Modern Crusaders versus Medieval Terrorists

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CAVES:

The Unholy War Between Capitalist Crusaders and Feudal Mujahids

Edip Yuksel, J.D.

After the diabolic terrorist attack in September 11, 2001, Americans need to know the theological and political roots of terrorism and wars. This knowledge will help us to eradicate the religious, social, political and economic factors that breed international terrorism and aggression, both committed by groups or states.

I am a muslim author/activist and I have written numerous articles and scores of books, including Turkish translation of the Quran, to promote reformation in Islam. (Currently, I with to of my colleagues we are working on the Reformist English Translation of the Quran). I was once a leader of a radical Muslim youth movement affiliated with Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood, and Afghan's Hizb-i Islami. After corresponding and discussing theological issues with an Egyptian-American scientist, I later experienced a paradigm shift in my belief system and denounced my religious and political ideology, becoming the target of my former comrades as an "apostate" or "betrayer."

The person pivotal to my conversion, Dr. Rashad Khalifa, was initially a popular scholar in Muslim world. However, in January 1990 he was assassinated in Tucson, Arizona, by Fuqra, a domestic terrorist group affiliated to Bin Laden, the leader of international terrorist network Al-Qaeda, The Base.

As a muslim who once was a leading member of the international network of anti-American radical Islam, a muslim who continuously receive death threats from Muslim fanatics, a muslim who lost his closest friend to the knives of Osama bin Laden's terrorists, a muslim who has dedicated himself to the promotion of human rights, freedom of expression, democracy and islamic reform, I invite all Muslims to abandon man-made teachings besides the Quran. I invite Muslims to reform themselves under the light of the Quran alone. We should seek peace and justice for all. We should attain individual freedom by submitting ourselves to God's laws in nature and His scripture. We should use our reason rather than superstition. We should reject the teachings of clergymen, which have doomed us to the darkness of ignorance and to the backwardness of medieval culture.

Muslims must join the islamic reformation movement. Otherwise they become extinct. Our movement's argument primarily relies on theological and philosophical arguments, logic, critical analysis of history and the lessons learned from the backwardness of Muslim Countries. The momentum of this monotheistic movement is so powerful that it is going to change the social and political landscape of Muslim countries.

Though the movement is in its embryonic stage, nevertheless, it is receiving a surprisingly broad sympathy in Turkey, Malaysia, and Northern Africa. Muslim populations living in Western countries are also very interested in the message of the reformation movement. Monotheist, reformist, or progressive muslims are targets of oppressive and regressive religious governments or authoritarian regimes, ironically some supported by the USA. Especially, those who live in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are risking their lives. Sunny or Shiite clergymen have demonstrated their determination to fight fiercely against monotheistic movement by labeling it as "apostasy" or "a Western or Zionist plot."

The loosely organized islamic reformation movement involves a radical principle: all religious sources besides the Quran are irrelevant for salvation and they should be dealt like dinosaurs. By rejecting volumes of books of narration, contradictory sectarian teachings and numerous secondary sources, a new understanding of the Quran has emerged. The islam based on the Quran is dramatically different than the "Islam" of Sunni or Shiite clergymen. First of all, according to the Quran, islam is not a proper name, but a description meaning surrendering or submitting to God alone and seeking peace. Again, according to the Quran, search and promotion of freedom and peace did not start from Muhammad, but from the first Homo Sapiens. Most importantly, the Quranic islam requires a paradigm change that emphasizes rational and empirical methodology to blind faith. It eliminates the reliance on the fatwas of muslim clerics and rejects their power over them.

The ramification of following the Quran alone cannot be exaggerated. It provides a paradigm shift regarding the role of women, freedom of speech, democracy, position against science and technology, criminal system, international terrorism, and peace with other nations. (I have discussed some of these issues briefly in my first English book, "19 Questions For Muslim Scholars," and it will be extensively argued in the upcoming Reformist Translation of the Quran, which will be published by a major American publishing house.)

As an American citizen, I also invite American people to be more sensitive towards the foreign policy of the American government. The myopic American foreign policy, which primarily serves the interests of big corporations, such as weapon and oil industries, has inadvertently helped the cause of religious terrorists. Perhaps it is inaccurate to refer to the current Bush government as USA government since it serves the interests of big corporations, and should be called the government of the United Incorporations of America.

