Once upon a September...

 September used to be a beautiful time of year, with a symphony of changing colours, cool, frosty air and wet skies.
The days were soaked in warm sunlight. You could hear the birds tweeting of birds from early morning over trees that stand in solitude, with their branches hanging like yellow and red draperies. The sub-aplpine larch and aspen trees were golden; maple, tamaracks and oak were shades of orange and red. The Bruce Peninsula, the Niagara Parkway river and Agawa Canyon in Ontario transformed into the most spectacular, most romantic and dramatic flora, fauna and water vistas. Whether you went hiking on foot or canoeing on a boat, the fiery reds, oranges, crimsons and golds blanket of leaves amazed and astounded you.
The nights were the loveliest in September. The sky used to be deep pumpkin orange. The icy wind felt like needles on your face. You squinted your eyes, and drew your jacket over your skin, tucking your fingers inside its slevees. You crunched the brittle leaves on the sidewalk as you hurried home from the bus stop. There used to be rakes in your neighbours' backyards,  scented candles on their window. You could almost taste the apple pie, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce baking in their kitchen.
The rain was the best part of September. It was breaktaking. It brought the fall foliage to life, it made their colours even more vibrant and exciting. It trickled and tapped in soothing rhythm. It hugged the trees, buildings and people with every drop. It was cleansing and calming. It was passionate and eclipsing.

Once upon a September...

There will be no warmth this September, no rainbow of colours, no rainstorms. No nature gracing us with its paintings; no birds and squirrels flitting and darting. Wipe out all these images and sounds from memory. Because now, September has become an ugly, abhorrent thing. Its a month of hatred and Islamaphobia. Its a month of war against Muslims and the Muslim world. Its this month that charged Churches to burn the Qur'an, mobs to shutdown Mosques, Jews to jab the Shariah. Every day Muslims are harassed in Western schools/shops and humiliated in European offices/airports because of this month. It is this month that caused the maiming and murder of harmless Muslims in the Middle East. It is this month that allows my benign brothers and sisters to be prisoned and punished in Guantanamo Bay. I used to love September but now I wish it came never came.

This all started from Sept. 11, 2001.
I had just turned 13. My grade 8 class was standing against a row of sentinel Brandeis blue lockers, waiting to get into math class. Crumpled pieces of paper, broken pencils, forgotten erasers and discarded gum wrappers buffed the hallway floor instead of the bleach and pine sol from this morning. Mr. Gill, the school principal, made quick, soundless steps towards my math teacher who was ordering us to be silent as we took our seats in class. Mr. Gill pulled Mr. Kerr to the side and broke the news to him in a hollow and weak voice. Two planes had crashed in the Word Trade Center, one at 8:46 am during homeroom and the other at 9:03 am during Language Arts class. Gloom creeped over Mr. Kerr's face as Mr. Gill spoke of a third plane crash just minutes ago in the Pentagon.
What followed were a series of moratoriums in my elementary school. For the most part I didn't understand what was happening. Why suddenly "Osama" became a swear word and why Ms. Debeck told Muslim girls in her science class to take off their hijabs. Why everyone was so tense? Thousands of people die in Palestine, in Bosnia, Kashmir and Moscow every year. They never receive any sympathy from the world then why suddenly the lives of 3000 Americans has woken the champions of justice in one day?
It finally hit me on Sept. 14, 2001 when the US declared war on Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a land of rugged mountains and arid plains, slightly smaller than the size of Taxes. There is no water in Afghanistan, just 652,230sq km of dust and compressed rock. At the time, Afghanistan had just survived 10 years of bloodbath in the Russo-US war. They had no food, electricity, medical care, schools or jobs. 55% of Afghanis were just children under the age of 15, their expected lifespan only 45 years. Of course they were in no shape to take on US's Humvees, M-16A4 rifles, M203 Grenade Launchers and B-2 spirit stealth bombers.
Of course, I knew that, the US knew that but Bush sent 146,000 American troops in 2001 to massacre over 4 million of these heartborken, hungry and homeless people in the coming 10 years. Since 2001, almost every two year, a fresh batch of troops are sent to Afghanistan. In Jan. of 2007, Bush posted 5.000 troops to Afghanistan. Then sent and additional 30,000 more in spring of the same year. This is despite the fact that he had already committed nearly 21,000 troops in 2005. Even Obama deployed 34,000  troops when he became president in 2009.

The media told me that the Afghans deserved this. A group amongst them, the Taliban, bombed the WTC so the US was only attacking them as reprisal. The media told me that attacking Afghanistan was the only way the world will be free of terrorist and become democratic.
Who are the Taliban and what really happened on 9/11? What is the real face of Democracy in the US? InshaAllah this post will answer these questions with some invaluable tangents so maybe one day, I can look back at September and not feel so much dread and paranoia.

