By Mohamed Khodr

11/12/2001

The terrorist attack upon innocent American lives in New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001 has unveiled the fault line between the West and the Muslim world. The undeniable prejudice in some Western quarters against Islam is now public and gaining support among powerful circles, while at the same time the Muslim world has been exposed for its impotence, incompetent leadership, lack of Islamic honor, dignity, courage, and hypocritical support for Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, and even the Afghan refugees. And how has Muslim leadership responded to all this?

Muslim leaders blamed each other, blamed Muslim parties and movements, blamed the ignorance and illiteracy of their own people, blamed the impotence of the Arab League and Organization of Islamic Conferences (OIC: better named "Organization of International Cowards"), demanded the issuance of fatwas (religious rulings) geared more to protecting their hides than in promoting the true principle of Islam, and scrambled to call Washington or travel to Washington to pay their allegiance to Uncle Sam.

They promised U.S. President George W. Bush full cooperation, they promised to imprison their own people, shut down Islamic schools and media outlets, and shoot demonstrators if necessary, anything as long as Bush doesn't bomb them, topple them, expose them, or better yet, throw them a few million dollars in bought allegiance.

Our Muslim leaders did everything possible for themselves, their regimes, their cronies, and their media; everything but have the wisdom and courage to stand up for Islam, the only thing left for their poor, hungry, unemployed, and illiterate masses.

The Muslim world, all 56 nations, has been on an autopilot of lies, myths, and ego trips for the sole purpose of its leaders, damn the masses. How shocking for these leaders to now suddenly discover that their masses have had to survive on non-Islamic behavior, while being subjected to extremist views as a solution to their hopeless lot in the future. As long as the masses were silent, as long as the media awakens and sleeps with the glory of the leader thanking him for the oxygen we breathe, as long as the military and police kept people in line and "quiet" as Sharon says, both the leaders and America were happy.

If anything, Osama bin Laden exposed the lies of American idealism and values of freedom, self-determination, pursuit of democracy and justice around the world, and brought to light a bankrupt foreign policy, and lack of respect for human rights and the rule of law. Bin Laden exposed the hypocrisy of American values and idealism that are evoked publicly, but pursued with a vengeance to serve the economic and political national interest of domestic lobbies, from the Jewish lobby to the corporate military-industrial complex and the oil lobby.

As long as U.S. capitalism is served, damn the masses, bomb the masses, jail the masses, burn the masses, starve the masses. The U.S. speaks of a "war on terrorism" and justice, yet supports Israel's 34 year terroristic occupation of Palestinian and it's policy of injustice toward non-Jews.

The U.S. supports corrupt thieving dictators in the Arab world as long as oil flows freely and cheaply. America has even abandoned its own Constitution to massively arrest and round up American Muslims without charge or due process. America closes down Muslim charities that feed starving children in Palestine, while allowing Jewish Americans to send over one billion dollars to Israeli settlers and terrorist groups like "Kach" to promote their terroristic murder and expropriation of Palestinian land. Thanks to bin Laden, America can no longer sell its morality, respectability and credibility to the world. U.S. hypocrisy and double standards are now officially a matter of domestic and international policy.

Thanks to bin Laden, every Arab and Muslim leader is living in fear of his life and regime for the decades of robbing Muslim's lives, lands, wealth, and resources to please himself and America. American Muslims enjoy more support, freedom of religion, speech, and movement in America than they would in their own corrupt un-Islamic lands.

Because of self-interest, Muslim leaders have accepted the Western propaganda that Islam cannot exist with freedom, democracy, respect for human rights, tolerance of other faiths, and economic prosperity. How ironic to find Muslim pseudo-intellectuals propagating this lie and myth? It's become a universal axiom that the more educated one becomes, the less religious they become. Religion has become the "opium" of primitive thought, hindering intellectual, scientific and economic progress.

The Organization of Islamic Conferences met Monday December 9, 2001 in Doha, Qatar. Is there a single person on this earth who honestly expects the OIC to actually come up with concrete, courageous, and dramatic pro-Islamic decisions that will seek to protect the oppressed Muslims worldwide in Palestine, Chechnya, Kashmir, Afghanistan, China, Burma, Philippines, and in their own backyards? No such courage or decisions will ever be taken as long as Muslim leaders are corrupt in the eyes of Allah (SWT) and their people. Their arrogance will lead to their demise in this world or in the hereafter. They forgot Islam and remembered their daily bread, mansions, cars, women, and Uncle Sam's pleasure. Only Islam can save Muslims.

Saddam Hussein is willing for the third time in 20 years to allow his people and country to be devastated out of pure egoism and arrogance. Isn't it strange that it's American Jews, Christians, and Muslims who are coming to the defense of the poor Iraqi people while the Arab street is silent?

