Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
US influence on Islam, present and future
www.usnews.com
Hearts, Minds, and Dollars
In an Unseen Front in the War on Terrorism, America is Spending Millions...To Change the Very Face of Islam
By David E. Kaplan
As war games go, this one was unique: the first-ever exercise on "strategic communications," its sponsors said. It was July 2003, and the government's leading players in winning the "war of ideas" against terrorism had gathered at National Defense University, in Washington, D.C. There were crisis managers from the White House, diplomats from the State Department, Pentagon specialists in psyops--psychological operations. Washington's quick victory over Saddam Hussein's Army that spring had done little to quell surging anti-Americanism overseas. Across the Muslim world--including U.S. allies like Indonesia and Jordan--polls showed Osama bin Laden a more trusted figure than George W. Bush
The war game used an all-too-real scenario: As violent anti-American protests rocked a host of Muslim countries, pro-democracy students were being murdered in Iran while terrorists in Iraq were being hailed as patriots. The job for the government's top information warriors was daunting: improve the image of America in the Muslim world and help foster a stable democracy in Iraq. Halfway through the exercise, however, the war game was abruptly stopped. "Things were so dysfunctional," recalls one participant, "we saw little point in playing through the scenario."
The problems, others said, were a mirror of what a dozen studies say has gone wrong in what may be the most critical front in the war on terrorism today--the battle for hearts and minds: no one in charge, no national strategy, and a glaring lack of resources. From the CIA to the State Department, America's once formidable means of influencing its enemies and telling its story abroad had crumbled, along with the fall of communism. "In the battle of ideas," said Marc Ginsberg, a former ambassador to Morocco, "we unilaterally disarmed."
"Radioactive." No more. Today, Washington is fighting back. After repeated missteps since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government has embarked on a campaign of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War. From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is plowing tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to influence not only Muslim societies but Islam itself. The previously undisclosed effort was identified in the course of a four-month U.S. News investigation, based on more than 100 interviews and a review of a dozen internal reports and memorandums. Although U.S. officials say they are wary of being drawn into a theological battle, many have concluded that America can no longer sit on the sidelines as radicals and moderates fight over the future of a politicized religion with over a billion followers. The result has been an extraordinary--and growing--effort to influence what officials describe as an Islamic reformation.
Among the magazine's findings:
The White House has approved a classified new strategy, dubbed Muslim World Outreach, that for the first time states that the United States has a national security interest in influencing what happens within Islam. Because America is, as one official put it, "radioactive" in the Islamic world, the plan calls for working through third parties--moderate Muslim nations, foundations, and reform groups--to promote shared values of democracy, women's rights, and tolerance.
thats page 1 of 10, i won't post them all, from US news and world report, a conservative rag, with a pro-israel bias like few othes.
Hearts, Minds, and Dollars
In an Unseen Front in the War on Terrorism, America is Spending Millions...To Change the Very Face of Islam
By David E. Kaplan
As war games go, this one was unique: the first-ever exercise on "strategic communications," its sponsors said. It was July 2003, and the government's leading players in winning the "war of ideas" against terrorism had gathered at National Defense University, in Washington, D.C. There were crisis managers from the White House, diplomats from the State Department, Pentagon specialists in psyops--psychological operations. Washington's quick victory over Saddam Hussein's Army that spring had done little to quell surging anti-Americanism overseas. Across the Muslim world--including U.S. allies like Indonesia and Jordan--polls showed Osama bin Laden a more trusted figure than George W. Bush
The war game used an all-too-real scenario: As violent anti-American protests rocked a host of Muslim countries, pro-democracy students were being murdered in Iran while terrorists in Iraq were being hailed as patriots. The job for the government's top information warriors was daunting: improve the image of America in the Muslim world and help foster a stable democracy in Iraq. Halfway through the exercise, however, the war game was abruptly stopped. "Things were so dysfunctional," recalls one participant, "we saw little point in playing through the scenario."
