Is Suleimani a hero?
Toyin Falola
..........
Suleimani pushed his country to build an empire, but drove it into the ground instead.
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By Thomas L. Friedman, Columnist, New York Times (January 03, 2020)
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One day they may name a street after President Trump in Tehran. Why? Because Trump just ordered the assassination of possibly the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East: Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.
Think of the miscalculations this guy made. In 2015, the United States and the major European powers agreed to lift virtually all their sanctions on Iran, many dating back to 1979, in return for Iran halting its nuclear weapons program for a mere 15 years, but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear program. It was a great deal for Iran. Its economy grew by over 12 percent the next year. And what did Suleimani do with that windfall?
He and Iran’s supreme leader launched an aggressive regional imperial project that made Iran and its proxies the de facto controlling power in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sana. This freaked out U.S. allies in the Sunni Arab world and Israel — and they pressed the Trump administration to respond. Trump himself was eager to tear up any treaty forged by President Obama, so he exited the nuclear deal and imposed oil sanctions on Iran that have now shrunk the Iranian economy by almost 10 percent and sent unemployment over 16 percent.
All that for the pleasure of saying that Tehran can call the shots in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sana. What exactly was second prize?
With the Tehran regime severely deprived of funds, the ayatollahs had to raise gasoline prices at home, triggering massive domestic protests. That required a harsh crackdown by Iran’s clerics against their own people that left thousands jailed and killed, further weakening the legitimacy of the regime.
Then Mr. “Military Genius” Suleimani decided that, having propped up the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, and helping to kill 500,000 Syrians in the process, he would overreach again and try to put direct pressure on Israel. He would do this by trying to transfer precision-guided rockets from Iran to Iranian proxy forces in Lebanon and Syria.
Alas, Suleimani discovered that fighting Israel — specifically, its combined air force, special forces, intelligence and cyber — is not like fighting the Nusra front or the Islamic State. The Israelis hit back hard, sending a whole bunch of Iranians home from Syria in caskets and hammering their proxies as far away as Western Iraq.
Indeed, Israeli intelligence had so penetrated Suleimani’s Quds Force and its proxies that Suleimani would land a plane with precision munitions in Syria at 5 p.m., and the Israeli air force would blow it up by 5:30 p.m. Suleimani’s men were like fish in a barrel. If Iran had a free press and a real parliament, he would have been fired for colossal mismanagement.
But it gets better, or actually worse, for Suleimani. Many of his obituaries say that he led the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq, in tacit alliance with America. Well, that’s true. But what they omit is that Suleimani’s, and Iran’s, overreaching in Iraq helped to produce the Islamic State in the first place.
It was Suleimani and his Quds Force pals who pushed Iraq’s Shiite prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, to push Sunnis out of the Iraqi government and army, stop paying salaries to Sunni soldiers, kill and arrest large numbers of peaceful Sunni protesters and generally turn Iraq into a Shiite-dominated sectarian state. The Islamic State was the counterreaction.
Finally, it was Suleimani’s project of making Iran the imperial power in the Middle East that turned Iran into the most hated power in the Middle East for many of the young, rising pro-democracy forces — both Sunnis and Shiites — in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq.
As the Iranian-American scholar Ray Takeyh pointed out in a wise essay in Politico, in recent years “Soleimani began expanding Iran’s imperial frontiers. For the first time in its history, Iran became a true regional power, stretching its influence from the banks of the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf. Soleimani understood that Persians would not be willing to die in distant battlefields for the sake of Arabs, so he focused on recruiting Arabs and Afghans as an auxiliary force. He often boasted that he could create a militia in little time and deploy it against Iran’s various enemies.”
It was precisely those Suleimani proxies — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Syria, the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen — that created pro-Iranian Shiite states-within-states in all of these countries. And it was precisely these states-within-states that helped to prevent any of these countries from cohering, fostered massive corruption and kept these countries from developing infrastructure — schools, roads, electricity.
And therefore it was Suleimani and his proxies — his “kingmakers” in Lebanon, Syria and Iraq — who increasingly came to be seen, and hated, as imperial powers in the region, even more so than Trump’s America. This triggered popular, authentic, bottom-up democracy movements in Lebanon and Iraq that involved Sunnis and Shiites locking arms together to demand noncorrupt, nonsectarian democratic governance.
