#it was even further in its core a pro-socialist story and against capitalism | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

newsnigeria · 4 years

Text

Check out New Post published on Ọmọ Oòduà

New Post has been published on http://ooduarere.com/news-from-nigeria/world-news/china-bolivia-and-venezuela/

China, Bolivia and Venezuela are proof that social democracy cannot thrive in the global capitalist order

By Jeff J. Brown for Ooduarere via The Saker Blog

Crosslinked with:

https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/11/16/china-bolivia-and-venezuela-are-proof-that-social-democracy-cannot-thrive-in-the-global-capitalist-system-china-rising-radio-sinoland-191116/

https://youtu.be/ngJxuqdZ8SI

https://soundcloud.com/44-days/china-bolivia-and-venezuela-prove-that-social-democracy-cant-thrive-in-the-global-capitalist-order

Pictured above: The US orchestrated coup in Bolivia is being led by White supremist, fascist, Christian fundamentalists, just the type of jackbooted brown shirts the West loves, in order to plunder and rape countries around the world. Washington, London and Paris put fascists and mass murderers in power, because they make Wall Street billions in criminal blood money. Pictured center above is one of their psychopathic henchmen, Luis Fernando Camacho, giving a Nazi salute and wearing the Nazi Iron Cross. Notice Jesus Christ is portrayed on the flag on the right. Racist inspired blood is going to flood the Native streets of Bolivia. Read this article and get goosebumps of revulsion (https://thegrayzone.com/2019/11/11/bolivia-coup-fascist-foreign-support-fernando-camacho/).

The US-orchestrated, fascist, racist overthrow of the popularly elected socialist government in Bolivia is depressing, but not surprising (https://www.rt.com/op-ed/473181-morales-bolivia-american-coup/). As a tweet shown in this article says, it’s nothing new, as this is US coup #5 in Bolivia,

1952, 1964, 1970, 1980, 2019. Brought to you by the Bolivian oligarchy and the CIA.

Western and White Supremist Bolivian capitalists will now plunge it into another Libya, while exterminating uncounted thousands of Native Americans (https://www.rt.com/news/473494-putin-bolivia-morales-libya/), as Russian President Vladimir Putin is already warning.

Before 2006, Bolivians, like most peoples of Central and South America, were sodomized, plundered, exterminated, enslaved (mostly) Natives, watching helplessly as their natural and human resources enriched the local White elite 1% (ongoing colonial, European family lines, who started settling in the 15th century), Washington, London and Paris. In the last 13 years, Native President Evo Morales’ socialist administration has reduced extreme poverty from 38% to 15%, and overall poverty from 60% to 35% (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/07/how-a-populist-president-helped-bolivias-poor-but-built-himself-a-palace) Socialism shrank the GINI index by an eyepopping 19% and tripled the median household income, something poorer and poorer Euranglolanders can only dream about. (https://www.thenation.com/article/economics-socialism-bolivia-evo/). Until this week, the economy was the fastest growing in the region, averaging over 4% a year (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/BOL/bolivia/gdp-growth-rate). This will all be stolen back now, post-capitalist coup.

How did this happen? They nationalized key sectors of the economy (stolen land, oil, gas, copper, lithium) and began processing their mineral wealth into value added exports, as explained by deposed Morales here (https://www.rt.com/news/473353-evo-morales-imf-exports-oas/). This money was plowed back into infrastructure (schools, hospitals, rural roads) and social services (health care, education and retirement pensions) to improve the quality of life for the 99%, at the expense of the 1%. They did it without being plundered by IMF-World Bank gangster banksters and their corrupt loans that enrich Wall Street and each country’s local elites. Read John Perkin’s book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, which he is now offering for free (https://www.academia.edu/7614432/John_Perkins_Economic_Hit_Man_Summary_of_Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man_About_John_Perkins_Author_of_Confessions_of_an_Economic_Hit_Man). You can see how the global elite destroy entire economies to starve and exterminate millions of mostly dark-skinned poor, in order to plunder trillions of dollars in assets. Another scathing exposé of how Western elites legally rape the weak, in the guise of the “Liberal World Order” is Paul Blustein’s And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out), which was being replayed again by Argentina’s neoliberal ex-president Mauricio Macri (https://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/9781586483814/). More about this snake in a suit below.

