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Political Salafism Has Failed Lebanon’s Palestinians. Will Jahadist Salafism succeed?
Franklin Lamb
Burj al-Barajneh Palstinian camp, Beirut
Following the June 6, 1982 Yawm an-Naksa (‘day of the setback’) of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, I began to notice that youngsters in the camps in Lebanon, and in the Palestinian diaspora, specifically in Washington DC where I worked, were identifying more with scholars from Egypt’s Al-Azhar University and with Political Salafism. They would explain to me the appeal of the Muslim Brotherhood and of a new Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement called Hamas, which was created as a direct result of the 1982 Israeli aggression against Lebanon. A few indicated that they wanted to study at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which was established around 970 by the Fatmids as a center of Islamic learning and where students studied the Qur’an and Islamic law. Salafism was part of their education. For centuries the mission of al-Azhar was to propagate Islam and Islamic culture. Until today its Islamic scholars counsel students on Islam and even render edicts (fatwas) on disputes submitted to them. Requests for their fatwas come from all over the Sunni Islamic world regarding proper conduct for Muslim individuals and societies and how to achieve justice for all people of good will. Al-Azhar also trains Egyptian government-appointed preachers in the best ways to achieve proselytization (da’wa).
Francois Hollande — The World’s Most Powerful Person This Week
Eric Zuesse
French President Francois Hollande this week possesses more power than anyone else in the world, because he will be the key decision-maker shaping the future world-order when he meets separately on Tuesday and Thursday privately with the two men — American President Barack Obama and President Vladimir Putin — who stand on opposite sides in the great decades-long subterranean war that the U.S. aristocracy have been waging to win control over Russia and its vast natural resources such as oil, gas, timber, and crucial rare-earth minerals. The deal that Hollande will make for France is going to be crucial for the future of the entire world.
Fear-Mongering at Fever Pitch
by Stephen Lendman
The day before the November 13 Paris attacks, Obama told ABC News: ISIS is “contained. I don’t think they’re gaining strength.” Following the attacks, he hyped fear, warning of “live activity and dangers that are taking place as we speak.”
Irresponsible US scoundrel media reports hype the threat of ISIS terrorists entering America from Mexico and Central America, calling US borders insecure. Other reports warn these elements already arrived, planning attacks in US cities, despite no corroborating evidence.
Fox News claimed US Border Patrol agents captured “at least 10 ISIS fighters” entering America through Mexico. How would anyone know what a terrorist looks like? They don’t wear IDs or openly brandish weapons, the latter only when intending to use them.
Russia’s Real War on Terrorism
by Stephen Lendman
America is the world’s greatest terrorist threat. Its imperial madness risks global war. Its special forces infest nearly 150 countries. CIA agents operate everywhere destructively.
Using ISIS and other takfiri terrorists as US foot soldiers fosters endless violence and turmoil wherever they’re deployed.
What a difference a few weeks made since Russia intervened in Syria on September 30, challenging Washington’s imperial agenda effectively - now hammering ISIS positions daily with double the air power since aerial operations began, including use of long-range bombers delivering powerful payloads.
Russian air power and ship-fired cruise missiles strike ISIS and other terrorist targets with precision. For the first time, its forces are reeling - not defeated but significantly on the back foot, despite continued US supplied weapons, munitions, equipment and other aid.
Obama in Asia
by Stephen Lendman
Attending the ASEAN summit in Kuala Lumpur, Obama ranted during a Sunday press conference, like he does at home - his usual demagogic mumbo-jumbo replete with misinformation and Big Lies.
He makes painful listening. Nothing he says is credible. America “will not relent” in the fight against the Islamic State, he blustered. “The most powerful tool we have is to say we are not afraid.” He insists US forces made significant progress in combating its elements.
False on all counts! ISIS is a US creation, used as foot soldiers wherever they’re deployed - armed and funded, trained by CIA operatives and special forces in Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, taught to commit horrific atrocities, shown how to make chemical weapons.
