Selasa, 14 September 2010

Anwar Ibrahim

Anwar Ibrahim


Nine Years, Two Wars, Hundreds of Thousands Dead – And Nothing Learnt

Posted: 14 Sep 2010 02:01 AM PDT

By Robert Fisk

Saturday, 11 September 201

Did 9/11 make us all go mad? How fitting, in a weird, crazed way, that the apotheosis of that firestorm nine years ago should turn out to be a crackpo

t preacher threatening another firestorm with a Nazi-style book burning of the Koran. Or a would-be mosque two blocks from “ground zero” – as if 9/11 was an onslaught on Jesus-worshipping Christians, rather than on the atheist West.

But why should we be surprised? Just look at all the other crackpots spawned in the aftermath of those international crimes against humanity: the half-

crazed Ahmadinejad, the smarmy post-nuclear Gaddafi, Blair with his crazed right eye and George W Bush with his black prisons and torture and lunatic “war on terror”. And that wretched man who lived – or lives still – in an Afghan cave and the hundreds of al-Qa’idas whom he created, and the one-eyed mullah – not to mention all the lunatic cops and intelligence agencies

and CIA thugs who failed us all – utterly – on 9/11 because they were too idle or too stupid to identify 19 men who were going to attack the United States. And remember one thing: even if the Rev Terry Jones sticks with his decision to back down, another of our cranks will be ready to take his place.

Indeed, on this grim ninth anniversary – and heaven spare us next year from the 10th – 9/11 appears to have produced not peace or justice or democracy or human rights, but monsters. They have prowled Iraq – both the Western and the local variety – and slaughtered 100,000 souls, or 500,000, or a million; and who cares? They have killed tens of thousands in Afghanistan; and who cares? And as the sickness has spread across the Middle East and then the globe, they – the air force pilots and the insurgents, the Marines and the suicide bombers, the al-Qa’idas of the Maghreb and of the Khalij and of the Caliphate of Iraq and the special forces and the close air support boys and the throat-cutters – have torn the heads off women and children and the old and the sick and the young and healthy, from the Indus to the Mediterranean, from Bali to the London Tube; quite a memorial to the 2,966 innocents who were killed nine years ago. All in their name, it seems, has been our holocaust of fire and blood, enshrined now in the crazed pastor of Gainesville.

This is the loss, of course. But who’s made the profit? Well, the arms dealers, naturally, and Boeing and Lockheed Martin and all the missile lads and the drone manufacturers and F-16 spare parts outfits and the ruthless mercenaries who stalk the Muslim lands on our behalf now that we have created 100,000 more enemies for each of the 19 murderers of 9/11. Torturers have had a good time, honing their sadism in America’s black prisons – it was appropriate that the US torture centre in Poland should be revealed on this ninth anniversary – as have the men (and women, I fear) who perfect the shackles and water-drowning techniques with which we now fight our wars. And – let us not forget – every religious raver in the world, be they of the Bin Laden variety, the bearded groupies in the Taliban, the suicide executioners, the hook-in the arm preachers, or our very own pastor of Gainesville.

And God? Where does he fit in? An archive of quotations suggests that just about every monster created in or after 9/11 is a follower of this quixotic redeemer. Bin Laden prays to God – “to turn America into a shadow of itself”, as he told me in 1997 – and Bush prayed to God and Blair prayed – and prays – to God, and all the Muslim killers and an awful lot of Western soldiers and Dr (honorary) Pastor Terry Jones and his 30 (or it may be 50, since all statistics are hard to come by in the “war on terror”) pray to God. And poor old God, of course, has had to listen to these prayers as he always sits through them during our mad wars. Recall the words attributed to him by a poet of another generation: “God this, God that, and God the other thing. ‘Good God,’ said God, ‘I’ve got my work cut out’.” And that was just the First World War…

Just five years ago – on the fourth anniversary of the twin towers/Pentagon/Pennsylvania attacks – a schoolgirl asked me at a lecture in a Belfast church whether the Middle East would benefit from more religion. No – less religion! – I howled back. God is good for contemplation, not for war. But – and here we are driven on to the reefs and hidden rocks which our leaders wish us to ignore, forget and cast aside – this whole bloody mess involves the Middle East; it is about a Muslim people who have kept their faith while those Westerners who dominate them – militarily, economically, culturally, socially – have lost theirs. How can this be, Muslims ask? Indeed, it is a superb irony that the Rev Jones is a believer while the rest of us – by and large – are not. Hence our books and our documentaries never refer to Muslims vs Christians, but Muslims versus “The West”.

