Featured Articles

User Rating: / 0
PoorBest 

By Hameed Abdul Karim

According to Western public discourse there are two types of Muslim. One is a ‘fundamentalist’ the other is a ‘moderate’ Muslim. The former is one who wants to be independent from Western hegemony and the latter is one who cozies up to the Western agenda, wittingly or unwittingly. But now there is a new kid on the block. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Rand Corporation Muslim. ‘Who the heck is he’, you might ask and quite rightly so. Well, for starters he or she is a Muslim or, more appropriately, one who wears the ‘Muslim’ name tag and one who is trained and financed by America’s Rand Corporation to dilute Islam to a point where its adherents will no longer be a stumbling block to the empire’s plans for total world hegemony. And Manzoor Ahamed, writing under the title ‘China, Pakistan and the Iranian Bomb’ (Ceylon Today’ Sat.  24 March, 2012) fits the description of a ‘Rand Muslim’ like a glove going by his vilification of Pakistan’s much maligned nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan  who  gave his country its ‘Islamic bomb’.

Sowing the seeds of discord is a technique the Rand Corporation uses to perfection as required by Cheryl Bernad in her chapter in the Rand Corporation guide book on subterfuge ‘Building Moderate Muslim Networks’. Cheryl Bernad is married to Zalmay Khalizad former US ambassador to Afghanistan and a signatory to America’s infamous ‘Plan for the New American Century’ (PNAC).

Benard calls upon America to take it upon itself to ‘invent’ a brand new ‘Islam’ carefully crafted in order to suit American interests. This onerous task of what she calls ‘religion-building’ entails the invention of what, for all intent and purposes, is a completely new religious tradition, one that most Muslims would themselves probably barely recognize. Many Orientalists and missionaries in history have tried to change Islam but have failed miserably. Bernad stands no chance of succeeding not even with all the sophisticated techniques at her command or with the ‘Rand’ Muslim at her side.

Being a ‘Rand’ Muslim, it’s not surprising that Manzoor Ahamed should go out of his way to tweak the current terminology a bit and call Pakistan’s nuclear bomb the ‘Sunni’ bomb instead of the carefully calibrated phrase ‘Islamic’ bomb. And this is the scaremongering feature of his vile piece. A ‘Sunni’ bomb as opposed to what …. A ‘Shia bomb?’ And shouldn’t the Sunni and Shia fear a ‘Hindu’ bomb or a ‘Jewish’ bomb.

If you have carefully analysed Ahamed’s article you would have observed that many of America’s perceived enemies are projected in a negative light. That’s how obedient a ‘Rand’ Muslim he is. Never lose an opportunity to please the master.  Iran’s belligerence against the U.S., he says, is encouraged by its relationship with China. Even if this were true, why shouldn’t the world think that it’s the U.S. that’s belligerent towards Iran? Ever since it ‘lost’ the country to Ayotollah Khomeini’s revolution that overthrew the U.S. puppet Shah-en-Shah, the king of kings? Why should Manzoor Ahamed want us to see the world through the American prism? And talking of belligerence, how would Manzoor Ahamed rate Hilary Clinton’s threat to obliterate Iran? Surely this violent warning cannot be seen as a New Year greeting!

The funny side of his fear mongering vis-a-vis Iran is that 16 U.S. agencies have declared that Iran is not aiming to get a nuclear bomb and more recently a former Mossad chief confessed Iran has no intention of having one. In his mad rush to please the empire he ignores the fact that Israel has a vast nuclear arsenal but somehow he does not see Israel as a threat to world peace even though the Zionist state has terrorised the neighbourhood ever since its creation and is in occupation of vast tracts of Palestine. Israel carries out its state terrorism against the Palestinians with America giving it all the military equipment it needs to violate as many international treaties as it can. Israel is not a signatory to the NPT while Iran is. But somehow, going by Ahamed’s logic, Israel is not a threat to world peace despite the fact that a huge majority of Iranians, Arabs and Europeans believe the U.S. and Israel are indeed the two nations that are endangering the entire world, according to a Zogby poll.

Ahamed’s unsubstantiated claim that Saudi Arabia will be a threat to the entire world if and when Pakistan exports its nuclear bombs to the nation is as absurd as it can get and deserves no comment.

Pakistan, he claims, is a ‘rogue state’.   While it may be true that Pakistan’s political leadership requires much to be desired, it must be pointed out that most of the so called democracies in the world are corrupt, with India ‘enjoying’ a slot in the top bracket. The 2G scam and more recently the discovery that India lost US $ 210 billion in income on account of the ‘mishandling’ of tenders in the coal mining scam should put all Indians to shame. So what …..shall we call India a ‘rogue’ state, Mr. Ahamed?

This appeared in 'Ceylon Today' Saturday 31 March, 2012