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Dr Kaukab Siddique | Editor-in-Chief Rabi' al-Thani 30,1431/ April 15, 2010 # 16

Latest Israeli desecration of a masjid. Please scroll down.

President Obama is ignoring his key constituency as he goes "right.". See Dr. Wilmer Leon's analysis below.

Two important reports from Africa: A Mauritanian Muslim was in GTMO for 9 years. Totally innocent. Was cited as top al-Al-Qaida!
Somali mujahideen surging. Please scroll way down.

From Imam Badi Ali [National Shoora leader], Jamaat al-Muslimeen North Carolina

Spotlight #1: Do not compare the Qur'an with other books. It's like comparing God with man!

Spotlight # 2: These explorations of outer space, the instruments sent to the moon, the scouting of Mars, do not make sense. What's the point of space travel when we are busy dropping huge bombs, missiles and explosives on the planet earth? Is this anything other than ego tripping and display of power?

Spotlight #3: Muslim elites do not realize that without clear objectives they cannot progess. What do these Muslims want? They don't realize that they have enemies who want the destruction of Islam and Muslims. In fact if Islam did not have enemies, it would not be the Truth. Look at the confusion of Muslim leaders about Jerusalem. Instead of preparing to liberate it, they want talks which do not and cannot lead anywhere.

Notes from Jamaat al-Muslimeen Anti-Zionist movement;

Boycott Businesses which Support Israel. Among them:

1. Nestle
2. starbucks
3. Coca Cola
4. McDonald's
5. Disney
6. Home Depot
7. Estee Lauder
8. All KOSHER items.
9. Arm-and-Hammer
10. Sara Lee

Muslim Demonstrators at the Anti-War Rally in Washington DC in memory of the tragic US invasion of Iraq. [Photo by N.]


US-backed Pakistan Regime Admits Mass Murder in Bombing Raids on April 10
[From New Trend's Monitor of Urdu language media]

April 14, 2010: The Pakistani government has admitted that on April 10 the PAF [Pakistan Air Force] bombed peaceful villages in the Khyber Agency killing 71 civilians who had no connection with Islamic "militants." After the first bombing raid, when rescuers were removing the rubble, a second wave of Pakistani jets attacked, killing all the rescuers. Some of those killed and wounded were recruits in the Pakistani paramilitary force FC and the government is giving their relatives cash handouts of $125,000 each received from the US.

Jamaate Islami Leader Sirajul Haq Condemns Bombing: Visits Families of Victims
Photo below: Sirajul Haq, Deputy Ameer of Jamaate Islami addressing families and relatives of the bereaved.

Sirajul Haq said that it is unprecedented in Muslim history that the air force bombs Pakistan's own people and then does not even apologize. He said the bombers did not spare the funeral of the victims. He said that this is a deliberate policy of genocide aimed at alienating the people and turning them against Pakistan.

Afghanistan: Latest [3 items from New Trend monitor]
Martyrdom Operator Hits British "Project" in Kandahar City: Brits Wiped Out

April 15, 2010. A Taliban mujahid blew up a new British project in a heavy security area of Kandahar city. Seven Brits were killed and several others wounded. [Reuters report.] The nature of the "project" has not been revealed. The explosion was huge and was heard miles away.

Germans Lose daylong Battle with Taliban
April 15: In the northern province of Baghlan, mujahideen battled German armored units, killing 4 elite German troops and wounding 5. There were no Taliban losses. Germany admitted its loss.

US Military Admits Defeat in the Korengal Area of Kunar Province

April 15: According to AFP, the US military admitted that it has withdrawn from the rugged Korengal area of Kunar province. It's a strategically important area bordering Pakistan which will allow the Taliban free access to its supporters among the Pakistani people.

The retreat happened after a steady series of Taliban mujahideen attacks which kept the Americans awake around the clock.

The Taliban are ecstatic and have issued these statements:

"The Taliban, the main insurgent group that controls several districts in southern and eastern parts of the country, were quick to seize on the US withdrawal, after years of fierce fighting in the sparsely populated valley.
"It's a great victory for us," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.
"The area is very, very important for us. Its mountains provide us a good hideout, it can be used as a training ground and lead our operations across the region from there," he said.
"US troops fled under our constant attacks."