The T-men 
We have all heard things about the Taliban. Seen videos of them flogging women etc. For a moment i want you to set all that information aside and consider this: if the Taliban were good men, like your fathers and brothers, your favourite uncle an cousins...and you saw videos of them volunteering at hospitals and playing with children at the park, would you still want the US to attack Afghanistan? Yes, there are some negative reports on the Taliban from people who lived in Afghanistan like Sh. Abu Esa and this girl from my high school. But can the actions of a few stray individuals suffice as a death penalty for the entire community? Its like saying BECAUSE a a couple Priests and Pastors abused children hence all of Christianity must be pedophilic. Does that make sense? No. We would never make a preposterous generalization against "them", then why against "our own"?
The Taliban are the T-men and here is their UNBIASED story:

The T-men are a superhero team in Afghanistan. They were created in 1992 by their love for Islam and their love for others to have Islam. The basic concept of the T-men was to remove the cloud of ignorance and anti-peace sentiment from the world, to bring Islamic education, Islamic law and thus harmony. They were called the T-men because they possessed a special talab (strong desire) which was lacking in the average person of their time. Their talab gave them the ability and the power to:
(a) Produce Islamic freedom fighters. L. Carl Brown, Garret,  a Professor in Foreign Affairs Emeritus at Princeton University and a historian of the Arab world said in an interview to The Voice of America that, "We are seeing the people who studied in Afghanistan, now belligerently resisting the occupation forces in Chechnya, Kashmir and Palestine. This is a very alarming situation."
(b) Establish an Islam Empire. The T-men were voted by the Afghani people in a fair and democratic election to form the government. With their ingenious planning, conviction and strength from Allah, in less than two and-a-half years, they instituted Islamic law in the land. Idol worship was banned in public places; all statues and sculptures with human/animal carvings were removed. Inappropriate advertising posters and billboards were removed. Magic and astrology were outlawed. It was mandatory to pray Salah on time in the Masjid; it was illegal to conduct any work except ibadaah during Salah time. Interest was abolished. Alcohol and gambling were prohibited; all drug addicts were arrested for rehabilitation. Music was totally pulled out from every shop, restaurant and hotel; no music CD, cassette or video was available anywhere in the market. Women were asked to dress modestly; husbands and fathers were ticketed for allowing their women to wear unethical clothes outside the house. It was discouraged for men to shave the beard etc.

Source: Muhammad Iqbal Kilani, Allamat-e-Qiyamat ka Bayan. If you can read my ramblings, read his entire book, its more worthy of your time.

A lot of people don't know this but when Afghanistan whipped the sorry Russians and American in 1989 with close to zero artillery and without a single aircraft - the superpowers were gobsmacked. They were afraid the entire Muslim world will make an example of Afghanistan and revolt against them. 
Keep in mind that the US, with UK and France invaded the Muslim Caliphate and annexed it into small colonies after WW1. First they divided the Turks and Arabs until they could not stand each other and contested for separation. (Yes, the seed of nationalism was sown in yes but the West. Allah and His Messenger (s.a.w) recognize the entire Muslim Ummah as one body, as brothers). Second, in 1915, the British De Bunsen Committee pledged itself to recognize and support the independence of the Arabs from the Turks and grant each Arab faction its own territory on condition that they help the British knock down the Ottoman Empire. The Arabs fulfilled their pledge, not only did we foolishly fight alongside the allied forces in WW1 but we also help the British vanish the Ottoman Empire (May Allah forgive us). 
The British on the other hand, double crossed us and in 1916, under Sykes-Picot Treaty, they divided the Middle East and brought it under their "zones of influence." So Adana, Beirut, Damascus, Aleppo and Mosul became French colonies. While Amman, Baghdad, Basra and Kuwait were named British colonies. Without the protection of the Ottoman Empire, the Arabs had no choice but to accept this stab in the back. If this was not treacherous enough, in 1917 - Balfour Declaration, the British announced Palestine as a national home for the Jewish People!!! For the next 31 years, the Palestinian Arabs were bulldozed out of their homes, their children bombed in school and their shops shut down to make way for the new Jewish settlements. Even today you will see in grocery stores, dates and figs read 'Product of Israel' or 'Product of Jerusalem' labels. Thats BS! The Jews don't grow stuff, the Palestinians do. The Jews just steal it from them and sell it to the world with their name.


