CIA reaches out to Muslims

Dinner in Dearborn will come on 'wrong night' amid Ramadan

Paul Egan / The Detroit News

Dearborn -- CIA Director Leon Panetta plans to visit Dearborn on Sept. 16 for an invitation-only dinner and speech with 150 leaders of the Arab and Muslim communities, officials confirmed Tuesday.
The visit comes amid an unprecedented outreach effort by the Central Intelligence Agency and as Panetta seeks to double the number of CIA analysts who are proficient in Arabic and other Mideast languages.
But the date chosen for the meeting -- the 27th night of Ramadan or "night of power," when many devout Muslims and imams spend the entire night worshiping in the mosque -- is drawing criticism.

"They picked the entirely wrong night on this," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "This is our leading intelligence agency who doesn't know this."
Imad Hamad, regional director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Dearborn, acknowledged the sensitivity of the night but said he and other community leaders, not the CIA, should take any blame because the agency consulted with the community before choosing the date. [the community does deserve blame because it should have scheduled the CIA visit a week later, on Eid, a joyous celebration during which sacrifices are made to whomever you worship.]
"It's a simple miscall," said Hamad, who added that most Muslims would break their fast before going to the mosque on the night of power. [If the CIA wants us to skip prayer on the night of power, surely God will understand]
Once among the most secret of agencies, the CIA has been setting up booths at events in Dearborn and Detroit and spending tens of thousands of dollars annually sponsoring galas and other events and scholarships. CIA spokesman George Little said Tuesday the agency's outreach to "first- and second-generation Americans" in Dearborn and elsewhere began about five years ago.
"These individuals have the kinds of skills, knowledge and experiences that can strongly advance our vital intelligence mission and protect the nation's security," Little said. "The number of job applications from the Detroit area has risen steadily over that time period."
The CIA was a platinum sponsor -- representing a contribution of at least $10,000 -- to the ADC's 29th annual fundraising gala in December, according to the committee's Web site. The CIA also contributes about $10,000 to the annual gala of the Arab American and Chaldean Council, said Executive Director Radwan Khoury. The agency also is a sponsor of the Arab International Festival and the Arab American Scholarship Foundation, according to the Web site of the American Arab Chamber of Commerce and Hamad.
In March, the CIA hosted an appreciation dinner for leaders of the Arab American and Chaldean communities at the Westin Hotel in Southfield. Top CIA officials, but not the director, attended.
Osama Siblani, publisher of the Arab American News, said the CIA also spends money on image and recruitment advertisements in his newspaper. [and boasting about it]
"I don't know that they're recruiting people, but I know that they're making a great effort," Siblani said.
Walid said his organization has never sought sponsorship money from the CIA and would not accept it. "We would lose our credibility as an advocacy agency," he said. "We've criticized openly some of the tactics of the CIA, particularly under the previous administration."
Hamad said the CIA's outreach shows his community is as valued and as American as apple pie. ["and as Israeli as falafel"]
"We'd rather have the CIA, like the FBI or other government agencies, do their work in the open," he said. "The CIA did its job years and years ago, and we didn't meet any of them one to one." [did you get that, Lynndie? Torture Iraqis on an outdoor plaza in downtown Dearborn, not behind the walls of Abu Ghraib]

Labels: Islam, Khawla, quislings, religion

Labels: Israel, Khawla, politics, Zionism

Check this out:



The video speaks for itself.

Translation of the background song, Ah Ya Arab (Oh, Arabs) by Kathim Al-Sahir:
My Arab brother
I am bewildered
What changed the revolutionaries' sword into a cane?
What changed the Arabic tongue into a wooden tongue?
Oh, my people
Oh, Iraq
We didn't sell out Arabs even during the worst of calamities
Hello brothers
Hello friends
The truth is the antidote for crying
We have no bread or medicine
We're hungry and wounded
But we carry our wound with the patience of prophets
Praise be to God
Who honored us with a test of patience in these times of hypocrisy
Thank God always
Inform the United Nations, they might hear me
Convey the voice of love
The voice of my father as he prays
The blood of Iraq's children is in Al-Amriyah Grave
Sleep my dear ones, may your sleep be peaceful

Labels: Iraq, Khawla, resistance

You have better chances of getting justice if you're a dog in America than if you're a human being in Iraq.

US Marine Acquited of all Charges in Haditha Killings

"Lieutenant Andrew Grayson, 27, was declared "not guilty on all charges" by a jury"

"Grayson was the first Marine to stand trial in connection with the killings of 24 men, women and children in Haditha, the most serious war crime allegations leveled at US forces since the 2003 invasion to topple Saddam Hussein."

"In a three-hour shooting spree, they say, the soldiers shot five passengers of an approaching taxi and killed 10 women and children at point blank range, among others."

On the other hand, the more important victims:

Animal Abuse Charges Filed

"Faribault County animal control officer Todd Heenan ... adds reports of animal abuse are taken seriously when they are received."We will prosecute. It's something that has to be dealt with. We don't take it lightly," says Heenan."

"The neglect of an animal resulting in death charge carries a maximum sentence of two years and a $5,000 fine. The other charges each has a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $3,000 fine.In March, Richard Niebuhr of Wells was sentenced after video showed a dog on Larsen's property being shot at and injured. The dog recovered from the injuries. Niebuhr was sentenced to a year in jail, but only had to serve 30 days. He also was fined $1,000."

Labels: crime, Iraq, Khawla

How much courage does it take to provide translation and psychological services to Arab immigrants? "Courage" in light of two Arab countries' occupations, I imagine, would involve politically organizing Arabs to express their outrage and end the occupations. This Florence Nightingale-type work of dispensing social services is called "generous" or "sweet" or "socially dedicated" not "courageous".

