker; 4. Foundation and Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust; 5. Russell Berrie Foundation, Anchorage Charitable Fund and William Rosenwald; 6. Family Fund; 7. Fairbrook Foundation.

After all, Islamophobia is nothing new. Despite its rising upsurge in recent years, there have been efforts in the past to promote this pernicious trend.

Years ago, prominent Orientalist Edward Said warned of these calculated efforts in the West, arguing that the essentializing nature of the Orientalist enterprise has resulted today in misguided, inaccurate depictions of Islamic cultures: “Most of the pictures represent mass rage and misery, or irrational (hence hopelessly eccentric) gestures. Lurking behind all of these images is the menace of jihad. Consequence: a fear that the Muslims will take over the world.”

Islamophobia is a form of political colonialism; an ideological war against Islam and the Muslims. It is a pernicious practice used by Washington and its allies to justify their lust for Muslim blood, give validity to their military expeditions in Muslim countries and seize hold of their numerous resources.

IS/PKH
Ismail Salami
AKA Ali Salami, Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Shakespearean, Iranologist and lexicographer. A prolific writer, Salami has authored over a hundred books and articles. His articles have appeared in international journals and many of them have been translated into numerous languages. Salami holds a PhD in Shakespeare Studies and is the author of "Human Rights in Islam and "Iran, Cradle of Civilization".

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/may2012/paki-m25.shtml

World Socialist Web Site
wsws.org
US steps up drone war on Pakistan
By Bill Van Auken
25 May 2012

US drone attacks in northwest Pakistan killed at least 14 people in little more than 24 hours, including 10 who died in a Thursday morning missile strike on a mosque.

The escalation of the US drone war comes in the wake of the NATO summit in Chicago, where the Obama administration and the Pakistan Peoples Party government of President Asif Ali Zardari failed to reach an agreement on the reopening of a supply route for US-NATO occupation troops in Afghanistan, The route, which goes from the port of Karachi to the Afghan border, was closed by Islamabad in protest over US air strikes that killed two dozen Pakistani soldiers last November.

The new drone strikes are the most lethal manifestations of Washington’s displeasure at Pakistan’s failure to rapidly bow to US demands. The aftermath of the summit has also seen threats in Congress to cut off aid to Pakistan and a hysterical political and media campaign over a Pakistani court’s sentencing of a CIA informant who helped prepare the Navy Seal raid that ended in the assassination of Osama bin Laden.

Thursday’s missile strike by a pilotless US drone demolished a mosque in Mir Ai Bazar, a village in the North Waziristan tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Local officials reported that the unmanned plane fired two missiles demolishing the building and leaving 10 dead and several others wounded.

“Fear prevailed in the area as almost five drones were seen flying in the air after the incident,” local sources told the Pakistani daily Nation. The threat that the aircraft would fire more missiles prevented villagers from trying to rescue people from the rubble.

“The drone fired two missiles and hit the village mosque where a number of people were offering Fajr (morning) prayer,” Roashan Din, a local tribal leader, told NBC News. He confirmed that 10 bodies had been pulled from the wreckage of the mosque.

While US officials described the target of the attack as a “compound,” multiple Pakistani sources have confirmed that the building hit was a mosque.

Doctors at the Mir Ali hospital reported that six wounded had been admitted, with one dying there and four others remaining in critical condition.

The missile strike follows another attack on Wednesday in which four people were killed and several others injured. As in all such attacks, the victims were described as “suspected militants.” Wednesday’s strike targeted a house near Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan.

These drone attacks are deeply unpopular in Pakistan, where it is estimated that they have killed as many as 3,000 people, most of them civilians. The report of the destruction of a mosque and more civilian casualties will no doubt fan growing anti-American sentiments, further complicating the attempts of the Zardari government and the Obama administration to reach a deal on reopening the Pakistan supply route.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office condemned the latest drone strikes, describing them as a “total violation” of Pakistani territory and sovereignty. Foreign Office spokesman Moazzam Khan characterized the US attacks as “illegal violations of international law and unacceptable.” Asked by a reporter why Pakistan did not bring the matter to the United Nations, Moazzam stressed that Islamabad wants “to resolve the issue bilaterally.” He described US-Pakistani ties as “an important relationship” and stressed that there is “a mutual desire” to reach an agreement between the two countries.

While the Zardari government has long issued public condemnations of the drone strikes, it had previously offered its tacit collaboration, going so far as to allow the Central Intelligence Agency to launch the pilotless aircraft from a landing strip inside Pakistan. Following last November’s strike on the Pakistani border posts, it forced the closure of this facility.

Further complicating US-Pakistani relations was the sentencing Wednesday of Shakil Afridi to 33 years in prison. Afridi, a Pakistani government doctor, was found guilty of treason for aiding the CIA in preparing the unilateral raid that sent Navy Seals deep into Pakistani territory to kill Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden last year. The raid was seen in Pakistan as a gross violation of the country’s sovereignty and a humiliation of the government and the military.

Afridi organized a fake vaccination campaign in the Pakistani military garrison town of Abbottabad, where bin Laden was living, in an attempt to obtain DNA samples from family members and thereby confirm his identity. Having risen to the position of surgeon general in Khyber Agency, a tribal area along the Afghan border, Afridi had reportedly served as a paid CIA informant for several years.