The problems, others said, were a mirror of what a dozen studies say has gone wrong in what may be the most critical front in the war on terrorism today--the battle for hearts and minds: no one in charge, no national strategy, and a glaring lack of resources. From the CIA to the State Department, America's once formidable means of influencing its enemies and telling its story abroad had crumbled, along with the fall of communism. "In the battle of ideas," said Marc Ginsberg, a former ambassador to Morocco, "we unilaterally disarmed."
"Radioactive." No more. Today, Washington is fighting back. After repeated missteps since the 9/11 attacks, the U.S. government has embarked on a campaign of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War. From military psychological-operations teams and CIA covert operatives to openly funded media and think tanks, Washington is plowing tens of millions of dollars into a campaign to influence not only Muslim societies but Islam itself. The previously undisclosed effort was identified in the course of a four-month U.S. News investigation, based on more than 100 interviews and a review of a dozen internal reports and memorandums. Although U.S. officials say they are wary of being drawn into a theological battle, many have concluded that America can no longer sit on the sidelines as radicals and moderates fight over the future of a politicized religion with over a billion followers. The result has been an extraordinary--and growing--effort to influence what officials describe as an Islamic reformation.
Among the magazine's findings:
The White House has approved a classified new strategy, dubbed Muslim World Outreach, that for the first time states that the United States has a national security interest in influencing what happens within Islam. Because America is, as one official put it, "radioactive" in the Islamic world, the plan calls for working through third parties--moderate Muslim nations, foundations, and reform groups--to promote shared values of democracy, women's rights, and tolerance.
thats page 1 of 10, i won't post them all, from US news and world report, a conservative rag, with a pro-israel bias like few othes.
Comments on this journal
The Evildoers Do Super Mario Bros.
The War on Terror's least-frightening video games.
By Chris Suellentrop
Posted Friday, Aug. 12, 2005, at 10:15 AM PT
For three days this week, the Washington Post described the technological sophistication of our enemy in the Global Tussle Against Those Way-Out-There Fellas. "l Qaeda, led by educated and privileged gadget hounds, adapted early and enthusiastically to the technologies of globalization," Steve Coll and Susan B. Glasser wrote in the first of three terrific "e-Qaeda" stories. Osama Bin Laden was an early adopter of satellite phones. His followers make videos with handheld cameras. And his sons play video games.
Coll and Glasser don't say what games the Bin Ladens Jr. play (or if they use an "Iced Coffee" mod to add burqas to the women of Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas). The world's jihadist gamers do have several titles to choose from. Hezbollah produced a game called Special Force that allows players to simulate attacks against Israeli troops. The pro-Palestinian Under Siege is in the same genre. And there is at least one children's game with some jihadi content: Innovative Minds' Islamic Fun features a game called "The Resistance" alongside inoffensive-sounding kiddie fare like "Tree Hop" and "Two Bunny Race." The storyline: "You are a farmer in South Lebanon who has joined the Islamic Resistance to defend your land and family from the invading zionists."
Games like these, created in reaction to the many popular titles that let you play U.S. soldiers, center on Arab conflicts with Israel. But last month, news reports suggested that the jihadi-gaming trend had gone a step further, into video games that portray al-Qaida's worldwide war against the West. The Wall Street Journal cited Islamic video games as a potential connection between al-Qaida and the July 7 London bombings. The newspaper noted ominously in two separate stories that the suspected bombers frequented the Iqra Learning Centre, a bookstore that claims to be "the sole distributor for Islamgames, a U.S. company that made video games featuring apocalyptic battles between defenders of Islam and their opponents." New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman flagged the Journal reports and quoted this tidbit: "One game, 'Ummah Defense I,' has the world 'finally united under the Banner of Islam' in 2114, until a revolt by disbelievers. The player's goal is to seek out and destroy the disbelievers."
