"AGAINST ALL ENEMIES: INCLUDING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE"
TERRORISM: TRICKS, LIES AND DECEPTIONS
by: Fahim A. Knight
There has been much written and reported on Terrorism since September 11, 2001 and most of it has been filtered and sanitized by western and United States propaganda machines in order to bolster public opinion and to silence their detractors by appealing to the raw ignorance of Americans who throughout history has always been swayed by emotional impulses more so than by rational and judicious reasoning. Wikipedia on-line research site defined terrorism in this manner, “Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination— the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organization), (imperiled) victims, and main targets are used to manipulate the main target (audience(s)), turning it into a target of terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought (Schmid,1988)”
The media creates perceived enemies for the masses of the people, which serve as one of the most vital arms of the Elitist because of its power of persuasion and ability to guide, shape, and mold public opinion with a primary objective to manipulate the ignorant into complicity toward their goals and aspirations. The masses are always deliberately made misinformed and the first causality of all wars is TRUTH. George Orwell once stated, “In a time of deceit telling the TRUTH is a revolutionary act.” President George W. Bush and Former Prime Minister Tony Blair and his replacement Gordon Brown of Great Britain are low-level operatives of the Elitist who were giving assignments in which their power and wealth are minuscule in comparison to the wealth of the Invisible Power Brokers that they have committed serve.
Thus, in the United States we are gearing up for a change and/or transition of power of sought, with a presidential election perhaps between the presumptive Republican Nominee Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama and/or Senator Hillary Clinton will be squaring off in November 2008 against McCain for the right to sit as the next U.S. President and Sovereign world leader. Most people do not understand that neither of these potential presidential candidates—McCain, Obama, Clinton, etc., have the authority to alter foreign or domestic policy, these matters are determined outside the electorate and even with little input from their low level operatives. They all have agreed to a preconditioned script.
This writer first would like to give his readers a brief backdrop on why and how this article came about; it started on March 19, 2008, upon receiving a very intriguing and thought provoking e-mail from a brother and comrade named Dietrick Large whom I have much respect and have posted numerous articles on his powerful Blog titled Truth At Large: http://truthatlarge.blogspot.com/. Large posed a very interesting political scenario to me, which I would like to share his questions and my response; he stated, “Hello Bro. Knight just wanted to drop you a line. I am sure you are aware of the folly surrounding the democratic nomination process. I have contended since the start of this process Mrs. Clinton will get the nomination. I believe Mr. Obama will not get the nomination because of back room deals that will be struck between the Clinton campaign and super delegates. If this does in fact occur it will create a backlash by democratic supporters of Mr. Obama to abstain from voting in November. That is the scenario that will undoubtedly propel Mr. McCain into office.”
Large continues, “Or another scenario that could play out is anarchy in the streets because of the decision to select Mrs. Clinton as nominee thereby giving Mr. Bush justification to declare marshal law, suspend elections and assume full executive powers. I realize this may appear far fetched or remotely unlikely to happen but considering the nature of the current administration anything is possible. I would keep watch for any developments regarding any deployment of Black Water around major Metropolitan areas as we near the convention. With the present status of the national economy continuing to get worst and a fraudulent selection process these two may be the mix to ignite fascist opportunism to grab power. I realize again this sounds highly unlikely to occur but remember who would have ever thought 911 could happen.”
MY RESPONSE: “Thank you for dropping the line. Thus, always good to hear from you. Wow! This is some very good critical thinking and analyzing and need to be define and built upon for your Blog audience. Your insight is serious outside the box thinking and most of us have not thought that far down the line. Thus, all of your contentions are highly possible. The public must remember Bush stole two elections 2000 and 2004; there is precedence for duping the electorate and the status quo meeting little resistance from the masses of the people. They have systematically tested the will of the people and found them/us desensitize to oppression and tyranny.”
I use to trade commodities and in 2000 we could purchase a barrel of Middle Eastern crude oil at $ 27.00 USD and just in eight years crude now is approximately $110.00 per barrel, which translates to the public market paying now close to $4.00 per gallon. Where is the resistance?
The deal for the office of the United States presidency was cut by the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberger. Moreover, many of the "Super Delegates" are card carrying members of the three said powerful organizations who lobby on behalf of the hidden dynastic families (the Power Elite) that control all of humanity.
All the scenarios that you pointed out could be a working plan for their interest. I refer you to the book "None Dare Call it Conspiracy". They (Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are playing the RACE CARD) are publicly trying to create political confusion by raising up Minister Jeremiah Wright and anger (dupe) the white public and perhaps eventually justify giving Clinton the Super Delegates; although Senator Obama may accumulate more popular vote, which ordinarily should declare him the winner. There is a lot more I could say. But your insight would make a good Blog discussion for the wide awake man and woman.”
My prediction is, who ever is appointed United States president, they will be giving the mission of staying the political course that was giving to President George Bush because war is big business and profitable for a minority sector who answers to no one. The Invisible Power Brokers—those hidden forces that orchestrated the 9/11 hoax do not follow the rules they make rules, which are geared exclusively toward expanding their world domination, increasing their massive wealth and enslaving humanity. 9/11 changed many paradigms and it actually has altered world political, economic and social orders for at least the next 100 years. There are 190 countries in the world. America has bases in 130 of them.
The United States and the world have become a police state, which covert Marshal Law is already in affect just go back and re-read the language written in the United States Patriot Act and how Bush and the United States Congress restructured the laws in order to give the government unprecedented authority over the lives of its own citizens and the citizens of the world. It appeared and became apparent after 9/11 that the American people were the real targets of the so-called governmental terrorist initiatives, which gave the appearance that this legislation were being put in place for America’s external enemies.
Noam Chomsky in his book titled, Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance” stated, “To be more precise, it was the public that was peering into the abyss. Those at the center of power relentlessly pursue their own agendas, understanding that they can exploit the fears and anguish of the moment. They may even institute measures that deepen the abyss and may march resolutely toward it, if that advances the goals of power and privilege. They declare that it is unpatriotic and disruptive to question the workings of authority—but patriotic to institute harsh and regressive policies that benefit the wealthy, undermine social programs that serve the needs of the great majority, and subordinate a frighten population to increase state control. “Literally before the dust settled’ over the World Trade Center ruins, Paul Krugman reported, influential Republicans signaled that they were ‘determined to use terrorism as an excuse to pursue a radical right-wing agenda.’”
The policies implemented under the umbrella of Homeland Security and the U.S. Patriot Act had a twofold objective—granting the United States Government (CIA, FBI, IRS, NSA, INS, ATF, US Customs, Secret Service, etc) what one rapp artist called the ALPHABET BOYS unlimited international and domestic powers, legality and jurisdictional authority and, neutralizing the United States Constitution and rendering the American citizens defenseless. For example, we have giving these Gestapo style agencies the authority like the F.B.I. and police to secretly search your home and office; impose secret government wiretaps on your phone, computer and/or Internet activity; secret investigations of your bank records, credit cards and other financial records; secret investigations of your library and book activities; the freezing of funds and assets without prior notice or appeal; secret examination of your medical, travel and business records; the creation of secret ‘Watch Lists” that ban those named from air and other travels. President Bush went even further he imposed Executive Order # 11921 provides that the president can declare a state of emergency that is not defined, and Congress can not review the action for six months; United States Treasury Department letter dated August 12, 2005 stated, “The government claims the power to seize all financial instruments: currency, gold, silver, and everything else if they deem an emergency exists.”
Alan Greenspan wrote in his book titled, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World” that, “There was no bigger question in Washington than, Why no second attack? If al Qaeda’s intent was to disrupt the U.S. economy, as bin Laden had declared, attacks had to continue. Our society was open, our borders were porous, and our ability to detect weapons and bombs was weak. I asked this question of a lot of people at the highest levels of government, and no one seemed to have a convincing response.”
Greenspan goes on to state, “The expectation of additional terrorism affected virtually everything the government did. And, inevitably, the defensive bubble we’d created to protect our institutions influenced every decision. In 2002, the new homeland security program was prepared to significantly curtail individual freedoms by such measures as tightening identification requirements, steeping up identity checks, restricting travel, and limiting privacy. The leaders of both parties were on board. But when no further attacks came, the politicians gradually reverted to their pre-9/11 positions on civil liberties, some more quickly than others. It is interesting to hypothesize how the United States would look today if there had been a second, third, and fourth attack. Could our culture stand it?”
Moreover, after September 11, 2001 the United States Government convinced the masses of people that Islam and its so-called militant and radical theology had a political objective of taking over the world and this notion of misinformation played to the fears of an ignorant world society, which had brought into demonizing Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as posing a legitimate threat to the national security of the United States and the world. They even convinced the American people and the world, that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was somewhat tied to the militant Al-Qaeda movement led by the “black sheep” former Royal Saudi Arabia Prince Osama Bin Laden who functioned as a Central Intelligence Agency Operative during the Afghanistan and Soviet Union conflict; Bin Laden was a loyal U.S. military ally.
Obadiah Shoher in his book titled, “Sampson Blinded: A Machiavellian Perspective on the Middle East Conflict” stated, “Morality is alien to politics. International relations are closed to good faith negotiations. Balance of power is the only operative foreign policy. The Middle East conflict is about the will: to freedom, to statehood, to religious identity. Liberal morality presumes all people similar, and erodes the West’s will to fight for its objectives. Only by shedding moral idealism we can win. Terrorism is a war like any other, not a crime. Terrorists must be respected as courageous fighters-and destroyed. Any means are good to that end, no matter what the collateral damage. Wars are not humane. Nuclear terrorism is unavoidable.”
It has been proven that Hussein had no connections to Al-Qaeda and was not involved in the World Trade Center bombing in New York City. The Saudi Royal Kingdom who claim to be the gatekeepers of the Holy City of Mecca, the seat of the Islamic religion; thus, these Wahhabi imposters, which so-called practice and advocate strict Sharia Islamic Law are staunch allies to the United States and one of the perceived enemies against Islam. This fact alone even to date serves as a religious antagonistic contradiction for Muslims and Islam throughout the world. The only thing worse would be if the Saudi Royal Government established diplomatic relations with the Zionist State of Israel. How could Saudi Arabia continue to be tolerated in the Islamic world as some moral standard?
Yaroslav Trofimov in his most intriguing book titled, “The Siege of Mecca: The Forgotten Uprising in Islam’s Holiest Shrine and the Birth of Al-Qaeda” analyze the 1979 attack on the Holy Kaaba, one the most bloodiest in modern times in which Muslim factions declared Jihad against what they perceived as anti-Islamic and western influences; in particular being led the Royal Saud family, the so-called gatekeepers of the Islamic religion. Many believed the Royal Family had co-opted Islam in the interest of the West and more importantly had compromised the true teachings of Prophet Muhammad and corrupted the faith. Trofimov stated, “On November 1979 . . . “The first of a new century—hundreds of gunmen stunned the world by seizing Islam’s holiest shrine, the Grand Mosque in Mecca. Armed with rifles that they had smuggled inside coffins, these men came from more than a dozen countries, launching the first operation of global Jihad in modern times. Led by a Saudi preacher named Juhayman al Uteybi, they believed that the Saudi royal family had become a craven servant of American infidels, and sought a return to the glory uncompromising Islam. With nearly 100, 000 worshippers trapped inside the holy compound, Mecca’s bloody siege lasted two weeks, inflaming Muslims rage against the United States and causing hundreds of deaths.”
The West did not declare war on terrorism, but declared war on Islam and at the same time watered down the United States Constitution, which was ultimately contrived to compromise civil liberties and eradicate all legal barriers and lawful rights afforded to the citizens of this country. Homeland Security even has implemented color codes as symbolism as to what our terrorist alert awareness should be on any giving day and we have know way of knowing, if these so-called alerts are real potential threats or psychological decoys aimed at creating public paranoia and tempering resistance to their police state motives . For example, code red, code orange, code yellow and this psychological game allow the government to fear bait the people into capitulating to what use to be violations of their constitutional rights, but today it is standard operational procedure because the government has convinced us that they have our security interest at front and center, but at the expense of our civil liberties.
This was a very heavy price to pay for a perceived enemy that in reality pose no threat to the civility and national security of the United States. The former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a decorated career soldier used his image as a seasoned military man and as a polished diplomat to convince the American People that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and he was bent on using them irresponsibly against the West, as well as, against his Kurdish neighbors and his own Iraqi citizens to the north.
Secretary Powell in 2003 used the world’s most formidable stage, the United Nations as a bully pulpit to layout a well planned and deceitful propaganda ploy to justify why America should consider a military strike against Iraq and began the process to depose Saddam Hussein who was once America’s long time friend and ally. President Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, State Department, etc., they all knew Hussein did not possess Weapons of Mass Destruction, but Bush in part was dealing with sentiments that were a decade old from Desert Shield and Desert Storm, which his father President George H.W. Bush could not successfully resolve.
President George W. Bush made the Iraq War personal and literally at the expense of American taxpayers, thus, early on he said he wanted Hussein removed from power because he threaten to assassinate his father and many had forgotten that Bush senior, the former CIA Director and Hussein were bosom buddies. Hussein fought the Shia Islamic Muslims of Iran for his United States friends Reagan/Bush and was rewarded with large amounts of U.S. tax money in the form of foreign aid packages. Bush and former CIA director George Tenet knew that Iraq and Saddam Hussein had no official connections with Al-Qaeda nor was Iraq involved in state sponsor terrorism and definitely had no political or military relations with the militant Islamic faction headed by Bin Laden.
Yet, Bush led the American people to believe on September 11, 2001 that Iraq and its leader were directly involved in this assault against America and the American people; although there was no definitive intelligence data suggesting such notion, it was all contrived speculation on Bush’s part to began to solidify his globalization and one world government objectives. There were initially many objectives on table and there were none more essential than radical—militant Islamic factions needing to be dealt with; in particular after the cold war and the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Islam and Muslims stood as the only enemy capable of challenging the West for the hearts and minds of humanity and possibly could stand in the way of the vast Oil Reserves lying beneath sovereign Islamic lands and territories that was deemed exploitable by the Elitist.
Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism Czar for George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush authored the monumental book titled, “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror” stated, “One would have thought that it was equally obvious after September 11 that high on the priority list would have been improving U.S. relations with the Islamic world, in order to dry up support for the deviant variant of Islam that is al Qaeda, the enemy that attacked us, was engaged in its own highly successful propaganda campaign to influence millions of Muslims to act against America, as a first step in a campaign to replace existing governments around the world with Taliban-like regimes. To defeat that enemy and prevent it from achieving its objectives, we needed to do more than just arrest and kill people. We and our values needed to be more appealing to Muslims than al Qaeda is. By all measures, however, al Qaeda and similar groups were increasing in support from Morocco to Indonesia. If that trend continues, the radical imams and their madrassas schools will (Donald Rumsfeld finally understood in 2003, as reflected in his leaked internal memo that painted a far more bleak assessment of the war on terrorism than his public statements) produce more terrorist than we jail or shoot. Far from addressing the popular appeal of the enemy that attacked us, Bush handed that enemy precisely what it wanted and needed, proof that America was at war with Islam, that we were the new Crusaders come to occupy Muslim land.”
The Morgans, Rothschilds, Oppenheimers, Rockefellers, etc., those hidden entities that posses untold financial wealth and serve as sovereign international bankers wasn’t about to allow some fundamentalist Islamic theology to interfere with their plans to control Iraq which was the second largest Oil Reserve in the world. George Bush and all other so-called world leaders and presidents take their orders from this powerful Elite and they have no choice in the matter because their own ascension to so-called power and accumulation of wealth was granted to them by that Circle, with in a Circle, with in Circle—the power Elite who has the ability to reward and punish, it is obedience and loyalty that are non-negotiable in this slave too slave master relationship.