On Nov. 27, Iraqi Shiites — yes, Iraqi Shiites — burned down the Iranian consulate in Najaf, Iraq, removing the Iranian flag from the building and putting an Iraqi flag in its place. That was after Iraqi Shiites, in September 2018, set the Iranian consulate in Basra ablaze, shouting condemnations of Iran’s interference in Iraqi politics.
The whole “protest” against the United States Embassy compound in Baghdad last week was almost certainly a Suleimani-staged operation to make it look as if Iraqis wanted America out when in fact it was the other way around. The protesters were paid pro-Iranian militiamen. No one in Baghdad was fooled by this.
In a way, it’s what got Suleimani killed. He so wanted to cover his failures in Iraq he decided to start provoking the Americans there by shelling their forces, hoping they would overreact, kill Iraqis and turn them against the United States. Trump, rather than taking the bait, killed Suleimani instead.
I have no idea whether this was wise or what will be the long-term implications. But here are two things I do know about the Middle East.
First, often in the Middle East the opposite of “bad” is not “good.” The opposite of bad often turns out to be “disorder.” Just because you take out a really bad actor like Suleimani doesn’t mean a good actor, or a good change in policy, comes in his wake. Suleimani is part of a system called the Islamic Revolution in Iran. That revolution has managed to use oil money and violence to stay in power since 1979 — and that is Iran’s tragedy, a tragedy that the death of one Iranian general will not change.
Today’s Iran is the heir to a great civilization and the home of an enormously talented people and significant culture. Wherever Iranians go in the world today, they thrive as scientists, doctors, artists, writers and filmmakers — except in the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose most famous exports are suicide bombing, cyberterrorism and proxy militia leaders. The very fact that Suleimani was probably the most famous Iranian in the region speaks to the utter emptiness of this regime, and how it has wasted the lives of two generations of Iranians by looking for dignity in all the wrong places and in all the wrong ways.
The other thing I know is that in the Middle East all important politics happens the morning after the morning after.
Yes, in the coming days there will be noisy protests in Iran, the burning of American flags and much crying for the “martyr.” The morning after the morning after? There will be a thousand quiet conversations inside Iran that won’t get reported. They will be about the travesty that is their own government and how it has squandered so much of Iran’s wealth and talent on an imperial project that has made Iran hated in the Middle East.
And yes, the morning after, America’s Sunni Arab allies will quietly celebrate Suleimani’s death, but we must never forget that it is the dysfunction of many of the Sunni Arab regimes — their lack of freedom, modern education and women’s empowerment — that made them so weak that Iran was able to take them over from the inside with its proxies.
I write these lines while flying over New Zealand, where the smoke from forest fires 2,500 miles away over eastern Australia can be seen and felt. Mother Nature doesn’t know Suleimani’s name, but everyone in the Arab world is going to know her name. Because the Middle East, particularly Iran, is becoming an environmental disaster area — running out of water, with rising desertification and overpopulation. If governments there don’t stop fighting and come together to build resilience against climate change — rather than celebrating self-promoting military frauds who conquer failed states and make them fail even more — they’re all doomed.
Sent from my iPhone
Cornelius Hamelberg
As all the war historians know, “In war, truth is the first casualty” – so on the brink of Trump’s most precipitous mistake to date that’s causing so much international outrage, it’s not surprising that we will be swamped by a deluge of dumb-ass propaganda such as this apologia which starts with an erroneous vilification and demonisation of their enemy as “ the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East: Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani.”
The Iranians are generally smart people, so it’s impossible that Iran would appoint an idiot as its chief of staff. If Iran’s great general Qasem Soleimani was indeed at all dumb or that dumb, then why was he so feared that Trump, when given several alternatives on how to respond to US problems in Iraq, made the dumbest-ass choice of killing Soleimani - a mistake which is going to cost him his presidency, not to mention his own personal peace of mind and tranquillity. Make no mistake, it’s Sami'Allahu liman hamidah and indeed there are millions of Muslims – and some of the Bible Belt Democrats too, praying for Trump’s speedy demise after which they will thank the Lord: Good riddance!