Postwar, all of this shows how the transfer of trillions of dollars of human and natural capital are extracted and exploited by Eurangloland, so their poorer and poorer citizens can borrow printed money to buy Huawei/Apple mobile phones, Haier appliances and Lenovo/Dell computers on credit, all manufactured in communist-socialist China, while their elite owners become even bigger trillionaires and billionaires. When the current Western capitalist hyperbubble implodes in the near future, these same citizens will be driven even further into lower standards of living, but not communist-socialist Chinese, North Koreans, Laos, Vietnamese, Cubans, Eritreans and Iranians.

This brings us to the crux of my article. Western Europe, Bolivia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Brazil, Argentina, Mozambique, Angola and all other countries that practice social democracy simply cannot thrive in the global capitalist order, without one key ingredient, and it may not be what you think.

Yes, you can nationalize core industries and second, repatriate stolen land to build agriculture, infrastructure, development and industrialization. The prior was done by Europe and every other social democracy after World War II. The latter was done by China, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Laos, Vietnam and many others, or former Soviet states like the “Stans” and Belarus, which just kept the land in public hands.

Today, after 75 years of relentless Big Lie Propaganda and neoliberal treachery, almost all of Europe’s key industries have been de-nationalized and much of its public assets have been privatized for profit, in the name of “free market” dogma.

So, land and industry are not enough. Even being armed to the teeth, like Venezuelans is not enough. The US and Europe cannot invade or overthrow the people’s will there, like they do most everywhere else, Bolivia being a prime example. If NATO tried to go in, it would get its butt whipped by many thousands of neighborhood militias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colectivo_(Venezuela) ). When friends like Rory Hall at The Daily Coin (https://thedailycoin.org/) ardently support gun rights in the United States, I can see his point. Because Venezuela is locked and loaded, it is successfully drawing a line in the geopolitical sands. This is thanks to murdered former president Hugo Chavez (https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2016/03/14/murder-chavez-cia-and-dea-cover-their-tracks/), who understood Mao Zedong’s rejoinder that revolution must be defended by the barrel of a gun. Thus, Venezuelans will not be occupied by NATO.

But, the West is killing and starving tens of thousands of Venezuelans every year with genocidal economic sanctions and stealing billions of dollars in overseas assets. Sanctions and piracy are nothing more than warfare and crimes against humanity, making a mockery of the United Nations charter.

So, how can social democracies thrive in the face of global capitalist terrorism? The secret to survive and hopefully thrive is to nationalize the media. Venezuela’s media is owned by the same White supremist local elites who are destroying the country, with the help of the CIA and its thousands of faux NGOs. Ditto Bolivia (https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/bolivia-created-over-four-thousand-accounts-to-legitimize-coup-20191113-0011.html). We can see the suffering, slaughter and chaos, as a result.

The following story illustrates the point. When neoliberal thug Macri got elected president of Argentina in 2015, only to destroy the economy with tens of billions of corrupt IMF-World Bank loans that went straight into his and the local elites’ pockets, and on to Wall Street, I asked my friend, Moti Nissani (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/search/?q=moti%20nissani), who lives there, how the people could be duped into voting for such a blatant gangster.

This, after 10 years of socialist success, turning the economy around for the 99% and paying off billions of 1990s IMF-World Bank theft. My friend told me Argentina’s national media is owned lock, stock and barrel by the elites and it proved once again that Big Lie propaganda works. Tell lie after lie long enough, over and over, and people will accept it as reality, regardless of the facts and proof in their daily lives. Argentina’s elites vomited anti-socialist, pro-neoliberal Western Big Lie Propaganda on the masses and after ten years of being brainwashed, they elected to commit collective socioeconomic suicide.

Socialists just won to replace Macri, and like after the 1990s, will again be stuck fixing Wall Street’s gang bang in the making. But Washington, London and Paris will do everything possible to destroy them, while the local elite media will crank up the Big Lie Propaganda Machine (BLPM) into hyperdrive, to do the same.

This is why Hugo Chavez created the Pan-American, state owned media company, TeleSUR (https://www.telesurenglish.net/index.html). The problem is, with Latin America’s media being owned by gangster elites, they can exclude it in their TV programming and censor it in their press and on the internet.