Islam became expendable in the so-called war on terror and 9/11 forever changed the perception of Islam, as far as being characterized by the West as an antagonistic evil force bent on destroying “Great Satan” the United States of America, as Imam Ayatollah Khomeini once referred to the U.S.. The United States could justify imposing its vast military might on defenseless Muslim nations and people, in the name of combating terrorism, but Islam since 9/11 has shown a resilience to adapt and make religious and political transitions where as nationalism, ethnicity and Islamic sectarianism became somewhat secondary. For example, in Afghanistan where the Taliban (majority Pashtun, Tajik, Farsiwan, Qezelbash ethnic groups and Al-Qaeda (Middle Eastern Arabs) closed ranks under the larger unified banner of Islam and although there were President Hamid Karzai, a United States puppet in Afghanistan and King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al Saud better known as King Abdullah (who proceeded King Fahd) of Saudi Arabia another U.S. puppet; however, neither of these puppets have the power to influence these militant Islamic warriors who have united under the banner of Islam in spite of the titles of Shia or Sunni, but as Muslim brothers fighting what they perceive as a common enemy.
Former President Jimmy Carter in his book titled, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid” stated, “There are growing schisms in the Middle East region, with hardening Arab animosity toward the Israeli-United States alliance. The war in Iraq has dramatized the conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims, and has strengthened the influence of Iran. Militant Arabs, including Hamas and Hezbollah, have been given new life and influence as they are seen to be struggling against Israeli occupation of Palestine. The absence of any viable peace initiative exacerbates each individual controversy.”
President Bush and General David Petraeus know that Iraq war had no real military objective other than stealing Oil and sending young poor and middle class soldiers to fight a war as sacrificial lambs in defense of the Elite Superrich and their quest to continue filling their coffers with untold Oil wealth. The American people out of ignorance initially applauded the United States Government so-called efforts against terrorism and did not realize the real assault was on the United States Constitution and the rights afforded to the American people via this document; this writer has written about this in prior articles. Islam is not the enemy of the American people because prior to and after 9/11 most Americans had an obscure and a distorted view of the religion of Islam that was founded by Muhammad Ibn Abdullah (570 A.D—632 A.D.) over 1400 years ago; although it is the second largest and fastest growing religion in the world behind Christianity, but American ignorance was pervasive.
The next American president will inherited a “new world” with an entirely different, but volatile political landscape and more importantly will inherited a world that has been shaped by eight years of President George W. Bush who has isolated Muslim and Islamic nations, which represents over 1 billion adherents. The first international order of business will be how the United States deals with Iran and its controversial President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The United States should have learned some valuable lessons from the Iraq conflict, which lacked clear military and political objectives and it was a war that the United States should have never entered. It has cost the United States taxpayers close to a trillion dollars, we have over 150, 000 U.S. troops deployed on a mission they can not win because the enemy is not well defined and when you fail to exercise diplomacy, it is destined to create a mess. The United States has lost over 4, 000 servicemen to this war and our next Commander in Chief has to be able implore better foreign policy judgment and not be swayed by corporate interest. Iran just as Iraq is an oil rich Islamic state and U.S. Foreign policy toward Iran should be civil and with respect to this nation's sovereignty—let’s consider diplomacy over war and not further isolate America from the Islamic world.
Former CIA Director George Tenet in his book titled “At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA” stated, “We need to understand that people in the Middle East need a foundation that will allow them to migrate to more representative forms of government in their own way and at their own pace. Simply shouting ‘democracy’ without the existence of a vibrant civil society, and without paving the way for the educational, economic, and institutional transformation required as a foundation for that democracy, may well take us backward and empower the very extremists whose strength we are trying to diminish. Once these extremists gain power, they are unlikely to let it go. Their concept of democracy is ‘One man, one vote . . . one time.’ I believe that if we insist on trying to remake the world in our image, we will fail. Still, we must engage relentlessly to foster a solution to these problems, because the region that served as the cradle of civilization also holds the potential to be its grave.”
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
Stay Awake Until We Meet Again,
Fahim A. Knight
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Monday, March 31, 2008
JEREMIAH WRIGHT AND THE AMERICAN DILEMMA: HE IS NOT AMERICA’S PROBLEM
"JEREMIAH WRIGHT AND THE AMERICAN DILEMMA: HE IS NOT AMERICA’S PROBLEM" By FAHIM A. KNIGHT
This writer is appalled at all the negative attention and criticism Reverend Jeremiah Wright has received from the mass media both electronic and print due to his relationship with Senator Barack Obama who is running for the office of president of the United States of America. This writer must admit right off the back to his readers that he admires Reverend Wright; although he has never met the man and has never attended his Chicago based church. I guess the premises of this statement would suggest to the readers that this article will be subjective and lack objectivity and scholarly balance; just too the contrary this author went to great lengths to offer an empirical argument. However Reverend Wright would be the type of pastor and shepherd that this writer could embrace and follow, thus, I am far beyond being led by black charismatic leaders and cult type religions and organizations that are steeped in ministries of exploitation and of no substance to its followers.
Thus, this writer is equally appalled at how some Christian clergy and fellow church goers have gone too great lengths to distance themselves publicly from Reverend Wright. Wright’s sermons are directly rooted in the black experience and it is within that socio-political and culture context his ideological analysis and theological interpretations has been formulated. The evaluation of America’s system of oppression and racism can perhaps be heard in most black churches pulpits subtly and/or radically on any giving Sunday. The historical experience of 310 years of subjugation from time to time created voices of rebellion and protest that evolved simultaneously alongside a system of injustice and oppression.
Kwame Ture Stated in his book titled, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation” stated,"One of the strategies of racism is to confuse the victims into believing all their victories should be awarded to the oppressor. In the U.S.A., when Africans verbally attack capitalism they are told that they must be thankful to the U.S. capitalist system, which gives them the right to free speech. In this one sentence, Centuries of African struggle are obliterated. When Africans came To the U.S.A. speaking only African languages, their tongues would be cut out and held as an example to others. Did the system Change on its own or did Africans force the change, thru consistent, uncompromising struggle?"
America’s media has always had an uncanny way of blaming and demonizing the victim and those that perpetuated these historical criminal acts go unchallenged. Blacks in 1555 arrived to the shores of America in the holes of slave ships deemed as chattel slaves. Moreover, kidnapped from Africa by Portugal, Spain, Great Britain, France, Germany, the Dutch, etc. It would be race and class that have served as a historical and present antagonistic contradiction laying at the base of race relations in America.
Black people have always listened to and benefited from religious leaders of the likes of Jeremiah Wright from the slave plantation to the present because they share a common history and a common experience and can relate to the struggles of the biblical peoples and prophets being referenced and articulated in their religious worldview. Black preachers have the flexibility to use cultural and nationalism, as part of their hermeneutics to demonstrate theological relevance to the daily struggles of black folk. The black preacher has always used biblical allegory, metaphors, symbolism, similes, etc., which to paint a picture, but more importantly draw direct and indirect parallel to the prophets and people of old, which to redeem the spiritual struggles impacting their followers’ lives.
Senator Obama for over 20 years found that type of ministerial instructions fitting and in no way contradictory to his American patriotism because fire and brimstone sermons delivered by black ministers has always giving blacks a collective voice of criticism and a subconscious spiritual victory over earthly matters that they couldn’t change or alter. Many of Reverend Wright sermons heard by Senator Obama were viewed as reflecting honesty, forthrightness, and religious tolerance compatible to his worldview because it exemplified the black experience in America. This writer has no respect for the waffling and backsliding Senator Obama has done because it shows a lack of integrity and a willingness to play a dangerous political game. Reverend Wright is not a racist or a bigot nor is his preaching style obsolete and Senator Obama knows this; he is a keen intellectual that has worked diligently to give his followers a perspective and used the text as a tool of liberation and mentally freeing the captives. The media has an agenda to misinform, mischaracterize, and manipulate the truth in order to keep the masses of people confused and politically disorientated.
They knew long before Senator Obama declared his presidency that Reverend Wright’s fiery speeches could pose a political liability to the candidate of change and they forced Senator Obama to react to his pastor’s discourse on race and understand nothing he could say or offer would desensitize this deep seated American dilemma . You would have thought for a minute that Reverend Wright was running for the office of president, as opposed to Senator Obama with the kind of scrutiny and interest he was gathering. Yet, the controversial Reverend John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas endorsed Senator John McCain and Hagee has voiced some mean and hate filled things in the pulpit and on national broadcast about the religion of Islam and Muslims. Hagee’s remarks has consistently been racist toward Arab Muslims and discriminatory in intent, as well as being anti-Islam. He receives huge sums of money from various Zionist organizations, including from the State of Israel and is pimping Christianity in the name of white Christian patriotism. Senator McCain received little criticism for his association with Reverend Hagee; this is the type of double standard that Obama will continue to face.
The United States Government has always used dirty tricks to manipulate the ignorant masses and is crafty enough to create infighting amongst its intended victims (progressive whites and blacks) as one of its goals, but the ultimate objectives is polarization—divide and conquer. The true manipulators are hidden behind many covert layers of artful deception and they have enough power to hide their dirty hands. What did Reverend Wright say to make him this evil pariah?
This writer from time-to-time has been very critical of Christianity for negating and refusing to delve into the social, political, and economic struggles that impact black lives on a daily basis. Many of our Black church leaders are fearful of the political reprisals that they may have to endure, if they tell the truth and I have heard many of them say their congregations are not ready. This is a lame excuse that a coward would use to justify their cowardice and anxiety about being in opposition to oppression and tyranny. Thus, the people are ready to be led beyond feel-good sermons that oftentimes are of no consequence other than luring the parishers to sleep and rewarding the minister with a bourgeoisie life style.
Jesus the Christ was a revolutionary and was confronted with a wicked government; Jesus was defiant and controversial, this is why it is easy for me to embrace Reverend Jeremiah Wright because this writer understands the true teachings of Jesus. Jesus would be siding with the oppressed and the downtrodden or the least of these. Senator Obama tried to place Reverend Wright’s ideology and philosophical outlook into a time capsule, as to suggest to America that his perspective had no relevance because his worldview was steeped in an outdated culture experience of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970’s, which was shaped by racism, discrimination, segregation, etc., and suggested this experience somehow has tainted Reverend Wright’s ability to be objective and analytical when evaluating American style imperialism historically and presently.
James H. Cone professor emeritus and of one of the premier scholars of Black Liberation Theology in his book titled, “Black Theology and Black Power” stated, “The revolutionary attitude of Black Theology stems not only from the need of black people to defend themselves in the presences of white oppression, but also from its identity with biblical theology. Like biblical theology, it affirms the absolute sovereignty of God over his creation. This means that ultimate allegiance belongs to God. Therefore, black people must be taught not to be disturbed about revolution or civil disobedience if the law violates God’s purpose for man. The Christian man is obligated by a freedom grounded in the Creator to break all laws which contradicts human dignity. Through disobedience the state, he affirms his allegiance to God as Creator and his willingness to behave as if he believes it. Civil disobedience is a duty in a racist society. This is why Camilo Torres said, ‘Revolutionary action is a Christian, a priestly struggle.’ ‘’
This era (Civil Rights) in African American history in particular and American history in general, represented the ugly past of America because of the blatant Jim Crow Laws, black lynching, injustices and institutionalize racism, but the laws of physics has an axiom that says for every action there is opposite and equal direct reaction.
Theologian Howard Thurman who authored the book titled, “The Luminous of Darkness” stated, “If being Christian does not demand that all Christians love each other and thereby become deeply engaged in experiencing themselves as human beings, it would seem futile to expect that Christians as Christians would be concerned about the secular community in its gross practices of prejudice and discrimination. If a black Christian and a white Christian, in counter, cannot reach out to each other in mutual realization because of that which they are experiencing in common, then there should be no surprise that the Christian institution has been powerless in the presence of the color bar in society. Rather it has reflected the presences of the color bar within its own institutional life.”
This era produced some of African Americans most formidable freedom fighters and organizations such as the Deacons of Defense and its leader Robert Williams who turned Concord and Gastonia, North Carolina up-sided down and had to eventually seek political asylum in Cuba and China; Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and its two founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale; Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee producing Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael), and Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rapp Brown), Elijah Muhammad leader of the Nation of Islam, Dr. Martin Luther King leader of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party, Imari Obadele the Republic of New Africa, etc.
Reverend Wright like any sane person can not forget the collective history and collective suffering of African American people, no more than the Jews being asked to forget Auschwitz and death camps. If anyone even thought to suggest this they would be categorically labeled anti-Semitic and condemned by the forces of Zionism. Reverend Wright was very clear, but it is Senator Obama who has selective amnesia and is speaking as an apologist for a system of injustice.
Wyatt Tee Walker in his book titled, “Spirits That Dwell In Deep Woods: The Prayer and Praise Hymns of the Black Religious Experience” stated, “Afro-centric theology proceeds from a different center than does Euro-centric theology. Theology of African-Americans issues from our pain predicament (which was pervasive) and thereby, more experiential than reflective ours is a learned and lived theology. This is not to suggest that religious faith of African-Americans is impoverished to Continental theological musings but only that Afro-centricity is dominant.”
Patrick Henry stated “ give me liberty or give me death”. Reverend Wright is a good patriot because he will not stand idly and be silent in the face of injustice, but offers America a mirror in order to draw attention to her arrogance and to expose this nation’s social and political contradictions. This writer happens to agree with Reverend Wright’s criticism of United States Foreign Policy in Iraq, Cuba, Africa, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Afghanistan, etc. And how they have used terrorism to isolate foreign governments that would not go along with President George W. Bush one World Government initiatives, which was set in motion with the September 11, 2001 hoax that led to so many reactionary executive orders and turned the United States Constitution into a worthless piece of paper.
We did not need Reverend Wright to tell us that something was sinister about 9-11 most people to date know that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda had absolutely nothing to do with the bombing of the World Trade Center Towers in New York; what Reverend Wright was allege to have said does not rate on the radar scale with the level of deception and dishonesty of the United States Government. A shrewd enemy decided to use Reverend Wright as a fall guy and a patsy to derail Senator Obama’s bid to become President of the United States. Wright did not invent the racial dilemma in America and any speech he gives must be viewed as mere hot air because he does not have any weapons to confront institutionalize racism with all its arsenal.
This entire Obama and Wright fiasco is a diversionary tactic perhaps created by Bill and Hillary Clinton, two old allies of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberger appealing to the deep seated fears and guilt of Americans and more importantly America’s failure to rectify a 453 year old issue that racism created and have been in denial. Moreover, Reverend Wright’s critique of America was no different than Minister Malcolm X in the 1960s; why not evaluate the truth or falsity of Wright’s words? As opposed to formulating an irrational assessment from an out of context sound bite.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright stated, “God as seen by those who are the underside of society is not the same God as seen by those who are ‘on top’. The religion of the slave and the religion of the slave holder are by definition two different religions; and the gods that they serve are by extension two different gods. The God of Africans in disapora is consistent with the God of the Bible who enters into history on the side of the oppressed, in the corner of those ‘on the underside’, and fighting the cause of the slaves and the descendants of slaves. . .God was known by Africans long before the first Muslim slave ship carried them across the Indian Ocean in the East African Slave Trade; and this same God who ‘sits high and looks low’ is a God of justice, love and mercy. He is a God who is ‘writing all the time’ and there is nothing that escapes His attention.”
They then force African Americans to choose between Obama and Reverend Wright, the old divide and conquer scheme. Obama is a political animal and he will say and do anything to elevate himself to the next political level even if it means repudiating and disavowing his longtime friend and confidante. The media has painted Reverend Wright as anti-American, but President Bush and Dick Chaney in my opinion are more anti-American than Reverend Wright could ever be because their oppressive legacy and their policy of “dumbing” down America will impact us for generations to come.