Friedman fretted that the United States is losing the "war of ideas within Islam" and strongly implied that IslamGames' products helped turn "one of the world's great religions into a death cult." To those who scoff, he warned: "Video games matter."
In order to evaluate the games' subversive appeal, Slate ordered three IslamGames titles?Maze of Destiny, Ummah Defense I, and Ummah Defense II?from a British Web site. Iran may be 10 years from the bomb, but based on these games it will be twice that long before there's an Islamic Halo 2. Or maybe radical Islam dreams not only of restoring the borders of the Caliphate, but also of freezing gaming technology at the level of the old Nintendo Entertainment System.
In Ummah Defense I, the game cited by the Wall Street Journal and Friedman, you fly a spaceship and shoot down a fleet of attacking robots. The vertically scrolling game play resembles a less sophisticated 1941 crossed with Galaga. Ummah Defense II flashes forward to 2214 and places you in the role of a man who looks like Robocop. Your task: Destroy yet another robot army, this one made up of a legion of rolling, turtlelike machines. A 2-D platformer, it's pretty much Super Mario Bros.?Super Mullah Bros.??with a laser gun. (Only much, much less fun than that sounds.)
Maze of Destiny is a tiny bit more sophisticated. Its closest cousins are probably The Legend of Zelda and the NES version of Gauntlet. You're an anonymous boy in a white turban and blue tunic whose goal is to rescue the opening chapter of the Quran from the clutches of Darlak the Deceiver. Players must gather giant keys to open doors, set bombs to open secret passageways, and endure a soundtrack that sounds like a prefab mix from an old Casio keyboard. Along the way, you are instructed in the ways in which the evil Darlak departs from Islamic teaching.
The fact that these games are derivative, look primitive, and aren't very fun to play doesn't mean they're not important. But they're also ideologically untroubling. In the Ummah Defense games, the "disbelievers" that must be destroyed are robots, not human soldiers. There's an outside chance that the robots are a metaphor for the Predator drones used by the United States military, but I doubt these games are going for that level of subtlety. It's more likely that the robots are a metaphor for Space Invaders.
If you ignore the titles of the Ummah Defense games and the occasional in-game messages?"Alhamdulillah, You Destroyed the Command Ship!"?it's impossible to tell that you're playing an "Islamic game." When I destroyed the third of the four command ships controlling the "Flying Evil Robot Armada" in the first Ummah Defense, I didn't ruminate on whether my real-life allegiance should be with the robots. I just thought, only one more ship to go!
The action in Maze of Destiny is more clearly Islamic in nature, as you go about collecting Arabic letters and learning from Quranic experts. But the obstacles in your path are dogs, scorpions, and guards who wear Viking helmets and carry pikes. My conscience didn't flinch when I slew a couple with my scimitar. The game's connection to political Islam is tenuous at best.
Granted, you could argue that Maze of Destiny's Darlak is a stand-in for the West. According to the game's instruction manual, he initially appears as a friend. He divides Muslims by emphasizing their "small disputes." He studies "our great traditions of mathematics, science, history and even our moral teachings, but he use all his knowledge to serve himself instead of His Creator." He plies the people with "lcohol, drugs, prostitution, gambling ? you name it."
But Darlak is more likely a proxy for the secular world as a whole. Some Christian groups produce their own games to compete with what they see as debased mainstream products. Maze of Destiny, with its religious lessons, seems to fit in this tradition. It's certainly a world apart from games that let you shoot Israeli soldiers. (Though, if Steven Johnson's thesis is right, games like Special Force and Under Siege would reduce jihadi violence rather than encourage it.)
I wasn't able to conquer Maze of Destiny's 20-plus levels in a couple days' time. Maybe there are cheat codes that unlock a 72-virgin afterlife. And it's possible that, in the end, Darlak unmasks himself to reveal the visage of George W. Bush. The instruction booklet, however, informs us otherwise: "Although he appears most commonly as a wizard, it is rumored that his true form is that of a horrible squid-like creature, with one eye." (Bush has two eyes, and if you're going to reverse-anthropomorphize him, you'd make him a chimp, not a squid.)
Tom Friedman is right: We're in a war of ideas. In that war, it's a bad idea for a prominent American columnist to panic over innocent games with an Islamic theme. Video games do matter. Just not the ones from IslamGames. As Ummah Defense I would put it, "Subhanallah, Try Again!"
Chris Suellentrop, now a freelance writer in Washington, D.C., was Slate's 2004 campaign correspondent.
Article URL: www.slate.com
***
The Fairbanks Republican Women Federated Board
supports this event and encourages all its members to attend
this most important and timely program
The Defense of Our Nation
Begins at Our Borders
SENATOR BILL MORROW
invites you to a
Public Forum
For a frank discussion on how Illegal Immigration affects
Health Care, Homeland Security, Education, Economy & the Environment
with
CONGRESSMAN TOM TANCREDO
Chairman, Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus
James W. Gilchrist
Founder, MinuteMan Project
Dr. Madeleine Cosman, Esq.
Pulitzer Prize Nominee, Medical Lawyer & Health Care Expert
Pete Nu?ez
Former Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, U.S. Attorney
with
Roger Hedgecock, Emcee
Thursday, August 11, 2005
7 ? 9 pm
Carlsbad Community Cultural Arts Center
3557 Monroe St., Carlsbad 92008
For information, call: 760.434.7930
Directions: From the I-5, exit Carlsbad Village Dr. & head east. Right onto Monroe St.
(On the campus of Carlsbad High School)
www.aaiusa.org
BLITZER: Hold on one second, Congressman. For our viewers who don't know what Jim Zogby is referring to, tell them what you said and what you meant.
TANCREDO: I was asked during a course of a radio interview -- I was asked what we would do if one or more of -- if one or more nuclear devices were detonated in the United States killing millions of people and that the perpetrators were determined to be fundamentalist Islamic terrorists.
And I said one of the things we should of course think about first is how to prevent it. And that might be a threat, and that threat might include, in fact, bombing holy sites, if they were to do that.
Now, I put it out there as just as I have said here. Now, I never said, "We should go and bomb holy sites." That's the way, of course, it's been reported around the world. But as a threat, who knows whether or not that would actually do what we hope it would do and deter somebody and actually get the Muslim world, the rational, true Muslim world, to do something to corral the people who are as much a threat to them as they are to us?
I certainly do not apologize for that. And just because Mr. Zogby takes issue with it, I will tell you that a great number of people throughout the world from which we have heard do not take issue with it, and in fact, have sent us kudos.
ZOGBY: Well, the State Department's taken issues...
TANCREDO: Oh, my God, the State Department didn't like it? Oh, then I'd better reconsider.
(CROSSTALK)
ZOGBY: And several governments that are very close to the United States have taken issue with it. And I think that several of your colleagues, who I've spoken with, are also scratching their heads wondering what was going on.
TANCREDO: Several of my colleagues have come to my defense, including the Democratic senator from my state. So don't try to portray this as just a one-way thing that I said something that the world is reacting negatively to.
Now, certainly some people are, but a lot of people aren't. And you know what? Sometimes we need to say things that need to be said.
ZOGBY: Like bombing Mecca?
TANCREDO: I didn't say to bomb Mecca. You know, you're the problem. You actually create the problem when you say it that way.
I didn't say to do it. I said that we may use that as a threat. That is a threat. It is not the reality.
BLITZER: Here's the way it was...
TANCREDO: We're not supposed to do it.
BLITZER: We're almost out of time, Congressman. I'll just read to you the way it was reported. You made a statement that went like this.
"If this happens in the United States," -- referring to a major terror attack along the lines that you described -- "and we determine that it is the result of extremist fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites." And then the interviewer said, "You're talking about bombing Mecca?" And you said, "Yes."
TANCREDO: That is correct. But you have to preface it with, of course, my comments before we ever got there. When he asked me about it originally, and right before what you just read, I said, "Well, you have to think of, what would be a deterrent, a deterrent?" So not as something that you would do.
ZOGBY: Congressman, there's no proportionality to bombing the holiest site to a billion-and-a-half people. There's no...
TANCREDO: OK, you're talking about a threat -- I was responding to a threat of killing millions of Americans, a threat that was voiced by a representative of al Qaeda who says the next device -- I mean, the next attack on America, he said they want to take out 4 million Americans, 2 million children.
Let me tell you, I get upset by that. I get insulted by it. And so don't give me this proportionality. You try to kill me and my family and the rest of -- and take out most of America, I'm going to be upset.
(CROSSTALK)
ZOGBY: I grew up with that mind-set in my neighborhood, but I grew up. And the fact is, is that...
TANCREDO: Well, no, you haven't, Jim. No, you haven't, not yet. But there is hope for you.
(CROSSTALK)
ZOGBY: The fact is, sir, that you are a congressman. And when you speak, you speak with authority. And people listen to you.
TANCREDO: Jim, there is hope that you will grow up.
ZOGBY: And my fear is, is that your words have consequences, and they're incitement.
TANCREDO: I hope so.
ZOGBY: They're incitements. And they play badly around the world.
TANCREDO: I hope they have consequences. I hope people will talk about it. It's fine.
ZOGBY: And they fed bigotry here at home.
TANCREDO: So what if it plays badly? I am not here to make sure that the spin on what I say works out well, whether it's in my own district or around the world. I'm here to say what believe is true and what I think we should do to protect this nation.
And I am -- yes, I was called a fanatic. Well, you know what, about the security of this nation, I am.
ZOGBY: I think you've put our nation at risk is the point, sir.
TANCREDO: Well, I think I have made it a safer place. So there you are.
BLITZER: I think we're all out of time. But a very quick question for you, Congressman Tancredo. There's a lot of speculation you're thinking of running for president in 2008. How close are you to making that decision?
TANCREDO: A long way, a long way. As I've said a million times, the issue that has put me into the primary states recently is immigration reform. If I can -- if there is a candidate that will take up that mantle, and that banner, and speak to the issue both with heart and, as well as with their lips, I don't have to do it. If no one does it, yes, I will.
BLITZER: All right, Congressman Tancredo.
TANCREDO: I look to Jim to do my P.R.
(LAUGHTER)
BLITZER: We'll look for you both to keep joining us on our program to have these discussions.
ZOGBY: Oh, lord.
BLITZER: Jim Zogby, you wanted to say one quick thing.
ZOGBY: Well, actually I do. I mean, he'll feed into the kind of hate. What I've seen the response that he's gotten from his comments has been hate comments. And I guess there is a constituency out there that wants that. But I fear that it does not represent the best of the American people.
TANCREDO: Well, we have a difference of opinion. And that's the way it's got to be. Because this is, after all, America, and we're going to try to keep it that way.
BLITZER: All right. Gentlemen, a good, serious debate. We'll continue down the road. Thanks to both of you, Congressman Tancredo, Jim Zogby, as usual, thanks to you.
ZOGBY: Thank you.
Don't miss AAI President James Zogby debate Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) tonight on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports" airing 5-6 PM. Zogby and Tancredo will discuss the Congressman's recent inflammatory remarks about "taking out" Islamic Holy sites, including bombing Mecca, as well as racial profiling.
AAI is still waiting for Congressman Tancredo to apologize for his irresponsible language.
Arab Americans Call on Tancredo to Apologize for Inflammatory Remarks
Lawmaker Threatens to "take out" Mecca
Washington DC- The Arab American Institute calls on Congressman Thomas Tancredo (R-CO) to apologize immediately for his recent remarks suggesting the United States could "take out" Islamic Holy sites, including Mecca, as a response to a terrorist attack in the United States.