The charges brought against Afridi included conspiring “to wage war against Pakistan or depriving it of its sovereignty,” “concealing existence of a plan to wage war against Pakistan” and “condemnation of the creation of the state and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty.” He was tried under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, a legal system created under British colonialism to maintain control in the rebellious tribal areas. This legal code does not allow defendants to have a lawyer. Under a recent amendment of the old British code, however, they do now have the right of appeal.

The sentencing drew shrill protests from Washington and the US mass media, which characterized Afridi as a “hero” and a “patriot.” Senators Carl Levin and John McCain, the chairman and top Republican on the Senate armed services committee, issued a joint statement calling the conviction “shocking and outrageous” and demanding that Islamabad pardon and release the CIA informant immediately. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Wednesday that there was “no basis” for jailing Afridi.

The Pakistani Foreign Office said that Afridi had been convicted “in accordance with Pakistani laws and by Pakistani courts” and affirmed that Washington and Islamabad “need to respect each other’s legal processes.”

He did not raise the case of Syed Ghulam Nabi Fai, a US citizen of Pakistani origin and former executive director of the Kashmiri American Council, who last March was sentenced to two years in prison after being found guilty of conspiracy for having worked for Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Washington’s characterizations of Afridi as a “hero” are not shared by the vast majority of Pakistanis, who see him as a traitor, nor for that matter by fellow health professionals, who see his actions as having done potentially catastrophic damage to efforts to eradicate polio and other diseases in Pakistan.

Afridi’s theft of World Health Organization cooler boxes for use in a fake CIA orchestrated vaccination campaign have cast a cloud over all public health campaigns, raising suspicions that they could be fronts for US intelligence and state terror operations. Among the most immediately affected is Save the Children, the largest international aid agency in Pakistan. According to Pakistani officials, Afridi told his interrogators that he was put in touch with the CIA by Save the Children operatives.

Save the Children denies the claim, but its operations have been largely hindered, with employees denied visas, supplies stopped and senior officials forbidden from leaving Pakistan. David Wright, the country manager for Save the Children, denounced the use of a public health professional for US intelligence operations. “The CIA needs to answer for this,” he told the New York Times. “And they need to stop it.”

In a further indication of the continuing downward spiral of relations between the US and Pakistan, a Senate panel Tuesday passed a foreign aid budget that would slash US assistance to Pakistan by more than half. The Senate appropriations subcommittee on foreign aid voted to cut fiscal 2013 aid to Pakistan by 58 percent, while allowing for still further cuts if the supply route to Afghanistan is not reopened. There are growing demands in Congress for a complete aid cut-off. Pakistan has received some $20 billion in US aid since 2001.

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The words "total war" are in quotes, but the document containing the quote is not produced.

Not that I don't believe it could be true ... it's just shitty journalism. If you use quotes, you need citations.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/semi-quote

Verb

semi-quote (third-person singular simple present semi-quotes, present participle semi-quoting, simple past and past participle semi-quoted)

To make a close paraphrase of a quotation, using some of its words.  [quotations ▼]
To modify a quote, adapting it to different circumstances but preserving the intent. "To semi-quote Shakespeare …"


semi-quote (plural semi-quotes)

A single quotation mark, ('). This is often used for a quote within a quote, as in "Tom said 'What?'"
A punctuation mark to indicate that the text is a semi-quote, i.e. a close paraphrase that uses some of the author's original words.
A phrase that is a close paraphrase that uses some of the authors original words. For instance: "A fanatic is someone who will not change his mind or the subject of discussion," according to Winston Churchill.

'total war' may be a tenuous attempt to co-opt nazi propaganda cheif joseph goebbels famous speech to rally german support after their military suffered a catastrophic defeat at stalingrad:


"I ask you: Do you want total war? If necessary, do you want a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today?"
- Joseph Goebbels, Feb 1943


the current american policy towards terrorism is not total war...there is no conscription, rationing, or appropriation of the means of production...the US military is withdrawing from active combat...in practical terms: the US army is at war but the US civilians are at the shopping malls so any comparison to total war is laughable

utter nonsense. amerika slaughters innocents
on a daily basis. that is 'total war' as peoples
can't live a normal life.

you must mean total nuke em...

how can the usa win a total war by slaughering innocents? all that does is radicalize other innocents against the usa

total war means total committment of resources against a broad definition of enemy...the vietnam war would be close to a total war in recent american history...the current so called war on terrorism is much more restricted...the drone program is basically an extra-judicial assassination squad for which the usa government squashes the media reports and buys off the innocents...it's illegal and ugly business to be sure, but it is better than the total war you warn about

They can't win. Just like Vietnam.
Just part of USA insanity.

i agree...the existing enemies and the enemies we create are never going to give up and go home because they are already home

BUT

the usa government cannot simply sit on it's collective hands while people are plotting to attack the country...pakistan is not a reliable ally so it is difficult to rely on purely legal methods of interdiction...drones attacks were too indiscriminate for obama to use against bin laden so he sent in his personal assassination squad, but he feels comfortable enough with drones to use them on bin laden's associates and anyone who might be standing in the blast radius...so i ask you a personal question:

if you were president and commander in chief, how would you deal with criminals protected in pakistan who are plotting attacks on US soil?

We kill them, they plot attacks.

Sounds reasonably insane.