Turkish Premier’s #MyJihad or Slander Across the USA

The pro-government daily Today’s Zaman reports that a ‘pro-Israeli, anti-Islamic extremist group, known for running anti-Muslim ads in the New York subway, has depicted Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as a terrorist in ads targeting the concept of jihad in Islam. The anti-jihad ads were designed by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) as a response to “MyJihad,” a public education campaign that seeks to share the proper meaning of jihad as believed and practiced by the majority of Muslims. MyJihad has been running various ads on buses and trains in cities across the US, in which it has tried to show the global values of Islam with such slogans as “My Jihad is not to judge people by their cover. What’s yours?” and “My Jihad is to build friendships across the aisle. What’s yours?” The AFDI, widely known for its controversial attacks on Islam, apparently designed its ads in the same way but with the opposite aim. One of the ads shows the angry face of Erdoğan next to a passage from a poem by Ziya Gökalp, a Turkish sociologist and writer, that Erdoğan famously recited in 1998. The poem reads, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers,” and next to this, the AFDI had added the sentence “That’s My Jihad. What’s yours?”’. [1]

As long ago as 2010, I wrote in the same newspaper that “[n]owadays the term jihad is much bandied about and used and/or abused at will by Muslims as well as non-Muslims the world over. The historian and Islam specialist Mark Sedgwick maintains that the concept of jihad was developed in the eighth century, when it basically functioned as a “mixture of the Army Regulations and the Geneva Conventions, appropriate for the circumstances of the time.” At the time of the Islamic conquests (seventh-eighth centuries), the world was divided between the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) and the House of War (Dar al-Harb) and international relations between both spheres were primarily military in nature. But as the centuries progressed and relations between Muslims and the outside world achieved a quasi-peaceful status quo, punctuated by commercial exchanges and trade links, the idea of jihad changed as well. There is the well-known distinction between the greater jihad (al-jihad al-akbar) and the lesser jihad (al-jihad al-asghar), between a personal struggle in the way of Allah (crf. Surah 29:69) and an armed struggle to protect believers against oppression and violence perpetrated by unbelievers. In other words, jihad evolved from a code of war into a defensive mechanism, tantamount to a religious duty leading to religious rewards”.[ii]  So much for the meaning of Jihad, either greater or lesser. Returning to Tayyip Erdoğan’s countanace in ads in the New York subway: in ‘1999, Erdoğan served four months in jail after being convicted of “Islamist sedition” for reading Gökalp’s poem at a political rally in Siirt when he was the mayor of İstanbul for the now-defunct Welfare Party (RP). His conviction came two years after an unarmed military intervention on Feb. 28, 1997, often dubbed a postmodern coup, which resulted in the fall of a coalition government led by RP leader Necmettin Erbakan . . . Apart from the attack on Erdoğan, the AFDI created similar ads, with the alleged words of Osama Bin Laden and Times Square bomber Faisal Shazad, and an alleged anti-Semitic sentence from a Hamas-owned TV channel. A lawyer from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) recently sent a letter to the AFDI claiming ownership of the MyJihad ads and stating that the AFDI is violating MyJihad.org’s common law trademark and trade dress, or design, rights’.[3]

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[1] “Anti-Islam extremist group depicts Erdoğan as terrorist in public ads” Today’s Zaman (05 March 2013). http://www.todayszaman.com/news-308855-anti-islam-extremist-group-depicts-erdogan-as-terrorist-in-public-ads.html.

[2] C. Erimtan, “The war in Afghanistan: jihad, foreign fighters and al-Qaeda” Today’s Zaman (29 September 2010). http://www.todayszaman.com/newsDetail_getNewsById.action?load=detay&link=222918.

[3] “Anti-Islam extremist group depicts Erdoğan as terrorist in public ads”.

Empire: Iraq to Mali: The changing calculus of war (24 Feb 2013)

‘It has been 10 years since the US-led invasion of Iraq, which marked a turning point in the West’s so-called war on terror. The pretext of the Iraq war was security and freedom, but the bombastic and openly pronounced objective was no less than remaking the greater Middle East region. For the US, Iraq became a quagmire and a humiliation – a strategic and moral failure that the country has spent the last four years trying to forget. But how much has America’s calculus of war really changed? And as Africa becomes the new frontline in the ‘war on terror’, have the Europeans learnt from America’s mistakes? Empire explores the merits, objectives, costs and morality of these wars with our guests: John Nagl, a retired Lieutenant Colonel who co-authored the US army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual; Jean Marie Guehenno, the director of the Center of International Conflict Resolution at Columbia University, and former United Nations under secretary general for Peacekeeping Operations; Barbara Bodine, a professor at Princeton University and a former US Ambassador to the Republic of Yemen who also served with the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq; and Christopher Hedges, a senior fellow at The Nation Institute, former New York Times Middle East bureau chief, and author of several books, including War is a Force That Gives us Meaning and Empire of Illusion’ .