The only countries hanging on, in a world of global capitalist pain, are the ones that openly tell their people they own and manage the media via the state, in the interest of social harmony, economic prosperity and to protect the nation from Eurangloland’s nonstop sabotage. This includes China, North Korea, Laos (where my wife and I just spent a few days and really enjoyed it), Vietnam, Cuba, Iran, Eritrea and I suspect most of the former Soviet republics. They all obviously know these famous quotes by heart…

Former CIA director William Casey famously said,

We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.

Ex-CIA director William Colby spoke the truth too,

The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.

Carl Bernstein was told by a high-ranking CIA officer,

One journalist is worth twenty agents [spies in the field].

I used these three quotes when writing The China Trilogy (see below). They and all my research prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the West has a very highly orchestrated press and tightly censored media, just like George Orwell and Aldous Huxley predicted. Another book I quoted in The China Trilogy is Edward Bernays’ Propaganda (easy to download for free online), where he truthfully stated,

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of… We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Can it be any clearer than that, my dear Euranglolanders? Yet most of my fellow Westerners will go to the mat that they have “free press” and “liberty”. It’s a cruel mirage. When the 1% controls the media, the elites can turn the people into zombified sheeple, enriching themselves with Orwellian perpetual war, while keeping the masses entertained to death. Sheldon Wolin called this inverted totalitarianism, something I’ve also included in my books, because clueless citizens cannot recognize or admit the truth slapping them in the face. His book, Democracy Inc. is an essential primer to understand the simulacrum world Westerners live in (https://www.gettextbooks.com/isbn/9780691135663/).

Edward Bernays simply took the Nazi Big Lie playbook, then called it “publicity” and “public relations”. The CIA-Western corporate media adopted it very successfully to brainwash unsuspecting billions around the world – but not in China, North Korea, Laos, Vietnam, Cuba, Eritrea and former Soviet republics.

In my interview with James Bradley, he said that Western media is state managed and controlled (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/04/06/james-bradley-tells-it-like-it-is-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-180406/), namely by the CIA, NSA, the Departments of Defense and State. Douglas Valentine said the same thing in our discussion (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/02/douglas-valentine-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-the-cia-is-global-capitalisms-secret-gangster-army-190702/). Hell, the CIA owns and finances (with its global heroin and cocaine empire) billions of dollars in media companies and outlets around the world. How can we expect anything differently (https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-cia-and-the-media-50-facts-the-world-needs-to-know/5471956)?

France’s Yellow Vests notwithstanding (no surprise – whose continuing protests in the thousands have been completely flushed down the West’s Orwellian Memory Hole, https://thesaker.is/?s=Ramin+Mazaheri+Yellow+Vests), Eurangloland is a lost cause, but any other country that does not want to be raped and plundered by gangster bankster Wall Street, invaded and occupied by NATO and have their people exterminated and starved, needs to nationalize its media 100%, like China, Iran and elsewhere. Otherwise, the devolution into a neoliberal, police state hellhole, like Eurangloland, or color revolution chaos, butchery and theft, like much of Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, Ukraine and too many others to count, is all but guaranteed.

The other policy they need to adopt is a strong NGO control law, like Russia, China and India have done (http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/04/30/baba-beijing-lowers-the-communist-boom-on-foreign-ngos-china-rising-radio-sinoland-16-4-30/). Some NGOs do good work, but too many are nothing more than color revolution shell fronts for the CIA-media complex to destroy countries from the inside. Today’s Western destruction of Hong Kong is a prime example (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/08/confucius-laozi-and-buddha-are-humbly-winning-against-the-imperial-west-in-troubled-hong-kong-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190708/ and https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2019/07/20/wests-hong-kong-color-revolution-still-making-a-mess-of-the-place-and-totally-backfiring-china-rising-radio-sinoland-190720/).

In closing, the one exception to this is Russia, which does not have 100% nationalized media. However, for economic prosperity, social harmony and to protect the people from Western sabotage, the government works hard to control and censor destabilizing (fake) news, as this article shows (https://www.comparitech.com/blog/vpn-privacy/tech-giant-censorship/), staying on top of Twitter, Google and Facebook propaganda.