Why are the Taliban seen as saviors of Afghanistan?
Widespread Child Molestation & Homosexuality by NATO-supported Karzai-Shi'ite-Communist Forces Fanning Hatred of the Occupation

[New Trend thanks a reader in Iowa for sending us this important report. The sarcastic comments in the introduction are by the sender, followed by the actual report. It will be difficult to blame the Taliban if they hang or behead all these miscreants after trial by Islamic courts. Notice that Ahmed Rasheed, the Pakistani Islam hater, turned the American public against Mullah Omar by reporting that the Islamic leader had executed a child rapist and ordered the same for all homosexual criminals.. Editor] [Published only for education and information of the American public. Ed.] [Emphasis in red by our reader.]

[Notice how the American Shi'ite who wrote the Kite Runner totally distorted the reality of Afghanistan. He tried to blame the Taliban and went to the extent of saying that they are the same as the Nazis. America's Zionists have turned the Kite Runner into a best seller! -Ed.]

The joys that the Western Democracies brought back to Afghanistan after such civilized practices had been banned and its modernizing "moderate" practitioners had been hung, crucified or stoned to death by the savage Sharia following "Moozlem fundamentalist terrorists" known as the Taliban. The first thing that the civilizing democracies do when they conquer a benighted savage Moozlem country is that they bring to power enlightened groups like pedophiles, prostitutes, pimps, thugs, gangsters and other such lights of humanity. These are the moderate and modernizing people that the savage Mullahs and followers of Sharia are always killing and persecuting. The problem is the savage beast like mentality of the Moozlems and their primitive religion that they can never appreciate these people, and resort to resistance and terrorism against them, instead of feeling thankful, and acting grateful. They must be taught, on the point of a gun if necessary to love and hug the predators who prey on them. That will civilize them.