It became convenient to blame the so-called radical Islamic fundamentalist for a crime they did not commit and the real criminals were receiving no bid contracts and running Halliburton behind enemy lines with hired mercenaries such as Blackwater USA serving as their private military force and have now stolen trillions of dollars in oil revenue from Iraq. These criminals have no legal boundaries, they have committed high crimes and low misdemeanors from the White House that is worthy of impeachment and imprisonment. The Iraqi war has wrecked the United States economy, which has cost American taxpayers over 600 billion dollars and to the detriment over 4000 United States Servicemen lives. The United States occupation of Iraq is an out-law act with a criminal intent--stealing oil.
U.S. military aggression in the so-called Middle East has fueled anti-American sentiments throughout the region and is the impetus that drives international terrorism. Bush has created enemies throughout the Islamic world and this formidable enemy will not back down. Senator John McCain, the Republican Party presidential nominee said he would commit U. S. soldiers for another 100 years to war in Iraq; either he is an idiot or he himself has a vested interest in continuing Bush's foreign policy of stealing oil in name of combating terrorism.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not the first American to take issue with United States Foreign Policy and he will not be the last. If the American people had any sense they too would demand more integrity and accountability from our policy makers. The United States Congress, which a majority are Democrats have been equal culprits in their continued efforts to finance Bush's war while its own citizens do have adequate health care and the sub-prime crisis have left many good Americans homeless. Nevertheless, we witness the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Ben Bernanke bailout a private investment firm Bear Stearns, but has not bailout the suffering American people; this move was unprecedented since the 1913 establishment of the Federal Reserve System, which the United States Government and citizens turned its monetary system over to the twelve Central Banks. Bernanke and Federal Reserve give George Bush and the U.S. Congress orders.
This writer does not think the focus should be on Reverend Jeremiah Wright's words in this 2008 campaign unless we are willing to analyze and assess his words in order to help lead this nation toward a new national and international direction. America is in trouble and she does not need leaders who are placating and desiring to continue business as usual. Senator Obama's speech on race was well written and well crafted, but it only serves as a temporary band aid to a complex issue. He failed to mention reparations and although Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey have all passed state legislation issuing African Americans official state apologies for slavery.
But here is the problem, why has not the United States Government issued African Americans an official governmental apology, as well put their money next to their mouths? Congressman John Conyers; House of Representative Chairman of the United States Judiciary Committee has had a Bill in Congress for over 20 years just to study the possibility of reparations and it has been met with deceitful filibustering . Senator Obama is no authority on race relations and he does not speak for the masses of black people. The real teacher on race was Reverend Jeremiah Wright and not his student Senator Obama and America could have benefited from an open and candid discussion; if only Jeremiah Wright would have delivered a national address on race.
Michael Eric Dyson in his book titled, “Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line” stated, “Christianity insisted there was a need to save the savages from their own cultural deficits. White Christians sought to rescue slaves from perdition by making sure what little soul they had was made suitable for the Kingdom of God. Christianity gave theological legitimacy, and racial justification, to widely held beliefs about black inferiority. It also sanctified the brutal methods deemed necessary to tame the beastly urges of black Africans. White society exploited black labor. White Christianity made it appear that God was behind the whole scheme. Some argued that God used slavery as a tool to bring backward Africans to America. They believed God used white slavers to save black souls by subjugating their bodies. Christian theology shook hands with slavery and sailed off into the sunset of white supremacy.”
The media has painted and portrayed Wright's comments as being militant and that of Black Nationalism and out of political motives has found Senator Obama guilty by association. Also it did not help that Trinity United Church of Christ and Reverend Wright’s image by giving Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a life time achievement award that he so rightly deserved for his over fifty (50) years of work in the black community . They, the media initially were going to use Minister Farrakhan against Senator Obama, but they found a more suitable candidate in Reverend Wright. Minister Farrakhan failed short of endorsing Senator Obama, but at his annual February Saviours Day Convention held in honor of the birthday (February 26, 1877) of Nation of Islam founder Master Fard Muhammad. He described Obama as the last hope for America.
Minister Farrakhan stated, “I ask that we pray for our brother. I’m not asking for votes. I’m asking a nation, the Nation of Islam and people of goodwill, pray for this young man {Senator Obama} and his family. . .the enemy is working right now. He wants to find a way to get at Farrakhan. What is wrong with Farrakhan that you have to make Farrakhan a litmus test for any Black person who strives for betterment, for elevation in society? Let’s give them the Farrakhan test. I’ve taking tests. I’ve never been in a classroom where a test is only applied to one student in the class. If you’re going to give someone the litmus test give it to all the presidential candidates. Don’t single out one man and say let’s give him the Farrakhan test. Why not give it to (Sen.) Hillary (Clinton)? What are you trying to do to our brother? Why do you hate him so, that you want to make me a stumbling block? That’s why you have never heard me make any comment. I love that brother, and I want to see that brother successful. I don’t want to say anything that would hurt that brother, and I don’t want them to use me or the Nation of Islam.”
Farrakhan in the past has been at the center of controversy when in 1984 Reverend Jesse Jackson was running for the office of president and had numerous death threats against his life; moreover, the United States Secret Service initially did not give Jackson security and Minister Farrakhan ordered his Fruit of Islam (the Nation of Islam security force) to protect Jackson. This was the beginning of a political race that was derailed by race, class and religion, which led to accusations of anti-Semitism and eventually Reverend Jackson was force to repudiate his friend Minister Farrakhan just as Senator Obama is being forced to repudiate his friend and mentor Reverend Wright; perhaps the same enemy was behind both of these incidents.
Black ministers and preachers must continue to use their pulpits, which to educate and socially agitate because anything short of that would be a compromise to the teachings of Jesus the Christ. Reverend Wright should be a standard barrier, he was just not interested in saving souls, but he preached a social gospel that was defiant, confrontational, constructive and yes, at times critical of modern day Pharaoh (United States Government). We do not need anymore inside the box teachings because only honesty has the power to save our nation from internal destruction and we must be willing to call a spade a spade. Reverend Wright did not enact the United States Patriot Act, Military Commission Act, Forfeiture Seizure Act, Anti Terrorism Bill, invent the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, rearranged the Geneva Convention Laws, etc. These chess board moves are much more dangerous than anything Farrakhan or Wright could ever say or do.
We just should not hold these controversial black leaders to a higher standard and not hold our elected officials to an even higher standard because they are the ones with the power and leverage, which to alter the political course of America. This writer does not think offering critical analysis of our government should be viewed as being less patriotic or anti-American than someone expressing political optimism. The First Amendment Right protects the likes of Jeremiah Wright, a voice of dissent, as well as those flag waving patriots; however, anytime one takes opposition to the popular view, you will automatically be ridiculed or ostracized for daring to challenge the political and social norms of the status quo.
Jeremiah Wright is a true Christian, the Roman Government called Jesus controversial and radical, we need someone today that can perform miracles--give sight to the blind, restore the hearing of the deaf, and make the lame walk. So many of our leaders and preachers say what is political expedient and turn a blind eye to what is morally and ethically right--my pursuit is not politics nor do I put much credence in organized religion---my quest is Freedom, Justice, and Equality.
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
Stay Awake Until We Meet Again,
Fahim A. Knight
This writer is appalled at all the negative attention and criticism Reverend Jeremiah Wright has received from the mass media both electronic and print due to his relationship with Senator Barack Obama who is running for the office of president of the United States of America. This writer must admit right off the back to his readers that he admires Reverend Wright; although he has never met the man and has never attended his Chicago based church. I guess the premises of this statement would suggest to the readers that this article will be subjective and lack objectivity and scholarly balance; just too the contrary this author went to great lengths to offer an empirical argument. However Reverend Wright would be the type of pastor and shepherd that this writer could embrace and follow, thus, I am far beyond being led by black charismatic leaders and cult type religions and organizations that are steeped in ministries of exploitation and of no substance to its followers.
Thus, this writer is equally appalled at how some Christian clergy and fellow church goers have gone too great lengths to distance themselves publicly from Reverend Wright. Wright’s sermons are directly rooted in the black experience and it is within that socio-political and culture context his ideological analysis and theological interpretations has been formulated. The evaluation of America’s system of oppression and racism can perhaps be heard in most black churches pulpits subtly and/or radically on any giving Sunday. The historical experience of 310 years of subjugation from time to time created voices of rebellion and protest that evolved simultaneously alongside a system of injustice and oppression.
Kwame Ture Stated in his book titled, Black Power: The Politics of Liberation” stated,"One of the strategies of racism is to confuse the victims into believing all their victories should be awarded to the oppressor. In the U.S.A., when Africans verbally attack capitalism they are told that they must be thankful to the U.S. capitalist system, which gives them the right to free speech. In this one sentence, Centuries of African struggle are obliterated. When Africans came To the U.S.A. speaking only African languages, their tongues would be cut out and held as an example to others. Did the system Change on its own or did Africans force the change, thru consistent, uncompromising struggle?"
America’s media has always had an uncanny way of blaming and demonizing the victim and those that perpetuated these historical criminal acts go unchallenged. Blacks in 1555 arrived to the shores of America in the holes of slave ships deemed as chattel slaves. Moreover, kidnapped from Africa by Portugal, Spain, Great Britain, France, Germany, the Dutch, etc. It would be race and class that have served as a historical and present antagonistic contradiction laying at the base of race relations in America.
Black people have always listened to and benefited from religious leaders of the likes of Jeremiah Wright from the slave plantation to the present because they share a common history and a common experience and can relate to the struggles of the biblical peoples and prophets being referenced and articulated in their religious worldview. Black preachers have the flexibility to use cultural and nationalism, as part of their hermeneutics to demonstrate theological relevance to the daily struggles of black folk. The black preacher has always used biblical allegory, metaphors, symbolism, similes, etc., which to paint a picture, but more importantly draw direct and indirect parallel to the prophets and people of old, which to redeem the spiritual struggles impacting their followers’ lives.
Senator Obama for over 20 years found that type of ministerial instructions fitting and in no way contradictory to his American patriotism because fire and brimstone sermons delivered by black ministers has always giving blacks a collective voice of criticism and a subconscious spiritual victory over earthly matters that they couldn’t change or alter. Many of Reverend Wright sermons heard by Senator Obama were viewed as reflecting honesty, forthrightness, and religious tolerance compatible to his worldview because it exemplified the black experience in America. This writer has no respect for the waffling and backsliding Senator Obama has done because it shows a lack of integrity and a willingness to play a dangerous political game. Reverend Wright is not a racist or a bigot nor is his preaching style obsolete and Senator Obama knows this; he is a keen intellectual that has worked diligently to give his followers a perspective and used the text as a tool of liberation and mentally freeing the captives. The media has an agenda to misinform, mischaracterize, and manipulate the truth in order to keep the masses of people confused and politically disorientated.
They knew long before Senator Obama declared his presidency that Reverend Wright’s fiery speeches could pose a political liability to the candidate of change and they forced Senator Obama to react to his pastor’s discourse on race and understand nothing he could say or offer would desensitize this deep seated American dilemma . You would have thought for a minute that Reverend Wright was running for the office of president, as opposed to Senator Obama with the kind of scrutiny and interest he was gathering. Yet, the controversial Reverend John Hagee of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas endorsed Senator John McCain and Hagee has voiced some mean and hate filled things in the pulpit and on national broadcast about the religion of Islam and Muslims. Hagee’s remarks has consistently been racist toward Arab Muslims and discriminatory in intent, as well as being anti-Islam. He receives huge sums of money from various Zionist organizations, including from the State of Israel and is pimping Christianity in the name of white Christian patriotism. Senator McCain received little criticism for his association with Reverend Hagee; this is the type of double standard that Obama will continue to face.
The United States Government has always used dirty tricks to manipulate the ignorant masses and is crafty enough to create infighting amongst its intended victims (progressive whites and blacks) as one of its goals, but the ultimate objectives is polarization—divide and conquer. The true manipulators are hidden behind many covert layers of artful deception and they have enough power to hide their dirty hands. What did Reverend Wright say to make him this evil pariah?
This writer from time-to-time has been very critical of Christianity for negating and refusing to delve into the social, political, and economic struggles that impact black lives on a daily basis. Many of our Black church leaders are fearful of the political reprisals that they may have to endure, if they tell the truth and I have heard many of them say their congregations are not ready. This is a lame excuse that a coward would use to justify their cowardice and anxiety about being in opposition to oppression and tyranny. Thus, the people are ready to be led beyond feel-good sermons that oftentimes are of no consequence other than luring the parishers to sleep and rewarding the minister with a bourgeoisie life style.
Jesus the Christ was a revolutionary and was confronted with a wicked government; Jesus was defiant and controversial, this is why it is easy for me to embrace Reverend Jeremiah Wright because this writer understands the true teachings of Jesus. Jesus would be siding with the oppressed and the downtrodden or the least of these. Senator Obama tried to place Reverend Wright’s ideology and philosophical outlook into a time capsule, as to suggest to America that his perspective had no relevance because his worldview was steeped in an outdated culture experience of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970’s, which was shaped by racism, discrimination, segregation, etc., and suggested this experience somehow has tainted Reverend Wright’s ability to be objective and analytical when evaluating American style imperialism historically and presently.
James H. Cone professor emeritus and of one of the premier scholars of Black Liberation Theology in his book titled, “Black Theology and Black Power” stated, “The revolutionary attitude of Black Theology stems not only from the need of black people to defend themselves in the presences of white oppression, but also from its identity with biblical theology. Like biblical theology, it affirms the absolute sovereignty of God over his creation. This means that ultimate allegiance belongs to God. Therefore, black people must be taught not to be disturbed about revolution or civil disobedience if the law violates God’s purpose for man. The Christian man is obligated by a freedom grounded in the Creator to break all laws which contradicts human dignity. Through disobedience the state, he affirms his allegiance to God as Creator and his willingness to behave as if he believes it. Civil disobedience is a duty in a racist society. This is why Camilo Torres said, ‘Revolutionary action is a Christian, a priestly struggle.’ ‘’
This era (Civil Rights) in African American history in particular and American history in general, represented the ugly past of America because of the blatant Jim Crow Laws, black lynching, injustices and institutionalize racism, but the laws of physics has an axiom that says for every action there is opposite and equal direct reaction.
Theologian Howard Thurman who authored the book titled, “The Luminous of Darkness” stated, “If being Christian does not demand that all Christians love each other and thereby become deeply engaged in experiencing themselves as human beings, it would seem futile to expect that Christians as Christians would be concerned about the secular community in its gross practices of prejudice and discrimination. If a black Christian and a white Christian, in counter, cannot reach out to each other in mutual realization because of that which they are experiencing in common, then there should be no surprise that the Christian institution has been powerless in the presence of the color bar in society. Rather it has reflected the presences of the color bar within its own institutional life.”
This era produced some of African Americans most formidable freedom fighters and organizations such as the Deacons of Defense and its leader Robert Williams who turned Concord and Gastonia, North Carolina up-sided down and had to eventually seek political asylum in Cuba and China; Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and its two founders Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale; Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee producing Kwame Ture (Stokley Carmichael), and Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rapp Brown), Elijah Muhammad leader of the Nation of Islam, Dr. Martin Luther King leader of Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party, Imari Obadele the Republic of New Africa, etc.
Reverend Wright like any sane person can not forget the collective history and collective suffering of African American people, no more than the Jews being asked to forget Auschwitz and death camps. If anyone even thought to suggest this they would be categorically labeled anti-Semitic and condemned by the forces of Zionism. Reverend Wright was very clear, but it is Senator Obama who has selective amnesia and is speaking as an apologist for a system of injustice.