Russia is a social democracy, with a large, successful people owned industrial sector and many social services for the 99% from the Soviet era. But, unlike Bolivia and Ukraine, it is avoiding the West’s color revolution poison pill, because since 1999, Russia has gone from strength to strength, under the inspired leadership of patriotic President Vladimir Putin. But like all social democracies, the problem is what happens if another Western whore Boris Yeltsin succeeds Putin, and returns Russia to its dystopian Wall Street rape of the 1990s? Then what? It only took Macri four short years to bring Argentina back onto its groveling knees. Without a 100% nationalized media, Russians had better be demanding that Putin & Russian Patriots Inc. work overtime to censor all the Western overthrow garbage that is put in Cyrillic ink and on the airwaves.

I would love to hear what my good friend Andrei Raevsky thinks about this at The Saker (http://thesaker.is/), because let’s be honest: without China’s, Russia’s and Iran’s continued anti-imperial independence and socialist success into the 21st century, humanity can kiss its ass goodbye!

###

Jeff J. Brown is the author of The China Trilogy (https://chinarising.puntopress.com/2018/06/30/praise-for-the-china-trilogy-the-votes-are-in-it-r-o-c-k-s-what-are-you-waiting-for/), blogs and podcasts at www.chinarising.puntopress.com. His forthcoming book, Faster than a Speeding Bullet – the Chinese People’s Unstoppable Socialist Dream for Global Leadership into the 22nd Century, will be released in 2021.

Creative Commons: This article by Jeff J. Brown is available for re-publication free of charge under Creative Commons. It may be translated into any language and republished anywhere in the world. Editing is permitted of the article(s). You may edit my article(s) and bio to correct spelling, grammar, word usage and any misstatement of facts.

You may change any wording that may be culturally offensive or inappropriate to the reading audience. You may change the title of my article(s) and you may edit them to fit the desired space and word length preferred by your publication.

If you edit and publish my article(s) the only request is that the intended meaning in my article(s) not be changed or taken out of context. You may use the suggested graphics, which to the best of my knowledge are available free under Creative Commons, but I cannot guarantee that they may be used without the permission of their creator and/or owner. You may select your own choice of graphics, pictures and /and or videos (or none) that complement the intended meaning of my article. Please share and distribute this article widely. My contact email is [email protected].