I might do so later, but right now, I’m not going to exert any energy in going on to refute the rest of what this mercenary has written to justify Trump’s fear, arrogance and in this case what he sees as Trump’s brilliance, although he sobers up a little in his last five paragraphs, beginning with this little confession: ”I have no idea whether this was wise or what will be the long-term implications.”- about a commander-in-chief who first shoots before the thinks of consequences.
In due course of time Thomas L. Friedman ( with whose scribbling we are all so well acquainted), he or some other hack writer or loving sycophant will be saying the same about North Korea’s Kim Jong-un , that Trump offered him all manner of sanctions relief and Christmas presents but dear Kim would not listen – when in fact what’s happening and has been happening for some time now is that Kim is obviously a lot smarter than Trump and that’s why Kim has been dribbling Trump and taking him for ride all this time and will finally bury him just a few weeks into Trump’s final US presidential campaign desperate push for the White House.
Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, China, North Korea, many others, want regime change in the White House. I’m sure even our little Greta Thunberg who Trump has been mocking would like to see some regime change and away with trump who doesn’t even acknowledge that there’s anything like Climate Change worthy of his attention.
Cornelius Hamelberg
To date, the Arab nation Syria is the most faithful Soviet/ Russian ally, something that the US still cannot countenance, and now the Russians are back in town and are as Freidman doesn’t say, “propping up “Assad.
It has always been the United States ambition to project US influence and power across the oil rich Middle East - from the CIA operation against iran’s Mossadegh in 1953, the strengthening of The Pahlavi dynasty which was eventually ended by the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 – simultaneous with the Radical Islamic students detaining the embassy staff in Iran for a good 444 days - something that American presidents are unwilling to forgive or forget, the Iraq – Iran war started by Saddam Hussein invading Iran and destroying Iran’s oil facilities at Abadan, baby Bush’s eventual illegal invasion of Iraq and overthrow of Saddam and minority Sunni dominance, good Shia neighbour Iran marching in once Saddam was gone, after which Fallujah attracted certain al Qaeda elements, other disparate Sunni terrorist groups at Fallujah the headquarters of the Sunni insurgency against majority Shia rule, eventually regrouping to give birth to al-Baghdadi’s Islamic State, with a little help from Soleimani & Co the defeat of the Islamic State and as background to all this, the past ten years, the ups and downs about Iran going nuclear. Isn’t that a rough resume?
All would be fine if only Trump would present the document to all the players in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Libya and kindly asked them all to lay down their weapöns and please sign where it says "Sign here!"
On Sunday, 5 January 2020 23:53:09 UTC+1, Toyin Falola wrote:
Cornelius Hamelberg
“I have no idea whether this was wise or what will be the long-term implications”, opines Thomas L. Friedman, Columnist, New York Times. I could also ask him, is Israel now a much safer place and if so, why is the IDF on 24 hours high alert?
The situation is frightening. Thank God, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives is making a timely intervention to limit the War powers of Donald J Trump who just now is acting like a mad elephant in a China shop, reckless beyond belief and absolutely delighted with all the military hardware that he could possibly dream of and the nuclear codes right there in his little hands. Hadn’t he taken the podium at the General Assembly of United Nations two years ago to insult and threaten “little rocket man“ that he would “totally destroy” his country ( nuclear annihilation) if North Korea stepped out of line or didn’t comply with his demands? It’s a surprise that he hasn’t yet threatened to reduce Iran to nuclear rubble if they hurt a single hair of any of his troops stationed in the region – or elsewhere or if he himself is assassinated. The latter threat would suggest that the most boastful Trump - America’s greatest president ever is a good living example of the Dunning–Kruger effect believing that he can act courageously, even posthumously…
“Indeed, Israeli intelligence had so penetrated Suleimani's Quds Force and its proxies that Suleimani would land a plane with precision munitions in Syria at 5 p.m. and the Israeli air force would blow it up by 5:30 p.m.” (Thomas L. Friedman). Gives the impression that the Quds forces in Syria are infiltrated through and through with many an Eli Cohen and Iranian, Syrian and Lebanese double agents. Israeli intelligence, yes, also aided by satellites and US intelligence too…
Apparently Israeli intelligence has not been able to prevent Hezbollah’s accumulated stockpiles of lethal rockets in Lebanon which were either manufactured there or got there one way or the other causing Sheikh Nasrallah who occasionally comes out of hiding ( because with Trump in the chair, he fears that his days could be numbered) - therefore make hap while the sun shines he says that Israel is weaker than a spider and is threatening to dump all that he’s got -- if he can, on the Dimona nuclear facility… pretty scary ….