And of course, the one taboo subject of which we must not speak – Israel’s relationship with America, and America’s unconditional support for Israel’s theft of land from Muslim Arabs – also lies at the heart of this terrible crisis in our lives. In yesterday’s edition of The Independent, there was a photograph of Afghan demonstrators chanting “death to America”. But in the background, these same demonstrators were carrying a black banner with a message in Dari written upon it in white paint. What it actually said was: “The bloodsucking Zionist government regime and the Western leaders who are indifferent [to suffering] and have no conscience are again celebrating the new year by spilling the red blood of the Palestinians.”

The message is as extreme as it is vicious – but it proves, yet again, that the war in which we are engaged is also about Israel and “Palestine”. We may prefer to ignore this in “the West” – where Muslims supposedly “hate us for what we are” or “hate our democracy” (see: Bush, Blair and a host of other mendacious politicians) – but this great conflict lies at the heart of the “war on terror”. That is why the equally vicious Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to the atrocities of 9/11 by claiming that the event would be good for Israel. Israel would now be able to claim that it, too, was fighting the “war on terror”, that Arafat – this was the now-comatose Ariel Sharon’s claim – is “our Bin Laden”. And thus Israelis had the gall to claim that Sderot, under its cascade of tin-pot missiles from Hamas, was “our ground zero”.

It was not. Israel’s battle with the Palestinians is a ghastly caricature of our “war on terror”, in which we are supposed to support the last colonial project on earth – and accept its thousands of victims – because the twin towers and the Pentagon and United Flight 93 were attacked by 19 Arab murderers nine years ago. There is a supreme irony in the fact that one direct result of 9/11 has been the stream of Western policemen and spooks who have travelled to Israel to improve their “anti-terrorist expertise” with the help of Israeli officers who may – according to the United Nations – be war criminals. It was no surprise to find that the heroes who gunned down poor old Jean Charles de Menezes on the London Tube in 2005 had been receiving “anti-terrorist” advice from the Israelis.

And yes, I know the arguments. We cannot compare the actions of evil terrorists with the courage of our young men and women, defending our lives – and sacrificing theirs – on the front lines of the ‘war on terror”. There can be no “equivalence”. “They” kill innocents because “they” are evil. “We” kill innocents by mistake. But we know we are going to kill innocents – we willingly accept that we are going to kill innocents, that our actions are going to create mass graves of families, of the poor and the weak and the dispossessed.

This is why we created the obscene definition of “collateral damage”. For if “collateral” means that these victims are innocent, then “collateral” also means that we are innocent of killing them. It was not our wish to kill them – even if we knew it was inevitable that we would. “Collateral” is our exoneration. This one word is the difference between “them” and “us”, between our God-given right to kill and Bin Laden’s God-given right to murder. The victims, hidden away as “collateral” corpses, don’t count any more because they were slaughtered by us. Maybe it wasn’t so painful. Maybe death by drone is a more gentle departure from this earth, evisceration by an AGM-114C Boeing-Lockheed air-to-ground missile less painful, than death by shards from a roadside bomb or a cruel suicider with an explosive belt.

That’s why we know how many died on 9/11 – 2,966, although the figure may be higher – and why we don’t “do body counts” on those whom we kill. Because they – “our” victims – must have no identities, no innocence, no personality, no cause or belief or feelings; and because we have killed far, far more human beings than Bin Laden and the Taliban and al-Qa’ida.

Anniversaries are newspaper and television events. And they can have an eerie habit of coalescing together to create an unhappy memorial framework. Thus do we commemorate the Battle of Britain – a chivalric episode in our history – and the Blitz, a progenitor of mass murder, to be sure, but a symbol of innocent courage – as we remember the start of a war that has torn our morality apart, turned our politicians into war criminals, our soldiers into killers and our ruthless enemies into heroes of the anti-Western cause. And while on this gloomy anniversary the Rev Jones wanted to burn a book called the Koran, Tony Blair tried to sell a book called A Journey. Jones said the Koran was “evil”; Britons have asked whether the Blair book should be classified as “crime”. Certainly, 9/11 has moved into fantasy when the Rev Jones can command the attention of the Obamas and the Clintons and the Holy Father and the even more Holy United Nations. Whom the gods would destroy…

11 Sep 2001

The World Trade Centre and the Pentagon are hit by aeroplanes hijacked by al-Qa'ida terrorists. George Bush says that America will stand with "all those who want peace and security in the world".

7 Oct 2001

The US and Britain launch air strikes against Afghanistan.

13 Nov 2001

The Northern Alliance liberates Kabul from the rule of the Taliban.

11 Jan 2002

The first prisoners arrive at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

9 Jan 2003

Top UN weapons inspector Hans Blix tells reporters that "we have now been in [Iraq] for some two months and? we haven’t found any smoking guns".