Africa Update: Mali, Algeria & Libya or Al Qaeda All Around

‘The hostage crisis in Algeria appears to be over. Algeria’s special forces stormed the gas plant in the middle of the Sahara desert, to end the four day standoff. Local media say seven hostages and 11 gunmen were killed in the latest operation. Britain’s defense minister says he’s appalled at the loss of life. Al Jazeera‘s Paul Brennan has this report on how this hostage crisis unfolded. (19 Jan 2013)’.

‘The Algerian army raided the remote gas plant where Al Qaeda-backed militants had taken hostages. (20 Jan 2013)’.

The mere phrase “Al Qaeda-backed” nowadays seems sufficient to inspire global interest and generate media attention. On this blog I posted the following in 2011: “As I wrote some time ago in Today’s Zaman: ‘In the absence of a Soviet threat, the Obama administration has now declared al-Qaeda and its, by now more than legendary and . . . defunct, leader bin Laden to be the US’s main military adversary. While making sure not to declare an outright crusade against Islam and Muslims worldwide, President Obama continues Cold War policies that ensure that the “military-industrial complex,” to use President Eisenhower’s famous 1961 phrase, is kept busy, happy and well fed. Quite some time ago, the independent journalist Pepe Escobar declared that “Osama bin Laden may be dead or not. Al-Qaeda remains a catch-all ghost entity.” In other words, his contention is that the name al-Qaeda is used by the US to suggest the presence of a threat that is then employed to justify military intervention. The flipside of that stance is now that terrorists and like-minded individuals opposing US dominance and interventionism equally cite the name al-Qaeda to gain credibility, notoriety and media exposure’”.[1]  As a result, the fact that mainstream broadcasters like the BBC and Al Jazeera freely use the phrase in their reporting should not detract from the fact that the brand Al Qaeda is nothing but a fabricated fiction, as convincingly argued for by Adam Curtis’ documentary The Power of Nightmares (2004).[2]

What is happening in Mali, which just happens to be south of Libya where Colonel Gadhafi’s regime was so unceremoniously done away with by an “Assisted Rebellion”[3] recently???  Then Sarko was one of the prime-movers of the alliance backing the “Assisted Rebellion” and for good reason, as he was keen to secure access to Libyan oil and gas. At the moment, President Hollande seems to be at pains to secure his predecessor’s gains in the Maghreb, while equally also attempting to safeguard French access to Mali’s uranium reserves, one could argue.

Whereas the Al Qaeda is equally being used by both sides in the conflict today: ‘Back in the days prior to 9/11, Abu Musaab Abdulwadood used to head an organisation called Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [‘al-Jamā‘ah as-Salafiyyah lid-Da‘wah wal-Qiṭāl’], which now carries the much more media-friendly name Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [‘Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Bilād al-Maghrib al-Islāmī’]’.[4]  The outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy William Engdahl recently spoke to broadcaster RT: “Well, I think the intervention in Mali is another follow-up to the French role in other destabilizations that we’ve seen, especially in Libya last year with the toppling of the Gadhafi regime. In a sense this is French neocolonialism in action. But, interestingly enough, I think behind the French intervention is the very strong hand of the US Pentagon which has been preparing this partitioning of Mali, which it is now looming to be, between northern Mali, where al-Qaeda and other terrorists are supposedly the cause for French military intervention, and southern Mali, which is a more agricultural region. Because in northern Mali recently there have been huge finds of oil discovered, so that leads one to think that it’s very convenient that these armed rebels spill over the border from Libya last year and just at the same time a US-trained military captain creates a coup d’état in the Southern capital of Mali and installs a dictatorial regime against one of Africa’s few democratically elected presidents. So this whole thing bears the imprint of US Africom [US Africa Command] and an attempt to militarize the whole region and its resources. Mali is a strategic lynchpin in that. It borders Algeria which is one of the top goals of these various NATO interventions from France, the US and other sides. Mauritania, the Ivory Coast, Guinea, Burkina Faso. All of this area is just swimming in untapped resources, whether it be gold, manganese, copper”.[5]