Thomas L. Friedman paragraph 3 o is such a whopping distortion of the landscape – as if all was peace and quiet in 2015….
(To be continued
Salimonu Kadiri
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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI
Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri,
Please connect the dots.
Obviously, the doctrine of “divide and rule” comes in handy for the powers that be and is applicable to the Shia – Sunni divide in the Middle East. Consider the enormous amount of money that Saudi Arabia devotes to its military/ defence budget
According to my updated understanding of these recent events, Trump is going to come out of the whole thing considerably stronger, as a result of which he is going to sweep the polls in his favour from state to state on the 3rd of November, this year. Unless something unforeseen happens, it might even be a clean sweep since he is going to be able to say to his people, “See? I was tough on Iran and now they are toeing the line – (because they don’t want to be obliterated, economically or militarily. (I’ll try to explain in a subsequent post.)
All this 2020 hot air and military brouhaha about “Shiite Empire!”, “Shia Empire!”
Which “Shiite Empire”, “Shia Empire” and when did it ever exist? The simple geography doesn’t bear it out since in today’s world the Sunni are vastly in the majority – 90% Sunni to the Shia’s 10 % (give and take a few percentages here and there (war casualties, the death penalty, executions etc.)
So, perhaps what you or they have in mind is a little Shia Empire with Iraq ( Arab) as the cradle and the epi-centre of Shia history and today’s undisputed Shia power Iran ( Persian) getting together in brotherhood, peace and harmony as they themselves have stated would like to have a contiguous stretch of Shia country, a corridor from Iran, through Iraq, Syria unto Lebanon. Has this been achieved before in history? We’ve got to know our history
This is from the preface to Hujaj-i-qat’iyya, by Abdullah Suwaydî translated and published as Documents Of The Right Word a verbatim transcription and translation of the debate between the Shia and the Sunni when Nader Shah wanted a single Islamic persuasion in his then rapidly expanded Persian Empire and to that end called a colloquium an in 1746. The differences were debated in Baghdad in the year 1746 and on that occasion, the Sunni scholars won the debate. I asked my teacher Sheikh Sadiq of Najaf about this and he told me, “Nader Shah was an evil man “
Well, here’s the preface to that event in Baghdad:
“When Shâh Huseyn Safawî, the ninth and last king of the
Safawid dynasty in Iran, was killed by the Afghans in 1142 [A.D.
1729], a state of chaos began in Persia. The Shâh’s son, Tahmâsib
II, was an incompetent and pleasure-seeking person. Therefore his
vizier named Nâdir took over. He expelled the Afghans out of Iran
and recaptured the capital, Isfehân. He besieged Baghdâd, which
was then governed by Ahmad Pasha. Eight months later an army
commanded by Uthmân Pasha, whose nickname was Lame,
arrived from Istanbul and repelled the Iranian army.
Nâdir Shâh became the Shâh of Iran in 1148. He captured
Delhi. He shed very much blood. Then he captured Afghanistan
and Bukhâra. He was given the nickname (Shâhinshâh). He sent
ambassadors to the Ottoman State and proposed to arrange a
scientific discussion to decide which one of the Sunnî and
Imâmiyya groups was the right one. Organizing a great army, he
moved towards Baghdâd and Musul. Unable to capture them, he
retreated to Nejef.