Wyatt Tee Walker in his book titled, “Spirits That Dwell In Deep Woods: The Prayer and Praise Hymns of the Black Religious Experience” stated, “Afro-centric theology proceeds from a different center than does Euro-centric theology. Theology of African-Americans issues from our pain predicament (which was pervasive) and thereby, more experiential than reflective ours is a learned and lived theology. This is not to suggest that religious faith of African-Americans is impoverished to Continental theological musings but only that Afro-centricity is dominant.”
Patrick Henry stated “ give me liberty or give me death”. Reverend Wright is a good patriot because he will not stand idly and be silent in the face of injustice, but offers America a mirror in order to draw attention to her arrogance and to expose this nation’s social and political contradictions. This writer happens to agree with Reverend Wright’s criticism of United States Foreign Policy in Iraq, Cuba, Africa, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Afghanistan, etc. And how they have used terrorism to isolate foreign governments that would not go along with President George W. Bush one World Government initiatives, which was set in motion with the September 11, 2001 hoax that led to so many reactionary executive orders and turned the United States Constitution into a worthless piece of paper.
We did not need Reverend Wright to tell us that something was sinister about 9-11 most people to date know that Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda had absolutely nothing to do with the bombing of the World Trade Center Towers in New York; what Reverend Wright was allege to have said does not rate on the radar scale with the level of deception and dishonesty of the United States Government. A shrewd enemy decided to use Reverend Wright as a fall guy and a patsy to derail Senator Obama’s bid to become President of the United States. Wright did not invent the racial dilemma in America and any speech he gives must be viewed as mere hot air because he does not have any weapons to confront institutionalize racism with all its arsenal.
This entire Obama and Wright fiasco is a diversionary tactic perhaps created by Bill and Hillary Clinton, two old allies of the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission and Bilderberger appealing to the deep seated fears and guilt of Americans and more importantly America’s failure to rectify a 453 year old issue that racism created and have been in denial. Moreover, Reverend Wright’s critique of America was no different than Minister Malcolm X in the 1960s; why not evaluate the truth or falsity of Wright’s words? As opposed to formulating an irrational assessment from an out of context sound bite.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright stated, “God as seen by those who are the underside of society is not the same God as seen by those who are ‘on top’. The religion of the slave and the religion of the slave holder are by definition two different religions; and the gods that they serve are by extension two different gods. The God of Africans in disapora is consistent with the God of the Bible who enters into history on the side of the oppressed, in the corner of those ‘on the underside’, and fighting the cause of the slaves and the descendants of slaves. . .God was known by Africans long before the first Muslim slave ship carried them across the Indian Ocean in the East African Slave Trade; and this same God who ‘sits high and looks low’ is a God of justice, love and mercy. He is a God who is ‘writing all the time’ and there is nothing that escapes His attention.”
They then force African Americans to choose between Obama and Reverend Wright, the old divide and conquer scheme. Obama is a political animal and he will say and do anything to elevate himself to the next political level even if it means repudiating and disavowing his longtime friend and confidante. The media has painted Reverend Wright as anti-American, but President Bush and Dick Chaney in my opinion are more anti-American than Reverend Wright could ever be because their oppressive legacy and their policy of “dumbing” down America will impact us for generations to come.
It became convenient to blame the so-called radical Islamic fundamentalist for a crime they did not commit and the real criminals were receiving no bid contracts and running Halliburton behind enemy lines with hired mercenaries such as Blackwater USA serving as their private military force and have now stolen trillions of dollars in oil revenue from Iraq. These criminals have no legal boundaries, they have committed high crimes and low misdemeanors from the White House that is worthy of impeachment and imprisonment. The Iraqi war has wrecked the United States economy, which has cost American taxpayers over 600 billion dollars and to the detriment over 4000 United States Servicemen lives. The United States occupation of Iraq is an out-law act with a criminal intent--stealing oil.
U.S. military aggression in the so-called Middle East has fueled anti-American sentiments throughout the region and is the impetus that drives international terrorism. Bush has created enemies throughout the Islamic world and this formidable enemy will not back down. Senator John McCain, the Republican Party presidential nominee said he would commit U. S. soldiers for another 100 years to war in Iraq; either he is an idiot or he himself has a vested interest in continuing Bush's foreign policy of stealing oil in name of combating terrorism.
Reverend Jeremiah Wright is not the first American to take issue with United States Foreign Policy and he will not be the last. If the American people had any sense they too would demand more integrity and accountability from our policy makers. The United States Congress, which a majority are Democrats have been equal culprits in their continued efforts to finance Bush's war while its own citizens do have adequate health care and the sub-prime crisis have left many good Americans homeless. Nevertheless, we witness the Federal Reserve and its Chairman Ben Bernanke bailout a private investment firm Bear Stearns, but has not bailout the suffering American people; this move was unprecedented since the 1913 establishment of the Federal Reserve System, which the United States Government and citizens turned its monetary system over to the twelve Central Banks. Bernanke and Federal Reserve give George Bush and the U.S. Congress orders.
This writer does not think the focus should be on Reverend Jeremiah Wright's words in this 2008 campaign unless we are willing to analyze and assess his words in order to help lead this nation toward a new national and international direction. America is in trouble and she does not need leaders who are placating and desiring to continue business as usual. Senator Obama's speech on race was well written and well crafted, but it only serves as a temporary band aid to a complex issue. He failed to mention reparations and although Florida, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New Jersey have all passed state legislation issuing African Americans official state apologies for slavery.
But here is the problem, why has not the United States Government issued African Americans an official governmental apology, as well put their money next to their mouths? Congressman John Conyers; House of Representative Chairman of the United States Judiciary Committee has had a Bill in Congress for over 20 years just to study the possibility of reparations and it has been met with deceitful filibustering . Senator Obama is no authority on race relations and he does not speak for the masses of black people. The real teacher on race was Reverend Jeremiah Wright and not his student Senator Obama and America could have benefited from an open and candid discussion; if only Jeremiah Wright would have delivered a national address on race.
Michael Eric Dyson in his book titled, “Race Rules: Navigating the Color Line” stated, “Christianity insisted there was a need to save the savages from their own cultural deficits. White Christians sought to rescue slaves from perdition by making sure what little soul they had was made suitable for the Kingdom of God. Christianity gave theological legitimacy, and racial justification, to widely held beliefs about black inferiority. It also sanctified the brutal methods deemed necessary to tame the beastly urges of black Africans. White society exploited black labor. White Christianity made it appear that God was behind the whole scheme. Some argued that God used slavery as a tool to bring backward Africans to America. They believed God used white slavers to save black souls by subjugating their bodies. Christian theology shook hands with slavery and sailed off into the sunset of white supremacy.”
The media has painted and portrayed Wright's comments as being militant and that of Black Nationalism and out of political motives has found Senator Obama guilty by association. Also it did not help that Trinity United Church of Christ and Reverend Wright’s image by giving Minister Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, a life time achievement award that he so rightly deserved for his over fifty (50) years of work in the black community . They, the media initially were going to use Minister Farrakhan against Senator Obama, but they found a more suitable candidate in Reverend Wright. Minister Farrakhan failed short of endorsing Senator Obama, but at his annual February Saviours Day Convention held in honor of the birthday (February 26, 1877) of Nation of Islam founder Master Fard Muhammad. He described Obama as the last hope for America.
Minister Farrakhan stated, “I ask that we pray for our brother. I’m not asking for votes. I’m asking a nation, the Nation of Islam and people of goodwill, pray for this young man {Senator Obama} and his family. . .the enemy is working right now. He wants to find a way to get at Farrakhan. What is wrong with Farrakhan that you have to make Farrakhan a litmus test for any Black person who strives for betterment, for elevation in society? Let’s give them the Farrakhan test. I’ve taking tests. I’ve never been in a classroom where a test is only applied to one student in the class. If you’re going to give someone the litmus test give it to all the presidential candidates. Don’t single out one man and say let’s give him the Farrakhan test. Why not give it to (Sen.) Hillary (Clinton)? What are you trying to do to our brother? Why do you hate him so, that you want to make me a stumbling block? That’s why you have never heard me make any comment. I love that brother, and I want to see that brother successful. I don’t want to say anything that would hurt that brother, and I don’t want them to use me or the Nation of Islam.”
Farrakhan in the past has been at the center of controversy when in 1984 Reverend Jesse Jackson was running for the office of president and had numerous death threats against his life; moreover, the United States Secret Service initially did not give Jackson security and Minister Farrakhan ordered his Fruit of Islam (the Nation of Islam security force) to protect Jackson. This was the beginning of a political race that was derailed by race, class and religion, which led to accusations of anti-Semitism and eventually Reverend Jackson was force to repudiate his friend Minister Farrakhan just as Senator Obama is being forced to repudiate his friend and mentor Reverend Wright; perhaps the same enemy was behind both of these incidents.
Black ministers and preachers must continue to use their pulpits, which to educate and socially agitate because anything short of that would be a compromise to the teachings of Jesus the Christ. Reverend Wright should be a standard barrier, he was just not interested in saving souls, but he preached a social gospel that was defiant, confrontational, constructive and yes, at times critical of modern day Pharaoh (United States Government). We do not need anymore inside the box teachings because only honesty has the power to save our nation from internal destruction and we must be willing to call a spade a spade. Reverend Wright did not enact the United States Patriot Act, Military Commission Act, Forfeiture Seizure Act, Anti Terrorism Bill, invent the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, rearranged the Geneva Convention Laws, etc. These chess board moves are much more dangerous than anything Farrakhan or Wright could ever say or do.
We just should not hold these controversial black leaders to a higher standard and not hold our elected officials to an even higher standard because they are the ones with the power and leverage, which to alter the political course of America. This writer does not think offering critical analysis of our government should be viewed as being less patriotic or anti-American than someone expressing political optimism. The First Amendment Right protects the likes of Jeremiah Wright, a voice of dissent, as well as those flag waving patriots; however, anytime one takes opposition to the popular view, you will automatically be ridiculed or ostracized for daring to challenge the political and social norms of the status quo.
Jeremiah Wright is a true Christian, the Roman Government called Jesus controversial and radical, we need someone today that can perform miracles--give sight to the blind, restore the hearing of the deaf, and make the lame walk. So many of our leaders and preachers say what is political expedient and turn a blind eye to what is morally and ethically right--my pursuit is not politics nor do I put much credence in organized religion---my quest is Freedom, Justice, and Equality.
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
Stay Awake Until We Meet Again,
Fahim A. Knight
Sunday, January 27, 2008
BARACK OBAMA THE CANDIDATE OF CHANGE: THE PARTY WITH SAME OLD GAME
BARACK OBAMA THE CANDIDATE OF CHANGE: THE PARTY WITH THE SAME OLD GAME
BLACKS LOVE THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY GIVE THEM NOTHING
By Fahim A. Knight
This writer is sick and tired of African Americans reminding me of how noble and precious the right to vote is and yet they do not have the political savvy or the political ingenuity to take this so-called precious and alienable right and use it tactfully and strategically, which to broker the best political deal for black America—today and tomorrow. The majority of these advocates were involved in the 1950’s and 1960’s Civil Rights movement and they fought against disenfranchisement, segregation, racism, discrimination, injustice, etc. It was their struggles for social, political, and economic inclusion which without doubt the present day black Americans are the beneficiaries of these past struggles.
African Americans in 2008 have to be a little more political astute and not be charmed by Senator Barack Obama’s charisma and his pigmentation or by Senator Hillary Clinton so-called history of liberalism. Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have not done anything worthy of receiving the black vote. There is an urban talk show host named Michael Baisden, an African American host of a syndicated talk radio program that is aired in fifty-seven (57) cities across America and what stuck me was Basiden has proven himself to have some political influence over his predominate black listening audience. It was Baisden radio activism that helped galvanize over 50,000 African American during the Jena Six protest in Jena, Louisiana. But what has been interesting about Baisden is that he has remained politically non-committed and urged his listening audience to be patient and let’s hear the platforms of all the candidates prior to and just not endorse Obama because he is African American and a Democrat. This writer must commend Baisden on exercising intelligence.
This writer agrees that African Americans should be grateful and they do owe a debt of gratitude to the political pioneers and trailblazers that went before them giving their lives and made untold sacrifices in order to remind America of the language written in the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution and without a doubt the African American Senator Obama, in particular and all of black America in general, are truly standing on the shoulders of history incurred by their past ancestors. Many paid the ultimate price with their lives to ensure that America lived-up to its so-called creed of Democracy. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Acts that were passed into law granted black Americans with the legal legislation which to ensure fairness and equity, as well as equal protection under the law. The literacy test and poll taxes, as well as other discriminatory barriers were struck down, which in theory gave blacks the equal accessibility to use the electorate free of intimidation and prejudice.
This writer could never forget the works of Fannie Lou Hamer, a Democrat of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party; I have this poster of Fannie Lou Hamer that hung in my home for over twenty (20) years, it stated, “As a Mississippi sharecropper thrown off her land because she tried to register to vote, Fannie Lou met this challenge by becoming a leader trying to get others to register. She worked the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the new militant Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and helped set up a farm cooperative where poor people could own the land they worked on. This hard working courageous Sister, despite having been torturously beaten by the police and facing many other challenges, was one of the most powerful speakers, organizers, and fighters in the Civil Rights Movement. Her strong dedication to freedom continues to inspire us all.”
Organizations such as National Association for the Advancement Colored People, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, Congress of Racial Equality, etc., did yeoman’s work in the area of voter’s education and registration in the deep segregated South. This writer comes from a family of Democrats and whether or not this partisan choice was out of mere tradition, more so than being adopted out political ignorance has always left this writer baffled and inquisitive at the same time. African Americans have this misperception that the Democratic party has always served their political interest and maybe this syndrome developed from four term Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) and his New Deal programs that moved the United States beginning with his administration in 1932 from one of the worst economic recession known as the Great Depression into the beginning of economic prosperity.
Many blacks were giving jobs in the 1930s building bridges and highways, which provided a means to earning a living in spite of the nation’s economic hardships. Eleanor Roosevelt also was considered a friend of the African American race, which she extended her philanthropy and goodwill ambassadorship to the black community. Wikipedia stated, “During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Roosevelt created the New Deal to provide relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic and banking systems. Although recovery of the economy was incomplete until almost 1940, many programs initiated in the Roosevelt administration continue to have instrumental roles in the nation's commerce, such as the FDIC, TVA, and the SEC. One of his most important legacies is the Social Security system.”
“Roosevelt won four presidential elections in a row, causing a realignment that political scientists call the Fifth Party System. His aggressive use of an active federal government re-energized the Democratic Party, creating a New Deal Coalition which dominated American politics until the late 1960s. He and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, remain touchstones for modern American liberalism. Conservatives vehemently fought back, but Roosevelt usually prevailed until he tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. Thereafter, the new Conservative coalition successfully ended.”
Blacks perhaps associated liberalism with the Democratic Party because of the New Deal that was led by a Democratic president and to their long term detriment developed this unconditional affection and love for the Democratic Party that was based on un-reciprocated loyalty, which is steeped in a political psychology, that is unexplainable and only blacks as a culture and a race have found sanctity in this party’s history of betrayal and broken promises. They can not say no and let go of the Democratic Party because of the fear of not being the primary recipients of their so-called liberal government style of leadership. May be the dream of the “Great Society” and the war on poverty advocated by President Lyndon Baines Johnson left a people politically optimistic and forty (40) years later are still holding onto unfulfilled promises made by the Democratic Party.
They have been foolishly looking for another John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to pacify them and since the 1930s casting their votes directionless (with a hit and miss intent) and often their vote has always been manipulated for the political interest of everyone else, but themselves. Black leadership on behalf of the Democratic Party has been responsible of herding the innocent sheep to the political slaughter in lieu of self-interest and the rewarding of bourgeoisie life styles.