#Bolivia #China #Venezuela

0 notes

clubofinfo · 7 years

Text

Expert: It was late at night but the new Terminal 3 at Soekarno-Hatta International Airport outside Jakarta was still bustling with families and friends waiting for their loved ones returning from abroad. My friend Noor Huda Ismail was just arriving from Singapore, and I decided to pick him up and discuss ‘certain issues’ with him in the car, on the way to the capital. Lately he and I were busy, awfully busy, and a one-hour journey seemed to be the most appropriate setting for the exchange of at least some essential ideas and information. Noor Huda Ismail and I Huda could easily pass for the most knowledgeable Indonesian “expert on terrorism”; a Muslim man who grew up and was educated in the madrasahs that have produced some of the most notorious jihadi cadres in the country. Later he became the man who managed to ‘get away’ from the extremism, to study, and to finally become a respected filmmaker and a thinker. For years, both of us have been studying a complex web produced by Western imperialism – a web, which has literally destroyed entire countries, while locking other ones ‘behind bars’, in virtual neo-colonialist slavery. All this done in the name of ‘freedom’ and democracy, naturally, and often using various religions as tools, even as weapons. Inside the car we managed to quickly ‘compare notes’. Huda filled me in on his groundbreaking film Jihad Selfie, while I informed him about my political revolutionary novel Aurora, and my big work in progress, a book about Afghanistan. I also mentioned my future ‘Afghan’ film, a dark love story, a drama about betrayal, collaboration and the virtual collapse of one family; a film which I’m preparing to produce and direct sometime during the next year. “Afghanistan,” he says, “that’s where the roots of so many things lie… You recall that in the 80’s, the U.S. was using some local, Indonesian, jihadi cadres, sending them to Afghanistan…” I knew about it; I knew something, but not everything. The fact that both Indonesian and Malaysian citizens went to fight against the Soviet Union, Karmal, and then Mohammad Najibullah’s government in Afghanistan, was something that I have never yet addressed in my books or films. Now I suddenly felt that it was important, extremely important, to address this fact. “Huda,” I asked, as we were slowly progressing through perpetual traffic jam of Jakarta, “how many Indonesian men went to fight in Afghanistan, after the 1979 Soviet intervention?” Huda didn’t hesitate. He always knows the numbers: Just from one group, there were 350 fighters. Indonesians fought in Afghanistan, and were based in a camp belonging to Ittehad-al-Islami (Islamic Union). Ustad Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf ran the camp. Of course Rab Rasul Sayyaf is Wahhabi, and the Wahhabis have been fully funded by the U.S. What we are seeing now, all those ‘terrorist threats’, is a blowback effect, of what the U.S. has done in the region, specifically in Afghanistan. And even the ISIS now: in 2003 they came to topple Saddam… Could I meet one of the Afghan ‘alumni’ here in Jakarta? “Of course you can,” he nodded, “I’ll arrange it, while you are here.” ***** Before an encounter with an “Afghan” jihadi cadre, I travelled to the city of Bandung, where I met Iman Soleh, a professor at the Faculty of Social and Political Science (University of Padjadjaran – UNPAD). He is yet another renowned authority on ‘terrorism’. He came to my hotel, accompanied by his wife, Professor Antik Bintari, a conflict management expert who teaches at the same university. Prof Iman Soleh and Prof Antik Bintar For quite some time, professor Iman Soleh and I discussed the link between the ‘old guard’ Southeast Asian (mainly Indonesians and Malaysians) jihadi cadres, so-called ‘Afghan alumni’, and the vanguard, a ‘new wave’, that which is now trying to destabilize, even destroy both Syria and the Philippines. While the name ‘jihad’ itself has been used habitually and ‘liberally’ all over the Western mainstream media, it was clear to all of us at the table that behind the brutal combat as well as most of the horrors unleashed in such places like Syria and Philippines, hidden are the geopolitical interests of the West in general and of the United States in particular. Professor Soleh has explained the latest ‘dynamics’: Since World War Two, the U.S. was afraid of so-called ‘domino effects’. Among other things that are now happening in the Philippines under president Duterte, the government is curbing activities of the multi-national mining conglomerates, and the West cannot accept that. Philippines are putting its environmental concerns above the short-term profits! For the millions of left-wing activists here in Indonesia and all over Southeast Asia, Duterte is a role model. Therefore, following the imperialist logic, the Philippines have to be attacked and destabilized, as has already been done to Syria. Defiance is punishable by death. And how else other than through the most effective weapons which the West has been utilizing for years and decades: extremist religious terrorist groups. What better assembly of fighters to choose for that difficult task than the jihadists from the groups that had already proven to be so effective and lethal in places such as Afghanistan? Islamic Defender’s Front (FPI) goodies on display in Jakarta By now, almost nobody who is at least to some extent informed on the subject has any doubts that the West is mainly interested in maintaining ‘perpetual conflict’ in several