http://original.antiwar.com/vlahos/2010/04/12/a-deal-with-th-devil/

The Rape of the Afghan Boys
by Kelley B. Vlahos, April 13, 2010

We talk about the possibility of losing the war in Afghanistan, but what if we lose our soul in Afghanistan?
Indirectly, Frontline will be asking that very question on April 20 with an underground report on the resurgence of bacha bazi or "boy play" among the wealthiest and most powerful men in northern Afghanistan. It's the pustule threatening to burst all over the righteousness of our humanitarian effort there, and just the tip of the sick fact of how poor Afghan children are systematically used, abused, and tossed away by the ruling elite and even Afghan soldiers living, training, and fighting alongside our own.
Bacha bazi is an old Afghan tradition of taking young boys, dressing them up like girls, and making them perform for older men in tea rooms, weddings, and other private venues. The boys are "owned" by single or married men who trade or keep the boys as concubines. According to reports, the boys' ages range from eight to 19, when they "age out" of the practice and are released.
"The bacha dancers are often abused children whose families have rejected them," said the Guardian's Ghaith Abdul-Ahad, who wrote about the practice in September. He described one boy who was sexually assaulted by a mechanic in his town. The boy's family blamed him and turned him out. He was forced to live with the man who attacked him. "Now I am with someone else, and he taught me how to dance," the boy, now 16 years old, said.
Other reports describe bacha bazi as an increasingly lucrative business, in which the boy slaves are seen as important status symbols of the elite. "Everyone tries to have the best, most handsome, and good-looking boy," a former mujahedin commander told Reuters back in 2007.
A 42-year-old landowner in Baghlan province named Enayatullah told Reuters, "I was married to a woman 20 years ago, she left me because of my boy. ... I was playing with my boy every night and was away from home, eventually my wife decided to leave me. I am happy with my decision because I am used to sleeping and entertaining with my young boy."
The boys, who often know no other life but as chattel, call the men "my lord." Attempting escape could result in severe physical punishment, or even death. The family of a dead 15-year-old boy told Frontline that a policeman was eventually thrown in jail in connection with his murder. But they believed the boy's former owner, a wealthy drug baron whom he was escaping, bribed local officials to set the policeman free after only "a few months" of jail time.
"If only these people were punished, this kind of thing wouldn't happen," the boy's mother said. "Whoever commits these crimes doesn't get punished. Power is power."
I remember the first time I ever heard of bacha bazi. A soldier friend of mine who had been in Kabul told me of a disconcerting evening when he stumbled into a tea room in which a group of well-dressed Afghan men were gathering. His Afghan interpreter yanked him by the arm and out of the place, warning of danger. That was bacha bazi, he explained, in which young boys are forced to dance for men. He had better move on and forget.
He moved on, but he never forgot. Like me, my friend had grown up in a working class New England town, and these were horrors that men were beaten and even killed for in prison. We call it pedophilia, and most here would say is worth an eternity of damnation for its perpetrators, not a high social rank and adulation among the town's elite.
"It's gotten limited attention," admitted Rachel Reid of Human Rights Watch. "There's been some Afghan investigative journalists who have tackled it, though in areas where the perpetrators are also local 'commanders' whether official or unofficial, there will always be fear of reprisals."
Approaching the issue as Americans we are flummoxed, as if it occurs on another planet. Reprisals for exposing the sexual abuse of children? The Catholic Church spent more than a half-century hiding its abusive priests because it feared that reprisals from the outside might destroy the institution. Here, we have authority figures - former commanders and warlords - flaunting their dancing slave boys, practically daring interference from outside.
(ABC/Four Corners)
"What was so unnerving about the men I had met was not just their lack of concern for the damage their abuse was doing to the boys," said Najibullah Quraishi, the Afghan journalist who was escorted through the underground by one of the bacha bazi pimps for six months. His harrowing footage and reporting was broadcast by Australia's Four Corners in February and will make its American debut via Frontline. "It was also their casualness with which they operated and the pride with which they show me their boys, their friends, their world. They clearly believed that nothing they were doing was wrong."
The behavior of these modern slave owners belies an endemic problem that human rights advocates and even NATO military personnel operating in Afghanistan have observed for some time now, according to reports. (The U.S. State Department included the rape, abuse, and exploitation of Afghan children in its 2009 annual human rights report, released in March).
But observers say the age-old ritual of man-boy predatory sex, which is obliquely condoned throughout Afghanistan because of a pervasive fear or indifference about prosecuting it on any serious level, according to numerous reports, has proliferated after decades of poverty, corruption, and a lack of enduring social institutions. All reports indicate that while bacha bazi and the abuse is illegal, perpetrators rarely pay for their crimes. Meanwhile, poor families sell their children, and orphans are snatched off the street. They are the meekest, preyed upon by the strongest - the kind of wealthy, powerful men who have benefited most from the Western occupation and generous foreign aid.
This has put us in a moral and ethical quandary too painful and perhaps too shameful to contemplate more openly.
Take the military, for example. First, there seems to be a tacit acknowledgment on the part of Western soldiers that Afghans they serve with in the field are engaging in homosexual activity (no irony there, of course). Many have written about how the strict segregation of Afghan men and women (who are also treated as property in traditional Afghan society) before marriage prevents the course of natural physical and emotional relationships between the sexes, and as one Afghan historian told me, "Straight guys find that their sexuality is flexible in these sorts of situations ... soon [sex between men is] widely accepted with a wink and a nudge."
But it is when Afghan soldiers move beyond consensual "man-love Thursdays" with each other to procuring young boys in broad daylight that the flood of revulsion, resentment, and awkward questions comes to bear. Do they have the right to discipline? Would there be reprisals if they complained?