Likely Phony Threatening ISIS Videos
by Stephen Lendman
Most American are so out-of-touch with reality, they’ll believe most everything government sources or media scoundrels claim. Propaganda is effective because it works.
Media reports now hype videos attributed to ISIS, warning of impending US and European attacks. They feature militant-looking characters threatening to strike New York, Paris, Rome and the White House.
One video titled “Paris Before Rome” warns French President Hollande, Obama “and those who follow in (their) footsteps” to expect more strikes.
One character rants: “We shall burn you with our suicide belts and our car bombs. We shall track you down wherever you go.”
Putin’s Syria Strategy
by Stephen Lendman
Washington has its own strategy. Unable to challenge or compromise Putin’s real war on terror, it’s drawing him into a so-called anti-ISIS coalition, pretending it wants the scourge it created eliminated.
Paul Craig Roberts fears he may “turn Assad’s fate over to the West” in return for a free hand to combat ISIS and prevent its spread to Central Asia and Russia.
Last week, Der Spiegel headlined “Putin Plan: The Russian President’s Strategy for Syria,” saying it obtained an internal document, outlining his five-point plan for resolving Syria’s conflict.
Hang Onto Your Wallets: Negative Interest, the War on Cash, and the $10 Trillion Bail-in
by Ellen Brown
In uncertain times, “cash is king,” but central bankers are systematically moving to eliminate that option. Is it really about stimulating the economy? Or is there some deeper, darker threat afoot?
Remember those old ads showing a senior couple lounging on a warm beach, captioned “Let your money work for you”? Or the scene in Mary Poppins where young Michael is being advised to put his tuppence in the bank, so that it can compound into “all manner of private enterprise,” including “bonds, chattels, dividends, shares, shipyards, amalgamations ”?
That may still work if you’re a Wall Street banker, but if you’re an ordinary saver with your money in the bank, you may soon be paying the bank to hold your funds rather than the reverse.
Four European central banks – the European Central Bank, the Swiss National Bank, Sweden’s Riksbank, and Denmark’s Nationalbank – have now imposed negative interest rates on the reserves they hold for commercial banks; and discussion has turned to whether it’s time to pass those costs on to consumers. The Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve are still at ZIRP (Zero Interest Rate Policy), but several Fed officials have also begun calling for NIRP (negative rates).
Sanders’ Hypocrisy/Carson’s Geopolitical Ignorance
by Stephen Lendman
Sanders doesn’t believe one NATO killing machine is enough. He wants a second one - “work(ing) with our NATO partners…includ(ing) Russia and (rogue) Arab League” states, according to remarks he made at Georgetown University.
He wants it collaborating to defeat the made in America scourge of terrorism - without explaining its root cause.
Earlier, he outrageously lied, calling the late Hugo Chavez, murdered by Washington, a “communist dictator.” He disgracefully and willfully lied again, saying popularly elected and overwhelmingly supported Bashar al-Assad is a “brutal dictator who has slaughtered many of his own people.”
He continues defending them from the scourge of US-imported ISIS and other terrorists. Sanders wants him ousted, perhaps supporting a US-installed tinpot despot regime like in Ukraine, a rogue state waging war on its own people he supports.
His so-called “democratic socialism” is neither democratic nor socialist. It’s money-controlled duopoly power - one party with two right wings, each like the other on issues mattering most, differing only in style and rhetoric.
Hyped Fear Grips Europe and America
by Stephen Lendman
Most people don’t think. They react irrationally, out of touch with reality, easy marks for state-sponsored propaganda.
It’s raging in America and across Europe following the Paris attacks, a likely false flag - hype without substance, scaring people to believe terrorists will attack Western communities.
Chances of being struck by lightning are much greater than becoming a terrorist attack victim. Death by auto accident, preventable diseases, violence at home by one family member against another, alcoholism or excessive use of harmful legal drugs is infinitely higher - what media propaganda never explains.
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