Minister Malcolm X in his ‘The Ballot or the Bullet’ speech delivered April 1964 in Detroit, Michigan stated, “A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. The titular head of the Democrats is also the head of the Dixiecrats, because the Dixiecrats are a part of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have never kicked the Dixiecrats out of the party. The Dixiecrats bolted themselves once, but the Democrats didn't put them out. Imagine, these lowdown Southern segregationists put the Northern Democrats down. But the Northern Democrats have never put the Dixiecrats down. No, look at that thing the way it is. They have got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle. It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is; and then we can deal with it like it is.”
It was President John Kennedy that authorized the surveillance and illegal wiretaps on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eavesdropping on King’s private conversations and initiated the Cointepro Counter intelligence program spearheaded by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which eventually led to the assassination of Dr. King, as well as on Minister Malcolm X.
But this writer can vividly remember that in his mother’s home and grandmother’s home in the 1960s they each had pictures of President John Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., together on one portrait. The symbolism had far reaching political and psychological implications; this picture was above reproach and possessed sacred statue and was not open for criticism—the interpretation was that African Americans social, political and economic aspirations were tied too these threeAmerican Democrat icons who were so-called blessed to reach martyrdom status and in the back of their minds John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Dr. King was the next thing to the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
If this writer could attempt to describe the relationship, it is slavish and unbeneficial to the masses of black Americans, but they do not know how to break the chains and the Democratic Party is smart enough to know that blacks do not have the moral courage to let Pharaoh go. Thus, the Democratic Party does not have to make any political concession because African Americans have not demonstrated political sanity.
Minister Malcolm X stated in a book written by Archie Epps titled, “Malcolm X and the American Negro Revolution: The Speeches of Malcolm X stated, “There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes—they lived in the house with the master, they dresses pretty good, they ate good. . .They loved the master more than the master loved himself. . . If the master’s house got caught on fire, the house Negro would harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, ‘What’s matter, boss, we sick? And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,’ the house Negro would look at you and say, ‘Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this?’
Minister Malcolm X further stated, “On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The Field Negroes—those were the masses. The Negro in the field caught hell. He at leftovers. In the house they ate high on the hog. The field Negro was beaten from morning to night; he lived in a shack, in a hut. . .He hated his master. He was intelligent. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try to put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die. If someone came to the field Negro and said, ‘Let’s separate, let’s run’ he didn’t say, ‘where are we going?’ He’d say, ‘Any place is better than here!’ You’ve got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes.”
However, the Republican Party do not know how to play political shrinks and administer mental health treatment and for over eighty (80) years have for the most part ignored the black electorate and hadn’t made any real appeals to tap into this traditional Democratic base, which in 2008 feel abandoned and ostracized by the Democratic party. This writer is by know means advocating the Republican conservative agenda nor is he suggesting that African Americans leave the Democratic Party, but what he is suggesting, is destroying the boogieman syndrome that has been associated with the Republican Party relative to African Americans, which allows the Democratic Party to continue to be in the best position election after election for receiving the African American vote. Yet at the same time the Democratic Party do not have to make any political concessions to 13% of the American population because of foolish and irresponsible leadership that possess an insane love for the Democratic Party.
Many blacks do not know why they are democrats, they often inherited the donkey as family political tradition or they heard some ignorant preachers, mis-educated teachers, and self-fulfilling politicians advised them that it was sinister to cast a ballot for a Republican candidate without ever hearing whether or not they agreed or disagreed with the message. This writer knows that the ghost of the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King haunts the political psyche of the African American. To continue give their vote to a party that has told you to kiss their-------is insane and ludicrous.
Barack Obama should not receive the black vote just because he is a Democrat and he happens to be black. Hillary Clinton should not receive the black vote, just because she is a Democrat and wife of former President Bill Clinton, which for some peculiar reasoning blacks have a love affair with the Clintons that is incomprehensible. Thus have black people presented Senator Obama with a black political agenda? and, if so what is his response or does he know that blacks have politically cornered themselves by being largely a one party (Democrat) affiliated ethic bloc with no counter-alternative and for that reason has weaken its own negotiating leverage when it comes to making demands on Democratic politicians.
The Democrats may even listen, but do not feel any external pressure to be responsive because in the long run this loyal black Democratic bloc will not deviate from the political norm and therefore the Democratic party do not have take any risk. The Republican Party has been perceived by blacks as being the party of the rich and the white economic elite; thus blacks historically haven’t been able to find an identifiable philosophical ideology with the Republican Party.
Claud Anderson in his book titled, “PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America” stated, “Though a divorce proceeding has yet to be announced, the marriage between the Democratic Party and Black America, which was consumed in the 1940s, is on the rocks. The Democratic Party has been unfaithful to Black America. Instead of taking care of its home base of loyal Black voters, the Democratic Party downgraded Black rights and took up with every ethnic, class, gender and language issue group, regardless of their party affiliations. The Democratic Party and the Black civil rights leaders brought down an array of minority and women upon the backs of Blacks before they had a chance to catch up from centuries of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. What can the Democrats or Republican parties do for Black people in the 21st century? Contrary to the advise of traditional civil rights liberals who encouraged Black voters to stay in a failed marriage and conservatives who advocate that Blacks divide themselves between the two national parties, thus diluting their voting power. Black voters should reject both options, Black voters must ethno-aggregate and become totally independent, forcing both parties to court them.”
This writer did not necessarily agree with Reverend T.D. Jakes and Reverend Creflo Dollar political dispositions, but for reasons other than their willingness to vote for a republican candidate. The likes of these black high profiles Christian Evangelist in 2000 and 2004 backing President George Bush and the so-called conservative agenda led this writer to be suspicious because Bush had confused them on what were Christian values, and imparted his interpretation of Christian ethics and morality versus the conversation focus being rooted in political expediency. The black Christian clergy as well, perhaps had their own ulterior motives viewed in the realm of prosperity ministry teachings and their sight were on Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives—money and many black Christians were encouraged and somewhat deceived by these greed driven clergymen to cast votes for the republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
The academician and scholar Stephen L. Carter in his book titled “The Culture of Disbelief” stated, “Since the emergence of Jerry Farwell’s Moral Majority as a short-lived political force in the 1980s, and with the burgeoning influence of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition in the 1990s, the relationship between the Republican party and the religious right has been the subject of much vitriol, and much alarm. After the 1992 Convention, the alarms reached fever pitch. One political columnist warned. ‘Unless moderate Republicans understand the Houston convention as a wake-up call . . . they’ll find the GOP entirely in the hands not merely zealots.’(Moderate Republicans may be awake at last, for they have formed the Republican Majority Coalition with the avowed intention of saving their party from its right wing—just as the Democrats who formed the Democratic Leadership Council in the early 1980s sought to save their party from its left wing, and wound up electing a president.)
The motive of this strange relationship between the conservative black Christians and the predominately white Republican Party was intriguing to say the least, but this recent history has shown us that it was not grounded in any long term meaningful basis that would represent a new political dynamic of sustainability for African Americans in a two party system. However, although both groups had separate political agendas, Jakes, Dollar and Bishop Eddie Long did have enough courage to curtail ties with Democrats in the two said elections and from that perspective this was not only commendable but ground-breaking.
The majority of traditional black leadership has had many legitimate political reasons to sway black voters away from the Democratic Party based on neglect and their inadequate ability from time too time in addressing issues relevant to blacks in particular and the nation in general. The black religious right from that perspective has demonstrated more outwardly courage by their willingness to cut ties with the Democratic Party. Politics is not based on loyalty, yet loyalty has its place in politics, but expediency is ordinarily the glue that holds political coalitions together and by refusing to acknowledge this reality has entrapped blacks politically, which has render them politically inconsequential and politically ineffective. Although, blacks represent one of the largest “organized” voting blocs in America and still have very little power to alter change. Something is wrong with this political dynamic.
Blacks are a loyal people and the Democratic Party has made them the doormat for this very reason. Perhaps T. D. Jakes should have been applauded for his stance in 2000 and 2004, as opposed to being criticized by the old guard—black traditional liberal leadership and could have been lauded as a religious-political visionary. He at least advocated change from the political norm. But as stated above this writer know that in one sense, Jakes and the Bush republican conservatives made strange bed fellows. For example, how can you advocate pro life and kill over million innocent Iraqi citizens? And how could the black Christian right in good conscience justify supporting a regime that has demonstrated anti-Christian values since September 11, 2001? This type politics served as an antagonistic contradiction.
Jeffrey Toobin in his monumental book titled, “The Nine: Inside The Secret World of the Supreme Court” stated, “In 2000, Bush had campaigned as a ‘compassionate conservative’ and a ‘uniter not a divider,’ pledging to surmount the partisanship that had consumed Washington during the Clinton years. But in 2004 race, Bush shifted to more ideological priorities, hoping to motivate a conservative base, mostly evangelical Christians, that had felt slighted during the earlier contest. The issues that mattered most to them were all on the Supreme Court’s agenda, and so the Court played a more central role in Bush’s second campaign.”
Black Americans just do not understand the power in bloc voting and political leveraging, as well as, the importance of voting issues and not a candidate’s party affiliation. This writer has been trying to break this ineffective traditional cycle amongst blacks for over two decades. But parting ways with tradition is not always easy; it is a mindset that is inculcated in a set of perceived values that are not viewed from the lens of right and wrong, but social, political, economic components found compatible to a worldview.
This writer has had the pleasure to meet a young man online via MySpace named Kenny out of Tennessee who has post a sizable amount of my material on his Myspace page titled http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/. Kenny is a Caucasian who is committed to presenting alternative views on his Blog that is very seldom addressed by the mainstream medium. Moreover, Kenny posed a very interesting question to me relative to the possibility of African Americans considering supporting the visionary Texas Republican Dr. Ron Paul’s candidacy for president; although this writer knew that Kenny’s question was bit idealistic because many blacks do not know who Congressman Ron Paul is, and more so than that, he had the proverbial title of republican attached to his name. This does not say much about political literacy in a deep pool of presidential candidates jockeying to become the next U.S. president.
You would think assessing and evaluating all the candidates would be top priority in order to get an understanding where each candidate stands on the issues. This writer in many ways agrees with Kenny, why not Congressman Ron Paul? But blacks politically have been doomed by political tunnel vision; and their minds from the beginning have been set just on two candidates—Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, two liberal ghost from the John F. Kennedy political school of thought. They do not realize that since the 9-11 hoax and the establishment of United States Patriot Act that the United States Constitution has been under assault by both Democrats and Republicans.
Congressman Paul styles himself as a strict constitutionalist and as one who does understand that America and the world’s problems stems from the power granted to the Federal Reserve and the twelve privately owned central banks that serve as sovereign dictators over humanity. Blacks probably have more political commonality with Congressman Paul than they do with Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, but how can they know unless they have a teacher, and how can they have a teacher unless one be sent. Sadly to say Ron Paul will not get a fair look from blacks due the overwhelm suspicion they have of Republican candidates.
Lastly, this writer listened to an irate Bill Clinton right after the Iowa Caucuses refer to Senator Obama and his campaign as a “fairy tale”. The former president has been a bit divisive and this writer would be the first to admit that Obama should not be above critique, but President Clinton has demonstrated very little diplomacy in his comments relative to this election. He was even more irate when he appeared on the popular syndicated Tom Joyner Talk Show and in fact took over the show and did not allow a two-way conversation.
This writer was more disappointed at Tom Joyner for allowing this Council On Foreign Relations agent to dictate the political conversation to his loyal black listening based. Also, this writer sympathize and empathize with PBS reporter Tavis Smiley who offered some fair remarks of critiques toward Senator Obama on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and in turn received some harsh criticism from Joyner’s listening based. Moreover, may be they perceive Democrats as being above critical analysis, this writer surely does not.
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
Stay Awake Until We Meet Again,Fahim A. Knight
BLACKS LOVE THE DEMOCRATS BECAUSE THEY GIVE THEM NOTHING
By Fahim A. Knight
This writer is sick and tired of African Americans reminding me of how noble and precious the right to vote is and yet they do not have the political savvy or the political ingenuity to take this so-called precious and alienable right and use it tactfully and strategically, which to broker the best political deal for black America—today and tomorrow. The majority of these advocates were involved in the 1950’s and 1960’s Civil Rights movement and they fought against disenfranchisement, segregation, racism, discrimination, injustice, etc. It was their struggles for social, political, and economic inclusion which without doubt the present day black Americans are the beneficiaries of these past struggles.
African Americans in 2008 have to be a little more political astute and not be charmed by Senator Barack Obama’s charisma and his pigmentation or by Senator Hillary Clinton so-called history of liberalism. Senator Obama and Senator Clinton have not done anything worthy of receiving the black vote. There is an urban talk show host named Michael Baisden, an African American host of a syndicated talk radio program that is aired in fifty-seven (57) cities across America and what stuck me was Basiden has proven himself to have some political influence over his predominate black listening audience. It was Baisden radio activism that helped galvanize over 50,000 African American during the Jena Six protest in Jena, Louisiana. But what has been interesting about Baisden is that he has remained politically non-committed and urged his listening audience to be patient and let’s hear the platforms of all the candidates prior to and just not endorse Obama because he is African American and a Democrat. This writer must commend Baisden on exercising intelligence.
This writer agrees that African Americans should be grateful and they do owe a debt of gratitude to the political pioneers and trailblazers that went before them giving their lives and made untold sacrifices in order to remind America of the language written in the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution and without a doubt the African American Senator Obama, in particular and all of black America in general, are truly standing on the shoulders of history incurred by their past ancestors. Many paid the ultimate price with their lives to ensure that America lived-up to its so-called creed of Democracy. The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Acts that were passed into law granted black Americans with the legal legislation which to ensure fairness and equity, as well as equal protection under the law. The literacy test and poll taxes, as well as other discriminatory barriers were struck down, which in theory gave blacks the equal accessibility to use the electorate free of intimidation and prejudice.
This writer could never forget the works of Fannie Lou Hamer, a Democrat of the Mississippi Democratic Freedom Party; I have this poster of Fannie Lou Hamer that hung in my home for over twenty (20) years, it stated, “As a Mississippi sharecropper thrown off her land because she tried to register to vote, Fannie Lou met this challenge by becoming a leader trying to get others to register. She worked the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the new militant Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, and helped set up a farm cooperative where poor people could own the land they worked on. This hard working courageous Sister, despite having been torturously beaten by the police and facing many other challenges, was one of the most powerful speakers, organizers, and fighters in the Civil Rights Movement. Her strong dedication to freedom continues to inspire us all.”
Organizations such as National Association for the Advancement Colored People, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Student Non Violent Coordinating Committee, Congress of Racial Equality, etc., did yeoman’s work in the area of voter’s education and registration in the deep segregated South. This writer comes from a family of Democrats and whether or not this partisan choice was out of mere tradition, more so than being adopted out political ignorance has always left this writer baffled and inquisitive at the same time. African Americans have this misperception that the Democratic party has always served their political interest and maybe this syndrome developed from four term Democrat President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945) and his New Deal programs that moved the United States beginning with his administration in 1932 from one of the worst economic recession known as the Great Depression into the beginning of economic prosperity.
Many blacks were giving jobs in the 1930s building bridges and highways, which provided a means to earning a living in spite of the nation’s economic hardships. Eleanor Roosevelt also was considered a friend of the African American race, which she extended her philanthropy and goodwill ambassadorship to the black community. Wikipedia stated, “During the Great Depression of the 1930s, Roosevelt created the New Deal to provide relief for the unemployed, recovery of the economy, and reform of the economic and banking systems. Although recovery of the economy was incomplete until almost 1940, many programs initiated in the Roosevelt administration continue to have instrumental roles in the nation's commerce, such as the FDIC, TVA, and the SEC. One of his most important legacies is the Social Security system.”
