Headline News 26/11/2016

Headlines

• America undertaking vote recounts as public wary of election result

• Modi’s aggression met with silence by Pakistan’s rulers

• Fidel Castro, an American opponent, dies

Details

America undertaking vote recounts as public wary of election result

More than a fortnight after Donald Trump’s victory in the US Presidential elections, large sections of the American public are still in shock over the result. The Obama administration was compelled on Friday to issue a statement supporting the result, over speculations of foreign intervention to affect the result. According to the New York Times: “The Obama administration said on Friday that despite Russian attempts to undermine the presidential election, it has concluded that the results “accurately reflect the will of the American people.” The article also reports that $5 million had been raised by Friday mid-day for vote recounts in three states — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — where his margin of victory was extremely thin.”

In fact it is not foreign powers that intervene in America’s election but the American elite themselves who manipulate their own elections. The elite is not able to trust the general population to decide who should rule. Hence, for example, the population does not directly elect the president, but votes for members of the Electoral College, and it is up to these members, the actual ‘electors’ to vote for the President. One of America’s ‘founding fathers’, Alexander Hamilton explained the role of this small number of electors as follows: “A small number of persons, selected by their fellow-citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations.”

Only in Islam can we trust the general Muslim population to elect the Amir al-Mu’mineen because we are bound by the Hukm Shar’ii to do so. After judicial screening to ascertain legal qualification, candidates will be shortlisted in an open political process by elected representatives of the Ummah within a tight timeframe that excludes opportunities for political manipulation. The final decision is for the Ummah to make directly.

Modi’s Aggression Met with Silence by Pakistan’s Rulers

Unable to contain the renewed Kashmiri uprising, India has chosen instead to direct its anger and aggression against Pakistan. Almost every day brings news of military and civilian deaths in Pakistan from cross-border firing. Earlier this week, for example, Indian firing resulted in the deaths of 9 civilians travelling in a bus, and even rescue workers arriving in an ambulance were fired upon.

Pakistan, however, is refusing to take appropriate action in response. In a front-page article in the Dawn Newspaper headlined, “Tit-for-tat action against India ruled out” the Prime Minister’s foreign affairs advisor Sartaj Aziz is quoted speaking in parliament on Friday, portraying the matter as internal to India. “It is an indigenous freedom movement...led by youths. We will continue [to offer] political, diplomatic and moral support to Kashmiris,” he said.

Pakistan well knows that passiveness at this point will only encourage further aggression from India’s Hindu leadership, as the same article reports parliamentarians warning: “Several lawmakers urged the government to stop exercising restraint, saying that it would only embolden the Narendra Modi government in pressuring Pakistan on all fronts.”

Indeed, on the same day, Modi was threatening to cut the supply of water to Pakistan, as reported by The Indian Express in an article headlined: Water that belongs to India cannot be allowed to go to Pakistan: PM Modi in Bathinda.

Pakistan has repeatedly abandoned the Kashmiri Muslims to India’s Hindu leadership. Kashmir is well within Pakistan’s strategic reach, and would have been won by Pakistan in 1999 if Nawaz Sharif, then also Prime Minister, had not conceded to America to abandon Pakistani troops in Kargill. The Pakistan Army, by training, deployment and attitude, is fully poised to take back Kashmir even now. Pakistan only needs sincere leadership to allow them to do just that.

Fidel Castro, an American opponent, Dies

Cuban state media reported on Friday the death of Cuban revolutionary and ex-President Fidel Castro at the age of 90, who stood against American imperialism for more than half a century and implemented domestically the socialist ideology. During his rule, Cuba remained a client state of the former Soviet Union within the Western hemisphere, and continued even after the collapse of the Soviet Union to oppose American hegemony. The Western hemisphere’s opposition to America reached a crescendo during Bush’s presidency as America was drained by wars against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, with Castro’s retirement from the Cuban Presidency in 2008, and the untimely death of Venezuela’s Chavez in 2013, the Obama administration has been able to restore relations with Cuba and recover much of its strength in Latin America.

The life of Fidel Castro proves that it is possible for even a small ideological country to stand up to America and pursue an independent domestic and foreign policy.

Islam provides Muslims with a much more powerful ideology than intellectually-bankrupt socialism. And Muslim countries are much larger, much more populous, much more resource-rich and at much greater distance from America. Then why do our Muslim rulers live in fear of America, careful not to even utter a single word of disrespect and, for example, rush to welcome Trump on his election victory despite his foul-mouthed insults against Muslims and Islam? It is time to replace our rulers with sincere leadership that is politically aware and can properly evaluate the reality of American strength in international affairs.