Islamic State terror attacks on eve of Malaysia's National Day foiled

End of the road: Bukit Aman anti-terror officers arresting the butcher in Temerloh (above) before going after the student in Kuala Lumpur. Photo: The Star/ Asia News Network

KUALA LUMPUR - For months, the three men laid low, going about their daily routine while waiting for the signal to attack to come from Syria.

When at last the instruction came from notorious Islamic State (IS) militant Mohamad Wanndy Moha­mad Jedi at the end of July, the men quickly started gathering arms and putting together a chilling plan.

They were going to attack on the eve of National Day when the rest of their countrymen were celebrating what it meant to be Malaysians and among their targets are a temple in Batu Caves, the Kajang police headquarters and various entertainment outlets.

The men were in the last phase of their plans - even going to the extent of monitoring their targets - when the Bukit Aman Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Division moved in on them.

Anti-terror officers detained the men - a 20-year-old contractor, a 27-year-old butcher and a college student, also 20 - in Selan­gor, Pahang and Kuala Lumpur between Aug 27 and 29.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar said all the planning and logistics had been masterminded by Mohamad Wann­dy, who appeared to be pulling the strings among the network of IS militants here.

"They were taking orders from him," he said in a statement yesterday.

Sources revealed that the contractor was arrested on Aug 27 when officers raided his home in Sungai Merab Luar in Kajang.

"We seized a K75 grenade and a CZ 2075 RAMI pistol along with 24 .9mm bullets. We believe he obtained the weapons from a middleman," said Khalid.

The man was believed to have picked up the weapons from a drop-off location at a cemetery in Damansara at about 9pm in late July.

"It was no doubt arranged by Mo­hamad Wanndy. Authorities believe that militants from another cell supplied the weapons and placed them at the drop-off point.

"Militants from different cells often do not know each other to reduce the risk of being tracked by the authorities," a source said.

It is learnt that the butcher was detained in Kampung Paya Kecil in Temerloh, Pahang, while the college student was picked up from his home in AU3, Keramat, in the city.

"The other two did not have weapons with them but authorities believe they were waiting for supplies," added the source.

Authorities are also not ruling out the possibility that one of the men could have been tasked to pick up a ready-made Improvised Explosive Device.

"Some of their targets were police patrol units in Kajang. The authorities believe that Mohamad Wanndy really wanted his cell members to carry out a big attack on the eve of National Day.

Malaysia's National Day Parade kicks off Photo Source: The Star/ANN: The Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah and Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Hajah Haminah, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and other VIPs are seen here on the main stage during the National Day celebration at Dataran Merdeka.

"He wanted to make a big impact as he was not satisfied with the scale of the Movida bomb attack," a source said.

It is learnt that the three men had been communicating with Moha­mad Wanndy since January but the order to attack was only given on July 30 once they had gotten hold of the explosives and ammunition.

It is also believed that they were planning to escape to Thailand before eventually making their way to Syria, where they are expected to meet Mohamad Wanndy.

With the grenade seized in this latest case, this brings to seven the number of those still unaccounted for after the Movida attack on June 28.

The first known IS attack on home soil injured several people after a grenade was thrown at the Movida Restaurant in Puchong.

Four people are expected to be charged in various courts in Johor for abetting in the bombing of Movida today.

With the latest arrest, the number of militants detained since 2013 has risen to 239 and the attacks foiled to date, 13.

When police detained nine IS mi­­li­­tants in early August, three of them - two were involved in the Mo­­vida bombing - had also been taking orders from Mohamad Wanndy.

They were ordered to launch another attack against an entertainment outlet in Johor.

Mohamad Wanndy has emerged to be the main influence on the IS militant network in the country, with people caught following his orders and raising funds.

By Farik Zolkepli The Star/Asia News Network

Islamic State new killing fields, nothing less than total domination

http://bcove.me/pqcpn5yj

THE news on Saturday felt like double hammer blows. The Islamic State’s slaughter of 129 people in Paris and the Malaysian IS militants in southern Philippines’ plan to form an “official” IS faction in South-East Asia were just plain shocking and sickening.