For instance, in early 195O's we alienated Iranian people by supporting an oppressive and corrupt monarchy against a popular prime minister (Musaddiq), thereby contributing in the success of mullahrchy in Iran. We aided Saddam Hussein militarily and politically and used him against Iran, thereby participating in the destruction of hundreds of cities and millions of human lives. We did nothing when Saddam killed 5,000 Kurdish villagers instantaneously by chemical weapons in Halabja, but we brought the entire world together when an oil-rich Kuwait was occupied by the same Saddam. For more than a year we were bystanders when Serbs committed genocide and atrocities against Bosnian Muslims and we kept the sanctions banning Muslims from obtaining weapons for self-defence. The oppressive and racist Turkish government used our helicopters and weapons in its decade-long genocide against Kurdish population; we backed the Turkish military whenever they meddled with the Turkish democracy. Our economic sanctions intended to dethrone Saddam, our former ally, have contributed in starvation of millions of Iraqi children and ironically have turned Saddam, a fascist, to a hero in the eyes of starving people. We bombed a Sudanese medicine factory and killed many civilians by falsely declaring it to be a chemical weapon factory (Our TV stations did not interview the children and relatives of the employees we killed!). We support the Saudi monarchy, one of the most oppressive and corrupt regimes on the face of earth, and therefore have contributed in the creation of millions of oppressed and ignorant enemies; when they overthrow the Saudi King, they will surely chant "death to America." We used Afghani people against Russia, our former arch enemy and abandoned them after their economic, social and political structure were in ruins. We declared a futile war against drugs and thereby making it a lucrative business for criminals and international terrorists. Our noble support of Jewish victims for their quest to turn to their historical homeland, unfortunately, has transformed to an unconditional support to Zionists' racist and aggressive policy, leading to the creation of another victim nation. By supporting Israeli terrorism and occupation, we have created millions of enemies and potential terrorists in Muslim world. Now, by invading Iraq, and by killing Iraqi civilians, destroying their cities, and committing atrocities there we are planting the seeds of much bigger terrorist organizations against America and its interests.

Our warships expects friendly welcome in every foreign harbor, our bombers expect silent submissions from cities and their inhabitants, our companies are the prime suppliers of weapons for many world nations and terrorists, we are the first nation to use atomic bomb and kill record number of civilians in one day in the history of human race, we are the main producer of biological and chemical weapons, we sell our products to any price we choose but we want to fix the price of oil or other products sold by poor countries, we doom many countries to economic bankruptcy through IMF and myriad of financial institutions, and we stage military coups via CIA and support puppet governments to please our big corporations. Yet, we wonder why so many people in other countries hate us. Ironically, we brag to be a peace-loving compassionate nation! We show our compassion by dropping food by one airplane and bombs by another!

The Neocon-Zionist-Armaggedonite coalition, trough the publicized outrageous sexual abuse and physical torture scandal, proved that by the words "liberty and democracy" the Bush administration meant killing, destruction, humiliation and torture for Arabs and muslims. Israel, as the world's only government recognized by the United Nations that tortures prisoners LEGALLY, through their immense influence in American policy, led the Neoconian USA government to follow their lead of torturing political prisoners or those they call terrorists.

Israel and its influential Zionist lobbies exercise incredible amount of influence on both major American parties; this is a fact known by every insider and by every outsider with average intelligence. For instance, James Bamford, an American intelligence expert, in his book titled A Pretext For War exposes the infiltration of Zionist gang into the USA's key political positions. Time magazine reporter Michael Duffy in the book review section wrote the following:

"The Bush hard-liners had long believed that stability could come to the Middle East—and Israel—only if Saddam Hussein was overthrown and Iraq converted into a stable democracy. Led by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, they were installed at various government, and nothing moved without their O.K. Bamford comes very close to stating that the hard-liners were wittingly or unwittingly acting as agents of Israel's hard-line Likud Party, which believed Israel should operate with impunity in the region and dictate terms to its neighbors. Such a world view, Bamford argues, was simply repotted by the hard-liners into U.S. foreign policy in the early Bush years, with the war in Iraq as its ultimate goal. Bamford asserts that the backgrounds, political philosophies and experiences of many of the hard-liners helped to hardwire the pro-Israel mind-set in the Bush inner circle and suggests that Washington mistook Israel's interests for its own when it pre-emptively invaded Iraq last year." (One Expert's Verdict: The CIA Caved Under Pressure, Michael Duffy, Time, June 14, 2004, p.65).

The only point I disagree is the depiction of the policy as "Israel's interest." I do not think at all that aggression, assassination, home destructions, leaving no hope for Palestinian youth who are pushed to become suicide bombers, massacres, erecting Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands, defying international laws and UN resolutions, dictating its will over its neighbours, committing massacres in refugee camps, and depriving an entire nation of their liberty, yes I do not think that any of these actions and policies is in the interest of Israeli people. What goes around comes around. Thank God, many of those Jews with intelligence and heart are aware of the fact that now they are gradually transforming to Nazis themselves. Hopefully, progressive and peace-seeking Jews will prevail over the extremist, racist and greedy ones.

After the collapse of communism and with the blessings of Zionists and Evangelical Christians, American Inc is trying to create another nemesis, this time islam or muslims, to distract us from their corruption and plunder of our resources. The powerful hormones of religion and nationalism are abused and manipulated to promote this agenda.

American foreign policy, Zionist racism, evangelical Christianity and sectarian Islam all are incubators of religious terrorism. War against terrorism has two fronts: reformation in American democracy and reformation in islamic world. Unfortunately, the victims of these wars, whether they live in skyscrapers or caves, are mostly innocent and poor people.

P.S: For a list of American military interventions see: Zoltan Grossman's LIST. Also read Edip Yuksel's article titled "From the Perspective of a former Radical Muslim Leader: The Theo-political Roots of 'Islamic Terrorism'"

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