In 2008, apparently fed up, Canadian soldiers and chaplains did begin to complain.
In June that year the Toronto Star reported that a Canadian soldier said he witnessed in 2006 injuries sustained by a boy he had heard was raped by an Afghan soldier at one of the Canadian outposts in Kandahar. These injuries included the boy's intestines falling out of his body, a "sign of trauma from anal rape." The Canadian's testimony, in addition to other complaints, including an eyewitness account of the rape of a boy by two Afghan military personnel at Canada's Forward Operating Base Wilson in 2006, formed the basis of an official investigation into whether the brass were ignoring complaints about systematic abuse up through 2007.
According to the press, an initial military investigation concluded in 2008 that the allegations were unfounded. Another investigation, launched by the Canadian Forces National Investigation Services (CFNIS), concluded in May 2009 that Canadian Forces Military Police in Afghanistan "did not receive any complaints on the alleged sexual abuse of Afghan male children." It did not answer the question of whether there had been any abuse, and it curiously noted that "the CFNIS has no jurisdiction over Afghan National Army or locally contracted interpreters in Afghanistan."
Nevertheless, subsequent testimony from Canadian personnel and newly released documents shed light on an utterly confusing landscape of conflicting official statements and reports, and they raise the question of who knew what and when, and whether the chain of command was listening or passing the buck. There are more than a few official/unofficial acknowledgments that Afghan police and military members were "having anal sex with young boys," plus disturbing allegations that the Canadian brass were told about the rapes and pressed soldiers to ignore them.
A new board of inquiry was opened last year, but what will it conclude? Is the military so afraid of overstepping cultural and political boundaries that it is paralyzed from doing the right thing?
The Ottawa Citizen described the soldier who had witnessed the intestines falling out of the boy's body as now suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. If anecdotal evidence now surfacing that our own troops are witnessing similar things is true, we can only imagine the kind of moral and ethical hell they can be living out every day they risk their lives for this still largely undefined mission.
In writing about the rape of boys and its implications on the sustained Western alliance with the Afghan government and military in the Long War, journalist Patrick Cockburn commented in September, "one reason Afghan villagers prefer to deal with the Taliban rather than the government security forces is that the latter have a habit of seizing their sons at checkpoints and sodomizing them."
The Taliban reportedly banned these practices when it was in power. Today, clerics we would consider radical openly and regularly condemn bacha bazi and sex with children. "Under Islamic law, those who practice this would be stoned to death," Mawllawi Mohammaed Sadiq Sadiqyar, a prayer leader and scholar in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, told Reuters.
Nothing is ever black and white, and Taliban soldiers certainly don't always "practice what they preach," as one source pointed out to me. But the Western mission sure gets complicated under these conditions. As usual, there are more questions than answers.
If the U.S. mission is to kneecap the Taliban, a radical religious movement that at one point managed to ostensibly restrain the cruel and morally abominable activities of creepy pimps/masters who liked to dominate and play with boys when they weren't warring with one another and shaking down the weakest among them, what in the end, does it all mean for the Afghans whom President Obama has vowed to uplift? If Hamid Karzai sits on the top of this worm-infested confection without one word about prosecuting these crimes or protecting the children of his country, what does it say about the billions of dollars we have poured into his government to assist him?
What do we really know about the former mujahedin commanders we view as allies against the Taliban? What do they do at night while their wives wait patiently at home? Does it turn your stomach to think that American money went to train the police who now stand shoulder-to-shoulder each night with Afghan men gaping at underage boys dancing in silk with bells on their feet?
Are we the world's biggest chumps or the world's biggest enablers?
Cockburn made a practical point about what turning a blind eye may mean for Western soldiers in the long term:
"[T]he fact that male rape is common practice in the Afghan armed forces has, unfortunately, a great deal to do with the fate of British soldiers.
"There was a horrified reaction across Britain last week when a 25-year-old policeman called Gulbuddin working in a police station in the Nad Ali district of Helmand killed five British soldiers when he opened fire with a machine gun on them. But the reason he did so, according to Christina Lamb in The Sunday Times, citing two Afghans who knew Gulbuddin, was that he had been brutally beaten, sodomized, and sexually molested by a senior Afghan officer whom he regarded as being protected by the British.
"The slaughter at Nad Ali is a microcosm of what is happening across Afghanistan."
If winning the war against the "evildoers" means ignoring evil among our allies, then we have truly lost our soul. Cockburn argued that our governments should not put another Western soldier into Afghanistan while there is such obvious corruption snaking through the Afghan security services, not to mention the Karzai government. Too late. The U.S. military is set to expand its footprint of 100,000 by the end of the summer. Complaints within the ranks about Afghan military's worthiness in the field will continue to simmer, while most of this stuff about debauchery, man-love Thursdays, sexual abuse, and the like will be left to percolate on the milblogs and in the tales soldiers bring home. Forget the State Department reports and the undercover investigative journalism; until the military (which is, like it or not, the face of America in Afghanistan) starts publicly condemning bacha bazi and the abuse of Afghan children with all the force and authority it can muster, then we might as well be putting our red scrawl on a pact with the devil.
No doubt the military cannot and will not seriously envisage withdrawing from that country now, but it should nonetheless consider this: take a long look at the boys shackled in the prisons, the orphans in the streets, the blank resignation of the victims of rape - they will no doubt be history's next mujahedin, and they will be coming for the devil's consorts.