In order to eliminate the disagreeing principles of belief
between the Sunnîs and the Shi’îs and to unite the two groups in
one by adhering to the right one, scholars from both groups came
together upon the order of NÂDIR SHÂH. Abdullah Efendi
made such detailed, scientific, mental and documental speeches in
front of the whole assembly that the Shiites were short of
answering him. [The questions asked and the answers given by
both sides were compiled in a book and published with the title
HUJAJ-I-QAT’IYYA “
The debate itself makes for interesting reading…
Arguments can be won, they can even be lost, but such arguments do not necessarily create or cement unity – not even the kind of civilised/ enlightened dialogue recorded as Al-Muraja'at ( in English) immensely readable and a must-read ( to diminish the ignorance) as for me, I’m equally at home with the Sunni, the Shia and the Sufi as we say in Swahili “ Sina makosa !”
The way I see it today, (Islamically thinking ) if only the Muslims could resurrect what was once the Ottoman Empire to begin with, but it’s very difficult to turn the clock back ( so the story goes) to the time before Lawrence of Arabia is alleged to have persuaded or was able to convince the Arabs that they should rebel against the Turks – and voila – they eventually got their countries. There’s this immensely readable version of the duplicity about how the Saudi Monarchy/ dynasty was created: “Confessions of a British Spy” published by WAKF Ikhlas, in Turkey
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Salimonu Kadiri
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Baba Kadiri,
You have said, previously, that if the Almighty really wants you to listen to him, then He should address you in the Yoruba Language, not Hebrew, not Greek, not Arabic (and I suppose, not Igbo either?) Well, fortunately for those who are not familiar with those languages, since, so many of us still belong to the big grammar and the little grammar of the English Language Empire we can study the Almighty ‘s communications through the available translations, e.g. the King James Version. Yes, Baba Kadiri, even though translations are not the same as the Lashon HaKodesh ( the original)
I was expecting a challenge on the notion that a Shia Empire is not easily attainable because “The simple geography doesn't bear it out “. One could easily take recourse to the British Empire as an example – how the tiny British Isles accomplished such a feat ( with a little help and co-operation of Christian missions, of course; and the proven fact that the emperor/ empire-builder does not necessarily need a great population to ensure/ maintain an empire. The British Empire for example, on which “the sun never set” was far-flung. At school we only studied The British Empire during the reign of Queen Victoria, however, as and when time permits I’m a born again history student of the British Empire reading some of the works of Professor Bernard Porter who has written critically about, colonialisms, imperialism , and much more….
It is believed that when Imam al-Zaman declares his presence, the faithful Muslims worldwide will be electrified to align with him. If he appears tomorrow, there are of course those who will want to start threatening him. If Jesus came back tomorrow, just imagine the impact he would have on Donald J. and world politics. If Jesus appeared tomorrow, I doubt that Donald Trump would be elected President of the United States of America, after his impeachment…
Soukous Gentlemen: Bel Assy
On Monday, 6 January 2020 20:06:22 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Gloria in excelsis Emeagwali,
When you sign up to “Agreed” you are signing up to a lot. Agreed followed by nothing = a blank cheque = agree with everything. Every ting. Agreed? A greed…
There are so many conspiracy theories flying around, to wit that things (tings) are not exactly what they appear to be. Take this conspiracy theory for example:
That from the point of view of the Supreme Leader of Iran, the most popular General Qasem Soleimani was getting too big for his boots (literally) and as the second most powerful man in Iran, backed by Iran’s most powerful al Quds elite fighting force, the Revolutionary Guards, should it come to popular approval as to who should succeed the current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei , Qasem Soleimani would have been a strong contender - or would be the person whose backing would be crucial if not decisive just in case there would be any doubt as to who would be calling the shots should the eighty-year-old Supreme Leader disappear without having named a successor. It’s widely rumoured that up to now his most likely successor, the one being groomed for the job is the Supreme Leader’s son the one named Mojtaba Khamenei. These rumours go back to but did not originate with Wikileaks , nor are the questions about the precise information leading to General Qasem Soleimani’s instant liquidation easily answered even given that just as Friedman’s post-mortem suggests, he was also a thorn in Donald Trump’s American flesh.