15 Feb 2003

Protests are held across the world against impending war in Iraq.

20 Mar 2003

US-led coalition launches invasion of Iraq.

9 Oct 2003

Toppling of statue of Saddam Hussein in Baghdad is taken as symbol of coalition triumph.

11 Mar 2004

A series of bombs explode within minutes of each other on four commuter trains in Madrid, killing 191 people and wounding a further 1,841.

29 Apr 2004

Photographs emerge showing the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib, inflaming anti-US feeling.

2 Oct 2004

Video footage appears of British hostage Kenneth Bigley being beheaded by Iraqi militants.

2 Nov 2004

Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh is murdered after making a film about violence against women in Islamic societies.

7 Jul 2005

Four suicide bombers kill 52 passengers and injure almost 800 others in a series of attacks on London's transport network.

30 Sep 2005

A series of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohamed are published in a Danish newspaper. The pictures are reprinted elsewhere amid widespread outrage and violent protests in the Muslim world.

30 Dec 2006

Saddam Hussein is hanged in northern Baghdad for crimes against humanity.

21 Sep 2009

A leaked report by Gen Stanley McChrystal, commander of US forces, suggests that the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan could be lost within a year unless there are significant increases in troops.

29 Nov 2009

A ban on building minarets is voted in by the Swiss public, reflecting a hostile attitude to the country's rising Muslim minority.

21 Jan 2010

43 per cent of Americans say they feel some negative prejudice towards Muslims, according to a poll by Gallup.

1 Sep 2010

At the end of a month in which 295 civilians were killed by violence, Barack Obama declares that the US combat mission in Iraq is at an end.

Kenyataan Dr Syed Husin Ali, Timbalan Presiden Mengenai:Kedudukan Dalam Pemilihan KEADILAN Pusat

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 10:56 PM PDT

Bermula 17hb September ini, Cabang-cabang KEADILAN akan memulakan proses mencadang nama-nama calon bagi setiap jawatan dalam Parti. Sudah sampai waktunya untuk saya menjelaskan samada saya mempertahan kedudukan saya sebagai Timbalan Presiden atau tidak.

Akhir-akhir ini ramai juga pemimpin Pusat, Negeri, Cabang dan anggota bi

asa yang menghantar sms atau emel dan menelefon meminta bahkan menggesa saya agar bertanding. Macam-macam hujah mereka kemukakan. Saya mengucapkan berbanyak terima kasih kepada mereka.

Sebenarnya, saya ingin melihat orang yang lebih muda dan aktif menggantikan saya, walaupun dalam umur tepat 74 tahun minggu depan, Insha Allah, saya terkadang merasa belum tua lagi. Saya ingin menumpukan

lebih banyak masa kepada menulis. Selain isteri, anak dan cucu ini merupakan cinta utama saya.

Sudah lama saya membayangkan hasrat mahu mengundurkan diri dari jawatan Timbalan Presiden bila sampai waktunya. Saya telah berbincang dengan keluarga, beberapa orang pemimpin Parti dan juga sahabat rapat. Kini

saya mengambil keputusan tidak akan bertanding.

Akan tetapi, tidak bererti saya akan meninggalkan politik ataupun Parti sepenuhnya. Saya menceburkan diri dalam politik dengan memasuki Parti Rakyat Malaysia pada tahun 1958. Saya menyandang jawatan Timbalan Presiden Parti Keadilan Rakyat semenjak 2003. Politik dan perjuangan untuk

rakyat sudah menjadi darah daging saya. Oleh itu tidak mudah bagi saya meninggalkannya begitu saja.

Saya berharap dan berdoa agar KEADILAN Pusat, Wanita dan Angkatan Muda akan dipimpin oleh tokoh-tokoh yang komited kepada asas-asas perjuangan Parti seperti termaktub dalam Perlembagaannya, menghormati disiplin

organisasi Parti, sudah teruji merentas duri dan ranjau perjuangan, bergerak secara pemain berpasukan (team player), menentang amalan korupsi dalam segala bentuk dan mendukung nilai akhlak yang tinggi.

Terserahlah kepada anggota-anggota Parti bagi menentukan siapakah yang mereka mahu menjadi pemimpin. Cara pemilihan, yang baru diperkenalkan

oleh KEADILAN dengan memberi setiap anggota satu undi adalah cara yang demokratik. Jikalau tidak silap saya, Parti ini merupakan satu-satunya parti politik dalam dunia yang mengamalkan cara ini.

Adalah penting cara ini dilaksana dan diamalkan oleh setiap calon yang bertanding dan setiap anggota yang mengundi dengan cara yang adil, bersih,

telus dan bebas dari korupsi politik wang.