Obituary
LATE DR ISRAR AHMAD SAHEB MERHOOM
by Shamim Siddiqui [Long island, New York]
Dr Israr Ahmad Saheb is no more in this world but he left a name that will always be associated in rendering eloquent services to the Qur'an and its introduction at mass level through his "Daroose Qur'an", lectures, cassettes, Friday sermons, presenting in easy and understandable language the meanings of the entire Qur'an during Taravih in Ramadan for years together, addressing mass meetings of hundreds and thousands of people in India and Pakistan and writing Tafseer-e-Qur'an in fluent Urdu and English both for the common man and the students at large.

This all was possible for him to do because of the fact that he was a Da'ee Ilallah through and through with all its inherent qualities of heart and mind. He was born in 1932, was an active Muslim Youth during Pakistan Movement and then joined Islami Jameeat -e-Tulaba, Pakistan and became its vibrant President in early fifties. That paved his way to become an active Rukn [Member] of Jamaat-e-Islami and moved to Lahore, the hub of Pakistan politics.

Jamaat participated in the Provincial Elections of Punjab and could not do well. The controversy started that it should not participate in elections. It became a crisis and, therefore, to resolve the issue an all Pakistan Conference of Jamaat's Arkan was held at Machigot in Rahimyar Khan district of Punjab in a ginning factory in February 1958. 1035 Arkan [Members of JIP] attended this meeting, including 15 from East Pakistan and fortunately I was one of them, to decide whether JIP should participate in elections or not? The meeting continued for five days where Merhoom Israr Saheb opposed and presented his paper that took three hours undisturbed to complete. Maulana Maududi (RA) replied his view points in six hours with logical arguments by threadbare discussion of the history of JIP till that time and soundly proved that election participation was correct for the change of leadership of the country. Out of 1035, Arkan 1015 supported Maulana's viewpoint and the Resolution was adopted to continue the Methodology that JIP was pursuing towards the change of leadership through election process.

Late Dr Israr Saheb differed and resigned from JIP along with Maulana Amin Ahsan Islahi Merhoom and seven other members of Jamaat. Later on he published his speech of Machigot Ijtemaa and started his own Movement In the name of Tanzeem-e- Islami, Pakistan and published Magazines like Meesaque, Hikmat-e Qur'an and many other Institutions to augment his movement and establish Khilafah in Pakistan to serve the cause of the Qur'an and the Movement.

He used to visit the USA on regular basis but stopped subsequently after the unfortunate tragedy of 9/11. He started an extended organization of TIP as TINA in the USA which is alive still in some pockets of this country. He has a great desire that I should join TINA but I asked him: has he any Program for the USA? He replied in negative. I, therefore, declined respectfully. However, I am a regular subscriber of his papers and periodicals that help in understanding the on-going Islamic Movements of Indo-Pak subcontinent.

One may differ from his political views but his contribution to popularize the message of the Qur'an in Pakistan, India, ME and around the world is voluminous and a record by itself. The young generation can reach to the message of the Qur'an directly through his various efforts and eloquent cassettes in different languages of the world.

His legacies will be paramount for centuries to come. He has left behind a team of trained and trusted workers like Dr Sami Ali and his entire family which he groomed patiently for the Iqamah of Allah's Deen in Pakistan and elsewhere in the world.

May Allah pardon his sins if any, multiply reward for his good deeds manifold, place his soul in Jannatul Firdaus and give Tawfeeq to Br. Hafiz A'kib Sayeed who is now the current Amir of TIP to continue his legendary work incessantly and try to cooperate with his parent body, the JIP, to get his agenda of Iqamatuddeen fulfilled. It was his earnest desire and he put me to that task to materialize in early eighties by developing a working cooperation between the two Movements but it could not materialize due to negative attitude of some of Jamaat's leaders. The field is wide open in the context of Pakistan and he should explore every opportunity to that end. This is the need of time.
Shamim Siddiqi

New York

WWW.dawahinamericas.com

Dr Israr Ahmed's Service to Invite Young Generation Towards The Way of Qur'an Would Always Be Remembered : SIO

New Delhi 14/04/10: National Secretariat of Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) expressed deep sorrow over the death of renowned Islamic scholar Dr Israr Ahmad. The demise of such an outstanding scholar is a great loss particularly for the Islamic activism of our times. Dr Israr Ahmed shall be long remembered for his life long effort to invite young generation towards Islam through his brilliant interpretations of the Holy Qur'an. His Dars-e-Qur'an guided many lives towards true spirit of Islam as in his young days he was guided and trained by great Islamic Scholar Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi. His services as scholar as well as preacher of Islam would always be remembered. May Allah Almighty shower his blessings on the departed soul and give courage and fortitude to his family members and associates of his organization Tanzim-e-Islami, to bear this irreparable loss with equanimity (Ameen).

