بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
Headline News 20/10/2018
Headlines:
After Politics Tutorial from Pompeo, Saudi acknowledges Khashoggi Died in Consulate
China State Paper decries Western Hypocrisy over China’s Oppression of Muslims
America National Security Adviser wants Withdrawal from Russian Nuclear Arms Treaty
Details:
After Politics Tutorial from Pompeo, Saudi acknowledges Khashoggi Died in Consulate
After the visit this week of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Saudi Arabia, where he met with the Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, evidently to explain how he should save himself from this situation, the Saudi government has finally issued a statement acknowledging the death of Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, and dismissing two senior officials; according to Reuters:
Saudi Arabia said on Saturday that journalist Jamal Khashoggi died in a fight inside its Istanbul consulate and that it fired two senior officials over his death, an account President Donald Trump said was credible but U.S. lawmakers found hard to believe.
Saudi Arabia’s acknowledgement that Khashoggi died in the consulate came after two weeks of denials that it had anything to do with his disappearance, and followed growing demands from Western allies for an explanation of what happened.
His disappearance sparked a global outcry and prompted some U.S. lawmakers to call for harsh action against Riyadh.
Saudi state media said King Salman had ordered the dismissal of two senior officials: Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court advisor seen as the right-hand man to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and deputy intelligence chief Ahmed Asiri, a statement on state media said.
Saudi Arabia provided no evidence to support its account of the circumstances that led to Khashoggi’s death and it was unclear whether Western allies would be satisfied with the Saudi version of events.
“I think it’s a good first step, it’s a big step. It’s a lot of people, a lot of people involved, and I think it’s a great first step,” Trump, who has made close ties with Saudi Arabia a centerpiece of his foreign policy, told reporters in Arizona.
“Saudi Arabia has been a great ally. What happened is unacceptable,” he said, adding that he would speak with the crown prince.
Trump also emphasized Riyadh’s importance in countering regional rival Iran and the importance for American jobs of massive U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia.
Some U.S. lawmakers however were unpersuaded by Riyadh’s account.
“To say that I am skeptical of the new Saudi narrative about Mr. Khashoggi is an understatement,” said Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who has been sharply critical of Saudi Arabia over the incident.
Trump said he would be working with Congress on next moves, but “I would prefer that we don’t use as retribution cancelling $110 billion worth of work, which means 600,000 jobs .... we need them as a counterbalance to Iran.”
US President Donald Trump makes it quite clear that America is only concerned with its own national interests. When America has been pursuing the murder of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Yemen then why ever should America be concerned with the murder of a single individual?! Trump has immediately accepted the Saudi explanation in order to save the Saudi regime. The present rulers of Saudi Arabia are American agents and it falls to America to protect them from their own stupidity in their apparent killing of Khashoggi. If the US has delayed and drawn out the solution of this issue a little, then it is only because the US wants to use this opportunity to extract even more concessions from the Saudi regime.
China State Paper Decries Western Hypocrisy over China’s Oppression of Muslims
According to Reuters:
The western media is guilty of “double standards” when it comes to reporting on China’s restive northwestern region of Xinjiang, the official China Daily said in an editorial on Friday.
China has faced an outcry from human rights groups, foreign governments and United Nations rights experts over what they say are mass detentions and strict surveillance of the mostly Muslim ethnic Uighur minority in Xinjiang.
Beijing has denied accusations that it is systematically violating the rights of Xinjiang’s Muslims, saying it is only cracking down on extremism and “splittism” in the region…
The U.N. human rights panel said in August that China is believed to be holding up to 1 million ethnic Uighurs in a secretive system of “internment camps” in Xinjiang, where they undergo political education.
Beijing has denied that such camps are for “political education” and says they are instead vocational training centers, part of government initiatives to bolster economic growth and social mobility in the region.
It is true that China is oppressing Muslims on a vast scale, particularly in the province of Xinjiang, where it operates secretive ‘internment camps’. But it is also true that the West is simultaneously engaged not only in efforts for the massive re-education of Muslims in Western countries but also to dominate, control and exploit Muslim lands from Morocco to Indonesia. Muslims will only be free from oppression once they take matters in their own hands, re-establishing the righteous Islamic Khilafah (Caliphate) State upon the method of the Prophet (saw) that will unify all Muslims lands, liberating territories occupied by the disbelieving foreigners, such as Palestine, Kashmir, Chechnya and Xinjiang.
America National Security Adviser wants Withdrawal from Russian Nuclear Arms Treaty
Not content with pushing the conflict with China into a new Cold War, America also wishes to challenge Russia; according to the Guardian:
John Bolton is pushing for the US to withdraw from a cold war-era arms control treaty with Russia, in the face of resistance from others in the Trump administration and US allies, according to sources briefed on the initiative.
Bolton, Donald Trump’s third national security adviser, has issued a recommendation for withdrawal from the 1987 intermediate-range nuclear forces treaty (INF), which the US says Russia has been violating with the development of a new cruise missile.
Withdrawal from the treaty, which would mark a sharp break in US arms control policy, has yet to be agreed upon by cabinet and faces opposition from within the state department and the Pentagon. A meeting on Monday at the White House to discuss the withdrawal proposal was postponed.
The INF faces a congressionally imposed deadline early next year. An amendment in the 2019 defence spending bill requires the president to tell the Senate by 15 January whether Russia is in “material breach” of the treaty, and whether the INF remains legally binding on the US.
Bolton, who has spent his career opposing arms control treaties, is seeking to shrug off the traditional role of national security adviser as a policy broker between the agencies, and become a driver of radical change from within the White House.
America has already signalled a shift towards confronting the rise of Russia and China in its latest National Defence Strategy, and US National Security Adviser John Bolton’s position is fully in accordance with that. Despite talk of a world where countries peacefully co-exist with one another, in reality America will never rest as long as there are any credible challenges to its position as the world’s foremost hegemon with full control over global wealth and resources. This is in stark contrast to the millennium through which the Islamic State was the world’s superpower bringing genuine peace and prosperity to all peoples. Wars were limited to chivalrous confrontations between military forces only, unlike the total war of today primarily targeting civilian populations. Indeed it was the Islamic State’s very open economic and educational policies that enabled intellectual renaissance within the backward Christian West but the West used their increasing strength and prosperity for evil instead of for good, replacing Christianity with the secular materialist Capitalist creed. The world will not return to peace and justice until Muslims rebuild their state upon the method of the Prophet (saw) and assume their rightful position as guardians of mankind. Allah (swt) says in the Noble Qur’an:
[كُنتُمْ خَيْرَ أُمَّةٍ أُخْرِجَتْ لِلنَّاسِ تَأْمُرُونَ بِالْمَعْرُوفِ وَتَنْهَوْنَ عَنِ الْمُنكَرِ وَتُؤْمِنُونَ بِاللّهِ وَلَوْ آمَنَ أَهْلُ الْكِتَابِ لَكَانَ خَيْرًا لَّهُم مِّنْهُمُ الْمُؤْمِنُونَ وَأَكْثَرُهُمُ الْفَاسِقُونَ]
“You are the best nation produced [as an example] for mankind. You enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and believe in Allah. If only the People of the Scripture had believed, it would have been better for them. Among them are believers, but most of them are defiantly disobedient.” [Aal-i-Imran: 110]