Not just uranium, but now there has also been found oil in Mali, as indicated by Engdahl. But there is really so much more at stake with regard to France’s nuclear energy needs, as demonstrated by the writer, activist, and subversive Doctoral researcher at the University of Oxford Adam Elliott-Cooper: “Like its neighbour, Niger, Mali is rich in a number of resources, including uranium. Following the ‘oil shock’ of 1973 in which the oil producing nations sharply increased the price of oil, the French decided an alternative route was needed. This alternative was nuclear energy, and over the 15 years following the shock, France built 56 nuclear reactors, more than any other country in the world. France now has 59 nuclear reactors, generating nearly 80% of its electricity, making it the world’s largest net electricity exporter. In 1999, the French parliament confirmed three objectives in relation to this newly found wealth, the first: security of supply”.[6]  Elliot-Cooper has this warning and note of hope: “The echoes of the scramble for Iraq’s resources, and the humanitarian catastrophe which followed are stark. The curbs on civil liberties in the West which the so-called War on Terror forces upon citizens is part of the same struggle that activists in West Africa are fighting against uranium mining corporations. Only by building links of solidarity between our continents can people begin to resist the disastrous intersection of the energy industries and state militarism both at home, and abroad”.[7]

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[1] Cfr. “SPECTRE Speaks: Al Qaeda Issues a Statement”A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (07 May 2011). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/spectre-speaks-al-qaeda-issues-a-statement/ and C. Erimtan, “A frontline in the war against Islamic Extremism or A Crucial Part of the Eurasian chessboard?” Today’s Zaman (25 January 2011) — http://tiny.cc/h3b5g.

[2] Cfr. “Killing a Monster: OBL and the War on Terror” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (15 May 2011). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/killing-a-monster-obl-and-the-war-on-terror/.

[3] Cfr. “Libya: Assisted Rebellion or Humanitarian Intervention???” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (07 April 2011). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2011/04/07/libya-assisted-rebellion-or-humanitarian-intervention/.

[4] Cfr. “Propaganda: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Mali” A Pseudo-Ottoman Blog (29 November 2012). http://sitanbul.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/propaganda-al-qaeda-in-the-islamic-maghreb-and-mali/.

[5] “‘Pentagon’s hand behind French intervention in Mali’” RT (19 January 2013). http://rt.com/news/mali-intervention-pentagon-conflict-303/.

[6] Adam Elliott-Cooper, “Blood for Uranium: France’s Mali intervention has little to do with terrorism” Ceasefire (17 January 2013). http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/blood-uranium-frances-mali-intervention-terrorism/.

[7] Adam Elliott-Cooper, “Blood for Uranium: France’s Mali intervention has little to do with terrorism”.

Al Jazeera America: A New Voice in the U.S. Media Bubble???

In the Guardian, Esther Addley writes that Al Jazeera, the “Qatari-based broadcaster plans to launch [a] New York-based news channel on network it has bought for reported $500m”.[1]  The proliferation of news channels knows no bounds, whereas in the old days there was the BBC and then the rest, nowadays, quality news never was so abundantly available.

The Arab broadcaster bought Al Gore’s Current TV and now aims to crack the American market . . . going boldy where RT has already been treading for many years. Addley continues that the Arab broadcaster “has won respect and awards for its street-level reporting of the Arab spring protests, and attracted dedicated audiences in 130 countries, but when it comes to the most lucrative media market of all – the US – al-Jazeera has struggled to make an impact, reaching only a tiny minority of American households. On Wednesday [, 3 January], the Qatari-based broadcaster signalled its ambition to change that, paying a reported $500m (£300m) for the cable network Current TV, in a deal that could leave Current’s co-founder, former US vice-president Al Gore, $100m better off. Al-Jazeera said it planned to launch a New York-based news channel on the network, likely to be called al-Jazeera America, saying it hoped to “make a positive contribution to the news and information available in and about the United States”. The new channel will be separate from the existing al-Jazeera English, which broadcasts from Doha. For the cash-rich al-Jazeera, which only 4.7 million households in the US can currently watch, the benefits of the purchase are obvious. Though Current TV has struggled to attract significant audiences since its establishment as a liberal news and analysis channel in 2005, its distribution deals give it a potential reach of almost 60 million US homes”.[2]

The Guardian piece continues by listing the possible difficulties ahead: “Time Warner Cable Inc, the second biggest US cable company, immediately dropped Current TV on the news of its sale, without commenting on its reasons. Though Time Warner Cable’s chief executive, Glenn Britt, said last month that it would take a firmer line on renewing channels with low ratings, some media analysts saw the move as politically motivated. In a memo to staff on Wednesday [. 3 January], Joel Hyatt, Current TV’s co-founder and chief executive, said only that Time Warner ‘did not consent to the sale to al-Jazeera’. He said: ‘This is unfortunate, but I am confident that al-Jazeera America will earn significant additional carriage in the months and years ahead’. Gore and Hyatt said in a statement: ‘Current Media was built based on a few key goals: to give voice to those who are not typically heard; to speak truth to power; to provide independent and diverse points of view; and to tell the stories that no one else is telling. Al-Jazeera, like Current, believes that facts and truth lead to a better understanding of the world around us’. The US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, has praised al-Jazeera’s coverage of the Arab spring in the past, saying the network provided ‘real news’. But despite a campaign urging viewers to press their local distributors to carry al-Jazeera, the channel has until now been unable to extend its reach beyond a few isolated pockets of the US”.[3]

What will happen now???  Will the U.S. public become an Arab-loving nation overnight???  And what will Al Gore do now???  According to the Associated Press, ‘Al-Jazeera is spending $500 million to acquire Current TV . . . [thus becoming] a hefty payday for former Vice President Al Gore and cofounder Joel Hyatt, each of whom had 20 percent stakes in Current. Comcast had less than a 10 percent stake. Another major investor in Current TV was supermarket magnate and entertainment industry investor Ron Burkle, according to information service Capital IQ’.[4]  AP’s Ryan Nakashima adds that “the [new Al Jazeera America] channel will continue to be carried by DirecTV, Dish Network, Comcast Corp., AT&T U-verse and Verizon FiOS, according to a person familiar with the matter. The person spoke on condition of anonymity and wasn’t authorized to speak publicly”.[5]  Philip Seib, author of The Al Jazeera Effect, remarks realistically that “There are still people who will not watch it, who will say that it’s a ‘terrorist network’ [, adding that] Al Jazeera has to override that by providing quality news”.[6]

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[1] Esther Addley, “Al-Jazeera aims to crack America with Current TV deal” The Guardian (03 January 2013). http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/jan/03/al-jazeera-crack-america-current.

[2] Esther Addley, “Al-Jazeera aims to crack America with Current TV deal”.

[3] Esther Addley, “Al-Jazeera aims to crack America with Current TV deal”.

[4] Ryan Nakashima, “Al-Jazeera pays $500M for Al Gore’s Current TV” AP (04 January 2013). http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/al-jazeera-pays-m-for-al-gore-s-current-tv/article_ec3d6c4d-97df-5018-b877-c5b2b056fdc1.html.

[5] Ryan Nakashima, “Al-Jazeera pays $500M for Al Gore’s Current TV”.

[6] Brian Stelter, “Al Jazeera Seeks a U.S. Voice Where Gore Failed” ‘Media Decoder’, The New York Times (02 Jan 2013). http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/02/al-jazeera-said-to-be-acquiring-current-tv/?ref=todayspaper.

The War in Syria: Foreign Fighters and Sectarian Divisions

Over the past months, I have oftentimes spoken about the numerous foreign fighters active in Syria. Now, Jason Ditz details on the website AntiWar that a “report by the UN says that rebel fighters have come from 29 countries, and are overwhelmingly Sunnis flocking to the nation to fight against the Alawite President Bashar Assad”.[1]  The Turco-U.S. and Saudi-Qatari axis has been providing support for activists bent on turning the conflict into sectarian battle between Sunni Muslim opposed to the Alawite rulers of the Syrian Republic. Ditz, in turn, relies on Reuter’s appropriately titled piece ‘Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria’. The authors, Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay state that the “deepened sectarian divisions in Syria may diminish prospects for post-conflict reconciliation even if President Bashar al-Assad is toppled. And the influx of foreign fighters raises the risk of the war spilling into neighbouring countries”.[2]  Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon now do really appear to be in the firing line. Turkey’s long-standing conflict with the PKK could get a shot in the arm by the Kurdish fighters in Syria and the stance taken by the neighbouring KRG. Iraq, on the other hand, is experiencing its own tensions between Shi’ite and Sunni elements, Arab and Kurdish leaders against the backdrop of the unevenly divided oil wealth underground. Lebanon has been a powder keg for years and any spark could trigger a new civil war or power struggle. And then there is Israel and the Palestinians who are also being sucked into the fight.

UN human rights investigators led by Brazilian expert Paulo Pinheiro have now stated that the “battles between government forces and anti-government armed groups [now] approach the end of their second year, [and currently, ] the conflict has become overtly sectarian in nature”.[3]  According to some, such as the outspoken critic Sibel Edmonds and the investigative Voltaire Network‘s Thierry Meyssan, the whole struggle against Assad has been an orchestrated affair from the very beginning with outside players, like the Sunni states Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey overtly and/or covertly supporting a U.S.-led agenda to effect regime change in Syria. After two years of a primarily undecided armed confrontation, the true colours of the “foreign” forces at work against secular and Alawite-led Baath regime in Syria are beginning to shine through. Karen Abuzayd, a member of the group of UN human rights investigators, characterises the anti-Assad foreign fighters in the following way: “They come from all over, Europe and America, and especially the neighbouring countries”.[4]  Conversely, the Baath regime is also able to count on some supporters: the report notes that ‘the Lebanese Shia group, Hezbollah . . . confirmed that group members were in Syria fighting on behalf of Assad’, while ‘reports of Iraqi Shia coming to fight [in Syria have also been heard, while] . . . Iran, a close ally of Assad, confirmed in September [2012] that its Revolutionary Guards were in Syria providing assistance’.[5]

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[1] Jason Ditz, “UN: Syria’s Rebels Come From 29 Countries” AntiWar (20 Dec 2012). http://news.antiwar.com/2012/12/20/un-syrias-rebels-come-from-29-countries/.

[2] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria” The Independent (20 September 2012). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/foreign-fighters-fuel-the-sectarian-flames-in-syria-8427986.html.

[3] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria”.

[4] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria”.

[5] Justyna Pawlak and Stephanie Nebehay, “Foreign fighters fuel the sectarian flames in Syria”.

Egypt Constitution Vote

‘As the first round of voting on Egypt’s new draft constitution came to a close, the Muslim Brotherhood claims a majority vote of approval (16 Dec 2012)’.

The Arab Awakening: The plan to destabilize Syria

A report by Thierry Meyssan, in which he describes the efforts put by certain western governments in an attempt to overthrow the political system in the country in assistance with their Arab agents in the region.

(22 August 2011)

At the same time, Haytham Manna, a spokesman for Syria’s National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, declared that “These people [Saudi mercenaries] are destroying Syria . . . Unfortunately, there are political players, such as Turkey, who allow them to invade Syria”.[1]  The Russian news and information agency RIA Novosti concludes that ‘[s]everal Syrian opposition groups have contended for the opportunity to represent the anti-government movement in the struggle. However, an array of countries, including the European Union, have recognized only the Syrian National Council. Anti-government rebel forces have been locked into a protracted civil war with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The UN has estimated that nearly 40,000 have died since the fighting began in March 2011’.[2]

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[1] “Syrian Opposition Accuses Turkey of Allowing Mercenaries” RIANovosti (28 November 2012). http://en.rian.ru/world/20121128/177799664.html.

[2] “Syrian Opposition Accuses Turkey of Allowing Mercenaries”.

Egypt Update: Morsi and the Constitution???

‘Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi has announced the referendum on the new constitution will be held on December the 15th. That’s as the country is gripped by unrelenting protests, with thousands coming out both for and against Morsi. Middle East expert, Doctor Omar Ashour, says Morsi is not doing enough to pacify his opponents (2 Dec 2012)’.

Propaganda: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Mali

The pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera perpetuates the idea that a global organisation called Al Qaeda does exist and is at war with the West: ‘Al Jazeera has obtained exclusive footage of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. Its fighters helped rebels seize the northern half of Mali after a military coup toppled the civilian government in March [2012]. In a video address, the group’s senior commander Abu Musaab Abdulwadood calls for peaceful dialogue in Mali. But then later in the video he says his fighters are preparing for war in the West African country. Al Jazeera‘s Mohammed Vall reports from the SaharaDesert. (28 November 2012)’.

Back in the days prior to 9/11, Abu Musaab Abdulwadood used to head an organisation called Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat [‘al-Jamā‘ah as-Salafiyyah lid-Da‘wah wal-Qiṭāl’], which now carries the much more media-friendly name Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [‘Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Bilād al-Maghrib al-Islāmī’].