Shahnawaz Ali Raihan

National Secretary

SIO of India

New Delhi-25


A note on World Wat II history by Kaukab Siddique
Censorship: Zionist Control of Major Book Stores Keeps David Irving's Books Away from the American Public

David Irving is undeniably the greatest historian of the Second World War. His books such as Hitler's War, Goebbels, Churchill's War and others are meticulously documented from primary sources of information. He found that there is no documentary evidence for Hitler's alleged orders to exterminate the Jews; nor were there any gas chambers in Auschwitz. His honesty earned him the undying hatred of International Jewry leading to his imprisonment in Austria.

During his recent trip to the USA, he was attacked by the Zionists in a Chicago restaurant in an attempt to do him serious injury. Unfortunately for the assailants, bold and rapid action by a German woman who supports Irving brought the police to the scene and the thugs were caught red handed in the process of destroying books and vandalizing Irving's possessions.

Photo below: Dr. Kaukab Siddique [left] with British historian David Irving at a reception in Arlington, Virginia.[Photo courtesy N.]


With thanks to Dr. Ismail Zayid, Canada
Jewish Settlers deface mosque in West Bank
Wed, 14 Apr 2010 13:19:05 GMT

A Palestinian cleans a graffiti of the star of David and a word reading in Hebrew 'Mohammed' from the wall of a mosque in the West Bank village of Hawara, south of Nablus, Wednesday, April 14, 2010.

Jewish settlers have desecrated a mosque in the flashpoint West Bank town of Nablus and set afire two vehicles outside the Muslim worship house.

Unknown vandals forcibly entered the Bilal Ben-Rabah Mosque in the village of Hawara overnight Wednesday and sprayed graffiti, including a Jewish Star of David alongside the name of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) written in Hebrew on the mosque walls.

The Palestinians say residents of the nearby Yitzhar settlement ascended upon the village at 2 am local time (2300 GMT) and committed the offenses.

Local council chairman Samer Uda said a complaint had been filed with Israeli authorities. "We call on human rights groups and Israeli authorities to do everything possible in order to put an end to the repeated harassments by settlers," he said. "A few weeks ago they set a truck on fire."

The Israeli military commander for the West Bank, Brigadier General Nitzan Alon, called for a probe into the sacrilegious act and "promised" to punish anyone found guilty.

The incident is the latest in a spate of anti-Muslim violence in the area, which has also seen the eviction of Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

In December, extremist settlers vandalized a mosque in the West Bank village of Yasuf just before dawn. The vandals burned prayer mats and a book stand with sacrosanct, Islamic texts and sprayed slogans on the mosque walls reading, 'Get ready to pay the price.' Another was accompanied by the more direct threat, 'We will burn all of you.'

Hard-line Jewish settlers have said they will attack Palestinians in retaliation for any measures by the Tel Aviv regime that they deem threatening to Jewish settlements. It is part of what they describe as the "price tag" policy.

All Jewish settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem (al-Quds), are illegal under international law, though Tel Aviv denies this.

http://presstv. com/detail. aspx?id=123330§ionid=351020202

Our America: Obama, leaning to the right, ignores his core constituency

Unemployment Statistics: A Tale of Two Cities

By Dr. Wilmer J. Leon III [Silver Spring, Maryland]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released employment data for March. Many analysts agree that the numbers show the first substantial gain for payrolls since December 2007. Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000 and the unemployment rate held steady at 9.7 percent. According to Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, "The U.S. economy has "turned the corner," but it will still take up to five years to regain all the jobs lost since the economic collapse..."

This is encouraging news on a number of fronts. However, a closer look reveals some frightening realities that lay behind the positive indicators. For African Americans in many regions of this country the numbers reflect a tale of two cites, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; ... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." In March 2010 while the unemployment rate for the country was 9.7 percent; the national unemployment rate for African Americans was almost double at 16.6 percent. On the state level, according to the Economic Policy Institute's 4Q 2009 numbers, the unemployment rate in Michigan for African Americans was 22.3 percent, California 15.5, and New York 14.6.

As disturbing as the unemployment numbers are for African Americans, they don't begin to tell the whole story. When these numbers are viewed in the context of other factors such as the disparity in median family income, wealth accumulation, and poverty levels they indicate that an entrenched systemic social policy problem exists for African Americans that a jobs recovery will not address.

