In reply to “In Public Shift, Israel Calls for Assad’s Fall,” by Jason Ditz, 09/17/13:
Let’s not forget that infamous study by Richard Perle & Co., “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” The 1996 plan called for taking out Syria.
General Wesley Clark was told about plans targeting Syria in 2001. In 2007 Seymour Hersh wrote about US colluding with Saudi Arabia to use al Qaeda against Syria.
It seems that “Clean Break” is still in motion.
Pat Maguire
In reply to “Jane’s Report: About Half of Syria Rebels Are Jihadists,” by Jason Ditz, 09/15/13:
As a Sufi Muslim, I find the Anglicization of the sacred term, Jihad, to be invalid as it takes away its spiritual significance for traditional Muslims, especially the universalist and peace-loving Sufi Muslims.
Here’s an article, The Spiritual Significance of Jihad, by an eminent scholar, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, which I hope you’ll find interesting and useful. Excerpt:
And those who perform jihad for Us, We shall certainly guide them in Our ways, and God is surely with the doers of good. (Quran XXXIX; 69)
You have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad. (Hadith)
The Arabic term jihad, usually translated into European languages as holy war, more on the basis of its juridical usage in Islam rather than on its much more universal meaning in the Quran and Hadith, is derived from the root jhd whose primary meaning is to strive or to exert oneself.
Its translation into holy war combined with the erroneous notion of Islam prevalent in the West as the ‘religion of the sword’ has helped to eclipse its inner and spiritual significance and to distort its connotation.
Nor has the appearance upon the stage of history during the past century and especially during the past few years of an array of movements within the Islamic world often contending or even imposing each other and using the word jihad or one of its derivative forms helped to make known the full import of its traditional meaning which alone is of concern to us here.
Instead recent distortions and even total reversal of the meaning of jihad as understood over the ages by Muslims have made it more difficult than ever before to gain insight into this key religious and spiritual concept.
[End excerpts]
Anjum Jaleel