The Syrian Opposition: Oil and Other Special Interests or the Rise of Moaz al-Khatib

The new head of the Syrian opposition, Moaz al-Khatib is no stranger to the wicked ways of the West, in spite of his position as the imam of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus. The Guardian’s Luke Harding and Martin Chulov declare that “his moderation lends him credibility”.[1]  But there is more than meets the eye, Harding and Chulov describe him as “religious moderate, with impeccable revolutionary credentials, and a geologist as well”, but al-Khatib also “studied geophysics [and] spent six years working as an engineer. He is also a member of the Syrian Geological Society and the Syrian Society for Psychological Science, and was president of the Islamic Society of Urbanisation”.[2]  And where did he work as an engineer???  The investigative Voltaire Network‘s Thierry Meyssan explains that Moaz al-Khatib “worked for six years for the al-Furat Petroleum Company (1985-91), a joint-venture between the national company and other foreign enterprises, including the Anglo-Dutch Shell, with whom he has maintained contact”.[3]

What a surprise . . . and oil man is to lead the Syrian opposition, hell-bent on ousting Assad and turning over Syria’s oil proceeds to the highest bidder. Meyssan continues his biographic sketch of al-Khatib as follows: in “1992, he inherited the prestigious charge of preacher at the [Umayyad] mosque [in Damascus] from his father, Sheikh Mohammed Abu al-Faraj al-Khatib. He was rapidly relieved of his functions and forbidden to preach anywhere in Syria. However, this episode did not occur in 2012, and has nothing to do with the present contestation – it happened twenty years ago, under Hafez el-Assad. At that time, Syria was supporting the international intervention to liberate Kuwait, in respect of international law, in order to get rid of their Iraqi rival, and also to forge closer ties with the West. As for the Sheikh, he was opposed to “Desert Storm” for the same religious motives which were proclaimed by [Usamah bin] Laden – with whom he aligned himself – notably the refusal of Western presence on Arab lands, which they consider sacrilegious. This position led him to deliver a number of anti-semitic and anti-Western diatribes. Following that, the Sheikh continued his activity as a religious teacher, notably at the Dutch Institute in Damascus. He made numerous trips abroad, mainly to Holland, the United Kingdom and the United States. Finally, he settled in Qatar. In 2003-04, during the attribution of oil and gas concessions, he returned to Syria as a lobbyist for the Shell group”.[4]

Meyssan concludes his picture of the new Syrian opposition leader thus: Moaz al-Khatib “is a member of the Muslim brotherhood, and declared this quite clearly at the end of his speech of investiture at Doha. According to the usual technique of the Brotherhood, he adapts not only the form, but also the content of his speeches to his audience. Sometimes leaning towards a multi-religious society, sometimes towards the restoration of sharia law. In his writings, he qualifies Jewish people as “enemies of God”, and Shiite Muslims as “rejectionist heretics”, epithets which are the equivalent of a death sentence”.[5]

How this bode for the future of Syria???  What do these facts indicate about the direction of a post-Assad Damascus???  Upon the urging of Washington, the Syrian opposition convened in Doha recently, where the umbrella organisation called the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces was proclaimed and then, the U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Stephen Ford prevailed upon the assembled “revolutionaries” to appoint the supposedly moderate and quite camera-friendly Moaz al-Khatib to head those who to end Assad’s life and rule, in a fashion similar to Qaddafi in Libya.[6]  Robert Ford’s appointment dates back to April 2011,[7] at the very start of the current unrest. The Obama administration judged the appointment prudent at the time, as the position had been left vacant during the Bush years, leaving the U.S. without any way to influence the situation on the ground. And once more, the law of unintended consequences seems to come into play now, in a way somewhat reminiscent of the blowback caused Brzezinski’s actions during the Carter administration.[8]

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[1] Luke Harding and Martin Chulov, “Moaz al-Khatib: ex-imam charged with uniting Syria’s opposition” The Guardian (13 November 2012). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/12/moaz-al-khatib-syria-opposition.

[2] Luke Harding and Martin Chulov, “Moaz al-Khatib: ex-imam charged with uniting Syria’s opposition”.

[3] Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib” VoltaireNet (23 November 2012). http://www.voltairenet.org/article176707.html.

[4] Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib”.

[5] Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib”.

[6] Cfr. Thierry Meyssan, “The many faces of Sheikh Ahmad Moaz Al-Khatib”.

[7] Abby Philips, “Ford in spotlight amid Syria revolt” Politico (25 April 2011). http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0411/a_useful_guy_528d2a43-3845-42b3-a9d1-c07b41fbf2fb.html.

[8] Cfr. C. Erimtan, “The War in Afghanistan: The legacy of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Volatile Situation in Pakistan” Today’s Zaman (07 October 2010). http://tiny.cc/7gsi2.