US-Led Iraq Invasion Has Given Boost to Al-Qaeda: Chatham House
Mushtak Parker, Arab News
LONDON, 19 July 2005 — The political fallout of the terrorist bombings in London intensified yesterday as the influential think tank Chatham House (The Royal Institute for International Affairs) in London published a report which stresses that “the US and UK-led invasion of Iraq has given a significant boost to Al-Qaeda. Britain, riding pillion with the US, and the strongest ally to the US, is particularly at risk. The invasion has created particular difficulties for the UK and the wider coalition against terrorism.”
Chatham House, arguably the most respected think tank in the world, seems to have answered the question: “Did the war on Iraq put the UK at risk from terrorism”, which has been posed time and again since the London bombings on July 7. It would be difficult for the government of Tony Blair to dismiss the report as the rantings of disaffected left-wingers or Muslim leaders in a state of denial.
British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, visibly frustrated, hit back saying that “the time for excuses for terrorism is over. Terrorists have struck in countries that had nothing to do with the war in Iraq.”
Over the weekend, Prime Minister Tony Blair went on the attack with his controversial “evil ideology” speech at a Labour Party national executive conference. “This ideology and the violence that is inherent in it,” he said, “did not start a few years ago in response to a particular policy. Over the past 12 years, Al-Qaeda and its associates have attacked 26 countries, killed thousands of people, many of them Muslims. They have networks in virtually every major country and thousands of fellow travelers. They are well-financed.”
Earlier yesterday in the House of Commons, George Galloway, the outspoken Respect MP for Bethnal Green, warned against the occupation of Iraq as the cornerstone of Britain’s defense and foreign policy. “If we continue with this policy,” he added, “some people will get through and hurt us.”
Meanwhile, the three main British political parties in a rare show of unity, agreed to cooperate on the drafting and ratification of a new anti-terrorist law, which would also ban the “indirect incitement of terrorism”; “acts preparatory to terrorism”; “aiding terrorists to commit acts of terrorism”; and “giving or receiving training in terrorism either at home or abroad”.
According to UK Home Secretary Charles Clarke, there were no main outstanding differences between the parties, who were all determined to legislate. The bill, he confirmed, would be presented “for full consideration” in October and for royal assent in December this year. However, the opposition Conservatives and Liberal Democrats insist that the process will be enacted with proper legislative scrutiny in both the House of Commons and the Lords.
Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again And the Amman Statement on Ecumenism
Juan Cole Saturday, July 09, 2005
Tom Friedman is a Middle East expert who knows a lot about Islam. Why, then, does he keep saying misleading things? He wrote in his latest column, "To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body [ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08friedman.html ] has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."
A "fatwa" is simply a considered opinion of a Muslim jurisconsult. Such opinions are numerous. First of all, almost all the major Shiite Grand Ayatollahs have condemned Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. You could say that is easy, since Shiites don't generally like Wahhabis. But they are the leaders of 120 million Muslims (some ten percent of the 1.2 billion). So that is one. Tracking these things down is time-consuming, but this should do: Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon condemns Osama Bin Laden [ http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/bin_laden.html ].
So then what about the Sunni world? The leading moral authority for Sunnis is the rector or Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Seminary/ University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar is perhaps the world's oldest continuous university and has been since the time of Saladin a major center of Sunni religious authority. The current incumbent is Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. So what about Tantawi and Bin Laden?
What about Pakistan? Admittedly, it has some clerics who are fans of Bin Laden, or at least who would avoid condemning him. But the allegation Friedman is making is that no major cleric has condemned him. Try this: Prominent Pakistani Cleric Tahir ul Qadri condemns Bin Laden [ http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/10/17/195606.shtml ].
I don't personally care for Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He is an old-time Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher who fled to Qatar and now has a perch at al-Jazeera. But he does have some virtues. He is enormously popular among Muslim fundamentalists. And, he absolutely despises Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Al-Qaradawi has repeatedly condemned the latter. He even gave a fatwa that it was a duty of Muslims to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda! See also: Yusuf al-Qaradawi condemns al-Qaeda [ http://www.islamfortoday.com/qaradawi02.htm ].
There are also substantial Muslim communities in Europe with leaderships that have explicitly condemned Bin Laden. E.g.:
High Mufti of Russian Muslims calls for Extradition of Bin Laden [ http://english.pravda.ru/world/2001/09/20/15781.html ]. The Russian Muslim community is about 20 million strong, or 15 percent of Russia's 143 million population, and is growing rapidly, so that in a century Russia may be 50 percent Muslim. So this is not a pro forma thing here.