According to 2007 U.S. Census Data, White families made 62% more than Black families. The median family income for White families was $54,920 while the median income for Black families was $33,916. Based on data from the 2002 Survey of Income and Program Participation, White median household net worth was about $90,000, compared to a mere $6,000 for the median Black household. 8.2% of White families were (this is data from 2007) living in poverty compared to 24.5% of Black families. As Dr. Ronald Walters explains in White Nationalism Black Interests, these indicators of greater social instability loom large for a substantial portion of the Black community that has not benefitted from the economic system.

Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) are expressing concern that they are not receiving a significant level of support from President Obama and his staff, claiming that the administration has not done enough for African Americans. According to POLITICO, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) said that White House officials are "not listening" to black lawmakers and Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) said "there's not enough attention to poor people."

According to the Washington Post, other members of the CBC such as Emanuel Cleaver II (D-MO) and Donald Payne (D-NJ) are expressing their frustration regarding how to address these issues. "How can you express criticism of the administration without eventually confronting the man at the top?" The article continues, "Some (CBC members) say that any public airing of their disagreements with Obama runs the risk of politically damaging the president and ultimately slowing the advancement of other African Americans."

Why is holding the president accountable a problem? What are members of the CBC afraid of? With 24.5% of African American families living in poverty, a median household net worth of $6,000, and a national unemployment rate for African Americans almost double the national average, how much slower can African Americans advance? Are the same figures that were unacceptable for a white president somehow acceptable under an African American president?

Why should they be concerned about political damage to a president who by their own admission feels that key members of the Obama administration, "have taken them for granted, in the belief that Black members of Congress have no stomach for a fight with the country's first Black president." According to POLITICO, A CBC aide said that senior aid Valerie Jarrett has "canceled lunch plans with the caucus eight times and that her office is slow to return calls and pays more attention to longtime supporters than to senior CBC members."

Since the CBC is so frustrated and confused, here are a few suggestions for them to consider proposing to President Obama:

1) Work with the SBA and insurers such as AIG to back African American owned business that are having difficulty meeting bonding requirements as they pursue government contracts (stimulus package projects) as prime and subcontrators.

2) Resurrect the '98 Clinton Administration SBA plan to enhance access to debt/equity capital via SBA guaranteed loans for African American owned businesses.

3) The Senate and House Small Business Committees should mandate that the SBA enforce federal agency subcontracting plans. Liquidated damages have rarely if ever been enforced against a non compliant government contractor. CBC members probably have numerous African American owned firms in their districts that would benefit from enforcement efforts in federal contracting.

Members of the CBC chair four committees and 18 subcommittees. If they can not leverage their power and effectively develop legislation and social policy that address the systemic ills impacting African American progress, an increasing number will continue to experience the worst of times in a season of darkness.

Dr. Wilmer Leon is the Producer/ Host of the nationally broadcast call-in talk radio program "On With Leon," and a Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Go to www.wilmerleon.com or email: wjl3us@yahoo.com.

© 2010 InfoWave Communications, LLC.



With thanks to Sis. Hamdiyya, Jamaat al-Muslimeen, Charlotte, North Carolina

"Highest Value Detainee" was not a mujahid but an ordinary civilian

Corrupt Mauritanian, Jordanian and Afghan Regimes worked with US to Put an Innocent Muslim in GTMO Cages for NINE Years

Guantanamo Detainee Ordered Freed
William Fisher

NEW YORK, 12 Apr (IPS) - After nine years in captivity, a U.S. federal court has ordered the release of a Guantanamo prisoner once described as the "highest-value detainee at the facility" - and set off a firestorm of protest from Republican lawmakers.

Federal District Judge James Robertson ruled in Washington, D.C. that the U.S. could not continue to detain Mohamedou Ould Salahi (sometimes spelled "Slahi"), a Mauritanian citizen who has been in U.S. custody since 2001.

Judge Robertson's opinion, providing the reasons for the granting of Salahi's habeas corpus petition, was released last week after undergoing a classification review. Some portions were withheld as classified.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and private attorneys challenged Salahi's detention, arguing that the government had no reliable evidence that he was part of al Qaeda when he was seized in 2001.

Salahi became the 34th Guantanamo detainee whose imprisonment has been declared illegal.

Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project, told IPS, "Salahi's case is a national disgrace - rendition, brutal torture, and eight years of arbitrary detention without charge or any reliable or credible evidence. Regrettably, rather than ending this shameful episode that flouts the rule of law, and repatriating Salahi, the government is seeking to prolong his illegal imprisonment."

"The district court's decision invalidating that detention and ordering Salahi's release is an important step towards restoring the rule of law," he added.