regions of the world. As Professor Soleh observes: I think all this is not just to ‘destabilize’ the Philippines, but also because the country has conflict areas that could be ‘nurtured’. The best example is predominantly Muslim island of Mindanao, vs. the rest of the Philippines, which is predominantly a Catholic country. As we know, the Philippines is also involved in the South China Sea dispute with the PRC, and the U.S. is trying to fully dominate the region… And President Duterte is committing an ‘unpardonable crime’ in the eyes of Washington and London, by trying to resolve the territorial conflict with China, as quickly and efficiently as possible. ***** But back to the “Jihadi Express…” It is important to understand the background: The Indonesian jihadi, Salafi group Darul Islam, fought for a caliphate and against the secular and socialist state headed by President Sukarno, in the 1950’s and well into the 1960’s. “Terror is halal”, they used to say. Professor Saleh further clarifies: Eventually the Indonesian state dismantled ‘Darul Islam’, but there was an off-shoot of it created soon, ‘Komando Jihad’. Komando Jihad later transformed into a transnational Southeast Asian group Jamaah Islamiyah (with its spiritual leader Abu Bakar Bashir). The group has been maintaining active links and cooperation with al-Qaeda and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front in the Philippines, to name just two religious guerillas. Fighters from Komando Jihad then went to Afghanistan. Ideologically they were hard-core Salafis, but with the Western support. They received Western help to acquire weapons and other basics. According to my contacts in the Indonesian intelligence community, the U.S. was backing this infiltration of Afghanistan by ‘Komando Jihad’ and by others. I’m also in possession of a piece of information that the Indonesian army (TNI) commander in the 1980’s, General Moerdani, was supporting Indonesian and Afghan jihadists, by supplying them with the weapons (including the AK-47’s). Again, according to my Indonesian intelligence sources, the ‘departure’ itself of the Indonesian jihadists for Afghanistan was also directly helped by the U.S., under the cover of ‘Islamic study groups’ and other ‘communities’, and the route that was utilized was: Indonesia – Malaysia – Philippines – Afghanistan. These are not well-publicized facts, but they should not surprise anyone familiar with Indonesian history: after the brutal 1965 U.S.-sponsored military/religious coup, Indonesia rapidly transformed itself from an anti-imperialist, internationalist and progressive country into the closest Western ally in the entire Southeast Asia. The main ‘ideology’ of the new fascist pro-Western regime of General Suharto became “anti-Communism”. For months and years, the Communists as well as alleged ‘Communists’ were slaughtered all over the archipelago, while Communist ideology was banned, as were the Chinese language and culture, including dragons and cakes. The anti-Communist propaganda became the main sample of the ‘intellectual’ diet. The fourth most populous country on Earth went through a total reset, became one of the most ‘religious’ places on Earth, and soon after collapsed both socially and intellectually. Poster of Radical FPI in Jakarta Allegations of “atheism” against the Communists were used in Indonesia in order to stir and radicalize thousands of potential and already existing jihadi cadres. Anti-atheism, even anti-secularism, became the rallying cry of those who were ready to sacrifice their lives for the ultimate goal and dream – a caliphate. The West in Afghanistan played the same ‘game’, during the “Soviet era”, as it did in Indonesia after 1965, and elsewhere. It is clear and obvious that the imperialist scheme designed in Washington and London has been interchangeable and successfully applicable in many different geographical locations. In Kabul, in March 2017, a legendary Afghan intellectual, Dr. Omara Khan Masoudi, explained to me: The biggest mistake the Soviet Union made here was to attack religion outrightly. If they’d first stuck to equal rights, and slowly worked it up towards the contradictions of religion, it could perhaps have worked… But they began blaming religion for our backwardness, in fact for everything. Or at least this is how it was interpreted by the coalition of their enemies, and of course by the West. Now, why is the present Western invasion so ‘successful’; why is there so little in terms of intellectual opposition? Look at the regime in Kabul… During its rule, the US convinced people that Western intervention was ‘positive’, ‘respectful of their religion and cultures’. They kept repeating ‘under this and that UN convention’, and again ‘as decided by the UN’… They used NATO, a huge group of countries, as an umbrella. There was a ‘brilliantly effective’ protocol that they developed… According to them, they never did anything unilaterally, always by ‘international consensus’ and in order to ‘help Afghan people’. On the other hand, the Soviet Union never had the slightest chance to explain itself. It was attacked immediately, and on all fronts. In reality, the West has always been using (and finally it has managed to divert) Islam. Some great Muslim scholars, including those that I met in Teheran, believe that Washington, London, Paris and other centers of the Western imperialism and neo-colonialism, actually succeeded, in many parts of the world, to create a totally new and (to many true and intellectual Muslims) unrecognizable religion. ***** Indonesian