War On Islam Shifting Fronts?

WAR ON ISLAM SHIFTING FRONTS?
By Kalima Aswad
October 31, 2006


The U.S. government is at it again. The war on Islam is taking on a new
front: not on foreign soil where we are becoming accustomed to losing
despite our vaunted military might, but right here in the homeland. Just
as it did with Iraq to justify the illegal, unjust war we are now engaged
in, the government is creating, fabricating and manufacturing enemies
where there were none.
The Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University
and University of Virginia’s Critical Incident Analysis Group recently
released an incredible "Special Report" depicting Islam, not in some far
off land, but within the homeland itself, in U.S. prisons, as being made
up of gang members who are "radicalize Muslims" even more dangerous than
the world’s most notorious terrorist group, Al-Qaeda.
The authors of this report are said to be "experts" from diverse
backgrounds, "unbiased" professionals with expertise in analyzing such
matters as radicalizing and recruitment at the federal, state, and local
levels.
It would be a grave mistake to think that just because most of the
allegations made by these groups are without substance that the
conclusions they make are harmless or that because they speak of
radicalization in prisons that the design of the report is limited to
those behind the walls. As many of us said from the beginning, the real
target of this crusade is Islam itself.
A constant thread in the Iraq war has been President Bush’s insistence on
his resolve to spread democracy to the Middle East region. More recently
he has referred to it as "the struggle of the twenty-first century" and
the enemy is "Islamic fascists." That’s interesting, because as we saw
in the case of Iraq’s ousted leader, Saddam Hussein, president George W.
Bush is fond of stretching words out of proportion and twisting them into
"facts" that turn out to be false (i.e. weapons of mass destruction and
ties with Al-Qaeda.)
The Homeland Security report made a point of making the same type
connection between Muslims in prison and certain right-wing prison groups
(Aryan Brotherhood, Nazis, Skinheads, and other pro-Hitler, anti-Jewish
groups.) Tying the right wing groups to Islam in the terrorist, criminal
activity, and ideological sense would be a big thing for two reasons:
One, it allows government policy to reduce Islam from a religious state
to an entity composed of a gang of hateful thugs.
Two, by "logical extension", since it is a fact that there are Muslims
who leave prison and enter into Muslim communities when released, the
government’s view is they will carry these "radicalizations" with them
and infect outside communities with these diseases. It never expects the
positive—that is, that we will go out and fit smoothly into the
community. It accentuates negatives. Perhaps that helps explain why
there is so much failure in our society.
The same logic applies to what the report says about gang leaders
infecting Islam in the prisons. This is a case the government would love
to have stick. The truth is that we do welcome gang members and anyone
else who would have a sincere desire to change their lives around. We
invest a great deal of time working to get those who attend our classes
on the need to leave their baggage, such as gangs, violence, drugs,
alcohol, foul language, and unmarried sex behind.
Our classes focus on teaching spirituality, social responsibility,
conduct, and studying. A great many lives have been positively impacted
by participating in Islamic service.
This report puts a lot of emphasis on portraying Islam in a negative
light. Could it be a matter of the authors not having enough access to
ferret out any positive aspects to report on?
Perhaps a reading of the poem which follows, "Damn Terrorists (Don’t
Care)," that condemns ALL terrorism, could have given the authors a
different impression, or at least help balance the report, but the media
wouldn’t publish it. The same can be said for the writings of many
prisoners, which would shed a more realistic light on the subject. These
voices are far, far away from the radicalism in Islam that the authors of
the Special report rely on for their information; and such positive
messages are occurring in prisons throughout the country. Strange that
nobody knows about this perspective and we have to wonder, WHY?

DAMN TERRORISTS (Don’t Care)
By Akhi (Kalima) Aswad
Dec 2001/Jan 2002


I can’t stand them
Always hurting people
No regard for the life of others
On Sept. 11 Damn Arab Terrorists
Blew up WTC and Pentagon
Thousand of people dead
And for what?
The pain, the anger, the humiliation and terror
The desire for revenge
Flashed through the veins of Americans
But Arab terrorists don’t care
How Americans feel
They just don’t care!
Very uncivilized.

Have I heard that before?
Seems like the people in Iraq
Felt terror, humiliation, anger, pain
And a desire for revenge
America made hundreds
Of thousands of dead, injured,
Orphaned, widowed and homeless
People, while Americans—
Americans—they cheered
And were happy when Papa Bush
Bombed Iraq
And look how tickled
Americans were when
Clinton repeated the process
Iraqis felt terrorized
By the bombs falling out
Of the sky like rain
But American terrorists don’t care
They sure don’t.
Real civilized, huh?

Well, what about Sudan?
When U.S. rockets slammed
Into what the U.S. said was
A chemical weapons factory
What was that to do
To Sudan’s famine
Ridden, disease stricken
Population – what was
That for? G-E-N-O-C-I-D-E? No,
They say – "It turned out
To be a pharmaceutical plant
Merely to provide much needed medicine
For the stricken."
Hundreds dying daily.
No medicine.
Was that terror different
From the terror
Americans are feeling?

The U.S. sponsored terrorism
In Angola… Remember that?
America said it was anti-communism
(It "forgot" to mention the oil.)
So it funded Joseph Savimbi’s UNITA
Band of bandits
To overthrow the government.
That failing, South America got hired
To do the job but Cuba
Stepped in and they ran.
The people of Angola
They felt the terror, pain,
Anger and humiliation at the hands
Of U.S. sponsored terrorism
But the terrorists, they
Didn’t care, don’t care, can’t care
‘Cause the culprit was America
And that doesn’t count
Does that make it
"Civilized" terror?

The people fo Grenada
Know and so do Chileans,
Honduran, Guatamalans,
El Salvadorans, the horrifying
Taste of U.S. sponsored
Terrorism, with its humiliation
And "disappeared" citizens,
Victims of terrorists trained and
Equipped at the School of the
Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.
And the Vietnamese, they too know
How America has hidden Sen. Kerrey
In the U.S. Senate for killing
Everyone in an entire village.
Damn Terrorists.
They really don’t care.

Terrorism is a cancer
On the world scene
Damn Terrorists don’t care
But it must be excised
NOW, without doubt or partiality
Whether cloaked in American
Democracy or crude individuals
Far away, the savagery and
The suffering, humiliation and
Anger is the same. In Kandahar and
In New York; Palestine, Israel and
In New York; Iraq, Somalia, Sudan
And in New York; Honduras, El
Salvador, Vietnam and in New York.
Terrorism must go
Even if the Damn
Terrorists don’t care!