Salafism is distinct in its skepticism toward esotericism, strict monotheism, and its willingness to question the authority of Muslim leaders.
Should Skeptics take Islamic Law in Egyptian and American Politics seriously?
Read more: Salafism 101: Islamic Law and Politics
‘I have seen a number of articles written recently about the problem of Child Soldiers in various conflicts abroad – most notably in Africa and Colombia. What has struck me about these pieces, and the discourse about this phenomenon in general, is that they treat the phenomenon of Child Soldiers as the disease to be cured, rather than what it truly is – a symptom of the much more deadly diseases of War, Poverty and Imperialism.’
Read more: Kony2012 and Child Soldiers: a Symptom of War, Poverty & American Imperialism
‘By now, you’d think we’d be entering the end of the 9/11 era. One war over in the Greater Middle East, another hurtling disastrously to its end, and the threat of al-Qaeda so diminished that it should hardly move the needle on the national worry meter. You might think, in fact, that the moment had arrived to turn the American gaze back to first principles: the Constitution and its protections of rights and liberties.’
Read more: 5 Ways US National Security Policies Will Erode Civil Liberties in 2012
‘If you’ve been fretting about faltering math education and falling test scores here in the United States, you should be worried based on this campaign season of Republican math. When it comes to the American military, the leading Republican presidential candidates evidently only learned to add and multiply, never subtract or divide.’
Read more: Military Intelligence Complex: Throwing Money at the Pentagon
‘Europeans regard Israel as the greatest threat to world peace. In the Arab world, Iran is disliked but seen as a threat only by a very small minority. Rather, Israel and the U.S. are regarded as the pre-eminent threat. A majority think that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons: In Egypt on the eve of the Arab Spring, 90 percent held this opinion, according to Brookings Institution/Zogby International polls.’
Read more: Noam Chomsky: Are We About to Get Embroiled in a Nightmare War With Iran?
‘KONY 2012 is produced like any other sleek marketing campaign – instead of stimulating elements of self-satisfaction like advertisers would do to promote a product, US military intervention is justified to end an atrocious humanitarian catastrophe. The film also plays on an underlying theme of the White Man’s Burden, a notion that persons of European descent inherit a quality of guilt for their ancestors’ inclination for slavery and colonialism, requiring an activist response to finally correct the situation by “saving Africa.”’
Read more: #Kony2012: Youth Movement Promotes US Military Presence in Central Africa
‘The Vatican has for the first time appeared on the U.S. State Department’s list of money-laundering centres but the tiny city-state is not rated as a high-risk country.’
Read more: U.S. adds the Vatican to its money-laundering ‘concern’ list
‘The law itself is crystal clear. Under the UN Charter it is the ultimate war crime for a nation to initiate an aggressive war against another country that has not attacked it or that does not pose an “imminent threat” of attack. And given that even Israeli and US intelligence officials concede that Iran is not at this time making a bomb, and thus cannot hope to have a working one even a year from now were they to begin a crash program, there is simply no imminent threat.’
Read more: The Hacks of War: The Media and Iran
‘Rothschild claimed he was subjected to “sustained and unjustified” attacks in the May 2010 article, which portrayed him as a “puppet master”, dangling his friend Lord Mandelson in front of the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska to ease the passage of colossal business deals.’
Read more: Rothschild Loses libel Lawsuit: Reveals Secret World of Money and Politics
‘For example, check out the politicos who’re raising such a cacophony these days about big, intrusive government. Ironically, they’re usually the same knee-jerks who so fervidly advocate the expansion of government’s biggest and most intrusive force: police power. Since 9/11, this bunch has screeched non-stop that the only way to make the American people secure in this terrifying age is to jackhammer the word “secure” out of the Fourth Amendment–the only place in the Bill of Rights where the term appears.
The founders (made of much stronger stuff than today’s political harpies) believed that genuine security for a democratic people comes from strengthening their right and ability to resist the autocratic impulses of the authorities. By deliberately placing “secure” in this key Bill of Rights passage, they certainly did not intend for it to be twisted into a meek call for ever-expanding police power to “protect” the citizenry, but instead to give citizens essential legal guarantees to protect themselves from police power.’
Read more: How Team Obama, the GOP, and Tea Partiers Are All Intruding on Your Rights
Mystic Politics 