“Roosevelt won four presidential elections in a row, causing a realignment that political scientists call the Fifth Party System. His aggressive use of an active federal government re-energized the Democratic Party, creating a New Deal Coalition which dominated American politics until the late 1960s. He and his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, remain touchstones for modern American liberalism. Conservatives vehemently fought back, but Roosevelt usually prevailed until he tried to pack the Supreme Court in 1937. Thereafter, the new Conservative coalition successfully ended.”
Blacks perhaps associated liberalism with the Democratic Party because of the New Deal that was led by a Democratic president and to their long term detriment developed this unconditional affection and love for the Democratic Party that was based on un-reciprocated loyalty, which is steeped in a political psychology, that is unexplainable and only blacks as a culture and a race have found sanctity in this party’s history of betrayal and broken promises. They can not say no and let go of the Democratic Party because of the fear of not being the primary recipients of their so-called liberal government style of leadership. May be the dream of the “Great Society” and the war on poverty advocated by President Lyndon Baines Johnson left a people politically optimistic and forty (40) years later are still holding onto unfulfilled promises made by the Democratic Party.
They have been foolishly looking for another John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy to pacify them and since the 1930s casting their votes directionless (with a hit and miss intent) and often their vote has always been manipulated for the political interest of everyone else, but themselves. Black leadership on behalf of the Democratic Party has been responsible of herding the innocent sheep to the political slaughter in lieu of self-interest and the rewarding of bourgeoisie life styles.
Minister Malcolm X in his ‘The Ballot or the Bullet’ speech delivered April 1964 in Detroit, Michigan stated, “A Democrat. A Dixiecrat is nothing but a Democrat in disguise. The titular head of the Democrats is also the head of the Dixiecrats, because the Dixiecrats are a part of the Democratic Party. The Democrats have never kicked the Dixiecrats out of the party. The Dixiecrats bolted themselves once, but the Democrats didn't put them out. Imagine, these lowdown Southern segregationists put the Northern Democrats down. But the Northern Democrats have never put the Dixiecrats down. No, look at that thing the way it is. They have got a con game going on, a political con game, and you and I are in the middle. It's time for you and me to wake up and start looking at it like it is, and trying to understand it like it is; and then we can deal with it like it is.”
It was President John Kennedy that authorized the surveillance and illegal wiretaps on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., eavesdropping on King’s private conversations and initiated the Cointepro Counter intelligence program spearheaded by J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which eventually led to the assassination of Dr. King, as well as on Minister Malcolm X.
But this writer can vividly remember that in his mother’s home and grandmother’s home in the 1960s they each had pictures of President John Kennedy, Attorney General Robert Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., together on one portrait. The symbolism had far reaching political and psychological implications; this picture was above reproach and possessed sacred statue and was not open for criticism—the interpretation was that African Americans social, political and economic aspirations were tied too these threeAmerican Democrat icons who were so-called blessed to reach martyrdom status and in the back of their minds John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Dr. King was the next thing to the reincarnation of Jesus Christ.
If this writer could attempt to describe the relationship, it is slavish and unbeneficial to the masses of black Americans, but they do not know how to break the chains and the Democratic Party is smart enough to know that blacks do not have the moral courage to let Pharaoh go. Thus, the Democratic Party does not have to make any political concession because African Americans have not demonstrated political sanity.
Minister Malcolm X stated in a book written by Archie Epps titled, “Malcolm X and the American Negro Revolution: The Speeches of Malcolm X stated, “There were two kinds of slaves, the house Negro and the field Negro. The house Negroes—they lived in the house with the master, they dresses pretty good, they ate good. . .They loved the master more than the master loved himself. . . If the master’s house got caught on fire, the house Negro would harder to put the blaze out than the master would. If the master got sick, the house Negro would say, ‘What’s matter, boss, we sick? And if you came to the house Negro and said, “Let’s run away, let’s escape, let’s separate,’ the house Negro would look at you and say, ‘Man, you crazy. What you mean, separate? Where is there a better house than this?’
Minister Malcolm X further stated, “On that same plantation, there was the field Negro. The Field Negroes—those were the masses. The Negro in the field caught hell. He at leftovers. In the house they ate high on the hog. The field Negro was beaten from morning to night; he lived in a shack, in a hut. . .He hated his master. He was intelligent. When the house caught on fire, he didn’t try to put it out; that field Negro prayed for a wind, for a breeze. When the master got sick, the field Negro prayed that he’d die. If someone came to the field Negro and said, ‘Let’s separate, let’s run’ he didn’t say, ‘where are we going?’ He’d say, ‘Any place is better than here!’ You’ve got field Negroes in America today. I’m a field Negro. The masses are the field Negroes.”
However, the Republican Party do not know how to play political shrinks and administer mental health treatment and for over eighty (80) years have for the most part ignored the black electorate and hadn’t made any real appeals to tap into this traditional Democratic base, which in 2008 feel abandoned and ostracized by the Democratic party. This writer is by know means advocating the Republican conservative agenda nor is he suggesting that African Americans leave the Democratic Party, but what he is suggesting, is destroying the boogieman syndrome that has been associated with the Republican Party relative to African Americans, which allows the Democratic Party to continue to be in the best position election after election for receiving the African American vote. Yet at the same time the Democratic Party do not have to make any political concessions to 13% of the American population because of foolish and irresponsible leadership that possess an insane love for the Democratic Party.
Many blacks do not know why they are democrats, they often inherited the donkey as family political tradition or they heard some ignorant preachers, mis-educated teachers, and self-fulfilling politicians advised them that it was sinister to cast a ballot for a Republican candidate without ever hearing whether or not they agreed or disagreed with the message. This writer knows that the ghost of the Kennedy brothers and Dr. King haunts the political psyche of the African American. To continue give their vote to a party that has told you to kiss their-------is insane and ludicrous.
Barack Obama should not receive the black vote just because he is a Democrat and he happens to be black. Hillary Clinton should not receive the black vote, just because she is a Democrat and wife of former President Bill Clinton, which for some peculiar reasoning blacks have a love affair with the Clintons that is incomprehensible. Thus have black people presented Senator Obama with a black political agenda? and, if so what is his response or does he know that blacks have politically cornered themselves by being largely a one party (Democrat) affiliated ethic bloc with no counter-alternative and for that reason has weaken its own negotiating leverage when it comes to making demands on Democratic politicians.
The Democrats may even listen, but do not feel any external pressure to be responsive because in the long run this loyal black Democratic bloc will not deviate from the political norm and therefore the Democratic party do not have take any risk. The Republican Party has been perceived by blacks as being the party of the rich and the white economic elite; thus blacks historically haven’t been able to find an identifiable philosophical ideology with the Republican Party.
Claud Anderson in his book titled, “PowerNomics: The National Plan to Empower Black America” stated, “Though a divorce proceeding has yet to be announced, the marriage between the Democratic Party and Black America, which was consumed in the 1940s, is on the rocks. The Democratic Party has been unfaithful to Black America. Instead of taking care of its home base of loyal Black voters, the Democratic Party downgraded Black rights and took up with every ethnic, class, gender and language issue group, regardless of their party affiliations. The Democratic Party and the Black civil rights leaders brought down an array of minority and women upon the backs of Blacks before they had a chance to catch up from centuries of slavery and Jim Crow segregation. What can the Democrats or Republican parties do for Black people in the 21st century? Contrary to the advise of traditional civil rights liberals who encouraged Black voters to stay in a failed marriage and conservatives who advocate that Blacks divide themselves between the two national parties, thus diluting their voting power. Black voters should reject both options, Black voters must ethno-aggregate and become totally independent, forcing both parties to court them.”
This writer did not necessarily agree with Reverend T.D. Jakes and Reverend Creflo Dollar political dispositions, but for reasons other than their willingness to vote for a republican candidate. The likes of these black high profiles Christian Evangelist in 2000 and 2004 backing President George Bush and the so-called conservative agenda led this writer to be suspicious because Bush had confused them on what were Christian values, and imparted his interpretation of Christian ethics and morality versus the conversation focus being rooted in political expediency. The black Christian clergy as well, perhaps had their own ulterior motives viewed in the realm of prosperity ministry teachings and their sight were on Bush’s Faith-Based Initiatives—money and many black Christians were encouraged and somewhat deceived by these greed driven clergymen to cast votes for the republican presidential candidate George W. Bush.
The academician and scholar Stephen L. Carter in his book titled “The Culture of Disbelief” stated, “Since the emergence of Jerry Farwell’s Moral Majority as a short-lived political force in the 1980s, and with the burgeoning influence of Pat Robertson’s Christian Coalition in the 1990s, the relationship between the Republican party and the religious right has been the subject of much vitriol, and much alarm. After the 1992 Convention, the alarms reached fever pitch. One political columnist warned. ‘Unless moderate Republicans understand the Houston convention as a wake-up call . . . they’ll find the GOP entirely in the hands not merely zealots.’(Moderate Republicans may be awake at last, for they have formed the Republican Majority Coalition with the avowed intention of saving their party from its right wing—just as the Democrats who formed the Democratic Leadership Council in the early 1980s sought to save their party from its left wing, and wound up electing a president.)
The motive of this strange relationship between the conservative black Christians and the predominately white Republican Party was intriguing to say the least, but this recent history has shown us that it was not grounded in any long term meaningful basis that would represent a new political dynamic of sustainability for African Americans in a two party system. However, although both groups had separate political agendas, Jakes, Dollar and Bishop Eddie Long did have enough courage to curtail ties with Democrats in the two said elections and from that perspective this was not only commendable but ground-breaking.
The majority of traditional black leadership has had many legitimate political reasons to sway black voters away from the Democratic Party based on neglect and their inadequate ability from time too time in addressing issues relevant to blacks in particular and the nation in general. The black religious right from that perspective has demonstrated more outwardly courage by their willingness to cut ties with the Democratic Party. Politics is not based on loyalty, yet loyalty has its place in politics, but expediency is ordinarily the glue that holds political coalitions together and by refusing to acknowledge this reality has entrapped blacks politically, which has render them politically inconsequential and politically ineffective. Although, blacks represent one of the largest “organized” voting blocs in America and still have very little power to alter change. Something is wrong with this political dynamic.
Blacks are a loyal people and the Democratic Party has made them the doormat for this very reason. Perhaps T. D. Jakes should have been applauded for his stance in 2000 and 2004, as opposed to being criticized by the old guard—black traditional liberal leadership and could have been lauded as a religious-political visionary. He at least advocated change from the political norm. But as stated above this writer know that in one sense, Jakes and the Bush republican conservatives made strange bed fellows. For example, how can you advocate pro life and kill over million innocent Iraqi citizens? And how could the black Christian right in good conscience justify supporting a regime that has demonstrated anti-Christian values since September 11, 2001? This type politics served as an antagonistic contradiction.
Jeffrey Toobin in his monumental book titled, “The Nine: Inside The Secret World of the Supreme Court” stated, “In 2000, Bush had campaigned as a ‘compassionate conservative’ and a ‘uniter not a divider,’ pledging to surmount the partisanship that had consumed Washington during the Clinton years. But in 2004 race, Bush shifted to more ideological priorities, hoping to motivate a conservative base, mostly evangelical Christians, that had felt slighted during the earlier contest. The issues that mattered most to them were all on the Supreme Court’s agenda, and so the Court played a more central role in Bush’s second campaign.”
Black Americans just do not understand the power in bloc voting and political leveraging, as well as, the importance of voting issues and not a candidate’s party affiliation. This writer has been trying to break this ineffective traditional cycle amongst blacks for over two decades. But parting ways with tradition is not always easy; it is a mindset that is inculcated in a set of perceived values that are not viewed from the lens of right and wrong, but social, political, economic components found compatible to a worldview.
This writer has had the pleasure to meet a young man online via MySpace named Kenny out of Tennessee who has post a sizable amount of my material on his Myspace page titled http://kennysideshow.blogspot.com/. Kenny is a Caucasian who is committed to presenting alternative views on his Blog that is very seldom addressed by the mainstream medium. Moreover, Kenny posed a very interesting question to me relative to the possibility of African Americans considering supporting the visionary Texas Republican Dr. Ron Paul’s candidacy for president; although this writer knew that Kenny’s question was bit idealistic because many blacks do not know who Congressman Ron Paul is, and more so than that, he had the proverbial title of republican attached to his name. This does not say much about political literacy in a deep pool of presidential candidates jockeying to become the next U.S. president.
You would think assessing and evaluating all the candidates would be top priority in order to get an understanding where each candidate stands on the issues. This writer in many ways agrees with Kenny, why not Congressman Ron Paul? But blacks politically have been doomed by political tunnel vision; and their minds from the beginning have been set just on two candidates—Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator Barack Obama, two liberal ghost from the John F. Kennedy political school of thought. They do not realize that since the 9-11 hoax and the establishment of United States Patriot Act that the United States Constitution has been under assault by both Democrats and Republicans.
Congressman Paul styles himself as a strict constitutionalist and as one who does understand that America and the world’s problems stems from the power granted to the Federal Reserve and the twelve privately owned central banks that serve as sovereign dictators over humanity. Blacks probably have more political commonality with Congressman Paul than they do with Senator Obama and Senator Clinton, but how can they know unless they have a teacher, and how can they have a teacher unless one be sent. Sadly to say Ron Paul will not get a fair look from blacks due the overwhelm suspicion they have of Republican candidates.
Lastly, this writer listened to an irate Bill Clinton right after the Iowa Caucuses refer to Senator Obama and his campaign as a “fairy tale”. The former president has been a bit divisive and this writer would be the first to admit that Obama should not be above critique, but President Clinton has demonstrated very little diplomacy in his comments relative to this election. He was even more irate when he appeared on the popular syndicated Tom Joyner Talk Show and in fact took over the show and did not allow a two-way conversation.
This writer was more disappointed at Tom Joyner for allowing this Council On Foreign Relations agent to dictate the political conversation to his loyal black listening based. Also, this writer sympathize and empathize with PBS reporter Tavis Smiley who offered some fair remarks of critiques toward Senator Obama on the Tom Joyner Morning Show and in turn received some harsh criticism from Joyner’s listening based. Moreover, may be they perceive Democrats as being above critical analysis, this writer surely does not.
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
Stay Awake Until We Meet Again,Fahim A. Knight
Monday, January 7, 2008
“Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination: The CIA and Musharraf, Who is Guilty?
Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination: The CIA and Musharraf, Who is Guilty?
By Fahim A. Knight
The assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto represents and is indicative of everything that is wrong with United States Foreign Policy and it relationship with Pakistan. President George Bush solicited the ruthless Pakistani dictator President Pervez Musharraf assistance in 2001 in his so-called war on terrorism. The war on terrorism has blinded the United States in its ability to make reasonable and competent foreign policy decisions. Bush rounded up a bunch of third world nations promising them International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans; if they signed and committed their irrelevant military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan as show of solidarity in his war on terrorism. Some Islamic countries sided with Bush against their Muslim brothers, but it only deepened the hatred for the West and has fueled so-called Islamic militants to declare Jihad (holy war), which is war that has no boundaries.
The backing of Musharraf was a case of choosing the lesser of three evils; behind door number one stood Osama bin Laden, a former United States operative who was the CIA top front man in Afghanistan during the Soviet conflict, behind door number two stood General Musharraf, a dictator and an the only Islamic nation with nuclear technology and behind door number three stood Benazir Bhutto another Central Intelligence Agent provocateur; thus, Bush chose the strongman Musharraf who came into power via a military coup d'état in 1999. The CIA is only interested in what you can do for me today and right now Musharraf is their man; he even traded in his military dictator general uniform for western tailored made suits in order to look more presidential and less as an undemocratic dictator having ruthless political tendencies.