Even the Pro-Israeli American media is now publicly humiliating Islam, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, Libya, Somalia, Iraq, the Gulf nations, the Arab League, the OIC, and Muslims worldwide, while the Muslim world in its demoralized state of apathy and poverty of mind and soul, is powerless to even respond. Not even a penny to spend in defense of Islam while Emirs, Sheiks, and Presidents buy another yacht, another mansion, while selling their souls to the devil.

Muslim leaders are silent about other Muslim atrocities because all are guilty by omission and commission of their own atrocities. We have seen our enemy and it is us: not only Israel, Russia, India, and America but us, yes us, who claim the gift of "truth" and sell it cheap for a lies and a "few dollars more."

Read how three Jewish columnists and authors are describing the Arab/Muslim street as well as how America should respond to "Islamic" terrorism. Almost daily in U.S. media, Congress, and even religious leaders like the Reverend Jerry Falwell and the Reverend Franklin Graham ("Islam is evil"), Islam, the Holy Qur'an, and our Holy Prophet, are bashed and blasphemed against, while the Muslim voice is absent both in America and in the Muslim world.


1. ISRAELINSIDER.COM: "Time to face Mecca" By Reuven Koret, September 14, 2001:

"....the inspired followers of radical Islam have had their appetites opened. The West must find effective ways to deter the Jihadists....Americans, like Israelis, are distinguished among the nations in their respect for innocent human life. They will not, as a policy, target civilians, and if civilians are harmed as an unintended result of a military action, they will be genuinely sorry.

Whether it is publicly announced or merely communicated through quiet channels, the Jihadists must know with an absolute certainty that the next outrage against a symbol of the West will prompt a reciprocal response against a corresponding site of interest to Islam. Let us pray that the holy shrines of Islam may continue to serve the peaceful worshippers of Allah.

The West must face Mecca now...

2. WASHINGTON POST: "Victory Changes Everything..." By Charles Krauthammer, November 30, 2001:

Just weeks ago the Middle East experts were warning that such violations of Islamic sensibilities would cause an explosion of anti-Americanism. Where, then, is the vaunted "Arab street," the pro-Osama demonstrations, the anti-American riots? Where are the seething masses rising up against America and its nominal allies from Egypt to Pakistan?

Nowhere to be seen. The street is silent.

In a prescient lecture Oct. 20, Middle East Quarterly editor Martin Kramer says: The way to tame the Arab street is not with appeasement and sweet sensitivity, but with raw power and victory.

It is now a capital offense to harbor terrorists. Literally. Harbor them and your regime dies.

The elementary truth that seems to elude the experts again and again - Gulf War, Afghan war, next war - is that power is its own reward. Victory changes everything, psychology above all. The psychology in the region is now one of fear and deep respect for American power. Now is the time to use it to deter, defeat or destroy the other regimes in the area that are host to radical Islamic terrorism.

Hence Stage Two. No, not Iraq yet. It surely is the worst terrorist threat, but because it is the worst and the most difficult, it will require more planning, and more political and military preparation. Now is the time to go for the low-hanging fruit: giving the Philippines assistance in crushing their own al Qaeda guerrillas. Telling the thugs running Sudan, Syria, Libya and Yemen to cease and desist, to shut down the training camps, to cough up the terrorists -- "or else," as the president so delicately puts it

3. WASHINGTON POST: "...And Now to Iraq", by Richard Cohen. November 30, 2001:

"At the same time that the United States was waging war on a Muslim nation, the rest of the Muslim world did not rise up, take to the proverbial street and topple the authoritarian regimes of our dear friends and - not that it matters any - oil suppliers. Not a single one has been imperiled by mobs cursing Uncle Sam.

The big surprise - even within the Bush administration - is Pakistan. Not only did it do a reverse twist off the highest board in geopolitics - going from being the Taliban's pal and supporter to Uncle Sam's most dutiful nephew - but it has remained virtually calm in the wake. 

Those weapons - plus the ultimate inevitability of nuclear ones - are precisely why Hussein must go. He is too evil to be allowed to menace us with weapons of mass destruction. He invaded Iran. He invaded Kuwait. He used chemical weapons on Kurdish civilians. . In due course, Saddam Hussein must get our message: Uncle Sam Wants You."

Urgency of Paradigm Shift for the West's Relationship with Muslims Trying to Win the Public Relations War Evidence at Last Important Lessons from Mumia Abu-Jamal's 20-Year Saga Post-Oslo, Post-Arafat Interview: Abhoud Syed M. Lingga Let Them Eat Rubber Bullets