Back in March I wrote about my fear of the IS and decried how people who profess to want to protect Islam in Malaysia were targeting the wrong people, namely non-Muslims, and particularly the Christians.

It is with deep distress I return to this growing horror which cannot be ignored.

While I do believe our Govern­ment is completely committed to fighting IS’ influence and I am deeply relieved that our police has top-notch intelligence that – as Special Branch Counter Terrorism Division head Senior Asst Comm Datuk Ayob Khan said – ensures “that we are on top of any development concerning militant groups”, this extreme form of militant Islam continues to take root in our midst.

It was reported in October that more than 100 suspected terrorists and militants have been detained under the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) 2012. Among them were Malaysian combatants who had returned from Syria and Iraq, as well as army commandos and civil servants. Over the last few days, more have been detained.

The Star’s report on Saturday that a former Universiti Malaya lecturer, Dr Mahmud Ahmad, who trains suicide bombers, is behind the formation of an IS group that will plan attacks in Malaysia and the region is even more chilling.

More scary was Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein’s revelation on Monday that the IS is targeting Malaysian leaders who are regarded as tagut. Tagut the article explains are “those who have crossed religious boundaries” which is extremely vague.

But it would appear to mean, going by online definitions, people who worship other gods as well as Muslims who “exceed their limits” like legislators who make laws in Parliament. They are deemed to be equating themselves with Allah and challenging Allah’s divine laws.

If these are all possible meanings of tagut, then all our elected representatives and government leaders, Muslim and non-Muslim, are fair game to IS.

In Graeme Wood’s article entitled “What Isis really wants” in the March issue of The Atlantic, he states that IS’ aim is to restore the Caliphate after it ended in Turkey almost a century ago. (Isis or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham is the earlier manifestation of IS).

After some 14 months of fighting, the proponents achieved their goal on June 30, 2014, when their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, proclaimed himself as the new caliph and successor to Prophet Muhammad in a mosque in Mosul, Iraq.

his 21st-century construct, however, is global and borderless and as such, al-Baghdadi says he is the leader of Muslims everywhere who must pledge allegiance to him. Failure to do so means being branded as an apostate, which is punishable by death.

Wood quotes Bernard Haykel, described as the leading secular expert on IS ideology, as saying these jihadists are “authentic throwbacks to early Islam and faithfully reproducing its norms of war.”

Haykel further states, “Slavery, crucifixion, and beheadings are not something that freakish (jihadists) are cherry-picking from the medieval tradition” and that IS fighters “are smack in the middle of the medieval tradition and are bringing it wholesale into the present day.”

The Islamic State, according to Wood, also claims that common Syiah practices, such as worship at the graves of imams and public self-flagellation, have no basis in the Quran or the Prophet’s examples.

“That means roughly 200 million Syiah (Muslims) are marked for death. So too are the heads of state of every Muslim country, who have ele­­­­­vated man-made laws above Syariah by running for office or enforcing laws not made by God,” he writes.

He adds this is because the Islamic State is committed to purifying the world of apostates, and presumably tagut, even if it means mass killings. So back to Hishammuddin’s statement that our leaders are IS’ targets. He also declared that the threat will not stop them from fighting the terrorists. Fighting the IS should be every citizen’s responsibility, at least it should be for every citizen who still believes in a multiracial, democratic Malaysia.

At such a dangerous time, I reiterate my appeal to Muslims and non-Muslims to stand together. I cannot believe peace-loving Malaysian Sunnis would agree to IS’ desire to wipe out millions of Syiah Muslims and non-Muslims.

Unfortunately, we still have leaders wanting to play the religious card which sows confusion and suspicion between Muslims and non-Muslims. We have seen the antics of some this year and the latest one is from the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Minister who is thinking of having mandatory halal and non-halal trolleys in supermarkets.

Thankfully, ever since the proposal came to light, many groups, including Malaysian Muslim Solidarity (Isma), have criticised it.

As Isma president Abdullah Zaik Abdul Rahman opined: It is not practical and “Islam is not about making things difficult”.