The assassination of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as stated above represents everything that is wrong with the United States relationship with Pakistan. President George Bush implored Pakistan and General Musharraf assistance in 2001 in Bush’s so-called war on terrorism. The United States Government was bent on deceiving the American people that Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda movement was enemy number one and was a threat to world security. Musharraf gave his support to Bush who in turn legitimized a rogue nation such as Pakistan for geographic, political, and strategic positioning. Bush wanted to use the nation of Pakistan in order to control the movement of Al Qaeda militants and Islamic fundamentalist from being able to freely cross the boarders of Afghanistan and Pakistan and assimilating into Pakistan, which to build external foreign support bases for Al Qaeda recruitment.
The author Andy Stern in his book titled, “Oil From Rockefeller to Iraq and Beyond” stated, “The CIA, working with the Pakistani intelligence services (ISI), is widely believed to have encouraged some 35, 000 Muslim radicals form more than 40 countries to come to Afghanistan and join the fight against the Soviet army. CIA strategist also flooded into the country to help plan the Mujahideen’s military operations and train its soldiers. Mujahideen and volunteers-‘Arab Afghans’-were fed a mixture of American military knowledge and Islamic law. The U.S. however, did not divulge that its real objective was the overthrow of the USSR, not just the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviet army. Among the recipients of US arms and training was Osama Bin Laden, the ‘black sheep’ of one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families, who came to Afghanistan in 1979. By 1984 Bin Laden was the head of the Maktab al-Khidamar (MAK), an organization channeling money, arms and soldiers from outside Afghanistan into the war. The MAK received substantial help from the Pakistani ISI, through which the CIA carried out most of its covert operations in the country.”
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew that Musharraf was an international gangster and an international political crook who would sell his soul to the highest bidder. There is little doubt in this writer’s mind that Bhutto’s assassination was sanctioned and orchestrated from the highest level of the Pakistani Government—General Musharraf was either directly and/or indirectly involved in Bhutto’s assassination and as a puppet he takes his orders from Bush and the United States White House, which makes both governments culprits.
Musharraf is a criminal of the worst kind and there are perhaps two smoking guns either the United States Government—CIA., State Department and U.S. Intelligence apparatus were directly in complicit of giving the order to Musharraf and/or was Bhutto’s assassination just another indication of how lawless the state of Pakistan is, where the rules are made up by the various secular and sacred tribal and warlords factions. Did the CIA assassinate Bhutto in order to derail Pakistan’s elections process and/or did the potential, as well as the possibility exist as far as Bhutto unseating Masharraf as the new president of this volatile nation that was scheduled for democratic elections on January 8, 2008. Perhaps Musharraf had some unfinished business with the CIA and in lieu of the business Bhutto’s life became expendable.
Musharraf and the CIA had two viable culprits and star perpetrators which to point blame in the assassination—Al Qaeda and the Taliban, both organizations had the resources and expertise which to carryout such a well planned assassination attempt and the international community wouldn’t need much evidence or convincing based on the Western media portrayal and perception of these two so-called violent Islamic led and Jihad inspired organizations. Thus even, if the slightest notion of capitulation was implied relative to these two groups involvement in the assassination of Bhutto; very few from the West would question or doubt culpability and participation of these two so-called “radical” Islamic Muslim organizations and their ability to carryout an act of violence of this magnitude. They would be considered guilty by media deception.
But also those that have this type power to influence world thinking would find it equally and politically convenient to lay Bhutto’s death at the door step of Osama bin Laden because of above said sentiments and the real guilty parties and perpetrators are allowed to hide behind layers of deceptions. They then use the media (their propaganda machines) to reincarnate the likes of a Bhutto’s into innocent sainthood and at same time elevate her to martyrdom status with an objective of attracting an international following at death that she did not enjoy in life, which to further isolate Osama bin Laden, in particular and fundamentalist Islam in general, as culprits in this heinous crime. President Richard Nixon is book titled, “Seize The Moment: America’s Challenge in a One-Superpower World” has an interesting chapter titled, “The Muslim World”
Tricky Dick stated, “Only two common elements exist in the Muslim world: the faith of Islam and the problems of political turbulence. Islam is not on a religion but also the foundation of a major civilization. We speak of the ‘Muslim world’ as a single entity not because of any Islamic politburo guiding its policies but because individual nations share common political and cultural currents with the entire Muslim civilization. The same political rhythms are played throughout the Muslim world, regardless of the differences between the individual countries. Just as all Western countries have parties that advocate the free market, the welfare state, socialism, the Islamic countries have groups that subscribe to the main political currents of the Muslim world—fundamentalism, radicalism, and modernism. This commonality of faith and politics breeds a loose but real solidarity: when a major event occurs in one part of the Muslim world, it inevitability reverberates in the others”
This writer wholeheartedly agree with President Nixon in one sense; no one on the Islamic side had to issue the order to kill Bhutto her visible Islamic contradictions and western modernity ideology as a Muslim woman that alone could have been enough to seal Bhutto’s fate because of a religion that is steeped in assigned cultural ranking for women and the antagonistic relationship between Islam and the West.
This writer has always believed that Islam is a very complex religion and the leaders of this faith, the—Mullahs, Sheiks, Imams, Emirs, Ayatollahs, etc., are fully aware that the theology of Islam can be perceived as having a duality interpretation to the Muslim, in which two believers can hear the very same khutba (Friday Sermon) at Jummah Prayer coming from the Holy Qur’an, but depart the Masjid as a fundamentalist with radical and political inspired objectives and/or as a Muslim who believes in the common interest that Allah (God) has bestowed for all humanity and seek to live in peace with Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The long and short of this discussion is that in reality no one had to issue the assassination of Bhutto, the Islamic zealots could have just perceived her as an United States agent bent on corrupting the traditional Islamic role of women in their Islamic society, which this alone would have been enough to get her killed by an Islamic zealot(s) acting independently of and without sanction of a visible political entity. Bhutto was also seen in the Islamic world of being a bit too cozy to the Zionist State of Israel and its leaders; thus, any number of these variables and factors could have been considered a powder keg and a time bomb ready to explode. But this writer smells smoke and where there is smoke, there is fire.
However, its is going to be difficult for the international community to accept what ever explanation Musharraf gives because of his conditional ties to George Bush and the United States Government (CIA). Bhutto’s assassination is another U.S. Foreign Policy blunder for the Bush administration and its allegiance to reactionary despots like Musharraf and Pakistani Government; there is no doubt that President Musharraf is a valuable international asset and a key player in that region of the world, where the United States have few friends.
Nixon goes on to state, “Pakistan—the only major U.S. strategic partner situated between Turkey and Japan—has cooperated with the United States in recent decades to support the Afghan resistance, as well as to facilitate the rapprochement with China in 1972. Though Islamabad’s policies sometime clash with ours—especially regarding nuclear proliferation—no other country has shown comparable courage I serving as a frontline state against Soviet aggression.” Musharraf had also aided the Taliban and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan who had fought the Russians gallantly in a ten year (1979-1989) war and defeated one of the most technological war machines in the 20th Century in guerilla war tactics used in the mountainous terrain. Thus, make no mistake Afghan fighters were no match for the Russians because the Soviets had the ability to wipe Afghanistan off the map, but in a low level intensive conflict the rag tag Afghans were superior.
George Tenet, the former ex-CIA Director in his book titled, “At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA” stated, “The relationship was complicated further by mistrust and resentment. The dominant thinking within the Pakistani officer corps was that the United States had unstated ulterior motives in Afghanistan, specifically the desire to keep the nation unstable and chaotic to discourage construction of oil and gas pipelines through both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The goodwill we had won in Pakistan by helping to drive the Russians out of neighboring Afghanistan had also been evaporated over the last dozen years. The Pakistani leadership for the most part felt that the United States had abandoned them, especially when we imposed economic sanctions on both Pakistan and India in the wake of nuclear tests. Simultaneously, the military-to-military relationship that had once been so strong between our two nations had been allowed to wane over the years. Once senior Pakistani officers had been trained almost exclusively in the United States.”
The United States and Russia both desired to control the opium (heroin) trade coming out of South East Asia. Yes, the war between Afghanistan and Russia was over dope—drugs (the poppy seed plantations), as well as strategic and logistical tapping into oil in the Caspian and Siberian region that needed to run oil pipelines through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States backed the Afghan rebels in this conflict (used Pakistan sovereignty to transport weapons to the Afghan Rebels), but the United States ultimate interest was not its loyalty to the so-called Afghan Islamic freedom fighters, but their objective was of vital national security, which was to secure the financial interest of the seven oil sisters—Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, Royal, Dutch Shell, Gulf, and Texaco. These Seven Oil Sisters have merged in names and in corporate interest; THEY ARE THE SOVEREIGN DICTATORS OVER HUMANITY.
But in 2001 after the 911 hoax Bush promised Musharraf and the Pakistani Government more of the United States tax dollars in the form of international financial aid packages, if they would sign on to help the United States and the Western Governments fight so-called international terrorism. Musharraf signed his nation on to bring Bin Laden to justice who had set-up his militant infrastructure in the rugged mountainous regions of Afghanistan. Musharraf at that moment appeared to have betrayed his long standing allegiance to the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda freedom fighters, the soldiers he once supported against Russia in the name of a Pan-Islamic theocracy similar to Sharia Law and Wahabism found in Saudi Arabia.
But this writer believes that Musharraf is a double agent who enjoys the perks of being a United States puppet and at same time has taken a very passive position against Al Qaeda and the Taliban to the detriment of U.S. interest; thus, because many of his own Pakistani countrymen agrees with Bin Laden’s radical Islamic politics, and to oppose the Islamic Jihadist would possibly exacerbate a radical Islamic fervor in his own nation, which could compromise the stability of Pakistan. Musharraf in reality has no intentions of truly apprehending Bin Laden and he has to be very careful of the type of internal logistics he is providing to the West. He has already survived the Islamic bounty hunters in three prior assassination attempts.
Wikipedia on-line resource stated, “Bhutto was sworn in for the first time in 1988 at the age of 35, but was removed from office 20 months later under the order of then- president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 where she was a leading opposition candidate”.
Bhutto returned to her native Pakistan after a nine year self-imposed exile in Dubai and the United Kingdom, but what information was she working with that assured her that she could come back to this violable nation without any political consequences? How were the conditions any different prior to her leaving and had she resolved the political conflicts that sent her into exile? These are the pressing questions that need to be assessed and evaluated in this Benazir Bhutto’s dilemma because most past political leaders from around world that were sent into exile voluntarily or involuntarily and had received political asylum, just did not walk back into their home country and resume normalcy. Thus, for the most part the players and the game were same and she had no new found powers to alter the eventual outcome, which was her untimely assassination.
Bhutto’s may have been a charming, charismatic and likable woman, but she had internal enemies that had not forgotten her corrupt and reactionary politics when she served as Prime Minister. This writer knows that her death is complex, but in many ways she sealed her own fate by trusting her security to the other CIA Agent—Musharraf and also her death can be seen as an act of betrayal by the United States Government and the Pakistani Government.
The Pakistani Government initially reported that Bhutto’s was shot in the head area, but for some strange reason they later recanted and reported that it were not the assassin bullets that killed Bhutto’, but she cracked her skull on the vehicle during the assassination commotion trying to escape the violence, as to minimize the role of the assassins and subconsciously imply that Bhutto’s cause of death was more self-inflicted. Moreover, in some delusional type reasoning this would absolve and exonerate the Pakistani Government of any official wrongdoing. But in accordance with Islamic burial and funeral customs only women are permitted to wash the body of a decease Muslim woman. It was reported by one of Bhutto’s closest companions that there were gun shot wounds to her head. This type conduct on behalf of the Pakistani Government clearly leads toward being suspicious of Musharraf’s behavior and the conflicting death reports.
According to Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent “TIMESONLINE” December 28, 2007 he stated, “Earlier that month two Pakistani militant warlords based in the country’s northwestern areas had threatened to kill her. One was Baitullah Mehsud, a top militant commander fighting the Pakistani Army in South Waziristan, who has ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. The other was Haji Omar, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, who is also from South Waziristan and fought with the Afghan Mujahidin against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Ms Bhutto said after the attack that she had received a letter, signed by someone claiming to be a friend of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, threatening to slaughter her like a goat. But she also accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She indicated that she had more to fear from unidentified members of a power structure that she described as allies of the ‘forces of militancy’.”
The United Nations is spearheading a so-called independent investigation into the murder of Bhutto, but to start at the premise that so-called Islamic extremist and terrorist were the villains in this assassination has already compromised the integrity of getting to the truth. The United Nations since September 11, 2001 has become a political arm of the United States and has lost its credibility to function as a neutral and sovereign non-aligned international body that works in the interest of all international governments.
The U.N. investigation will not be an objective criminal inquiry, but it will seek to cover-up both CIA and the Pakistani Government roles in Bhutto’s assassination. How can the Musharraf and CIA investigate themselves?—they both have the same alibi, it was Al Qaeda and the ignorant masses will not question the UN findings because we have been conditioned to believe that the so-called terrorist are the “Axil of Evil” and we have already presumed them guilty based on our ill informed perception of Islam.
Bhutto miscalculated the ingenuity of her enemies and their resolve to see her dead, she was betting on the religion of Islam’s moral and ethical teachings serving as restraints on Muslim men who would dare kill a so-called innocent Muslim woman. But supposed the HIT MEN were hired for murder and the sanctity of the teachings of Islam would be a non-factor in the assassination decision making process.
There is talk that Bhutto’s nineteen year old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will succeed his mother and represent the Pakistan People’s Party when elections are resumed. In an online article titled, “Bhutto’s Son will Succeed Her as Head of PPP” hosted on a Internet website Patterico’s Pontifications stated, “Bilawal, who enrolled as a student at Oxford University only this year, is scheduled to read the will himself at a party gathering on Sunday. There is little doubt that he will be accepted by the party rank and file; the PPP has been an all-family affair in Pakistan’s dynastic politics since Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded it 40 years ago. Bhutto had given herself the title of “chairperson for life” and her only previous public signal as to who she wanted her political heir to be occurred when she sent Bilawal to register to vote for the first time earlier this year.”
This writer wonders has this young man already been recruited by the CIA and will he follow the footsteps of his mother who was nothing but a political prostitute who sold her sold to the devil. How will the various radical Islamic antagonists view this inexperience sheltered petit-bourgeoisie want-to-be Pakistani leader? Will they set a bounty on his head due to the sins of his mother.
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
STAY AWAKE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN,Fahim A. Knight
By Fahim A. Knight
The assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto represents and is indicative of everything that is wrong with United States Foreign Policy and it relationship with Pakistan. President George Bush solicited the ruthless Pakistani dictator President Pervez Musharraf assistance in 2001 in his so-called war on terrorism. The war on terrorism has blinded the United States in its ability to make reasonable and competent foreign policy decisions. Bush rounded up a bunch of third world nations promising them International Monetary Fund and World Bank loans; if they signed and committed their irrelevant military forces to Iraq and Afghanistan as show of solidarity in his war on terrorism. Some Islamic countries sided with Bush against their Muslim brothers, but it only deepened the hatred for the West and has fueled so-called Islamic militants to declare Jihad (holy war), which is war that has no boundaries.
The backing of Musharraf was a case of choosing the lesser of three evils; behind door number one stood Osama bin Laden, a former United States operative who was the CIA top front man in Afghanistan during the Soviet conflict, behind door number two stood General Musharraf, a dictator and an the only Islamic nation with nuclear technology and behind door number three stood Benazir Bhutto another Central Intelligence Agent provocateur; thus, Bush chose the strongman Musharraf who came into power via a military coup d'état in 1999. The CIA is only interested in what you can do for me today and right now Musharraf is their man; he even traded in his military dictator general uniform for western tailored made suits in order to look more presidential and less as an undemocratic dictator having ruthless political tendencies.
