Abdullah Al Andalusi’s debate with Tommy Robinson (Head of the EDL)
Posted: May 25, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Debates 5 Comments »
America the Serial Killer
Posted: May 16, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, The News, US terrorism 1 Comment »By John Feffer, Co-director, Foreign Policy In Focus
Everybody loves Dexter. He’s handsome. He’s helpful. He works at the Miami Metro Police Department, and he’s very good at his job as a blood-splatter analyst. Oh, did I mention that he moonlights as a serial killer? Don’t worry: he only kills bad guys. That’s part of the code that Dexter’s adoptive father, himself a police officer, passed down to his son. As a child who had watched his mother die a horrendous death, Dexter couldn’t overcome the murderous impulses that surged within him. His father, channeling those impulses in the only constructive way he could think of, created a better monster of his son’s nature: a serial killer of serial killers.
The other essential rule of Dexter’s code: don’t get caught. He is very precise in the way he dispatches his victims, and he will do almost anything to evade detection. Dexter works for the law, but his second job is most definitely above the law.
During its six seasons on Showtime, the popular TV show Dexter has asked a vexing moral question: can a person do good by doing bad? Let’s throw in one more twist. Sometimes Dexter makes mistakes and kills people who don’t fit his definition of Really Bad. He must then wrestle with his (rudimentary) conscience and, more importantly, try to resolve the paradoxes of his father’s code. One last painful element of the Dexter story: his efforts to wipe out bad guys occasionally endanger and even lead to the death of his own nearest and dearest. Dexter has a serious problem, in other words, with blowback.
By this point, you’ve probably figured out my theory. Dexter is all about U.S. foreign policy and the moral calculus of a superpower. Our government has likewise been on a killing streak for a long time, and there’s no end in sight. But we are also, as a country, conflicted about this propensity toward murder. We try to tell ourselves that we only kill bad guys like Osama bin Laden and his ilk. We maintain that we intervene in the affairs of other countries for only the best and purest of reasons. But we also suspect that we have deviated from our code — many times and with devastating consequences.
The first season of Dexter aired in 2006, and it’s tempting to draw the parallels between the serial killer and our serial wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. But let’s go post-partisan here and instead look at what the Obama team is doing today. “More recently, there has been hope for a more humane set of policies from the Obama administration,” writes Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF) senior analyst Adil Shamoo in an excerpt from his new book Equal Worth. “However, such hope has not materialized in the form of a new policy toward the [Middle East]. The Obama administration is bent on proving its ‘national security credentials’ by following the old policy of vengeance and not of justice.” This tension between vengeance and justice, a major preoccupation of Dexter, was on display last week when a U.S. drone strike killed Fahd al-Quso, a top al-Qaeda operative in Yemen.
Quso helped plan al Qaeda’s attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and he would certainly fit Dexter’s definition of Really Bad. He pledged to attack any and all Americans, soldiers and civilians alike. Maybe, you say, we should have apprehended him. Actually, Quso had been apprehended — several times. The FBI interrogated him prior to September 11. He escaped from prison in 2003 only to be recaptured in 2004 and then released by the Yemeni government in 2007. Maybe Washington should have tried extraordinary rendition. But the Obama administration has largely backed out of the business of extraordinary rendition in favor of extrajudicial killing.
Dexter would have no compunction about taking out Quso. Extrajudicial killing is what he’s all about. America’s favorite serial killer is judge, jury, and executioner all wrapped up in one.
But how do we feel about the U.S. president occupying that role? To make a final judgment, we must consider the legal issues, the foreign policy implications, and finally the practical matter of blowback.
The Obama administration only admitted publicly back in January to the existence of its CIA-directed drone attacks in Pakistan. Talk about open secrets. The New American Foundation estimates that the Obama administration has expanded the drone program sixfold over what the Bush team had initiated in Pakistan. And that doesn’t include the expansion of drone warfare to Yemen and Somalia or the drone strikes that the Air Force conducts over Afghanistan.
Two weeks ago, in an effort to increase transparency in one of the most opaque overseas operations the United States conducts, White House counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan was more expansive about the program. “One could argue that never before has there been a weapon that allows us to distinguish more effectively between al-Qaeda terrorists and civilians,” Brennan said. “It’s this surgical precision, the ability, with laser-like focus to eliminate the cancerous tumor called an al Qaeda terrorist while limiting damage to the tissue around it that makes this counter-terrorism tool so essential.”
Next time I need surgery, I’m certainly not going to employ Brennan. Tasked with removing a tumor in my toe, he’d lop off my entire leg, remove an arm from an attending nurse, and accidently cut away a couple limbs from patients waiting in pre-op. That’s how “surgical” the drone strikes have been. The New America Foundation estimates that they have a 17 percent error rating (in other words, we’ve killed 300-450 non-militants). This corresponds to the calculations of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has compiled a list of 317 civilians killed by drones in Pakistan.
There are two major categories of drone strikes. The first, dubbed the personality strike, goes after a known bad guy. The second, the signature strike, targets unidentified individuals and groups according to their pattern of behavior. Neither type qualifies as “surgical.” In the first case, U.S. drones killed Zabet Amanullah on the presumption that he was a top Taliban commander when in fact he was a human rights advocate. Even Dexter would have felt bad about that. In the second case, the United States is expanding its definition of enemy combatants to include groups in Yemen and Somalia, and this makes even the State Department uncomfortable.
We should all be uncomfortable. It’s bad enough when the president directs the extrajudicial killings by handpicking a set of discrete targets. But signature strikes give the CIA even more latitude in drawing up kill lists and racking up “collateral damage.” As William Saletan explains in Slate, “in the Pakistani frontier regions, the CIA has license to take out fighters who appear to be involved, or intent on getting involved, in the Afghan insurgency. The drone campaign has spread from counterterrorism to counterinsurgency.”
So, the United States doesn’t do so well with the first rule of Dexter’s code — only kill bad guys. It works a great deal harder to abide by the second rule: don’t get caught. It has done its utmost to conceal the drone program and create plausible deniability. “To absolve itself in the most sensitive strikes, the CIA has become skilled at using lawyers to cover its tracks. “They use paper when it is going to help them,” says the former official. “Or they get on the secure phone. Or they get in an elevator casually with a lawyer and ask for his advice, like, ‘There’s nothing preventing me from destroying those tapes, is there?’” writes Michael Hastings in an in-depth article on drones in Rolling Stone.
Wait, you might say, what Dexter does is clearly illegal. Murder is illegal. But aren’t drone strikes legal? It’s a war, they’re combatants, we’re combatants, we take them out. Why bring in any lawyers?
Back in the 1970s, the United States banned the practice of assassination until Congress passed a law in the wake of 9/11 that empowered the president “to use all necessary and appropriate force” in going after those responsible for the terrorist attacks. But the targeted killing of American citizens, the “collateral damage” inflicted on innocent bystanders who happen to be in the vicinity of targeted drone strikes, and the dispatch of unknown targets based on unreleased evidence of their behavior all raise difficult legal questions. That’s a polite way of saying that these are lawsuits waiting to happen.
Moreover, what if other countries made the same claims in assassinating individuals in the United States? Washington might rethink the legality of its actions when China or Russia authorizes a drone attack on a Uygur or Chechen “terrorist” hanging out in Chicago. They too could use the self-defense argument.
So, strictly speaking, targeted killings are legal because the Congress passed a law declaring them legal. But they still fly in the face of international law and establish a dangerous precedent that will one day be used against the United States.
Meanwhile, the blowback continues. In a drone strike last year, the United States killed an American citizen, Anwar al Awlaki, a leading al Qaeda militant. A subsequent strike took out two of his close relatives. “The October drone strike that killed Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, a U.S. citizen, and his teenage cousin shocked and enraged Yemenis of all political stripes,” writes Jeremy Scahill in The Nation. “’I firmly believe that the [military] operations implemented by the U.S. performed a great service for al-Qaeda, because those operations gave al-Qaeda unprecedented local sympathy,’ says Jamal, the Yemeni journalist. The strikes ‘have recruited thousands.’ Yemeni tribesmen, he says, share one common goal with al-Qaeda, ‘which is revenge against the Americans, because those who were killed are the sons of the tribesmen, and the tribesmen never, ever give up on revenge.’”
Dexter is an individual driven by his nature to kill. He can’t help himself. The United States is not an individual, but rather a collection of institutions subject to the democratic control of more than 300 million individuals. Like Dexter, the United States was baptized in blood —the slaughter of Native Americans, the enslavement of Africans — and has been steeped in blood ever since. But it need not be part of our nature any more than the Holocaust defines Germany today or King Leopold’s monstrous crimes compel modern-day Belgium to behave in like manner. If the U.S. government argues, as Dexter does, that the system is broken and the Really Bad act with impunity, Washington can do something Dexter can’t — use its unprecedented power and influence to strengthen international law rather than undermine it.
If Dexter turns himself in, the show is over. The United States, in its last flush of unipolar glory, fears the same ending should it suddenly adhere to international law. With its expanded drone program, the Obama administration has kept America’s serial killer persona on the air for too long. More and more Americans are just saying no, as Medea Benjamin chronicles in her new book on drones. It’s time for the United States to stop breaking bad and behave like a proper, law-abiding member of the international community.
Comment:
This is an Interesting take on Dexter as a metaphor for US Foreign Policies. There are some contentious points to be made between the two, however. Dexter spends a lot of effort on “vetting” his targets – he never picks a target – and then dismisses exculpatory information that might cause him to hesitate in making his kill: try applying that to Iraq – where the invasion was planned long before the killers had even achieved the power to carry it out – and then dismisses exculpatory intelligence data – and even invented evidence – to support their pre-determined, absolute commitment to kill – while completely accepting “collateral damage”. In this one example, Dexter appears to be behaving far more morally than the previous administration.
Dexter is not a true psychopath: he would not suffer as he does if when he mistakenly kills an innocent. I wish we could say that about the American excursions into the internal affairs of other countries that pose no real threat to America.
Anders Brevik: no one would have asked for a psychiatric examination had [I] been a “bearded jihadist.”
Posted: April 23, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, The News Leave a comment »
‘Anxious to prove he’s not insane, confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has told a court that questions about his mental health are part of “racist” plot to discredit his extreme anti-Muslim ideology.
Breivik, who has admitted to killing 77 people in a bombing and youth camp massacre, said Monday that no one would have asked for a psychiatric examination had he been a “bearded jihadist.”
“But because I am a militant nationalist, I am being subjected to grave racism,” he said. “They are trying to delegitimize everything I stand for.”
Breivik rejects criminal guilt for the bombing and shooting rampage on July 22, saying the victims had betrayed their country by embracing immigration. His mental state is a key issue in the trial.’
It is interesting to note, that even Anders Brevik wonders why he is not condemned as a sane Terrorist along with Muslims who have attempted to commit similar acts. Strange though it is, I find myself wondering the same thing. Could it be that the Western intelligencia find it difficult to imagine someone could commit terrorist acts without religion? Or perhaps deep in the subconscious of the Western mindset, their refusal to acknowledge that Terrorism can be a universal trait occurring in individuals from all kinds of background means that Muslims are somehow less human, and ‘expected’ to resort to Terrorism? Perhaps a better question is why Anders Brevik is not referred to as a terrorist? If his actions look like Terrorism, and his words speak like a Terrorist – but since he is not Muslim, he can’t be a Terrorist?!
I suppose that is one way Islamophobes can justify the saying ‘All Terrorists are Muslim’ – since the now common definition of Terrorism, requires the participant individuals to be only Muslim!
Secret documents reveal MI5 agents betrayed Libyan dissidents
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: The News Leave a comment »MI5 betrayed enemies of Colonel Gaddafi given refuge in Britain in a covert joint operation with Libyan spies working on UK soil, documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday reveal.
Gaddafi’s secret agents were supplied by MI5 with intelligence, secure mobile phones and a luxurious safe house in the heart of London’s Knightsbridge.
The extraordinary revelations emerge from hundreds of secret documents unearthed from Libyan spymasters’ archives after the Gaddafi regime was toppled – with British military help – last year.
Shockingly, they reveal tactics of intimidation and coercion – and expose the British agents’ specific fears that their actions might be reported by the press in the UK.
Under pressure: Tony Blair with Jack Straw in 2005, and some of the documents seen by the MoS, below
The documents disclose that MI5 betrayed the confidentiality that all refugees are promised when they apply for asylum, and told the Libyans that the targets could be threatened with deportation to Libya if they refused to co-operate.
The revelations will cause a political storm. David Davis, the senior Tory MP, said they made clear that the 2004 operation to arrange the ‘rendition’ of former Gaddafi opponent Abdel Hakim Belhadj from Bangkok to Tripoli was ‘merely the start of a continuing intelligence saga’.
He added: ‘The documents seem to say that British agencies exposed people who had been given refuge here to the very people they had fled. This is an appalling betrayal of Britain’s obligations and traditions, apparently for reasons of realpolitik, not national security. What the documents reveal is coercion at best, and at worst blackmail.’
He said it was ‘essential’ that the Scotland Yard investigation into the case of Mr Belhadj – who is suing former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for allegedly authorising his kidnap and rendition – is extended to include the joint MI5-Libya operations.
Experts in refugee law say the documents imply flagrant breaches of the Geneva Conventions on refugees, the Human Rights Act and the ordinary criminal law.
Lord Carlile, QC, the former reviewer of UK anti-terror laws, said the allegations were ‘serious’ and called for an inquiry.
Revelations: The documents were unearthed from Libyan spymasters’ archives after Colonel Gaddafi was toppled with the help of British forcesA senior former intelligence officer said it was ‘difficult to imagine’ that the joint operations were not sanctioned by Ministers and it was likely that the Home and Foreign Secretaries were involved, as well as the Prime Minister – at the time, Tony Blair.
But the then Foreign Secretary, Margaret Beckett, said: ‘I don’t think I knew anything about this. I certainly have no recollection of it.’ She thought that as an ‘operational matter’ it would not have needed ministerial authorisation.
Lord Reid, who was Home Secretary, failed to return phone calls asking for comment. A spokesman for Mr Blair said he had ‘no recollection’ of the operations.
The documents reveal meetings between the British and Libyan services in both Tripoli and London, and visits by the Libyan agents to make ‘approaches’ to their targets in London and Manchester in August and October 2006.
They make clear that the Libyans had at least some success, and that some of the refugees they approached did agree to co-operate.
MI5, the documents say, wanted then to turn the refugees into sources of their own, in the belief that the body to which they belonged – the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group – was linked to Al Qaeda, and a threat to UK national security.
But, according to the minutes of one meeting, MI5 also knew that its decision to do business with a regime that, despite having abandoned its WMD programme, was still torturing and murdering its opponents, was controversial and had to be kept secret.
Last night a security source defended co-operation with Libya, saying: ‘Many of Jihadist fighters picked up in Afghanistan after 2001 were Libyans. They posed a threat and had to be closely monitored.’
Just 700 yeards from Harrods, a covert rendezvous between Libyan spies and MI5 agent Caroline sparks demand for criminal inquiry
Special Investigation by Robert Verkaik, Barbara Jones and David Rose
As MI5 had promised, it had left nothing to chance. Waiting for the two Libyan intelligence officers as they got off the plane at Heathrow was Caroline, the charming Security Service operative they knew from her recent visit to Tripoli.
No need for the agents to wait in line at immigration: Caroline – whose full name, together with that of other UK officers, The Mail on Sunday has chosen not to publish – met them ‘airside’, and they bypassed the usual formalities.
She was carrying two, prepaid, secure mobile phones, one for each of the Libyans, Colonel Najmuddin Ajeli and Ahmed Abdanabi.
Upmarket: MI5 accommodated the Libyan intelligence officers in a luxury serviced flat near Harrods in Knightsbridge, LondonJust 700 yeards from Harrods, a covert rendezvous between Libyan spies and MI5 agent Caroline sparks demand for criminal inquiry
Special Investigation by Robert Verkaik, Barbara Jones and David Rose
As MI5 had promised, it had left nothing to chance. Waiting for the two Libyan intelligence officers as they got off the plane at Heathrow was Caroline, the charming Security Service operative they knew from her recent visit to Tripoli.
No need for the agents to wait in line at immigration: Caroline – whose full name, together with that of other UK officers, The Mail on Sunday has chosen not to publish – met them ‘airside’, and they bypassed the usual formalities.
She was carrying two, prepaid, secure mobile phones, one for each of the Libyans, Colonel Najmuddin Ajeli and Ahmed Abdanabi.
Naturally, Caroline had organised transport: an MI5 car in which she escorted them to MI5’s safe house – a luxury service flat at one of the best addresses in London, in the heart of Knightsbridge.
This was almost certainly in Egerton Place, a brief stroll from Harrods, and less than a mile from St James’s Square, where WPC Yvonne Fletcher was shot by a Libyan diplomat in 1984.
Next day, August 10, 2006, the joint operation between MI5 and the Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi’s External Security Organisation would begin. Meanwhile, Ajeli and Abdanabi were free to enjoy a night on the town.
Details of the two Libyans’ visit are contained in a new and extraordinary cache of documents, classified UK/Libya Secret, unearthed in Gaddafi’s archives after his regime was toppled – thanks in large part to RAF airstrikes – last year.
The documents reveal that collusion between the dictator’s security agency, a byword for torture, brutality and murder throughout the Middle East, and its British counterparts was far greater than hitherto realised.
The case of Abdel Hakim Belhadj, who is suing the former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw for allegedly authorising his illegal ‘rendition’ from Thailand to prolonged torture in Libya in 2004, has already become notorious.
Serious as the Belhadj case is, however, in that instance the British supplied intelligence only about his whereabouts: the actual rendition was done from a distant foreign country by the American CIA.
But the new documents disclose that for at least two years after that, MI5 and MI6 developed a close and active working relationship with the Libyans.
It extended to flagrant breaches of the law that is supposed to protect political refugees, and ‘joint operations’ in which such people – whose families and friends were vulnerable to savage reprisals in Libya – were cold-bloodedly ‘targeted’ on British soil, where they thought they were safe, by the Libyan service, with direct assistance from MI5.
This breaks every convention of acceptable behaviour between governments.
‘When you ask for asylum in Britain, the form you fill in promises that the mere fact of applying will be treated by the British Government as strictly confidential, since if it became known, your friends and family would be exposed to persecution,’ a top QC and refugee law expert said yesterday.
‘But these documents suggest that not only was this rule ignored, but refugees were threatened with deportation if they refused to co-operate with the very regime they had fled – a core breach of both the 1951 Geneva Convention, and the Human Rights Act. It also appears they were coerced. Any Britons involved could also have committed the offence of misconduct in a public office.’
The documents contain a detailed narrative of the 2006 operation mounted by Caroline, Ajeli, Abdanabi and their colleagues. It began with a meeting in Tripoli on May 17, attended by X, an MI6 officer stationed in Libya (whom The Mail on Sunday has agreed not to name), Caroline from MI5, and the two Libyans who came to London in August, along with others whose names are not recorded in the meeting’s minutes – which were taken in Arabic by a member of the Libyan service.
‘We are here with you to share some co-operation and suggestions to work with your secret department,’ Caroline explained. Right from the outset, she abandoned any pretence that asylum seekers should be protected.
According to the minutes, she said: ‘Target 2 could become a very good source and we can pressure him to work for us because he’s not a British citizen.’ Another individual is identified as a possible target because he is ‘very emotional’ and would be deeply affected if any of his friends were to be arrested. The document records: ‘He could be a good source because he works in a library inside a mosque and he has close links to Libyan Islamic Fighting Group [then a banned group which operated as a political party opposing Gaddafi, and from whose ranks many of last year’s revolutionary fighters were drawn].’
After Caroline left Tripoli, plans were made for the August visit by the two Libyans. MI6’s officer X sent the details of its logistics in a memo to General Sadegh Krema, the head of the Libyan service’s external relations section, on August 8, the day before they left. As well as the safe house and the phones, MI5 would be providing lunch, and a series of meetings to formulate ‘operational plans’ for approaching their main target.
The Mail on Sunday is aware of the identity of this person, who was a member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) based in Didsbury, in Manchester, and an habitué of the Didsbury mosque, one of the main centres of anti-Gaddafi activity in Britain. We also have the minutes of the meeting held between the Libyans, Caroline, her colleague Tony and other MI5 staff at MI5 headquarters on August 11.
MI5 justified its participation in these operations by asserting that the LIFG was a jihadist group with links to Al Qaeda, and hence a threat to UK security – although it is a matter of record that the only Libyan ever arrested or charged with any terrorist offence committed in Britain was not from the opposition at all: the sole example is Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber freed on compassionate grounds nearly three years ago when he was said to have three months to live. In 2004, the Special Immigration Appeals Commission ruled that the LIFG was only interested in opposing Gaddafi – not mounting terrorist attacks in Britain.
Be that as it may, MI5 knew that by working so closely with Gaddafi’s agents it was taking a risk. According to the minutes, one of the MI5 staff said: ‘The target person has the right to make a complaint or seek police protection. British intelligence must be careful how they approach a target because this individual could call on human rights or the press and cause a security scandal that exposes the co-operation between British and Libyan secret services.’
The minutes suggest that MI5 preferred to use the carrot, rather than the stick, in inducing the target to start giving up information about his associates: ‘We might allow him to visit his family in Libya, then return to Britain. We could offer to help clear his name with Libyan authorities. We could offer to help with citizenship or residency. This could open the door to his co-operation. We could enter his office frequently, do business with him and open the door to further conversations.’
But if that didn’t work, then they could resort to coercion: ‘Libyan operatives could ask him [the target asylum seeker] about problems at home in Libya or in Britain.
‘They offer to help in return for giving information we want about other targets. If he refuses, British police will arrest him and accuse him of associating with Libyan secret agents. He will be told that as a non-resident of Britain he could be deported if found guilty.’
A memo dated September 27 from officer X to General Krema makes clear that the August operation had gone well, and suggests further activity against other targets in Didsbury. The Libyan agent Najmuddin Ajeli had ‘established contact’ with members of the Didsbury mosque, and the next step would be ‘joint casework between our services’.
On October 14, Ajeli and Abdanabi flew back to Britain. Another unnamed MI5 officer, says a further memo, was due to meet them, though if there were any problems, they could call Caroline.
This time, the plan was to set up further meetings with the target in Didsbury, with the hope of introducing him to MI5. The Libyans were not to stay at the safe house, however, but at the five-star City Inn Hotel, which conveniently is next to MI5’s headquarters on the Thames.
There the documentary record ends. But former Libyan dissidents who are now supporters of the revolution say they know of several individuals who were approached by Libyan intelligence and MI5 while refugees in Britain, and threatened in the ways the documents suggest.
Gareth Peirce, the solicitor who acted for several Libyan refugees, said yesterday: ‘This has been a common methodology. If you think someone is vulnerable, facing deportation, you exploit that. It is a common currency I have come across again and again.’
SPIED ON BY UK AGENTS WORKING FOR GADDAFI
Shaken: The accountant who was spied onA Libyan accountant who lived in England for ten years was spied on by British Intelligence working with Colonel Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime.
Granted asylum here in 2002 as a member of Libya’s opposition, he has discovered his mobile phone was monitored and information about him and his wife sent to Libya’s External Security
Organisation (ESO) in a sinister exchange that ended only with Gaddafi’s death.
He believes one phone conversation he had with fellow Libyan dissident Abu Bakr Ighrebel led to Ighrebel’s arrest, imprisonment and torture for five years in Tripoli’s Abu Salim detention facility.
The accountant, who lived in Pinner, North London, wishes to remain anonymous because of security fears for family members in Britain.
He was shaken to discover a file containing his personal information and a photograph, which he recalls submitting for his British passport application in 2002, among documents taken from the ESO building after Tripoli fell last year.
The Mail on Sunday has seen the file and had it independently translated. A series of internal memos written in Arabic by Libyan agents gives feedback on meetings with their British counterparts. One memo reports a conversation the accountant had in 2007 with Ighrebel, who sought advice about seeking asylum in Britain.
Another, written at the ESO and dated December 16, 2007, reports the British as telling the Libyan agents: ‘We do not think you should take any action towards the Libyan user of this phone number because it may expose our operation monitoring this individual.’
The accountant said: ‘Libyan agents wrote back claiming I had been in Sudan working with Osama Bin Laden and that I had been seriously ill and Bin Laden had paid my hospital bills. This is totally untrue.’
More…
- Now Blair could be sued over Libya torture claims by man who alleges MI6 sent him into the hands of Gaddafi’s regime
- How ironic! The ministers accused of backing torture now want even more secrecy in public life
Sam Harris, Atheism and Self-identification
Posted: April 22, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Atheism | Tags: atheism Leave a comment »A great video exposing the crafty attempt by Atheists like Sam Harris to avoid criticism by re-labelling themselves as rationalists or those advocating reason (since rationality and reason cannot be criticised directly by most people) and by hiding their positive or alternative beliefs (e.g. humanism, secularism, communism etc). It is hoped that by doing these things, Atheists can attack all other beliefs yet escape criticism themselves. The Youtube user ‘TheCartesianTheist’ provides a devastating critique of Sam Harris’ attempt to have his cake and eat it.
The Purpose of Life: a rational investigation – lecture in USA
Posted: April 20, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, lectures, MDI, MDI USA Leave a comment »The Purpose of Life: a rational investigation
Lecture by Abdullah al Andalusi
Friday April 13, 2012 | Franklin, Michigan, USA
GLOBAL Upcoming MDI Debates – April 2012
Posted: April 6, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Debates, MDI Australia, MDI UK, MDI USA Leave a comment »In the next 2 weeks MDI has 3 events, in 3 different countries, and 3 different continents!
Please click on poster to see the event details.
UK – 19th April 2012
USA – 12th April 2012
Australia – 9th April 2012
Islam and Reformation: What is the way forward? The Big Debate video
Posted: April 3, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Debates, MDI | Tags: abdullah al andalusi, debate, islam, mustafa akyol, reformation, soas 1 Comment »Islam and Reformation: What is the way forward?
16th March 2012
School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS)
Can Islamic civilisation be revived? What are the solutions for the
problems in the Muslim world? Does Islam need reformation? Should
Muslims borrow from Western Political systems? What is the way
forward?
Witness two speakers, with radically opposing views, debate and discuss this highly topical issue. Attendees will be able to ask questions and voices their opinions at the event.
Abdullah al Andalusi – Muslim revivalist thinker and International speaker
vs
Mustafa Akyol – Political commentator and Author of “Between Extremes: A Muslim case for Liberty”
Enjoy this controversial and exciting debate
UK MDI Debate: Is religion less relevant to modern society?
Posted: March 26, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Atheism, Debates, MDI 2 Comments »Islam and Reformation – A Public Debate – SOAS 16th March 2012
Posted: March 1, 2012 Filed under: MDI Press Release 1 Comment »
Debate: Is Hell Just? Abdullah al Andalusi vs Farhan Qureshi
Posted: January 24, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Debates | Tags: afterlife, farhan qureshi, hell, judgment, justice 23 Comments »
Do sinners deserve to go to Hell forever? Will only one group of people be saved, and the rest damned? Should finite sins merit eternal punishment? Should God punish those who reject him? Is Hell Just? Welcome to the public debate.
Wednesday, 18th January 2012
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, London
Guests:
Abdullah Al Andalusi – Portuguese revert to Islam, and International speaker on Islamic thought.
Farhan Qureshi – American Ex-Qadiyani Agnostic speaker on Eastern Philosophy and Universalism.
UPDATE: 11th February 2012
From: Farhan Qureshi
To: Abdullah MDI
Sent: Saturday, 11 February 2012, 5:28
Subject: Statement for MDI
Here is my statement:
In January 2012 I had the opportunity to engage the entire Muslim Debate Initiative team which was by far a spectacular and spiritual experience for me. MDI showed me nothing but kindness and hospitality and represented their faith and tradition completely in a positive and respectful manner. Being a former Muslim I was absolutely humbled by their character and professionalism throughout my stay in London. I thank them again for their invitation and willingness to engage in debate on controversial issues. This speaks volumes in terms of their genuine faith and dedication.
Farhan Qureshi
MDI public debate – The Problem of Evil
Posted: January 8, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Debates, MDI | Tags: abdullah al andalusi, afterlife, debate, farhan qureishi, farhan qureshi, hell, islam, justice Leave a comment »
The public debate on the Problem of Evil will be debating questions on why it exists, and why God allows it’s existence in Universe. Welcome to the public debate.
Sami Zaatari – International Speaker and member of Muslim Debate Initiative.
Debates
Farhan Qureshi – American Ex-Qadiyani Agnostic speaker on Eastern Philosophy and Universalism.
Thursday, 19th January 2012, 6:30pm
Toynbee Hall, 28 Commercial Street, City of London E1 6LS
Free Admission – No registration required.
Nearest Station: Aldgate East Tube Station
MDI public debate – Is Hell Just?
Posted: January 3, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, Debates, MDI | Tags: abdullah al andalusi, afterlife, debate, farhan qureishi, hell, islam, justice 8 Comments »Do sinners deserve to go to Hell forever? Will only one group of people be saved, and the rest damned? Should finite sins merit eternal punishment? Should God punish those who reject him? Is Hell Just? Welcome to the public debate.
Abdullah Al Andalusi – Portuguese revert to Islam, and International speaker on Islamic thought.
Debates
Farhan Qureshi – American Ex-Qadiyani Agnostic speaker on Eastern Philosophy and Universalism.
Wednesday, 18th January 2012, 6:30pm
Abrar House, 45 Crawford Place, Edgware Road, London, W1H 4LP
Free Admission – No registration required.
Nearest Station: Edgware Road / Marble Arch Tube Station
The Muslim perspective towards the British Flag
Posted: January 2, 2012 Filed under: articles by Abdullah, lectures, MDI | Tags: british, flag, islam, nationalism 1 Comment »A presentation given to the London Naval Club in Mayfair (London, UK), on the Muslim perspective towards the British Flag. It covers the Islamic view on Nationalism, symbols of national pride and more. Don’t miss the MP’s comments after my presentation!
The Flag Institute Spring Conference 2010
Date: 14th May 2010
Presentation: The Muslim perspective on the Union Flag
Speaker: Abdullah al Andalusi
Can God Become A Man? James White vs Abdullah Kunde
Posted: December 31, 2011 Filed under: Christianity, Debates, MDI 102 Comments »MDI Australia member, Abdullah Kunde debates Dr James White, of Alpha & Omega Ministries.
Debate filmed 17/09/2011 at UNSW, Sydney, Australia.