Dr Syed Husin Ali
14 September 2010

STATEMENT BY DR SYED HUSIN ALI, DEPUTY PRESIDENT
ON HIS POSITION VIS-A-VIS THE CENTRAL PARTY ELECTION

Beginning 17th September, various Branches will start the process of proposing names of candidates for all positions in the Party. The time has come for me to state whether I will be defending my position as Deputy President or not.

Of late quite a number of Central, State, Division leaders and ordinary members have sent me sms or emails and phoned me asking or even urging that I should stand. They provided all kinds of reasons. I thank them all most sincerely.

Truly, I wish to see a younger and more active person to succeed me, although at the age of exactly 74 which falls next week, Insha Allah, I sometimes do not feel that old. I wish to devote more time on writing. Besides my wife, children and grand children, this is my great love.

For a long time I have indicated that I would like to withdraw from my position as Deputy President when the time came. I have consulted with my family, a few Party leaders and a number of close friends. Now I have decided not to stand.

But this does not mean that I will leave politics and the Party for good. I began my involvement in politics when I joined the Malaysian People's Party in 1958. I have been Deputy President of the People's Justice Party since 2003. Politics and the struggle for the people are in my flesh and blood. Thus it will not be easy to abandon them just like that.

I hope and pray that KEADILAN, as well as its Women and Youth wings will be led by leaders who are committed to the basic struggle of the Party as stated in its Constitution, respectful of Party organizational discipline, tested through long and arduous struggles, good team players, uncompromising against all forms of corruption and upholding high moral values.

It rests upon the members to determine who they want as leaders. The direct election process that has just been introduced by KEADILAN gives every member a vote. It is very democratic. As far as I know this may be the only political party in the world that practices this process.

It is of utmost importance that his process is carried out, by every candidate standing and every member voting, in a fair, clean, transparent manner and free from the corruption of money politics.

Dr Syed Husin Ali
14 September 2010

PDRM : Institusi di Bawah Raja-Raja Dicabuli!

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 09:30 PM PDT

Dari YB Dato Mahfuz Hj Omar

Yang di-Pertuan Agong dan Majlis Raja-Raja hendaklah menggunakan apa sahaja peruntukan undang-undang bagi memastikan penubuhan suruhanjaya diraja menyiasat dakwaan Ketua Polis Negara, Tan Sri Musa Hassan tentang campur tangan pihak luar dalam tugas polis.

“Antara lain, Musa mendakwa wujudnya campur tangan pihak ketiga dalam usaha Polis Diraja Malaysia (PDRM) mengawal ketenteraman awam dan menahan mereka yang menyalahi undang-undang dan beliau menyebut mereka khususnya dari Kementerian Dalam Negeri.

“Ini menunjukkan ada pihak lain khususnya Kementerian Dalam Negeri yang mencabul institusi yang berpayung di bawah Raja-Raja Melayu.

“Sebab itulah saya menggesa Majlis Raja-Raja supaya berani menggunakan walau sekecil mana pun alasan dan laluan perundangan yang boleh mereka gunakan untuk memastikan penubuhan suruhanjaya diraja menyiasat dakwaan Musa itu,”

Jika raja-raja Melayu tidak ada kuasa langsung untuk mempertahankan kewibawaan dan integriti institusi diraja, siapakah yang merampas kuasa mereka?

“Siapa rampas kuasa raja-raja? Umno? Barisan Nasional (BN)?”

Oleh kerana kerajaan BN khususnya Kementerian Dalam Negeri yang dituduh campur tangan dalam tugas polis, beliau tidak nampak kerajaan BN bersedia menubuhkan suruhanjaya siasatan itu.

“Sebab itulah kita meminta Raja-Raja Melayu yang memastikan penubuhan suruhanjaya diraja menyiasat dakwaan Musa itu,”

Suruhanjaya siasatan itu amat penting untuk membolehkan Musa memberikan keterangan dengan bebas bagi menyatakan apakah bentuk campur tangan yang berlaku, siapa yang memberi arahan, arahan apa yang diberikan dan juga menyatakan secara spesifik kes yang beliau maksudkan.

Bagi saya, apa yang dibangkitkan oleh Musa itu amat serius kerana sejak Mac lalu Ketua Polis Negara yang akan bersara itu telah berkali-kali menyatakan rasa tidak puas hatinya terhadap campur tangan luar dalam urusan polis.

“Sebab itulah suruhanjaya yang telus dan bebas amat diperlukan supaya rakyat tahu kepentingan peribadi siapa dan kepentingan politik pihak mana yang menyebabkan campur tangan itu berlaku,”

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