Many have also asked: With such thinking, what will follow next? Food courts to have halal and non-halal cutlery? Separate banknotes and coins?

And what about enforcement? Who gets fined if a shopper uses a halal trolley for non-halal items? Said shopper or supermarket owner?

If the minister really wants to help all shoppers, he should insist supermarkets maintain their trolleys well and give them a wash regularly. I have struggled with trolleys with bad wheels, sticky handles and grubby baskets.

Seriously, our leaders have a lot more important things to worry about, like ferreting out more IS recruiters in our schools, armed forces and government, than segregating shopping carts. This is a fight against a deadly, implacable and seductive enemy and we don’t need any distractions like these in the name of religious correctness.

It certainly won’t make us any safer or more Muslim in the eyes of the IS which is intent on annihilating the present world order to replace it with their own.

BY JUNE H.L. WONG

Aunty recalls this memorable line from Aamir Khan’s movie, PK. It is spoken by the central character, an alien stranded on Earth as he clutches the shoe of his friend who was killed in a train bomb blast: ‘Stop protecting your own god, otherwise only shoes will be left on this planet and not people.’ Feedback to aunty@thestar.com.my

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Ini Malaysia Boleh? Fighting for Syrian jihadist! People reject regime change

Video shows man speaking Bahasa Malaysia about going 'to the battlefield' 

KUALA LUMPUR: A chilling video of a Malaysian riding in a truck with a group of militants fighting in the Syrian jihadist movement has surfaced on the Internet.

He is one of the 20 Malaysians confirmed by Bukit Aman to have taken part in the uprising in Syria.

The one-and-a-half minute video, which appeared to have been shot by the man who spoke mostly in Bahasa Malaysia with a northern accent, described his joy as they drove off “to the battlefield”.

The authenticity of the video, which had been viewed more than 5,000 times since it was uploaded to syriantube.net on June 7, was verified by Bukit Aman.

“Yes, they are among 20 Malaysi­ans who are identified as having joined the uprising in Syria. We will announce the names of all the Malaysians involved soon,” said spokesman ACP Datin Asmawati Ahmad.

Syriantube.net founder Maher Ra claimed that the video was shot in Allepo, Syria, by a Mohd Lotfi Ariffin from Kuala Ketil, Kedah.

Syriantube has been showing video footage depicting the behind the scene shots of terrorists activities and atrocities commited by militants in Syria.

Checks on Mohd Lotfi’s Facebook showed that the video did originate from his page on June 3, which had been liked and shared by many Malaysians, some of whom offered words of encouragement.

In a story first broken by Mstar Online and Star Online, the video opened with a shot of a tank from inside a truck. The tank then rolled away in a bushland with several Middle Eastern looking men, dressed in army fatigue sitting on it. The men were also heavily armed.

“Yes, the tank is moving, making its way to its destination – the battlefield. Allahu Akbar (God is great)! Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!” said the cameraman in Bahasa Malaysia.

“These are our friends,” he continued, panning over to show several men – all dressed in combat gear, bulletproof vests, helmets and black bandanas, and with riffles slung around their necks.

Some of the men even smiled and showed the “V” victory sign with their fingers as the camera closed up on them.

Without the weapons and war gear, they would have appeared like a group of friends, taking pictures with their smartphones, seemingly happy about going on a drive.

The camera then rested on a bearded Middle Eastern-looking man wearing combat uniform and a blue ski cap, who shouted Allahu Akbar! as the group of about 20 men in the truck chanted along.

“Our friends, working happily!” said the cameraman in Bahasa Malaysia, who then focused his shot on a bespectacled young man wearing a black headband and holding a smartphone, who, ironically, made a peace sign.

“Yes, our friends, we are all ready to go to the fight at the battlefield. We don’t feel scared. We don’t feel nervous!” The voice was heard saying, the camera shaking as the truck engine revved up.

“We are moving! Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar,” the group chanted.

Maher claimed that the Malaysians had been in Syria for over a year.

“There aren’t 15. There are over 200 of them. Some, even as old as 60. They came with their wives and children. They stay in Aleppo and Ar-Raqqah.

“They have killed people. They have beheaded innocent civilians,” he claimed, describing himself as a pro-government Syrian who started syriantube.net to expose the atrocities committed by militant groups in the conflict-ridden country.

The Syrian government recently claimed that 15 Malaysians, purportedly involved in terrorism and jihadist activities with the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (Isil) network, had been killed.

Contributed by Nicholas Cheng The Star/Asia News Network

The people reject regime change

Syrians defeated an attempt at regime change which has a plan to ensure Western hegemony

IF one is sincere about resolving the bloody three-year-old conflict in Syria, one would regard the outcome of the presidential election held on June 3 as an opportunity for working out a viable solution.

The election was a genuine endorsement of the leadership of Bashar al-Assad.

A total 73% of eligible voters cast their ballots in the first ever multi-candidate direct presidential election in Syria.

Assad secured 88.7% of the votes. There were no allegations of electoral fraud or manipulation.

It is significant that Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Jordan – hosts to the majority of refugees from the on-going war in Syria – voted overwhelmingly for Assad.

It is of course true that those parts of the country which are still in rebel hands could not vote. This would be mainly some parts of rural Syria and one medium-sized city. But all the other cities – and they account for the majority of the population – went to the ballot box.

US officials and the Western media have dismissed the election result contemptuously because a portion of the electorate could not vote, ignoring the fact that the vast majority participated enthusiastically in the polls.

They have conveniently forgotten that in the presidential election in Ukraine on May 25, millions of Russian speaking voters in the eastern part of the country refused to participate and yet the verdict was endorsed by the centres of power in the West.

This is another example of blatant double standards. Instead of rubbishing the election result, Western leaders and commentators should try to find out why the Syrian people showed so much enthusiasm for the election and why they gave so much support to Assad.

One, for the vast majority of Syrians, the election was their repudiation of the war and the killings that have claimed tens of thousands of lives since March 2011.

It was their way of affirming their commitment to peace and stability.

Two, the Syrians know that the only leader who can bring peace and stability to their land is Bashar al-Assad since he has always commanded the support of the majority of his people.

Three, there is also a great deal of appreciation among the people for the way in which the Assad government has managed to ensure that essential goods and services are available to a broad cross-section of the people in spite of the terrible devastation and destruction caused by the war.

Four, the election result is also a show of appreciation of the role played by the armed forces which has lost at least 61,000 men in the war and which, in the eyes of the people, has succeeded in protecting the innocent and preventing some brazen massacres.

It in no way justifies, it should be emphasised, some of the excesses committed by the armed forces which a number of us have condemned from the outset.

Five, if Assad won so convincingly, it is also partly because the opposition is hopelessly divided. The different armed groups are pitted against each other. There is no common platform. They were not even able to put forward a common candidate in the election.

Six, more than the opposition’s utter disarray it is the barbaric brutality of some of the armed groups revealed in so many episodes in the war that turned a lot of Syrians against them and indirectly increased support for Assad.

What has caused even greater revulsion among the people is the claim of these groups that they are the true representatives of Islam.

Seven, since some of these groups are foreign and the foreign hands behind the war are so obvious to most Syrians, rallying around Assad in the election was the people’s response to what they perceive as a massive foreign conspiracy to break Syria’s principled resistance to US helmed hegemony that serves the interests of Israel.

Ousting Assad is central to the goal of breaking resistance.

This is why the people sought through the ballot box to foil a determined push to achieve regime change in Damascus.

This, in the ultimate analysis, is the real significance of Assad’s electoral triumph.

The Syrian people have defeated a violent, aggressive attempt at achieving regime change as part of that perpetual plan to ensure US and Western hegemony, especially in a region which is pivotal to their quest for global domination.

Apart from Israel which launched a number of air-strikes against Syria in the course of the war, some of the West’s other regional allies like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey have also played a major role in pursuit of this diabolical agenda.

Given that the United States and some of its allies are democracies, will they now concede that since the Syrian people have spoken, they will respect their wishes and cease their pursuit of regime change?

It is most unlikely that they would. After all, hegemony has always taken precedence over democracy.

Hegemony trumps everything else. Does it matter to the hegemon and its allies that if they continue along this path, thousands more are going to die or become refugees in some other land?

Perhaps one should reach out to ordinary American citizens in the hope that they would persuade their government to put an end to the war and create the conditions for peace in Syria.

It may be worthwhile trying this approach.

A Pew Research Centre poll conducted in 2013 showed that “70% of Americans oppose arming the Syrian rebels”.

Can they now be convinced that arming rebels against a democratically-elected president nullifies everything that a democracy stands for?

Can we expect American citizens to share the dream of their Syrian counterparts for an end to war in their land?

Will they act to make that dream come true?

By Chandra Muzaffar

Dr Chandra Muzaffar is President of JUST, the International Movement for a Just World.


Related stories:

• Cops working with Syrian police to identify Malaysians

• Army and police officers detained in Kunak ops

• Video of possible Malaysian jihadists up on YouTube

• PAS leader among Malaysian jihadists in Syria

• Home Ministry: Bukit Aman to do thorough background checks on enforcement personnel

• Cops going after more militant group members
• Navy man among terror suspects held
• IGP: Militant group believed to have ties in Syria and southern Philippines
• IGP: Police working with Syrian counterparts to identify 15 alleged Malaysian militants 

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US President Barack Obama has been in office for more than five years, but his diplomatic practice has so far ended with misery. The ...

US under Obama reluctant to stop making messes all over the world ; ISIS massacre in Iraq shames Washington

US President Barack Obama has been in office for more than five years, but his diplomatic practice has so far ended with misery.

The Iraq War that lasted for seven years and five months brought about radical anti-government forces that have relations with Al Qaeda and have seized northern provinces. It also brought about a more pro-Iran government.

The 13-year-long Afghan War led to a US that has to engage in negotiations with the Taliban and an Afghanistan hostile to the US.

Bashar al-Assad, whom the US has been trying to defame in every possible way, was reelected as Syrian president. The Arab Spring brought about an anti-US wave across the Middle East.

While isolating Russia due to the Ukrainian crisis, the US also finds Russia and Europe are getting closer.

While unscrupulously supporting Japan led by right-wing forces, its "pivot to Asia" strategy has become a tool to vitalize Japan's militarism. The US' "mess-making" image is hard to change.

Such an eye-watering diplomatic sheet reflects the decline of US power and the rigidness of its strategic mentality. The two time-consuming and costly wars and the financial crisis that swept the whole world have corroded the strength of the US, which corresponds to the conclusion of Paul Kennedy in his book The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers that military overstretching leads to the decline of empires.

Meanwhile, the increasingly severe partisan struggles in US domestic politics serve as a negative democratic model.

The US' torture of prisoners overseas and the PRISM-gate scandal have weakened Washington's soft power. It is time for the US to reflect upon its failed global diplomacy and reform its political and economic systems.

Against the backdrop that the security of all countries are interrelated, the US still insists on alliances. In the past two decades, NATO has expanded three times and strengthened the military alliance as the US advocated the "Russia threat," which has led to the split of European security.

When Asian countries progressed into regional integration, the US advocated the "China threat" to strengthen the Asian alliance system, with the US-Japan alliance at the core, which will surely lead to the split of Asian security.

The old mentality of "alliance" has not only worsened the international environment in which the US' own domestic economic plight is to be solved, but also brought about criticism of other countries.

The US has been obstinate in pursuing its dream of hegemony. It not only excludes others in the traditional security field, but also tries to define the boundaries in new security areas, such as information warfare and cyber space.

Experts from US think tanks who remain cool-headed have reminded those in power that the driving force of the US diplomacy is a revitalized economy. The urgent task is to solve domestic problems, rather than fan up the flames of troubles around the world.

When Obama first took office in 2009, the US public expected him to take their country out of the economic downturn like former president Franklin Roosevelt did before. Five years have passed, the economy hasn't got rid of sluggishness, political extremism remains, and the gap between different social classes has widened.

The tragedy of the US diplomacy is that decision-makers habitually refuse reflection.

Last month, when Obama delivered a speech at the US Military Academy at West Point, he articulated his vision of the US' leading role in the world for the century to come.

But if the declining US that brought about numerous tragedies to the world still wants to dominate the world, the world will come to the edge of a cliff. It seems just too difficult for the US to learn to be a normal country.

By Li Haidong Source:Global Times Published
The author is a professor at the Institute of International Relations of China Foreign Affairs University. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

ISIS massacre in Iraq shames Washington

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants boasted on Twitter Saturday that they had executed more than 1,700 Iraqi government soldiers and posted grisly on-the-spot photos. The claim of the Sunni Islamist militants shocked media outlets the world over as this latest Iraq massacre might be the largest since 2003.

ISIS already appalled the whole international community by suddenly taking over Mosul days ago, the second-largest city of Iraq. Their mass murder of thousands of war prisoners this time reveals their atrocity as well as the unpredictable abyss of the Iraq crisis. The US has sent the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and two guided missile ships into the Persian Gulf and is hesitating about whether to launch air strikes against ISIS in northern Iraq. It seems the Iraq tragedy is caused by a continuously regenerative power that can never be eliminated by external forces.

Washington waged the Iraq War in 2003 without UN authorization and regardless of objections from major countries including China, Russia, Germany and France. US public opinion has recently been reflecting that the Bush administration might have started a wrong war, although authorized by Congress and a majority of the US public back when the US elite was confident about remolding the Middle East. The democratic system failed to broaden the limited vision of US society on the Middle East.

Thousands of US soldiers were killed at the battlefields of Iraq and tens of thousands of Iraqis lost their lives, for which then president George W. Bush and defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld would not assume any responsibility. This is indeed an error by Uncle Sam. Nevertheless it will be of positive significance to a certain degree if the Western world led by Washington can draw from the brutal war profound lessons that are expected to help change the US' way of "leading the world."

The biggest lesson is that the US is not omnipotent in reforming smaller countries it detests. The West needs to hold in awe the torn and tattered societies of Iraq and Afghanistan, which will release incredible power once their internal structures are disrupted and devour all efforts at peaceful reconstruction. There is no denying that Washington has injected power into globalization by bringing the clout of Western values to every corner of the world. However, many people may have overestimated the political meaning of US cultural communication and mistaken it for a prelude to world domination for the Western political model.

Now the White House is keen on its "pivot to Asia" strategy. History will not simply repeat itself. If the US attempts to scourge East Asia, it will probably adopt different means from those in the Middle East. East Asians should give full play to their wisdom to avoid falling into the trap of Washington.

Source:Global Times

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The hypocrisy of some nations

Video:U.S. Hypocrisy? Telling Russia To Stay Out of Ukraine

Double standards are on display as Western leaders attack Russia regarding Ukraine, while they themselves commit or endorse worse aggression on other countries.

WORLD attention has focused on Ukraine recently. With President Victor Yanukovych making his exit and a new government formed, events shifted to Crimea, with accusations that the Russian military took over the region.

Yanukovych, resurfacing in a Russian town, said he left as his life was at risk, the new regime is illegitimate, and he is still the president.

Sizeable crowds in Crimea (many of whose population are ethnic Russian) are showing anti-Kiev and pro-Russian feelings and the Crimean Parliament had decided to hold a referendum on whether to remain in Ukraine or break away and be part of Russia.

Western leaders have attacked Russian President Vladimir Putin for his alleged invasion of Crimea.

The Russian argument is that it has not invaded, that in any case it has a legitimate interest in Crimea due to historical links and the ethnic Russians who live there have asked for protection against the new and illegitimate Kiev regime.

Whatever the merits or otherwise of Russia’s position and actions, it is clear that there has been a long historical Russian-Crimea-Ukraine relationship. The complex condition requires a correspondingly complex solution.

The rhetoric of some Western leaders is aggressive. They accused Russia of violating sovereignty and international law, among other things.

The United States plans to ban visas for selected Russian officials, followed by sanctions on Russian banks, freezing assets of its companies, and possibly trade measures.

US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry have accused Putin of making use of false claims for its invasion, that Crimea is in danger.

“This is the 21st century and we should not see nations step backwards to behave in a 19th or 20th century fashion,” said Kerry. “It is not appropriate to invade a country and at the end of a barrel of a gun dictate what you are trying to achieve.”

Obama said “Russia cannot with impunity put its soldiers on the ground and violate basic principles that are recognised around the world”, adding that Russia is “on the wrong side of history”.

Listening to the American leaders lecturing Russia in their self-righteous tone, one is struck by the double standards and hypocrisy involved.

They don’t seem to realise how they have violated the same principles and behaviour they demand of Russia.

It was after all the United States that invaded Iraq in 2003, massively bombing its territory and killing hundreds of thousands, on the grounds that Saddam Hussein had amassed weapons of mass destruction.

The UN Security Council would not give the green light. No weapons of mass destruction were found. Many experts considered the war against Iraq a violation of international law, a view also expressed in a media interview by the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal in 2011 found former US president George W. Bush and former British prime minister Tony Blair guilty of crimes against humanity and genocide as a result of their roles in the Iraq war.

The United States also waged war in Afghanistan, changing the regime, resulting in thousands of deaths. In Libya, the US and its allies carried out massive bombing, which aided opposition forces and led to the killing of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Even now there are sanctions and the threat of military action against Iran on the suspicion it wants to develop nuclear weapons, which Iran has denied.

In contrast, the US turns a blind eye on Israel’s ownership of nuclear weapons. And when Israel conducted the blanket bombing of Lebanon and Gaza in recent years, with thousands of deaths, there was no condemnation at all from the US, which has also blocked UN Security Council resolutions and actions on its ally.

The US has also come under attack from human rights groups for its use of drones against suspected terrorists but which has also killed many civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Last week, the UN Human Rights Council published a Special Rapporteur’s report which detailed the deaths of civilians caused by US drone attacks, and raised many questions of possible violations of international human rights law.

All these actions were done in the 21st century, which adds to many other actions in the 20th century.

It’s thus remarkable that Obama and Kerry could with a straight face accuse Russia of not acting in a 21st century manner, and being on the wrong side of history.

There appears to be still one law for the most powerful, and another for others. The former can invade and kill, while lecturing self-righteously to others.

Whatever one thinks of Russia’s action in Crimea, it should be noted that no one has been killed because of it, at least not yet. Compare that to the hundreds of thousands or millions, who have died and suffered from past and present wars of the US and other Western countries.

Though much of the mainstream media also takes the establishment view, some Western journalists have also pointed out their leaders’ hypocrisy.

In an article, “America’s Staggering Hypocrisy in Ukraine,” the well-known American journalist Robert Parry remarked: “Since World War II, the United States has invaded or otherwise intervened in so many countries that it would be challenging to compile a complete list …

“So, what is one to make of Secretary of State John Kerry’s pronouncement that Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea section of Ukraine – at the behest of the country’s deposed president – is a violation of international law that the United States would never countenance?

“Are Kerry and pretty much everyone else in Official Washington so lacking in self-awareness that they don’t realise that they are condemning actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin that are far less egregious than what they themselves have done?”

Parry concludes that the overriding hypocrisy of the media, Kerry and nearly all of Official Washington is their insistence that the United States actually promotes the principle of democracy or, for that matter, the rule of international law.

Global Trends - By Martin Khor

> The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.

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Nation of Hypocrites 

America is tragically becoming a “Nation of Hypocrites”. How is this so? ... Is it any wonder then that some people look down upon us rather than respect us?

Double standards are the stuff of the powerful?

Diplomatic double-talk

Behind The Headlines By BUNN NAGARA

Double-dealing and double standards are the stuff of the powerful in the world at large.

THERE is something of a double bind when a troubling situation and the common understanding of it are both flawed.

For example, the uprising in Syria and the opposition to a draft UN resolution calling on President Bashar al-Assad to step down have typically been misrepresented.

Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution backed by Western and Arab countries at the UN Security Council (UNSC) last weekend calling on Assad to step down. The usual recriminations about their “betrayal” of the Syrian people followed.

One allegation was that Russia and China were merely opposing the resolution for their own selfish interests. Both countries were said to have major investments in Assad’s Syria, so they would not upset Damascus.

But if regime change were to come anyway, Moscow and Beijing would be as savvy as anyone to invest in a new Syria.

According to some Western accounts, regime change would come sooner rather than later.

Then Russia and China were said to be anxious to block a Syrian uprising only because they feared a similar outcome at home.

However, governments have never had the problem of contradicting foreign and domestic policies. Besides, Syrian dissidents have no known links with Chechen or Uighur militants.

China was also said to have gone along with Russia’s objection because Beijing placed a higher priority in maintaining strong ties with Moscow than with Washington or London.

A slightly more nuanced interpretation of that argument was that Russia and China sought to counter yet another Western-led effort to use the Security Council as a rubber stamp to serve US-Israeli interests in West Asia.



Overall, Western fury at Russian and Chinese non-compliance portrayed their vetoes as abhorrent and aberrant.

In the process, other reasons were conveniently ignored.

Russia and China have reasons for vetoing the draft resolution, and these may include those cited above. But their main reason patently relates to their experience of having been caught out in similar hostile adventures before.

The Western camp has argued that the resolution did not authorise military action against the Syrian government. But given recent experience in other Muslim countries, that is neither an assurance nor a selling point for the resolution.

In December 2000, UNSC Resolution 1333 on Afghanistan was supported by Russia and the US. It was criticised by then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and China and Malaysia (then a UNSC non-permanent member) abstained.

The reservations then were that the Afghan people would suffer most from the resolution, and that peace talks with the ruling Taliban would be scuppered. A year later, war came.

Several UNSC resolutions on Iraq later led to its illegal invasion and controversial occupation. China, France and Russia by then had serious reservations about such resolutions, with doubts about whether war could be authorised.

US and British diplomats assured the world that the latest Iraq resolution need not authorise war. War came nonetheless, on spurious grounds and with disastrous consequences.

By 2007, China and Russia had had enough of such Western diplomatic shenanigans. They both vetoed a resolution tabled by the US and Britain on Myanmar.

Then on to Libya in 2011: a resolution that was supposed to have authorised only a “no-fly zone” became a hostile military action to “protect civilians”, which in turn meant war – again.

It was another exercise in regime change, whatever official words were used for the effort: of a country “in breach of UN resolutions”, one’s “responsibility to protect”, or “remaining seized of the matter”.

By 2012, it would be perverse for Russia and China, or any other country outside the Western orbit of client states, to remain oblivious to the ulterior motives behind UNSC resolutions.

Days before Morocco had tabled the draft resolution on Syria, both Russia and China had already indicated their opposition to it, so there were no grounds for the sense of shock and horror that followed.

Much of Western media reporting on the issue continues to miss some salient points. By the time of last year’s Western-led attack on Libya, if not before, at least one important lesson should have become clear.

And that is how Western encouragement of local uprisings in several Muslim countries can doom dissidents relying on uncertain support from abroad.

With Libya, both sides were armed and not above using violence against civilians caught in the middle.

It also quickly became clear that the anti-government forces had no hope of winning without foreign military support. But at the same time, such support is illegal in attacking a sovereign state.

In the Western perspective, the case for providing military support was expressed as “not betraying” the people who had chosen to fight their government.

This would have the predictable effect of encouraging more militants in other countries to wage war against the state, regardless of their chances of victory and the undemocratic nature of their rebellion.

Now Syria has proven the point. Without foreign military assistance, the innocent and virtuous masses would be said to have been abandoned to mass slaughter.

And on it goes. It has the chilling and compelling effect of obliging, even blackmailing, all other countries to attack any particular country regarded as ripe for regime change.

With Syria, the government’s military strength to the opposition’s capacity to mount a physical challenge is 10 times that of Libya before. If the sponsors of the failed resolution asking Assad to go quietly still insist it does not require war to be effective, they must be lying.

Their intelligence agencies should have informed them of the odds on the ground in Syria by now. Russia and China have already called their bluff.