Friedman also does refer to a major conference of Muslim clerics, thinkers and notables wound up just Wednesday [ http://www.albawaba.com/en/countries/Jordan/185952 ] that made a powerful statement about religious tolerance and condemned everything Osama Bin Laden stands for. But he seems oddly unaware of the significance of having Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and many other great Muslim authorities sign off on this epochal statement of Muslim ecumenism.
The statement forbids one Muslim to declare another "not a Muslim" if the believer adheres to any of the mainstream legal rites of Sunnism and Shiism. The whole basis of al-Qaeda is to call the Muslim leaders of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Shiites, "not Muslims." The statement also demands that engineers should please stop pretending to issue fatwas, which should be left to trained clerical jurisconsults. This para. is also a slam at Bin Laden.
PS As for Friedman's main point, that Muslims haven't done a good job of fighting jihadi ideology and terrorism, it is bizarre. The Algerian government fought a virtual civil war to put down political Islam, in which over 100,000 persons died. The Egyptians jailed 20,000 or 30,000 radicals for thought crimes and killed 1500 in running street battles in the 1990s and early zeroes. Al-Qaeda can't easily strike in the Middle East precisely because Syria, Egypt, Algeria, etc. have their number and have undertaken massive actions against them. What does Friedman want? And, besides, he is wrong that this is only a Muslim problem. In the global age all problems are everybody's. That's part of flat world, too, Tom.
posted by Juan @ 7/09/2005 06:15:00 AM
Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan
July 27,2005 / LINCOLN, Neb. -- Brice Mellen is a whiz at video games such as "Mortal Kombat."
In that regard, the 17-year-old isn't much different from so many others his age.
Except for one thing: He's blind.
And as he easily dispatched foes who took him on recently at a Lincoln gaming center, the affable and smiling Mellen remained humble.
"I can't say that I'm a superpro," he said, working the controller like an extension of his body. "I can be beat."
Those bold enough to challenge him weren't so lucky. One by one, while playing "Soul Caliber 2," their video characters were decapitated, eviscerated and gutted without mercy by Mellen's on-screen alter ego.
"I'm getting bored," Mellen said in jest as he won game after game.
Blind since birth when his optic nerve didn't connect because of Leber's disease, Mellen honed his video game skills over the years through patient and not-so-patient playing, memorizing key joystick operations and moves in certain games, asking lots of questions and paying particular attention to audio cues. He worked his way up from games such as "Space Invaders" and "Asteroid," onto the modern combat games.
"I guess I don't know how I do it, really," Mellen said, as he continued playing while facing away from the screen. "It's beyond me."
Mellen knows this much: He started playing at home when he was about 7.
"He enjoyed trying to play, but he wasn't very good at first," said his father, Larry Mellen. "But he just kept on trying. ... He's broken a lot of controllers."
When the question of broken controllers comes up, Mellen flashes a smile and just shrugs.
"I used to have quite a temper," he said. "Me and controllers didn't get along very well."
Now they get along just fine.
While playing "Soul Caliber 2," Mellen worked his way through the introductory screens with ease, knowing exactly what to click to start the game he wanted.
He rarely asked for help. Once the game started he didn't need any help.
"How do I move?" an exasperated opponent, Ryan O'Banion, asked during a battle in which his character is frozen in place.
"You can't," Mellen answered before finishing him off.
"That's what happens. It's why I don't play him," O'Banion said after his blood-spattered character's corpse vanishes from the screen.
How Mellen became so good is a mystery to his father.
"He just sat there and he tried and tried until he got it right," Larry Mellen said. "He didn't ever complain to me or anyone about how hard it was."
Mellen hangs out any chance he gets at the DogTags Gaming Center in Lincoln, which opened last month. Every now and then someone will come in and think he can easily beat the blind kid.
That attitude doesn't faze Mellen.
"I'll challenge them, maybe. If I feel like a challenge," he said, displaying an infectious confidence. "I freak people out by playing facing backwards."
There's nothing he likes better than playing video games, Mellen said.
He will be a senior in high school next year. After graduation, he plans to take a year off because he wants a break from school.
When he does go to college, Mellen wants to study -- what else? -- video-game design.
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