Anyway, Soleimani’s martyrdom has removed the thorn in the flesh and with the new round of Trump’s biting sanctions, it is to be expected that Iran’s Supreme Leader is not likely to be the one that is going to first give in to the mounting pressure - although I intimate that the EU for instance would like to be one of the agencies that could facilitate - act as a conduit to set up a dialogue between the United States and Iran. On the United States side, I think that Vali Nasr, for example, could be very helpful in promoting that kind of dialogue ( it should be easier for Trump’s presidential campaign if he should be entering that phase of relations with Iran instead of beating war drums in the last three months of his presidential campaign, no matter the kinds of provocations on either side, he should be pressing the dialogue button. The Mullah will love him for his new spirit of sabr
Assuming that Iran’s current leader could be too steadfast, uncompromising, unbending and certainly not the kind that would be genuflecting in the direction of Washington, instead of in the direction of Islam’s universal Qibla which is Mecca, then it is psychologically more probable and certainly possible that in the new atmosphere in which the hardliner Iranian clergy is singing “death to America” and “death” to Israel, the United States' most trustworthy ally in the Middle East, ever more passionately, even in the teeth of more biting sanctions, causing more hardship on the general population, it will take a new leader to depart from the old ways.
These famous lines from Morte d'Arthur by Alfred Lord Tennyson
“And slowly answer'd Arthur from the barge:
"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils Himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.”
You know it was, it came to the sad point when Ayatollah Khomeini, “ I drink this chalice of poison.”
The Revolution continues: After that war which Saddam imposed on Iraq, understandably Iran has spent a lot more on its defence budget. A year before the war came to an end there were some hostile foreign diplomats who were already dancing because there was nowhere in the world from which Iran could purchase weapons, not even for double the normal price. That was a lesson learned and not a lesson forgotten.
Another possible lesson that was learned – was that the Shah and his SAVAK were eventually overthrown, when SAVAK and the Shah’s army got tired of shooting into crowds of their own people: it was all over at the point where Ayatollah Khomeini ( r.a) said, “ The Army is the people and the People is the army “
WE ought to think of that lesson learned when we hear reports that the current regime has wiped out over 1, 500 demonstrators protesting “the current difficult condition so hardship in Iran…
(Then he quoted al-A’sha’s verse):
“My days are now passed on the camel’s back (in difficulty) while there were days (of ease) when I enjoyed the company of Jabir’s brother Hayyan.”
From Nahjul Balagha : Al-Shaqshaqiya Sermon
Gloria in Excelsis Emeagwali, it should be good to talk to you sometime on WhatsApp. I just had a very pleasant and rewarding conversation with Nigel Browne-Davies for a good 2 hours and 42 minutes. He is one of our promising, young up and coming scholars – previously we had some interesting discussions about Yoruba names some years ago when the precocious lad was only eighteen years old (smile)
It’s 1 a.m. over here is it’s G’nite
Save your goodbyes for the morning light
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Cornelius Hamelberg
The conspiracy referred to deserves only one reaction: perfidy!
Further down the road, what I mean to say is that chanting “Death to America” and “death” to Israel , the United States’ most reliable Middle East ally, could be emotionally satisfying to those who chant such songs of hatred, but such chanting is really not very helpful. Imagine if Trump’s base started chanting “Death to Iran” at Trump rallies or that Trump encouraged his crowd to do so, or if Trump himself were to start leading that kind of chanting – that wouldn’t be very Islamic or very Christian or very Jewish either – in fact, such chanting is only reminiscent of the enthusiastic hordes that backed the Third Reich from the beginning to the end, and going back to Shia Islam history’ also reminiscent of the sordid, the despicable and the accursed such as Muawiya and his ilk when some of their mercenaries preached Khutbahs from the minibar in their mosques in Damascus, vilifying Imam Ali (alaihi salaam ) and the Prophet of Islam’s progeny the ahlul bayt ( alaihim salaam)
About the USA – Iran debacle let us hope that it will soon be a case of all’s well that ends well…
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Thursday, January 9, 2020 8:20 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Is Suleimani a hero?
The conspiracy referred to deserves only one reaction: perfidy!