jihadi cadres hardened in Afghanistan and trained by the Pakistanis eventually returned to their country. There, they went to “work”, participating in such bloodlettings and killings as those in Ambon (Maluku) and Poso (Sulawesi). In Ambon the conflict continued from 1999 to 2002, and while it lasted, allegedly 8,000 people died, while thousands belonging to both sexes were involuntarily and brutally circumcised and genitally mutilated. In Ambon, I saw the jihadi cadres in action, hacking to death a young innocent boy, right in front of the eyes of a cheering crowd of onlookers. I later described the horror of this incident in my novel Point of No Return. Little did I know, then, what I was really witnessing and trying to document. Only much later, in Bandung, in May 2017, a couple of professors, Iman Soleh and Antik Bintari, explained to me: Poso and Ambon, that’s the “Afghani Link”. During those massacres, there were still some ‘old jihadists’ from the Afghan days, participating in the actual fighting. However, there were also some ‘fresh’ fighters there, many of them undergoing exercises with the Indonesian ‘Afghans’. Poso and Ambon conflicts were in fact serving as two training grounds. After that, a new generation of combatants had risen. ***** That same night – very late at night – after driving for hours on hopelessly congested highway that connects the cities of Bandung and Jakarta, I met Mr. Farihin, an active member of the outlawed “JI” (Jamaah Islamiyah), a man who personally met Osama bin Laden, a warrior who fought in Paktia and other provinces in Afghanistan, a former Mujahedeen, an unapologetic jihadist. I was longing to know, to understand, how the old ‘Afghan alumni’ were thinking, how they saw the world, and what their goals were. JI fighter Farihin Mr. Farihin was actually an impressive human being: upright, strong, manly, proud, extremely polite, and totally brainwashed… His hatred for Communism knew no boundaries; it was epic. He dreamed, he ‘saw’ Communists everywhere, all over the world: in Syria, in the present-day Russia, even in Karzai’s and Ghani’s Afghanistan. Anything remotely secular, anything that was not a caliphate, was “Communist” in his simple but determined mind of a combatant. We began with Osama bin Laden: I met Osama fleetingly, in 1987 and 1988, but in those days he was not an ‘ulama’. He was funding Mujahedeen. He was a contractor in Paktia Province and he was based in the north of that province, in an Arab camp, helping Mujahedeen and also building the roads. After Soviets entered Afghanistan, Osama’s people made a ‘council’; it was like a shadow Mujahedeen government. Mr. Farihin came to Afghanistan in 1987. After his group NII (Negara Islam Indonesia – Islamic State of Indonesia) received ‘an invitation’ from Mujahedeen. What prompted him to go to Afghanistan? There was news all over Indonesia, that a Muslim country was attacked by the Soviet Union. My initial desire was to fight the USSR. At the beginning I was not allowed to fight, and it was not Afghanistan where I was sent; it was Pakistan. I was ordered to study at Etihad Islami Military Academy there. At some point, all foreign jihadis had to leave Pakistan, so we were moved directly to Afghanistan. In Paktia Province they built an entire camp for us. We were attacked by the Soviets there, on several occasions; us, as well as the ‘Arab Camp’. MIG-21 jet fighters were used. But by then, Russians were already beginning their withdrawal. After the Soviets left, Afghanistan was still governed by a Communist government, so we fought it, too. I was ready to fight: first the Soviets, than that Communist Afghan governments. I saw Russian prisoners, pilots, shackled, in Pakistan. I was not affraid of them. I quickly noticed that Mr. Farihin was not proud of the support his group and Mujahedeen in general were receiving from the United States and the rest of the West. He kept repeating that he did not “see” any direct U.S. support, that supplies just kept coming from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Muslim countries. For him, it was essential that his fight in Afghanistan would be seen as a ‘pure’, pan-Islamic struggle. I was not there to contradict him, I was there to listen. He spoke about the fronts on which he had fought: Nangarhar, Jalalabad among others: “I was rotating between the fronts. The war, the battles were ‘orderly’”. “But what was the goal?” I asked. He didn’t hesitate one single moment. The goal was simple: in Afghanistan we wanted to prevent the Communist ideology from being accepted. How much did he know about the Communism? Actually, my knowledge about it was very shallow. That’s fine: we were war machines for Mujahedeen. What we were told was that the Communists don’t believe in God, and that they are professing secularism. I wondered whether they knew anything about the improving medical system, about the all of a sudden decent education, about public housing, transportation, and culture? Almost everything done by the Communists was good, I know… But because they believed in Communism and socialism, it was not right, it was ‘haram’. Our pledge to God was what really mattered. In terms of importance, God was Number 1, and only then came the world of humans. I asked him how he sees Afghanistan now. As long as their government is Communist, we’ll fight it… And I pray that Taliban wins. For a moment I thought that I had misunderstood: the Afghanistan government is Communist? Doesn’t he know anything about the U.S., about the Western occupation? Yes but the U.S. went