The assassination of the former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto as stated above represents everything that is wrong with the United States relationship with Pakistan. President George Bush implored Pakistan and General Musharraf assistance in 2001 in Bush’s so-called war on terrorism. The United States Government was bent on deceiving the American people that Osama bin Laden and his Al-Qaeda movement was enemy number one and was a threat to world security. Musharraf gave his support to Bush who in turn legitimized a rogue nation such as Pakistan for geographic, political, and strategic positioning. Bush wanted to use the nation of Pakistan in order to control the movement of Al Qaeda militants and Islamic fundamentalist from being able to freely cross the boarders of Afghanistan and Pakistan and assimilating into Pakistan, which to build external foreign support bases for Al Qaeda recruitment.
The author Andy Stern in his book titled, “Oil From Rockefeller to Iraq and Beyond” stated, “The CIA, working with the Pakistani intelligence services (ISI), is widely believed to have encouraged some 35, 000 Muslim radicals form more than 40 countries to come to Afghanistan and join the fight against the Soviet army. CIA strategist also flooded into the country to help plan the Mujahideen’s military operations and train its soldiers. Mujahideen and volunteers-‘Arab Afghans’-were fed a mixture of American military knowledge and Islamic law. The U.S. however, did not divulge that its real objective was the overthrow of the USSR, not just the liberation of Afghanistan from the Soviet army. Among the recipients of US arms and training was Osama Bin Laden, the ‘black sheep’ of one of Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest families, who came to Afghanistan in 1979. By 1984 Bin Laden was the head of the Maktab al-Khidamar (MAK), an organization channeling money, arms and soldiers from outside Afghanistan into the war. The MAK received substantial help from the Pakistani ISI, through which the CIA carried out most of its covert operations in the country.”
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) knew that Musharraf was an international gangster and an international political crook who would sell his soul to the highest bidder. There is little doubt in this writer’s mind that Bhutto’s assassination was sanctioned and orchestrated from the highest level of the Pakistani Government—General Musharraf was either directly and/or indirectly involved in Bhutto’s assassination and as a puppet he takes his orders from Bush and the United States White House, which makes both governments culprits.
Musharraf is a criminal of the worst kind and there are perhaps two smoking guns either the United States Government—CIA., State Department and U.S. Intelligence apparatus were directly in complicit of giving the order to Musharraf and/or was Bhutto’s assassination just another indication of how lawless the state of Pakistan is, where the rules are made up by the various secular and sacred tribal and warlords factions. Did the CIA assassinate Bhutto in order to derail Pakistan’s elections process and/or did the potential, as well as the possibility exist as far as Bhutto unseating Masharraf as the new president of this volatile nation that was scheduled for democratic elections on January 8, 2008. Perhaps Musharraf had some unfinished business with the CIA and in lieu of the business Bhutto’s life became expendable.
Musharraf and the CIA had two viable culprits and star perpetrators which to point blame in the assassination—Al Qaeda and the Taliban, both organizations had the resources and expertise which to carryout such a well planned assassination attempt and the international community wouldn’t need much evidence or convincing based on the Western media portrayal and perception of these two so-called violent Islamic led and Jihad inspired organizations. Thus even, if the slightest notion of capitulation was implied relative to these two groups involvement in the assassination of Bhutto; very few from the West would question or doubt culpability and participation of these two so-called “radical” Islamic Muslim organizations and their ability to carryout an act of violence of this magnitude. They would be considered guilty by media deception.
But also those that have this type power to influence world thinking would find it equally and politically convenient to lay Bhutto’s death at the door step of Osama bin Laden because of above said sentiments and the real guilty parties and perpetrators are allowed to hide behind layers of deceptions. They then use the media (their propaganda machines) to reincarnate the likes of a Bhutto’s into innocent sainthood and at same time elevate her to martyrdom status with an objective of attracting an international following at death that she did not enjoy in life, which to further isolate Osama bin Laden, in particular and fundamentalist Islam in general, as culprits in this heinous crime. President Richard Nixon is book titled, “Seize The Moment: America’s Challenge in a One-Superpower World” has an interesting chapter titled, “The Muslim World”
Tricky Dick stated, “Only two common elements exist in the Muslim world: the faith of Islam and the problems of political turbulence. Islam is not on a religion but also the foundation of a major civilization. We speak of the ‘Muslim world’ as a single entity not because of any Islamic politburo guiding its policies but because individual nations share common political and cultural currents with the entire Muslim civilization. The same political rhythms are played throughout the Muslim world, regardless of the differences between the individual countries. Just as all Western countries have parties that advocate the free market, the welfare state, socialism, the Islamic countries have groups that subscribe to the main political currents of the Muslim world—fundamentalism, radicalism, and modernism. This commonality of faith and politics breeds a loose but real solidarity: when a major event occurs in one part of the Muslim world, it inevitability reverberates in the others”
This writer wholeheartedly agree with President Nixon in one sense; no one on the Islamic side had to issue the order to kill Bhutto her visible Islamic contradictions and western modernity ideology as a Muslim woman that alone could have been enough to seal Bhutto’s fate because of a religion that is steeped in assigned cultural ranking for women and the antagonistic relationship between Islam and the West.
This writer has always believed that Islam is a very complex religion and the leaders of this faith, the—Mullahs, Sheiks, Imams, Emirs, Ayatollahs, etc., are fully aware that the theology of Islam can be perceived as having a duality interpretation to the Muslim, in which two believers can hear the very same khutba (Friday Sermon) at Jummah Prayer coming from the Holy Qur’an, but depart the Masjid as a fundamentalist with radical and political inspired objectives and/or as a Muslim who believes in the common interest that Allah (God) has bestowed for all humanity and seek to live in peace with Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The long and short of this discussion is that in reality no one had to issue the assassination of Bhutto, the Islamic zealots could have just perceived her as an United States agent bent on corrupting the traditional Islamic role of women in their Islamic society, which this alone would have been enough to get her killed by an Islamic zealot(s) acting independently of and without sanction of a visible political entity. Bhutto was also seen in the Islamic world of being a bit too cozy to the Zionist State of Israel and its leaders; thus, any number of these variables and factors could have been considered a powder keg and a time bomb ready to explode. But this writer smells smoke and where there is smoke, there is fire.
However, its is going to be difficult for the international community to accept what ever explanation Musharraf gives because of his conditional ties to George Bush and the United States Government (CIA). Bhutto’s assassination is another U.S. Foreign Policy blunder for the Bush administration and its allegiance to reactionary despots like Musharraf and Pakistani Government; there is no doubt that President Musharraf is a valuable international asset and a key player in that region of the world, where the United States have few friends.
Nixon goes on to state, “Pakistan—the only major U.S. strategic partner situated between Turkey and Japan—has cooperated with the United States in recent decades to support the Afghan resistance, as well as to facilitate the rapprochement with China in 1972. Though Islamabad’s policies sometime clash with ours—especially regarding nuclear proliferation—no other country has shown comparable courage I serving as a frontline state against Soviet aggression.” Musharraf had also aided the Taliban and the Mujahideen in Afghanistan who had fought the Russians gallantly in a ten year (1979-1989) war and defeated one of the most technological war machines in the 20th Century in guerilla war tactics used in the mountainous terrain. Thus, make no mistake Afghan fighters were no match for the Russians because the Soviets had the ability to wipe Afghanistan off the map, but in a low level intensive conflict the rag tag Afghans were superior.
George Tenet, the former ex-CIA Director in his book titled, “At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA” stated, “The relationship was complicated further by mistrust and resentment. The dominant thinking within the Pakistani officer corps was that the United States had unstated ulterior motives in Afghanistan, specifically the desire to keep the nation unstable and chaotic to discourage construction of oil and gas pipelines through both Afghanistan and Pakistan. The goodwill we had won in Pakistan by helping to drive the Russians out of neighboring Afghanistan had also been evaporated over the last dozen years. The Pakistani leadership for the most part felt that the United States had abandoned them, especially when we imposed economic sanctions on both Pakistan and India in the wake of nuclear tests. Simultaneously, the military-to-military relationship that had once been so strong between our two nations had been allowed to wane over the years. Once senior Pakistani officers had been trained almost exclusively in the United States.”
The United States and Russia both desired to control the opium (heroin) trade coming out of South East Asia. Yes, the war between Afghanistan and Russia was over dope—drugs (the poppy seed plantations), as well as strategic and logistical tapping into oil in the Caspian and Siberian region that needed to run oil pipelines through Afghanistan and Pakistan. The United States backed the Afghan rebels in this conflict (used Pakistan sovereignty to transport weapons to the Afghan Rebels), but the United States ultimate interest was not its loyalty to the so-called Afghan Islamic freedom fighters, but their objective was of vital national security, which was to secure the financial interest of the seven oil sisters—Exxon, Mobile, Chevron, Royal, Dutch Shell, Gulf, and Texaco. These Seven Oil Sisters have merged in names and in corporate interest; THEY ARE THE SOVEREIGN DICTATORS OVER HUMANITY.
But in 2001 after the 911 hoax Bush promised Musharraf and the Pakistani Government more of the United States tax dollars in the form of international financial aid packages, if they would sign on to help the United States and the Western Governments fight so-called international terrorism. Musharraf signed his nation on to bring Bin Laden to justice who had set-up his militant infrastructure in the rugged mountainous regions of Afghanistan. Musharraf at that moment appeared to have betrayed his long standing allegiance to the Taliban and the Al-Qaeda freedom fighters, the soldiers he once supported against Russia in the name of a Pan-Islamic theocracy similar to Sharia Law and Wahabism found in Saudi Arabia.
But this writer believes that Musharraf is a double agent who enjoys the perks of being a United States puppet and at same time has taken a very passive position against Al Qaeda and the Taliban to the detriment of U.S. interest; thus, because many of his own Pakistani countrymen agrees with Bin Laden’s radical Islamic politics, and to oppose the Islamic Jihadist would possibly exacerbate a radical Islamic fervor in his own nation, which could compromise the stability of Pakistan. Musharraf in reality has no intentions of truly apprehending Bin Laden and he has to be very careful of the type of internal logistics he is providing to the West. He has already survived the Islamic bounty hunters in three prior assassination attempts.
Wikipedia on-line resource stated, “Bhutto was sworn in for the first time in 1988 at the age of 35, but was removed from office 20 months later under the order of then- president Ghulam Ishaq Khan on grounds of alleged corruption. In 1993 Bhutto was re-elected but was again removed in 1996 on similar charges, this time by President Farooq Leghari Bhutto went into self-imposed exile in Dubai in 1998.
Bhutto returned to Pakistan on October 18, 2007, after reaching an understanding with President Pervez Musharraf by which she was granted amnesty and all corruption charges were withdrawn. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007, after departing a PPP rally in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, two weeks before the scheduled Pakistani general election of 2008 where she was a leading opposition candidate”.
Bhutto returned to her native Pakistan after a nine year self-imposed exile in Dubai and the United Kingdom, but what information was she working with that assured her that she could come back to this violable nation without any political consequences? How were the conditions any different prior to her leaving and had she resolved the political conflicts that sent her into exile? These are the pressing questions that need to be assessed and evaluated in this Benazir Bhutto’s dilemma because most past political leaders from around world that were sent into exile voluntarily or involuntarily and had received political asylum, just did not walk back into their home country and resume normalcy. Thus, for the most part the players and the game were same and she had no new found powers to alter the eventual outcome, which was her untimely assassination.
Bhutto’s may have been a charming, charismatic and likable woman, but she had internal enemies that had not forgotten her corrupt and reactionary politics when she served as Prime Minister. This writer knows that her death is complex, but in many ways she sealed her own fate by trusting her security to the other CIA Agent—Musharraf and also her death can be seen as an act of betrayal by the United States Government and the Pakistani Government.
The Pakistani Government initially reported that Bhutto’s was shot in the head area, but for some strange reason they later recanted and reported that it were not the assassin bullets that killed Bhutto’, but she cracked her skull on the vehicle during the assassination commotion trying to escape the violence, as to minimize the role of the assassins and subconsciously imply that Bhutto’s cause of death was more self-inflicted. Moreover, in some delusional type reasoning this would absolve and exonerate the Pakistani Government of any official wrongdoing. But in accordance with Islamic burial and funeral customs only women are permitted to wash the body of a decease Muslim woman. It was reported by one of Bhutto’s closest companions that there were gun shot wounds to her head. This type conduct on behalf of the Pakistani Government clearly leads toward being suspicious of Musharraf’s behavior and the conflicting death reports.
According to Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent “TIMESONLINE” December 28, 2007 he stated, “Earlier that month two Pakistani militant warlords based in the country’s northwestern areas had threatened to kill her. One was Baitullah Mehsud, a top militant commander fighting the Pakistani Army in South Waziristan, who has ties to al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taleban. The other was Haji Omar, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, who is also from South Waziristan and fought with the Afghan Mujahidin against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Ms Bhutto said after the attack that she had received a letter, signed by someone claiming to be a friend of al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, threatening to slaughter her like a goat. But she also accused Pakistani authorities of not providing her with sufficient security, and hinted that they may have been complicit in the Karachi attack. She indicated that she had more to fear from unidentified members of a power structure that she described as allies of the ‘forces of militancy’.”
The United Nations is spearheading a so-called independent investigation into the murder of Bhutto, but to start at the premise that so-called Islamic extremist and terrorist were the villains in this assassination has already compromised the integrity of getting to the truth. The United Nations since September 11, 2001 has become a political arm of the United States and has lost its credibility to function as a neutral and sovereign non-aligned international body that works in the interest of all international governments.
The U.N. investigation will not be an objective criminal inquiry, but it will seek to cover-up both CIA and the Pakistani Government roles in Bhutto’s assassination. How can the Musharraf and CIA investigate themselves?—they both have the same alibi, it was Al Qaeda and the ignorant masses will not question the UN findings because we have been conditioned to believe that the so-called terrorist are the “Axil of Evil” and we have already presumed them guilty based on our ill informed perception of Islam.
Bhutto miscalculated the ingenuity of her enemies and their resolve to see her dead, she was betting on the religion of Islam’s moral and ethical teachings serving as restraints on Muslim men who would dare kill a so-called innocent Muslim woman. But supposed the HIT MEN were hired for murder and the sanctity of the teachings of Islam would be a non-factor in the assassination decision making process.
There is talk that Bhutto’s nineteen year old son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari will succeed his mother and represent the Pakistan People’s Party when elections are resumed. In an online article titled, “Bhutto’s Son will Succeed Her as Head of PPP” hosted on a Internet website Patterico’s Pontifications stated, “Bilawal, who enrolled as a student at Oxford University only this year, is scheduled to read the will himself at a party gathering on Sunday. There is little doubt that he will be accepted by the party rank and file; the PPP has been an all-family affair in Pakistan’s dynastic politics since Benazir Bhutto’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, founded it 40 years ago. Bhutto had given herself the title of “chairperson for life” and her only previous public signal as to who she wanted her political heir to be occurred when she sent Bilawal to register to vote for the first time earlier this year.”
This writer wonders has this young man already been recruited by the CIA and will he follow the footsteps of his mother who was nothing but a political prostitute who sold her sold to the devil. How will the various radical Islamic antagonists view this inexperience sheltered petit-bourgeoisie want-to-be Pakistani leader? Will they set a bounty on his head due to the sins of his mother.
Fahim A. Knight Chief Researcher for KEEPING IT REAL THINK TANK located in Durham, NC; our mission is to inform African Americans and all people of good will of the pending dangers that lie ahead; as well as decode the symbolisms and reinterpret the hidden meanings behind those who operate as invisible forces, but covertly rules the world. We are of the belief that an enlighten world will be better prepared to throw off the shackles of ignorance and not be willing participants for the slaughter. Our MOTTO is speaking truth to power. Fahim A. Knight can be reached at fahimknight@yahoo.com.
STAY AWAKE UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN,Fahim A. Knight
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