Today "Arab-American courage" means having the bravery to check "Arab" on the census, buying hummus using a credit card and hanging an Arab flag from your rearview mirror.

That's what happens when you reduce our cause, our pain and our struggle to a cultural circus. I went to a Kathim Al-Sahir concert in 2006 and saw dozens of Iraqi flags in the audience. I was like, why didn't I see you people and your flags protesting when over a million of our people were massacred, when soldiers defiled our humanity in Abu Ghraib, when the world's only superpower demolished our children's dreams, when the uncivilized terrorized the cradle of civilization. At best, Arab-Americans were watching aljazeera and at worst they were holding wedding-like celebrations in the streets. That's what Arab-Americans were doing while the Arab world was mourning the occupation of Baghdad on April 9, 2003 and flattened Falluja in April and November 2004 and ... you know the rest of the list.

Labels: Iraq, Khawla

Professor As'ad Abu Khalil of California State University translated Iraqi poet Badr Shaker Al-Sayyab's poem about quislings, which Al-Sayyab described as invaders' shoe shiners.

The following actions probably don't rise to quisling-type behavior, treason or selling out, but still demonstrate a low level of self-respect.

1. The University of Michigan's Muslim Students Association is collaborating (no pun intended) with Hillel to help out Katrina victims. If the MSA wants to help out the displaced of Katrina, couldn't it find a more qualified partner than an organization that supports the displacement of Palestinians?
2. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee collaborated (again, pun unintended) with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on February 12, 2008 to host a panel on dispelling myths and stereotypes in the Arab and Muslim communities at Lawrence Technological University in Southfield. The panel included an ADC board member. The discussion focused on the demographics of local Arab and Muslim-American communities, and the issues that have affected these communities since 9/11. If the ADC has no idea what the ADL is about, it isn't qualified to do civil rights advocacy on behalf of Arabs. I couldn't find a website that stated this, but it was in an ADC-Michigan email sent out on February 13, 2008.

I'm all for helping out displaced people and exposing racist stereotypes, but not with the wolves who advocate displacement and spread stereotypes in the first place. Collaborating with those who caused your misery is immoral, self-defeating and stupid:

Sunni Militia Ends Cooperation with U.S. over Civilian Deaths
In Iraq, a U.S.-allied militia staged a massive walkout from its guard posts this weekend in protest of U.S. attacks that have killed twelve civilians this month. Members of the group, known as Sons of Iraq, are paid ten dollars a day and issued military vests to fight alongside U.S. forces. But nearly two thousand members abandoned their positions Saturday following a U.S. attack on a town south of Baghdad the day before. Militia members say U.S. forces deliberately opened fire after landing in a helicopter. The group says they will no longer work with the U.S. military.

Labels: Iraq, Khawla, quislings

Tariq Ali recently submitted an article to CounterPunch in which he announced that he would be boycotting the Turin Book Fair.

Fair enough. But why is the disclaimer that he supports "Israel's right to exist" necessary? To avoid anti-semitism accusations? If anti-Zionism is necessarily anti-Semitism, and pro-Zionism is necessarily pro-Semitism, how could one possibly be pro-Semitic before Theodore Herzl was born? Why support the right of a racist, colonial state to exist on stolen land, Mr. Ali? Zionism is racism according to its own founders' words, like Valdimir Jabotinsky:

"[T]he preservation of national integrity is impossible except by means of racial purity and for that purpose we shall have this territory where our people will constitute the racially pure inhabitants"

and

"It matters not what kind of words we use to explain our colonization. Colonization has its own integral and inescapable meaning understood by every Jew and by every Arab. Colonization has only one goal. This is in the nature of things. To change that nature is impossible. It has been necessary to carry on colonization against the will of the Palestinian Arabs and the same condition exists now. ... All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the will of the native population. Therefore, it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the local population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy."

And: “We must expel Arabs and take their places." David Ben Gurion, future Prime Minister of Israel, 1937, Ben Gurion and the Palestine Arabs, Oxford University Press, 1985.

And: "Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.

The quotes are numerous, but you get the picture.

Also, Tariq's reasoning for boycotting the book fair, while partially useful, is nevertheless flawed. "So why did the Turin Book Fair not invite Palestinians in equal numbers? 30 Israeli writers and 30 Palestinian writers (and I promise you they exist and are very fine poets and novelists) might have been seen as a positive and peaceful gesture and a positive debate might have taken place."

Someone at the level of Ali's political activism ought to know of the call to boycott, divest and place sanctions on Israel. This includes cultural and academic boycott.

If the book fair had invited 30 KKK writers, would Ali have been content with the invitation of 30 African-American writers? Isn't it necessary to disinvite the KKK (and Israeli) writers?

Thank God Palestinians (and others who suffer from and resist Zionism like the Lebanese and Iraqis) aren't holding their breath for Tariq Ali to disprove of Zionism before standing up for themselves.

-K

Labels: Israel, Khawla, race, Zionism

VFP Dissident was kind enough to invite me to contribute to this blog. Like many, I'm incensed by what's going on towards my sisters and brothers in places under the heel of US and Israeli oppression. This will be my little corner on the internet to rant about it.

My inspiration for this name: a courageous Arab woman who embraced Islam in its early days, Khawla was a knight and poet. She earned a "reputation of immense bravery, and her legendary personna is still well remembered in Arabia up to this day."

And who said Islam oppresses women?

Labels: Islam, Khawla, resistance

Labels: Iraq, Khawla, War