After Salahi was arrested in Mauritania on suspicion of ties to al Qaeda, the U.S. government illegally rendered him to Jordan, where he was detained, interrogated and abused for eight months. He was then rendered to Bagram, Afghanistan and finally to Guantánamo, where he has been held in U.S. custody since August 2002.

While at Guantánamo, Salahi was held in total isolation for months, kept in a freezing cold cell, shackled to the floor, deprived of food, made to drink salt water and forced to stand in a room with strobe lights and heavy metal music for hours at a time.

He was threatened with harm to his family, forbidden from praying, beaten and subjected to the "frequent flyer" programme, during which he was awakened every few hours to deprive him of sleep. The government falsely told him that his mother had been arrested and was being sent to Guantánamo.

Salahi's abuse was documented in a 2009 report by the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Marine Corps Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, the military lawyer originally assigned to prosecute the case against Salahi in the military commissions, determined that Salahi's self-incriminating statements were so tainted by torture that they couldn't ethically be used against him.

Couch told his supervisors that he was "morally opposed" to Salahi's treatment and refused to participate in the prosecution. In his decision, Judge Robertson wrote that there is "ample evidence in this record that Salahi was subjected to extensive and severe mistreatment at Guantánamo".

Congressional Republicans expressed outrage over the decision. The Hill newspaper reported that Sen. Kit Bond of Missouri, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, stated, "While (Attorney General Eric) Holder's Justice Department should appeal this outrageous decision, I'm not holding my breath. Holder seems more intent on closing Guantánamo Bay than keeping terrorists locked up where they belong."

The Hill also reported that Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican, sent a letter to Holder asking him to appeal the ruling, in which he wrote, "It is certainly possible, if not likely, that Mr. Salahi will re-engage in efforts to commit terrorist attacks against innocent Americans if allowed to go free. This ruling clearly puts the American people in danger and should not be allowed to stand."

The Department of Justice said it would appeal Judge Robertson's decision. However, even if the government's appeal is unsuccessful, it is unclear that Salahi could be released until another country offers to take him in.

Salahi was subjected to several years of torture, which began soon after he was taken in by the Mauritanian authorities on November 20, 2001, at the request of the Bush administration. "My country turned me over, shortcutting all kinds of due process of law, like a candy bar to the United States," he said in his combatant status review tribunal at Guantánamo in 2004.

Salahi was transferred by the U.S. from Mauritania to Jordan. He was held there for eight months and said what happened to him was "beyond description". He was then transferred to the U.S. prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan for two weeks and arrived in Guantánamo on Aug. 4, 2002.

Historian Andy Worthington reports that, "as the highest-value detainee at Guantánamo - in the days before Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and 13 other high-value detainees were flown in from secret CIA prisons in September 2006 - Salahi was again subjected to torture, which included prolonged isolation, prolonged sleep deprivation, beatings, death threats and threats that his mother would be brought to Guantánamo and gang-raped."

This programme, he says, was implemented in May 2003 and augmented with further "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorised by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

It culminated in August 2003 in an incident when Salahi was taken out on a boat, wearing isolation goggles, while agents whispered, within earshot, that he was "about to be executed and made to disappear". As the German magazine Der Spiegel explained in an article in 2008, "He was so terrified that he urinated in his pants."


US sanctions target fighters
Somalis Declare Baidoa an Islamic Province.

Barack Obama, the US president, has issued an executive order to freeze assets of individuals with ties to Somalia's al-Shabab movement.
Obama's directive allows the US treasury department to sanction or freeze the assets of individuals with suspected links to the piracy off Somalia's coast or those who have in any way been involved in threatening Somalia's stability.
The piracy and eroding security in Somalia "constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," Obama said in his executive order on Tuesday.
The decree specifically targets anyone who threatens the peace, interferes with the delivery of humanitarian assistance or violates the United Nations arms embargo in the lawless nation.
Target
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, a prominent Somali opposition figure, is one of those targeted by the new sanctions.
Last year Aweys said he was working to unite his Islamic Party with al-Shabab.
Al-Shabab is battling to overthrow the US-backed Somali government.
Meanwhile, al-Shabab fighters are claiming to have gained full control of the city of Baidoa in southern Somalia, which they have declared to be an Islamist province.
According to reports, the group's fighters last week disarmed guards at a UN World Food Programmes (WFP) base in Wajid, near Baidoa, and also seized control of the nearby airstrip.

2010-04-16 Fri 19:29:13 cdt
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