to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban, not Communism. The government is still Communist; a puppet regime of Russia. I quickly changed the subject, but things did not improve. I asked him about Syria, about Iraq. He replied politely: I train, we train volunteers who are ready to go and fight in Syria. It is because Syria is not only Communist, you know – Assad and Russians – but also it is Shi’a. Being Shi’a is an arch crime in today’s Indonesia. People are getting killed, ostracized, and intimidated for being Shi’a. I witnessed it once, on the island of Madura. ‘Aghan alumni’ are training fighters that are ready to go abroad, both ideologically and militarily. Whether the government knows, I’m not sure. Perhaps intelligence knows. During Suharto era, the fight against Communism was supported. I saw Indonesian intelligence operating in the Afghan refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan. We were told by the Pakistani intelligence that the Indonesian intelligence was deployed in the region. Indonesia was then supporting Mujahedeen, and we were receiving some Indonesian supplies, including food. Indonesia and Pakistan were then very good friends; Pakistani intellegence made our life very easy: we were going back and forth, freely, between Afghanistan and Pakistan, across the border, while civilians were not allowed… And what was their fee? Certainly jihad is not fought for free? The lowest pay was then US$150 per month, a lot of money in poor Indonesia, in the late 1980’s. Between US$300 and US$400 for the officers. Before we parted, we talked about Afghanistan, the country. He remembered it fondly: I like the country, it is beautiful. I liked religious life there. Afghans were very kind to us, treated us like guests… We were offered their women, too, to marry, but the dowry was too high. Some had blue eyes, and we wanted to marry them, badly, but really: we couldn’t afford their women with our modest ‘salaries’. Does he miss Afghanistan? “Yes.” “Me, too,” I nodded. “But I’m going back, soon.” We didn’t embrace. By then he sensed that we belonged to the opposite sides of the barricade, and that most likely we were arch enemies. But until we parted, both of us remained polite, excessively polite: the Afghan way. ***** Dina Y. Sulaeman “Jihad in Indonesia – against the Western imperialism? Oh no, no way…” smiles Dina Y. Sulaeman, an Indonesian political analyst, an author of the book Salju Di Aleppo (Snow of Aleppo): Jihad in which Indonesians want to participate is based on hate… In my book, I explain that the Indonesian fighters in Syria are mainly affiliated with several groups: ‘Ikhwanul Muslimin’, ‘Hizbut Tahrir’ and Al Qaeda/ISIS. Unfortunately these groups have supporters in Indonesia. They keep spreading fake photos and videos about Syria, to ignite sympathy, even anger of Indonesian people, so they give donations or even join jihad. It’s a good deal for them. They are waging ‘holy war’, they’ll go to heaven, and plus they get paid. They accuse president Assad of being ‘infidel’. That’s their rallying cry. Indonesian mass media ‘coverage’ is only directly translating what is said by the Western media: the CNN, the BBC and others…. If not those, then at least Al-Jazeera which is often even worse… As a result, Indonesians are ‘very concerned’ about Syria.’ Of course, in my books I’m trying to correct the misconceptions, but the propaganda apparatus is so powerful. “Like in Afghanistan,” I add. Earlier I asked Noor Huda Ismail: “But the Afghan ‘alumni’ and the ISIS do not necessarily like each other, do they?” Huda nods, but then he adds: Al-Qaida and ISIS do not get along well. In the context, most of the fighters, those who support ISIS, they have been gathering in the same mosque. They are using social media. Maybe the Afghan ‘alumni’ and the ISIS supporters do not like each other, but they share the same ideology; the root, the matter is the same, which is toppling and challenging the secular systems. “Including the one in Indonesia.” “Yes, including the one here.” Jihadi Express is now rolling, gaining speed. One country after another is being shred to pieces under its merciless wheels. Those who think that it is “all about oil” are mistaken. The West is, of course, trying to control, fully and brutally, all that moves in the Middle East, North Africa and as far as Iran and Afghanistan. But that’s definitely not all: jihadi groups, created by the West and its allies in the Gulf, have been used to destabilize the two greatest adversaries of the West: Russia and China. Soviet Union was tricked into Afghanistan in 1979, and then brutally destroyed. Afghanistan itself was ‘sacrificed’ in the process, its social structures broken, and all hope its people were enjoying, choked. China is now also greatly suffering from the operations of several Muslim terrorist groups, as well as from other religious implants, which are without exception supported by the West. The Philippines is most likely the next ‘front’. It has been for years and decades, in Sulu and elsewhere, but as this report goes to print, things are deteriorating, getting more and more desperate there. To fight terrorism in such places like Syria and Afghanistan, has been and will be increasingly, one of the main foreign policy goals of both Moscow and Beijing; in order to help those countries under siege, but also in order to prevent them from becoming the training grounds of the ‘anti-Communist’ and anti-secularist terrorist armies. • All photos by Andre Vltchek http://clubof.info/

0 notes