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Ayotunde Bewaji
Professor of Philosophy
BA, MA, PhD Philosophy, PGDE, MA Distance Education
Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy for Children
Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies
Mona Campus Kingston 7 Jamaica
Tel: 1-876-927-1661-9 Ext: 3993
1-876-935-8993 (o)
Fax: 1-876-970-2949
Email: john....@uwimona.edu.jm johnayotu...@gmail.com tunde...@yahoo.com (alternate)
tunde....@gmail.com (alternate)
http://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611630879/Narratives-of-Struggle (2012)
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Aesthetics (2012)
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739185032/Ontologized-Ethics (2013)
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498518383/The-Rule-of-Law-and-Governance-in-Indigenous-Yoruba-Society-A-Study-in-African-Philosophy-of-Law (2016)
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-humanities-and-the-dynamics-of-african-culture-in-the-21st-century (2017)
Harrow, Kenneth
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
Sent: Friday, January 10, 2020 3:03 PM
To: Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com>; USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cornelius Hamelberg
For some people, Israel is always the prime example readily available on their fingertips. Much closer to Professor John Ayotunde Isola Bewaji’s home turf, apart from the regular carnage in Borno State, the running battles between the Nigerian Military and the Boko Haram terrorists, the multifaceted problems and repercussions caused by marauding Fulani Herdsmen and their danger to other people’s lives and private property, not to mention the Nigerian Military’s horrendous massacre of Shia Muslims, known as the Zaria Massacre , we could start some protests and lamentations about the assassinations and extra judicial killings that have occurred and are occurring as a regular feature of lawlessness and brutality in Nigeria…
Sadly, we live in a world in which might is right, as the bard crooned,
“Democracy don't rule the world
You better get that in your head
This world is ruled by violence
But I guess that's better left unsaid”
If it’s any consolation, Pompeo is said to be contradicting Trump about the certain imminence of danger to American lives, posed by the late Soleimani…
By the way, I bet you haven’t read this
On Friday, 10 January 2020 23:22:04 UTC+1, Ayotunde Bewaji wrote:
The State of Israel conducts preemptive strikes and assassinations.Russia kills enemies of Russia in UK and elsewhere.US kills enemies of USA everywhere - Saddam Hussein, Mouammar Gaddafi, Qasem Soleimani.Precedent: No one is immune - Pompeo!?!
Dr. John Ayotunde (Tunde) Isola BEWAJI, FJIM, MNAL
Professor of Philosophy
BA, MA, PhD Philosophy, PGDE, MA Distance Education
Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy for Children
Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies
Mona Campus Kingston 7 Jamaica
Tel: 1-876-927-1661-9 Ext: 3993
1-876-935-8993 (o)
Fax: 1-876-970-2949
Email: john....@uwimona.edu.jm johnayotu...@gmail.com tunde...@yahoo.com (alternate)
tunde...@gmail.com (alternate)
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Trump’s favourite verse from the Holy Bible.
When I woke up this morning, there were tears in my eyes ( George Jackson)…
No. I woke up this morning from a rather detailed dream that I was a personal adviser to Goodluck Jonathan. I understand the background of the dream to be a feeling of some remorse about my somewhat harsh response to Professor Bewaji.
Like any other sensitive or sensitized human being I could have a Lutheran-type conscience about what’s going on - it’s sort of environ-mental since I have lived in this Luther country Sweden for almost 75% of my life so far, but I hate preaching and I’m no Nathan Söderblom.
My irritation was about us Pan-Africanists usually looking for examples or giving examples from faraway places when much worse is happening in our own backyards. For example, it’s the assassination of Soleimani that we’re talking about - an assassination that happened in the world’s most volatile neighbourhood and in Baghdad of all places, even if the United States is not officially at war with either Iran or an Iraq long awash with weapons and the country in which the assassination of Iran’s top general was executed by the United States. Atrocious examples abound in the countries concerned, Iraq and Iran - of countless wanton extrajudicial killings, assassinations, the cold-blooded gunning down of fellow citizens demonstrating peacefully, sometimes violently, endless discontent, carnage, civil strife, mayhem, so I got irritated when I read Awotunde Bewaji’s first sentence which sounds like Satan the adversary making his usual accusation: “The State of Israel conducts preemptive strikes and assassinations.”
In making his accusations, day and night, Satan always implies of course that Israel should be held to a much higher standard than the rest of mankind that’s why Israel is always at the top of the charge sheet that Satan reads out.
Here’s another response to that assassination: