Note to a 'Freethinker' ...

• "Who made God?": God is by definition the Creator and the Ultimate Cause, while everything or everyone else is the is the Creation. Therefore, the question, "Who made God" is illogical. God Always Was and Always Will Be.

• "How can a Loving God cause evil / pain / suffering / torment in Hell?": In matters of Love, the God of the Heavens and the Earth is a Choosy God, more choosy than an exquisitely beautiful maiden. He does not love every Tom, Dick, and Harry. He created Evil in order to separate those whom He loves from those whom He does not love. However, God is a Merciful, Compassionate, Beneficent, and Forgiving God. Hence, the Final Prophet of God (-Muhammad, peace be upon him), and the Final Revelation (-Qur'an) from God.
  
  Pain and suffering in this life is reciprocated with expiation of sins and increase in station in Heaven. Moreover, a believer is given pain/suffering in order to test him for patience.

• Is a 'freethinker' really 'free'?: A 'freethinker' is like a truant from school, who considers discipline to be atrocity, bunks classes, has a lot of fun, and considers himself to be 'free'. He sneers at the other pupils who go to class. He thinks they are stupid to allow themselves to be 'shackled' by the discipline and education of school. Eventually, he flunks the exam and feels bad about himself, but then it is too late to reform himself since exam is over and results are out.

• Are most wars fought in the name of religion?: Even a cursory review of the list of the most deadly wars reveals that most, if not all, of the deadliest wars were NOT based on religion. My sincere advice to you is: get real.

• Proof of the Unseen: Your blanket rejection of all things supernatural is illogical. You say that science has failed to prove the existence of the supernatural. But a branch of knowledge dealing with the material world cannot claim to be cognizant of what occurs outside the realm of the material world. A car traveling on the road cannot scan the road and say, "There is no evidence of the existence of airplanes", since airplanes just don't travel on the road.
  
  Since you love to indulge in philosophical ruminations, here is a proof of the existence of the Unseen based on logic:
  
  (a) Assume a material universe where God and soul do not exist, humans have evolved through undirected random natural processes, and our beliefs (and thoughts) are no more than the result of complex interactions between neurons in our brains;
  (b) It follows that our beliefs are the result of entirely random natural events and have not been ingrained by a supernatural entity;
  (c) Since belief in the Unseen is false (as per our assumption above), we resent that some people believe in the Unseen;
  (d) But belief in the Unseen is the outcome of purely random events, and it is illogical to resent the outcome of purely random events;
  (e) We have arrived at a contradiction here, since on the one hand we resent 'belief in the Unseen' (on grounds of it being a false belief), but on the other hand we do not resent 'belief in the Unseen' (on grounds of it being the outcome of purely random events);
  (f) Since we have arrived at a contradiction, our original assumption is false;
  (g) Thus, there exist(s) entity/entities outside of the material world.
  
  In other words, the very people who believe in the Unseen are proof positive of the existence of the Unseen. It should come as no surprise, then, that the greatest proof of the existence of the Unseen is Prophet Muhammad - peace be upon him.

• You are on death row: You did not choose the time of your birth. You did not choose the place of your birth. You did not choose your parents. Most of the sights, sounds, smells, and personal experiences of your life were not of your own choice. In all likelihood, the time and place of your death will also not be of your choice. Your death will be just as sudden as your birth, a rude awakening into a new world. Have you prepared yourself for it?

Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran’s Election? ...

Foreign Policy Journal has this thought-provoking article on something many people in the West are not aware of:

Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran’s Election?

To whet your appetite, here is the concluding paragraph of the article:

Whatever the case may be, given the record of U.S. interference in the state affairs of Iran and clear policy of regime change, it certainly seems possible, even likely, that the U.S. had a significant role to play in helping to bring about the recent turmoil in an effort to undermine the government of the Islamic Republic.

CNN, My Foot! ...

Mr Ahmed Qureshi exposes CNN for its criminal coverage of the protest in Iran.

Here is the link: Iran's PressTV Versus America's CNN

(Also check out these links:

British Embassy Helping Demonstrators in Tehran

American Child-Killers Are Crying Over Neda)







Just when the Iranian protesters decided not to defy their government's ban on street trouble, CNN and the rest of the American media went into an overdrive today to provoke the Iranian protesters, and especially mislead the younger ones into creating a situation that could result in bloodshed.

In twenty years of watching CNN, I have never seen it stoop so low as it did today.

The question is: If an American or British newspaper or TV network's agenda begins to eerily resemble that of CIA or MI-6 [the Am-Brit enterprise], does this mean that these custodians of media independence are actually government mouthpieces?

Obviously, the US government and the CIA will not let this opportunity in Iran slip out of hand. Remeber that the CIA, the NSA and other American spy agencies were given millions of dollars for covert operations targeting Iran under Bush. These programs are still operational and have not been cancelled by Obama. Once there is violence, all you need to do is to unleash local agents connected to foreign elements, coupled with massive media propaganda to encourage chaos in order to create maximum trouble and instability for the government in Iran.

The US government and CIA are already using Afghanistan to insert terrorists into eastern parts of Iran.

CNN today was no different than any state-run TV channel in a dictatorship in central Africa or the Middle East. And it was funny. I mean really. CNN never devotes more than 10 or 15 minutes in extreme cases for even the most important world leaders, and here it was devoting nonstop hours to endless drivel by 'Iran experts' some of them quite literally full of s**** and a majority of them wasn’t even able to give intelligent answers. Most of whom had nothing new to say but CNN wanted to create a worldwide hype to keep Iran's government under the spotlight. CNN editors allowed many unimpressive speakers to sit and speak for hours. But since there was nothing to "cover" today in Iran, CNN resorted to "creating" a crisis, manufacturing a hype about something that wasn't even happening: the 'expected' turnout of protestors defying the government.

Protestors largely stayed indoors. But CNN kept insisting that something was happening. For special effect, CNN used old footage to mislead the international audience about the size of today’s protestors.

Obviously I can't imagine that it is any of CNN's business to keep the protests alive and prevent them from dying out. But it is certainly the interest of the US government and the CIA.

So there is only one explanation to what CNN was doing:

To encourage the younger protestors to come out and defy the security and risk deaths so that CIA could stoke more trouble.

CNN also directly attacked PRESSTV, Iran's dynamic international English-language TV news channel. CNN anchors were apparently told to disparage PRESSTV calling it a 'government mouthpiece'.

Mouthpiece, eh? Compared to what? FoxNews, which spent the last eight years working as a mouthpiece to Bush? Or CNN and BBC that often become one with their governments when it comes to foreign policy and military aggression?

If CNN's agenda appears to mirror that of US government and the CIA, with no questions asked and no room for the opposite viewpoint, doesn’t that make CNN a government mouthpiece too?

How about CNN and New York Times and others airing and printing absolute lies about Iraq's nuclear program in order to convince the world that an invasion was necessary? And then when everything turned out to be a ruse created by CIA and MI6 and promoted by CNN, NYT and others as truth, do we see the Am-Brit free media apologizing for becoming government puppets?

When nothing happened on the streets in Tehran most of the day today, CNN anchorwoman Rosemary Church kept announcing with emphasis and with Broadway-dramatism, "There is a tense calm" in Iran.

Ooooh.

But my personal favorite was this line, "A very balanced reporting" or "a very balanced analysis" that Ms. Church repeated whenever a biased one-sided reporter or 'expert' finished his or her rant on Iran.

There were two exceptions in the CNN coverage coming from two journalists: Christian Amanpour and Jonathan Mann. Both refused to turn off their professional instincts and blindly follow the instructions from the newsroom.

Ms. Amanpour surprised everyone at one point when she inadvertently exposed CNN's hypocrisy by telling her interviewer Rosemary Church that it was important to underline that a majority of Iranian protestors stayed away today after the government warning.

And then Amanpour said that most of the videos that CNN kept showing throughout the day today were old footage. Amanpour appeared to be emphasizing that viewers need to be told that CNN was playing footage from yesterday and the day before and that there were no crowds on Tehran's streets of the size being shown in the footage.

Amanpour’s comment seemed to have struck Ms. Church smack in the face. She appeared dumbstruck for a minute. It was almost as if she knew [from the instructions she must be receiving thru an earphone from the newsroom] that she was not supposed to say these things and expose CNN's game plan.

Then Jonathan Mann also violated the script and at one point stopped to ask CNN to replay a rare video that came out of Tehran today. The fresh video showed a handful of protestors, certainly fewer than ever before.

Mann inquired from his biased commentator that he wasn't able to see the streets in previous videos because of the huge number of protestors. But the new video showed empty streets barring a few kids. Again, the commentator, who was pro-American Iranian, was dumbfounded.

Here's another fine evidence of who is motivating CNN and other 'Am-Brit independent international media outlets':

CNN did not go into overdrive until quite late in the day when it became clear that the protests were dying down. My guess is that some people within the US government freaked out at this. Someone might have said [probably at Langley], 'If the protests die down, that's it. Find a way to keep the momentum and encourage the kids there to come out on the streets. Let's push the Iranian security into a murderous mishap.'

And suddenly CNN goes into a nonstop one-sided ethically-questionable coverage. I am sure that simultaneously CIA's Iran desk must be busy in 'quiet outreach' through Facebook and Twitter and through their assets on the ground in Iran.

It is time that the Am-Brit 'international media' realize that many people outside Europe and America can see through their machinations, the way they gang up on certain countries or on certain issues that hide other interests of the Am-Brit combine. We've seen this happen so many times, in Georgia and elsewhere, that it stands exposed.

To me this has nothing to do with democracy and human rights. Sure, the Iranian government has problems and it has opponents within the Iranian populace. So it’s not a big deal if a few of them gather in Los Angeles and Washington in small demos. What IS a big deal is how the Am-Brit media has rushed to play a strategic game disguised as journalism. This is the same Am-Brit media that continues to produce CIA and MI6 agents hiding as accredited journalists. The latest example is of an Iranian woman who was sent back to Iran as an American journalist so that she could get in touch with her former colleagues in a sensitive government department and obtain secret documents. She was caught with those documents. And now we have two American journalists from Korean descent sent to North Korea for the same purpose, espionage. All three spies found major American news organizations ready to give them the cover of an accredited journalist so that CIA could use them for espionage. This is the state of the Am-Brit media that sets the world news agenda.

This episode should also serve as a lesson for Iran. The Iranian government actually helped Washington and London invade Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the two invasions on military and intelligence levels. The hope was that somehow this will convince Washington and London to accept the Iranian government and start working with it.

Today, the Iranian government learns the lesson the hard way.

And the Am-Brit media can be and is manipulated by the governments in London and Washington just like anywhere else. The best part of it, of course, is that the US State Department gets to issue grade reports about how other countries fare on media freedoms.

The Am-Brit media had been exposed during the false campaign against Iraq in 2003. But people have short memories. Iran's elections in 2009 should serve as a welcome reminder on the performance of the Am-Brit media.

And these elections should also become a permanent signpost for CNN's amazing fall.

P.S.: Google and Facebook are speeding up Persian translations of their sites and BBC rushes to find other satellites to beam into Iran. Wow. Even companies feel for democracy and are willing to go the extra mile for the sake of democracy in Iran! Last question to all the buffoons who still think this is about democracy: How come we don't see Russian, German, French, Singaporean, Indian or Israeli companies feeling the pain for democracy? Why is it that only Am-Brit companies are at the forefront of the fight for Iranian democracy?!!

War on Terror - some critical questions ...

(The following important editorial by Sheikh-ul-Islam, Prof. Dr Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, appeared in The Nation on Wednesday, April 15, 2009.)

Islam, being an inclusive and cosmopolitan religion, stands for global peace and interfaith harmony. Hundreds of the Quranic injunctions, the Prophetic traditions and 1400-year-old history of Muslims are clear evidence that authenticate this reality. The Holy Quran has equated the killing of one person with the killing of entire humanity and protection of life of one person with the protection of entire humanity. The Holy Prophet (PBUH) has himself described that a Muslim is someone by whose hands and tongue other Muslims are not hurt and remain safe. Leave alone unjustly killing anyone, a person using foul and immoral language against others could not be called a Muslim.

There is a constant talk of peace in the entire world today and war on terror is being fought to establish still an elusive peace. There is no denying this truth that terrorists are not only enemies of peace but also of entire humanity. The peaceful forces should struggle against them but the questions arise here as to who fanned terrorism and who opened this front. The situation was not as volatile as today ten years ago. Where have the army of terrorists appeared from all of a sudden? Is it not likely that the global forces, now fighting terrorism, have also been responsible for creation of this monster, which has become a Frankenstein in all its forms? Or it may also be the case that the whole world is being made victim to clash of civilization in the name of establishment of peace.

Mere condemnation of terrorism is not sufficient for the establishment of peace. Rather real enemies of peace should be identified first. The second important thing is that Northern Areas of Pakistan, FATA, Wazirastan, and Swat have historically been known as peaceful areas where religious-minded but simple people reside. These areas are even without basic necessities of life. Majority of people are poor and earn their livelihoods through day-long labour.

What revolution has struck these regions in a period of last three years that these people have turned against their country and started confronting army and other security forces? From where have arms and ammunition come in large quantities and who is providing people with expertise to take on a state and its army? Who is providing training, weapons and money to terrorists? As it is now being openly and clearly said that foreign powers are supporting terrorism, what role has our former and present governments including the provincial ones performed to address the problem? Why did they allow it to grow amidst our polity? Drone attacks have become a routine affair in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The first thing that needs to be mentioned here is that Drone attack constitutes an attack on security and sovereignty of an independent country. Why did the government allow the US to violate our territorial integrity and at what forum? Suppose these attacks are meant to target terrorists, why has no detail of these terrorists been published in the press?

In the similar manner, our army stakes claim to killing scores of terrorists each day but never has their identity been established? Local people are getting caught up in the crossfire between security forces and terrorists and are losing their lives for no fault of their own. The remainder of them, who are lucky enough to be spared, get maimed and injured for life. What type of peace is being established here? There is another noteworthy point that why are people who are involved in spreading mischief and who have even threatened the US many a time being spared and not taken out by US' drone hits? Why it is so that many citizens of Pakistan have been picked up on mere suspicion but hundreds of people living in Afghanistan and adjoining areas who are involved in open warfare have been given carte blanche to operate?

The semi-literate leaders and commanders of terrorist organizations brief media and unveil their plans to target their adversaries and still their location is not identified, which might result in their capture in this day and age of satellite. These questions are brain-teaser for a man with normal IQ and intelligence level. To top it all, what is matter of more concern is the fact that the longer the war on terror is getting, the more terrorism is spreading instead of getting eliminated.

This war was exported to the tribal regions of Pakistan from Afghanistan and now it is directed at Quetta, Islamabad, Lahore, Dera Ismail Khan, Peshwar-the mainland Pakistan. The situation has reached such alarming levels that our Mosques, sacred places, religious institutions and hospitals are not being spared.

We are, no doubt, living in critical and perilous times but our national habit of blame game or being content with expressions of condemnation could not protect us from this raging fire of extremism and terrorism. Whatever be the source of attack on our sovereignty be it external or internal, we need to formulate a serious and dynamic national policy. Major responsibility of taking much-needed initiatives rests on the government. Our parliament has already passed a consensus resolution against terror and there is a need to fully implement this national consensus into policy framework. Our national leadership including religious, political and military needs to act and act fast. Some points are instructive in this regard:

• We need to reassess, re-evaluate and reformulate our foreign policy having the potential and dynamism to draw clear lines between our friends and foes. The aim of foreign policy review should be to diversify the sources of economic, political, and security support rather than putting all our eggs in one basket.
• We should rethink our relationships with India, Afghanistan and especially the US in the light of our national interests by broadening the decision-making processes on key issues through incorporation of input from the elected parliament and other stakeholders.
• The tendency to look towards others for protection of our sovereignty and national security will have to be shunned as no one including any Islamic country would come to our rescue. National solidarity and unity among our own ranks should be promoted instead as necessary part of self-reliance initiative.
• We need to clarify our position vis-à-vis war on terror and apprehensions of international community in the larger interest of durable peace by employing robust diplomacy and media.
• Emergence of sectarian terrorism, as is evident from recent terrorist incidents in various parts of the country, presents a renewed challenge to our body politic. It is more lethal with lasting implications for national solidarity requiring a fresh and creative response by the state.
• Taliban have become an identity and representative of a particular religious mindset. Some religious scholars of Pakistan regard them as their brainchild. Therefore, heavy responsibility lies on their shoulders to take initiative and make Taliban understand the real concept of religion so that they (Taliban) do not end up defaming Islam and undermining the only atomic Islamic state by becoming stooge in the hands of anti-Pakistan elements.

"As The Arabs See the Jews" ...

An essay by King Abdullah published in 1947 sheds light on the history of Israel. Here are some excerpts from the essay:

Our case is quite simple: For nearly 2,000 years Palestine has been almost 100 per cent Arab. It is still preponderantly Arab today, in spite of enormous Jewish immigration. But if this immigration continues we shall soon be outnumbered—a minority in our home.

Palestine is a small and very poor country, about the size of your state of Vermont. Its Arab population is only about 1,200,000. Already we have had forced on us, against our will, some 600,000 Zionist Jews. We are threatened with many hundreds of thousands more.

Our position is so simple and natural that we are amazed it should even be questioned. It is exactly the same position you in America take in regard to the unhappy European Jews. You are sorry for them, but you do not want them in your country.

We do not want them in ours, either. Not because they are Jews, but because they are foreigners. We would not want hundreds of thousands of foreigners in our country, be they Englishmen or Norwegians or Brazilians or whatever.

Think for a moment: In the last 25 years we have had one third of our entire population forced upon us. In America that would be the equivalent of 45,000,000 complete strangers admitted to your country, over your violent protest, since 1921. How would you have reacted to that?

Because of our perfectly natural dislike of being overwhelmed in our own homeland, we are called blind nationalists and heartless anti-Semites. This charge would be ludicrous were it not so dangerous.

I was puzzled for a long time about the odd belief which apparently persists in America that Palestine has somehow "always been a Jewish land." Recently an American I talked to cleared up this mystery. He pointed out that the only things most Americans know about Palestine are what they read in the Bible. It was a Jewish land in those days, they reason, and they assume it has always remained so.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. It is absurd to reach so far back into the mists of history to argue about who should have Palestine today, and I apologise for it. Yet the Jews do this, and I must reply to their "historic claim." I wonder if the world has ever seen a stranger sight than a group of people seriously pretending to claim a land because their ancestors lived there some 2,000 years ago!

I have the impression that many Americans believe the trouble in Palestine is very remote from them, that America had little to do with it, and that your only interest now is that of a humane bystander.

I believe that you do not realise how directly you are, as a nation, responsible in general for the whole Zionist move and specifically for the present terrorism. I call this to your attention because I am certain that if you realise your responsibility you will act fairly to admit it and assume it.

Quite aside from official American support for the "National Home" of the Balfour Declaration, the Zionist settlements in Palestine would have been almost impossible, on anything like the current scale, without American money. This was contributed by American Jewry in an idealistic effort to help their fellows.

The motive was worthy: the result were disastrous. The contributions were by private individuals, but they were almost entirely Americans, and, as a nation, only America can answer for it.

The present catastrophe may be laid almost entirely at your door. Your government, almost alone in the world, is insisting on the immediate admission of 100,000 more Jews into Palestine—to be followed by countless additional ones. This will have the most frightful consequences in bloody chaos beyond anything ever hinted at in Palestine before.

It is your press and political leadership, almost alone in the world, who press this demand. It is almost entirely American money which hires or buys the "refugee ships" that steam illegally toward Palestine: American money which pays their crews. The illegal immigration from Europe is arranged by the Jewish Agency, supported almost entirely by American funds. It is American dollars which support the terrorists, which buy the bullets and pistols that kill British soldiers—your allies—and Arab citizens—your friends.

We in the Arab world were stunned to hear that you permit open advertisements in newspapers asking for money to finance these terrorists, to arm them openly and deliberately for murder. We could not believe this could really happen in the modern world. Now we must believe it: we have seen the advertisements with our own eyes.