Once again, the
Asia Times is the only newspaper with the insight and guts to state baldly what is really going on here:
"A report in Newsweek that US military interrogators at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had desecrated the Koran - subsequently retracted - initially set off protests....These protests have escalated and are expected to come to a head on May 27, when Islamic movements in 25 countries, notably Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia, will launch mass gatherings.
A largely disjointed al-Qaeda could not have wished for better, as its underlying ideology is to stoke the fires of a civilizational battle leading to Armageddon - which the Bible sees as the final battle between the forces of good and evil, prophesied to occur at the end of the world when Christ will return to smite his enemies, led by the Antichrist. The same battle is predicted in the Islamic faith."
REad on for more from journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad. .
Kossacks, Americans, Europeans, Australians, Kiwis, Canadians -this is not the time to be egging others to swell the military. This is a time for mass protest and mass civil disobedience until you bring this utter, horrible madness to an end.
The reporting of the desecration of the Koran is the tipping point. Read if you don't believe me - read the following and coment honestly if you didn't feel your gut sink as you read this article:
In a recent interview with the Financial Times of London, Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf claimed that al-Qaeda was now a destroyed entity. However, the reality is different. The destruction of al-Qaeda, or its survival, is beside the point. Al-Qaeda's success will be judged by its ability to have brought about not only a politically motivated anti-US backlash among Muslims across the world, but at the same time to create the grounds for its recognition among Muslim academics.
Ideologically speaking, at the time of September 11, it was impossible for any Muslim academic to praise al-Qaeda or justify its modus operandi in the context of Islamic teachings. However, over the past three-and-a-half years, much has changed. The US has disbanded several Muslim world-wide charity organizations; put pressure on countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Kuwait to change their social dynamics; attacked Afghanistan and Iraq; rolled back Pakistan's nuclear program; and laid siege to Iran.
In this atmosphere, Muslim academics in countries as diverse as Yemen, Malaysia and Morocco, and many others, have approved of al-Qaeda at a minimum as Muqadamul Jaish - a front-line force whose existence is a guarantee for the survival of all other forces behind it.* The concept of Muqadamul Jaish gained prominence toward the end of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and has gathered increasing acceptance since.
(emphasis mine)
Finally -
Al-Qaeda is working to turn the story of Megiddo and the End of Time into reality. And the president of the United States, George W Bush, believes Armageddon is at hand: "The evil one is among us," he said in 2002, in a clear reference to the Antichrist. To quote Michael Ortiz Hill, "[T]he Commander in Chief of the most powerful military force in human history has located American foreign policy within a Biblical narrative that leads inexorably towards the plains of Megiddo ..."
I know it's bad form to quote articles in slabs, and add little analysis, but I have little else to say. I'm sitting miles away from you all in Australia, and I'm darn near mute with fear.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GE20Aa01.html