Story of the three stooges

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury

 

The world should feel extremely uncomfortable and angry at the notorious activities of three stooges of present day’s world, who are trying to do everything to defend terrorism and Islamist militancy. One is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; others are Bangladeshi foreign minister Morshed Khan and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad.

In recent weeks, Israeli forces were compelled to launch offensives on Lebanon to crash several bases of mega terrorist organization Hizbullah, since this notorious group captured two Israeli soldiers. It is known to the world that Hizbullah continues to get support and patronization from Lebanon, Syria and Iran. These three countries have already turned into a direct enemy of humanity and obstacle to the theme of war on terror.

Meanwhile, for the first time, the entire Muslim world, including Saudi Arabia criticized Hizbullah’s notoriety, while only two countries namely Iran and Syria as well one man, Bangladeshi foreign minister Morshed Khan passed bad comments on anti-Hizbullah offensives. Commenting on Hizbullah, a unnamed Saudi Government official said, "Viewing with deep concern the bloody, painful events currently taking place in Palestine and Lebanon, the Kingdom would like to clearly announce that a difference should be drawn between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures carried out by elements inside the state and those behind them without consultation with the legitimate authority in their State and without consultation or coordination with Arab countries, thus creating a gravely dangerous situation exposing all Arab countries and their achievement to destruction with those countries having no say. The Kingdom views that it is time that these elements alone bear the full responsibility of these irresponsible acts and should alone shoulder the burden of ending the crisis they have created. . . . The Kingdom will continually seek security and stability in the region, exerting every possible effort to protect the Arab Nation from Israeli oppression and transgression."

Saudi Arabia had earlier accused the Shiite Hezbollah group, without naming it, for what it said was its 'uncalculated adventures' that threaten the 'destruction of the achievements' of other Arab countries without consulting them.

United Arab Emirates leading newspaper al-Ittihad published a commentary of Yusuf Ibrahim, where he wrote, "We have seen this film before and accordingly we can expect its end. It is not important how many times a film is shown as long as the end is the same. It means destruction, misery and evacuation of homes for the Lebanese and Palestinians. . . . In fact, we will be actually irresponsible if we do not stop and think for a moment. Over more than 15 years, Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, has kept saying that he is keen on consulting Damascus and Tehran, but this makes one wonder about the reasons that made the leader of Hezbollah refrain from consulting the government of his own country, Lebanon."

Lebanese politician Walid Jumblatt said, "The war is no longer Lebanon's . . . it is an Iranian war. . . . Iran is telling the United States: You want to fight me in the Gulf and destroy my nuclear programme? I will hit you at home, in Israel."

Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak and Jordanian King Abdullah II in a Joint Statement said, "The region is being dragged along by an adventurism that does not serve the interests of Arab affairs. . . . The necessity for all the parties in the region is to act responsibly and not to move towards an escalation aimed at taking the region to a dangerous situation and confrontations that will leave the countries and their peoples bearing the consequences."

Ahmed Al-Jarallah, editor of Kuwait Arab Times said, "People of Arab countries, especially the Lebanese and Palestinians, have been held hostage for a long time in the name of 'resisting Israel.' . . . While the people of Palestine and Lebanon are paying the price of this bloody conflict, the main players, who caused this conflict, are living in peace and asking for more oil from Arab countries to support the facade of resisting Israel. . . . This war was inevitable as the Lebanese government couldn't bring Hezbollah within its authority and make it work for the interests of Lebanon. Similarly leader of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas has been unable to rein in the Hamas Movement. Unfortunately we must admit that in such a war the only way to get rid of 'these irregular phenomena' is what Israel is doing. The operations of Israel in Gaza and Lebanon are in the interest of people of Arab countries and the international community."

Bangladeshi foreign minister condemned the killing of civilians in Israeli attacks on Lebanon and urged the international community to rein in ‘state terrorism’ and ‘aggression’ by Israel against Lebanese and Palestinian people.
‘We are deeply concerned over the current situation in the Middle East. We feel the world community should come forward to restrain the state terrorism of Israeli aggression on Lebanon and the people of Palestine,” the foreign minister, M Morshed Khan, said when addressing members of the Overseas Correspondents Association of Bangladesh in Dhaka.
Morshed Khan also termed the recent attacks in Lebanon and Palestine by the Israeli soldiers an act of fundamentalism and religious terrorism.
He was critical of the double standard maintained by certain Western powers, which he said were patronizing the aggression.
‘Attacking Lebanon and killing innocent civilians… I think, it is a heinous act,’ Morshed Khan said.
Without naming the United States, he castigated its role in the aggression saying the ‘guardian of democracy’ should give up the strategy of maintaining double standard.
The White House administration has reportedly given Israel a tacit green signal to take a week it needs to neutralize Hezbollah.
The United Nations was drawing up a plan for an international force to try to restore clam in Lebanon, but the US president, George W Bush, who says Israel has the right to self defense, insisted that Hezbollah had to be reined in before there could be peace in the region.
The Europeans fear mounting civilian casualties will play into the hands of militants and weaken Lebanon’s democratically elected government.
Referring to the Middle East situation, Morshed Khan said Bangladesh fully supports the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, including their right to have a state of their own with Jerusalem as its capital.
‘Bangladesh maintains its principled stance for a comprehensive solution of the Palestinian question in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions, the Arab Peace Plan and the Road Map.’
He said Bangladesh remains committed to the cause of unity, peace and progress of the Muslim fraternity. ‘Our support for the cause of Palestine and for a peaceful and durable resolution of the Middle East problem including Arab sovereignty over Holy Jerusalem is an abiding commitment.’
Meanwhile, according to international press reports, Egypt persuaded Israel against a planned land attack on the Lebanese capital of Beirut following Hizbullah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers earlier this week, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said Sunday. The Egyptian leader also disclosed an Iranian offer to negotiate a settlement with Hizbullah as part of Arab initiatives to resolve the crisis, but called Tehran's bid "a trap."

Egypt was keen not to let the Israelis into Beirut," Mubarak told reporters Sunday after talks with the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayid al-Nuhayyan. "If we hadn't stepped in, Beirut would have been destroyed," Mubarak said.

Egyptian officials have been talking to the Israelis in a bid to find a diplomatic solution to the latest regional military confrontation, the Egyptian president said. "We are talking to them more than once a day," he said. "We told them that attacking civilians and civil infrastructure is wrong, because the Lebanese people are helpless."

Like regional heavyweight Saudi Arabia, Egypt has criticized Hizbullah for starting the latest Mideast crisis. Mubarak said he was also in contact with Syrian officials and that Tehran was interested in participating in Arab mediation efforts.

"They (the Iranians) want to attend the Arab foreign ministers meeting and form a joint committee that would have included Hizbullah and Hamas," he said. "Egypt realized that that was a trap."

Moderate Arab nations, such as Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and oil-rich countries in the Gulf have expressed fear that Iran is using its Lebanese Shiite allies to expand its regional influence. Meanwhile, Iran's top leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised Hizbullah Sunday and said it would not give up its weapons.

"Thanks to the power of Hizbullah, the Lebanese resistance has disturbed the dream of the Zionists," Khamenei said in a speech broadcast on state television. "The US President says Hizbullah must be disarmed. It's clear that (the US) and Zionists want this, but it won't happen," He said.

On Saturday, Israel said that 100 Iranian troops from the elite Revolutionary Guards were in Lebanon, and that they helped Hizbullah fire a sophisticated radar-guided missile at an Israeli warship blockading the Lebanese coast late Friday. Israel said the rocket was made in China and upgraded in Iran, and was a radar-guided C-802 missile. Iran on Sunday denied the Israeli claims.

Political analysts say that very surprisingly, Bangladesh foreign minister has echoed the voice of Ahmadinejad abd Bashar Al-Assad, which certainly will put his country into a very doubtful position. US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher is expected to arrive in Dhaka on August 2, and possibly Khan’s comments will also come into discussion table, as United States in one of the biggest development partners for Bangladesh as well a committed force in war on terror. Some of the political analysts are predicting a very dangerous fate for Dhaka waiting following the new strategy of the foreign minister. Dhaka will possibly see a good response from Iran and Syrian while will experience harsh criticism from the Western world as well many of the moderate Muslim nations.

Commenting on Morshed Khan’s statement, a former diplomat in Dhaka said, he knows nothing of diplomacy or world politics. He behaves like a clown. Bangladesh should have carefully monitored the entire situation in the Middle East as well the past track record of terrorism of Hizbullah, before terming Israeli actions as ‘state terrorism’. This will not only annoy the global powers but will also put Bangladesh into the worst ever situation, which will also hamper its business and exports in the near future, he said.

It is known to the world, notorious groups like Hizbullah, Hamas and Al-Qaeda are continuing murder of innocent people in the name of holy war. American writer Paul Shehaan narrates this situation in his own words saying, “When historians narrate the beginnings of the third global war, a war already under way with more than 200,000 killed, they may choose the moment on October 12, 2000, when a small fishing skiff sailed up to an American destroyer, the USS Cole, at anchor off Aden harbour in Yemen.

“As the skiff approached, the two Arabs on board smiled and waved at the sailors on deck. Then the two men stood to attention.

“In the next instant, the Cole was gutted by an enormous bomb. It liquefied the bombers, killed or wounded 56 sailors, and disabled a heavily armoured state-of-the-art warship. Other suicide bombs had exploded before, and many more since, but the attack on the Cole was the first frontal assault on the US military by al-Qaeda, and the emergence of al-Qaeda globalised and modernised the cause of jihad.

“War and murder have been carried out in the name of Allah in Thailand, Bali, Sumatra, the Philippines, Nigeria, Algeria, Somalia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Egypt, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Pakistan, India, Bosnia, Albania, Kenya, Tanzania, France, the Netherlands, Britain, Spain, Denmark, Russia, the United States and Sudan, where mass murder and mass rape have been the tools of cultural war.

“What makes this global war different from the First and Second World Wars is that there are tens of thousands of combatants who actually want to die, and in the process kill as many non-believers as possible. As the bombs, missiles and rockets have been exploding in Lebanon, Israel and Gaza, medievalists who are key drivers in this cultural struggle have been ecstatic. You can hear it in the rhetoric of Hezbollah's spiritual leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“Most disturbingly, jihad is being driven by three separate, distinct and often competing strands of Islam: Sunni, financed by the oil-powered Wahabist fundamentalists of Saudi Arabia, and dominated by the ideology of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden; Shiite, an extension of the theocracy of Iran, and highly active in Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and the Palestinian territories; and Pakistani Muslim nationalism, the wellspring of jihad in Kashmir, support for the Taliban, and terrorist attacks in India and Britain, with its large Pakistani emigre community.

“What these distinct mutations of Islam have in common is an appetite for war and murder and sexual oppression. It is no coincidence that the governments in all three of these wellsprings of jihad have weapons of mass destruction. Pakistan has the first "Islamic bomb", acquired through a campaign of theft, stealth and illegality. Saudi Arabia and Iran have a different kind of bomb - oil in immense and strategic quantities.

Iran, the prototype of the modern Islamic theocracy (which also wants the nuclear bomb to match and trump Israel's nuclear option), is stronger today than it was a week ago. It already wields disproportionate power in the Middle East through its proxies helping to tie down 150,000 US troops in Iraq, which is 60 per cent Shiite. Now, thanks to its proxies in Lebanon, Israel has been goaded into an attack on a democratic neighbour.

At the weekend, the foreign ministers from 18 Arab League nations held an emergency meeting in Cairo after which the Secretary-General of the League, Amr Moussa, declared that the Middle East peace process was "dead".

Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, said that Israel's "war machine" had turned his country into a "disaster zone".

Another victory for the provocateurs of Islamic fundamentalism. Every time chaos has engulfed the Middle East, militant Islam has emerged with greater power. Creating chaos is thus the modus operandi of jihadists.

Lebanon's newly reborn democracy and stability, after 20 years of civil war, has been the greatest act of national reconstruction in the Arab world, an enormous achievement. The Government in Beirut relies on a detente between former enemies, Christians, Sunnis, Shias and Druze, some 18 separate factions.

No one in this fragile democracy is willing or able to disarm the Hezbollah militia dominant in the Shiite south of Lebanon. Far more important has been the multibillion-dollar rebuilding of the economy.

The United Nations may have passed Resolution 1559 calling for the disarming of Lebanon's militias, but who in Lebanon would be willing to go into that hornet's nest? Who would be willing to plunge the nation into another civil war? By blaming the Lebanese Government for Hezbollah's actions, Israel has demanded the impossible from its neighbour.

Hezbollah has been thriving on chaos since it began in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion. When it launched its first major suicide attack in the region on April 18, 1983, killing 63 people at the US embassy in Beirut, it created the template for the borderless war we are part of, whether we want to be or not.

The only glimmer of good news at the weekend was the criticism of Hezbollah by the governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. And to put the current mayhem in perspective, the Cold War was waged for more than 50 years between democratic capitalism and totalitarianism, with nuclear weapons massed on either side. It was not a cold war for the tens of millions of people who died in purges within China and the Soviet Union, and in wars or civil wars in Vietnam, Korea, Latin America and Africa.

The Cold War ended with no nuclear weapons being used. But compared with medievalists waging jihad, the communist powers of the Soviet Union and China were prudent, rational players. In today's global struggle, the objective evidence is overwhelming that where militant Islam goes, bloodshed follows. In a whole range of different settings, for many adherents of Islam the Koran is not a book of peace but a call to war.”

Look at this comment! Just because of nasty activities of some notorious groups, using the term of jihad to justify their evil deeds, Islam is now coming into challenge. Everyone knows, every religion including Islam promotes peace. But these bad elements in Hizbullah, Hamas or al-Qaeda are continuously using the good name of Islam for terrorism and murder of innocent people. Does Bangladeshi foreign minister understand this reality. Before he passed the remarks, he should have at least studied the past track record of terrorism of Palestinian Hamas, Lebanese Hizbullah or Al Qaeda. Crtitics say, Khan is a mere businessman, who made his fortune with blessings from several Japanese companies. But, diplomacy is something else. Here, you just can not utter a word without knowing the consequence. Although top most level of Bangladesh government remain silent on the Middle East issue, foreign minister Khan’s remarks could place the country into serious jeopardy. Morshed Khan has no right to place Bangladesh into the queue of Iran or Syria and he should not let the international community take Bangladesh as another patron of terrorism.