"Congressman Tancredo's remarks are dangerous and not befitting a member of Congress," said AAI President James Zogby. "This kind of speech from an elected official is harmful to the war on terror and does not represent the sentiments of the American people. Irresponsible language such as this only widens the gap between the US and the Arab and Muslim world. Tancredo should apologize immediately."
"We have an enemy with no uniform, no state, who looks like you and me and only emerges right before an attack. How do we go after someone like that?" Adams said.
"What is near and dear to them? They're willing to sacrifice everything in this world for the next one. What is the pressure point that would deter them from their murderous impulses?" he said.
He defiantly doesn?t represent the majority of Americans and what he said is so radical and hatful. How in the world did he get to be a Congressman and talk stupid like that!
CONTACT CONGRESSMAN TANCREDO ABOUT HIS COMMENTS ON ISLAM TODAY!
CONGRESSMAN TANCREDO ADVOCATES PREEMPTIVE STRIKE ON MECCA
TAKE ACTION!
In a radio interview last Thursday, July 14, Congressman Tom
Tancredo (R-CO) advocated the United States preemptively strike
Mecca with nuclear weapons. The Colorado Congressman made his
comments on the Pat Campbell Radio Show (AM 540) in response to a
hypothetical scenario in which the United States might face the
threat of multiple attacks by Muslim groups advocating extremist
views. Tancredo suggested that a preemptive attack on Mecca would be
enough of a threat to make terrorists think twice about attacking
the United States again.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is alarmed at
Congressman Tancredo's comments advocating an attack on Mecca. It is
irresponsible for a member of the United States Congress to advocate
destroying the holy site of the world's 1.2 billion Muslims. For
good reason members of Congress and the Administration have
expressed deep concern at the negative effects of hateful rhetoric
directed against the United States in some elements of the Arab and
Muslim worlds. But we must also be keenly aware of the damaging and
irrational rhetoric against Arabs and Islam expressed by members of
Congress, the Administration, and the media.
Statements by members of Congress, just like the legislation they
pass, are closely followed around the world. Tancredo's remarks will
be widely distributed by media outlets throughout the world and will
be seen as representative of the views of the United States
government. At a time when the United States is asking religious
tolerance of others shouldn't others expect the same from the United
States?
In a letter faxed to Congressman Tancredo today, former
congresswoman Mary Rose Oakar, ADC President said, "While we must
do all that we can to find terrorists and end their means to strike
again, suggesting the potential utility of an attack against a holy
place revered by the world's 1.2 billion followers of Islam is
completely unacceptable and contrary to American values and
tradition of freedom and tolerance of religion." Oakar said, "These
remarks have no place in the United States Congress."
ADC demands Congressman Tancredo provide an immediate and public
explanation and apology for his remarks. We urge ADC members,
supporters, and friends to contact the congressman and request a
clarification and apology. Additionally, ADC asks Members of
Congress and the Bush Administration to denounce Congressman
Tancredo's comments.
Congressman Tancredo can be reached at:
Washington Office-
1130 Longworth HOB
Washington, DC 20515-0606
Phone 202.225.7882
FAX: 202-226-4623
Website: tancredo.house.gov
___________________________________ ______________________________
(i'm taking the term fundamentalist back. it's the people who stick to the truth of the deen, (5 pillars, Qur'an) and don't make up beurocratic stuff as they go along (beard this long. women not allowed out of house, voting is haram etc.) .
afther thinking about it... not so much. a support for the liberal, moderate and progressive muslim movements in the world is what we've needed for a long long time. I won't pretend the US is being benevolent or altruistic about this. I know they are doing it to weaken their oposition to crush them, but this is something Muslim groups there can't do, they can't contend with the Monarchs and Authoritarain rulers of all classes, the state is too strong and restricts their freedoms too much to get their stuff off the ground. This would back them, bring their movemnts to the front and give them a fighting chance. so with hesitancy, and caution, i say, this is good. what do you all think?