Other Arab states like Egypt, Palestine, Sudan and Yemen were going through the same political and economic disasters. Western pawns, Gamal Abdel Nasser (Egypt, 1952), Yasser Arafat (Palestine, 1950), Omar al-Bashir (Sudan) and Ali Abdullah Saleh (Yemen, 1964)  were stamping out Islam from the Middle East and stuffing the people with corruption.  Of course the Muslims were upset. We wanted to be free from West's wanton occupation. So when Afghanistan finally clobbered the West after 10 years of brutal war, you bet the Arabs also got courage to fight back. 
But you see, there was a catch. before Afghanistan became a means of strength and solidarity for Muslims everywhere, the US installed Babrak Karmal, secular leader, as President in Afghanistan. The plan was to pit the Afghanis against each other under Karmal in ruthless civil wars over absurd ethical and territorial disputes. With the best Muslims soldiers fighting amongst themselves, of course they didn't have time to save Muslim World from Western colonization. So for more than thirty years, the Afghanis killed each other; there was an influx of opium and open prostitution among other evil things.  After much fermentation of society, the Afghans turned to the Islamic scholars and their students for guidance. 
The students (Taleban is arabic for students), aka our T-men arrived at the scene and stopped the slaughter. Not only did the T-men turned Afghanistan into a peaceful and pure Islamic Empire but they also sent their men to free other Muslim countries trapped in the secular sack. 

The US assumed that since the T-men are young, they can be easily bribed or at least debauched  but the T-men never gave up Islam. Furious, the US started calling them extremist, fundamentalists and then finally 'terrorist.'  At first the US supported revolts against the T-men by funding Ahmed Shah Masood and his followers. During this period Afghanistan was again tore by violent skirmishes. Second, US placed sanctions on Afghanistan - all food, water and medicinal imports were cut off.  The finally, when time was right, on Sept. 11, 2001, they blamed the T-men for blowing up WTC.


What happened on 9/11?
We have all heard and seen the traditional story. But think about it now rationally for a bit and question all the details you know...
The world’s most powerful air force failed to intercept any of the four hijacked planes, two of which crashed in the WTC, New York, the third in Pentagon, Washington and fourth in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. This is despite the fact that a routine military training exercise happened to be taking place at the same time that day at US air defense command and Air traffic controller Colin Scoggins was in constant contact with the military. Did Scoggin not inform the military that 4 commercial planes were missing and heading for WTC and the Pentagon? Did his transponder suddenly fail? Was the US military equipment so outdated that it could not detect the plans or signals from FAA? 
Moreover, which building in the history of the world have ever been totally collapsed down to rumble as quickly as WTC after a few fires? It is obvious from the way the building fell in its own framework, bottom floors up, and the way the columns dropped, that explosives were used. It was an act of control demolition, nothing else. Furthermore, why did WTC building 7 collapse symmetrically in 2.25 seconds!!!???? It was not hit by any plane. You know why? Because Thermitic material, which reacts violently when heated, was found in WTC7 and Twin Towers. It was a bomb that destroyed those buildings, not the plane crash. And don't say gallons of oil from the plane crash sparked the fires and burned the towers down. The New York City Fire Department, do you know what they said? They were on the scene, and they said there were bombs! CNN and CBS drummed the same confession LIVE and then took it off air. I wonder why?
Suppose the WTC was attacked by terrorists and WTC7 crashed by stroke of fate, how did an illiterate, ill-civilized amateur pilot from Afghanistan fly a commercial plane in a complicated maneaour and crash it into the headquarters of the world’s most powerful military, 78 minutes after the first report of two possible hijackings and leave no trace? There was no blackbox or even plane wreckage found near Pentagon. No plane crew or passenger remains were discovered. Was it a jinn? No, but it could have been a  US controlled missile, a small aircraft or an unmanned drone! 

All evidence presented by the US on sept 11 is bogus. There is no excuse for the murder of 4 million Afghans. No excuse for torture in Guantanamo Bay or Bagram! No excuse for Airport body scanners or Big Brother camera systems. 9/11 was an inside job. In fact, the media had been professing it long before 2001. This may not hold in the Supreme court but it's something, isn't it? It does and it should raise eye-brows and make us say, "hey wait a minute!"


The Real Face of Democracy
George Bush calls the war on Afghanistan, "operation enduring freedom." He thinks if he can free Afghanistan from the T-men, and replace Islam with democracy then the US and the world will be safe. o_0 O mere Allah, how can someone be so full of themselves? URRGGGHHH!!! LOL I donno whether to cry or laugh. But then again subhanAllah some people, even Muslims actually believe his drivel. If you frustrated with the dictators like Saddam, Mubarak, and Zardari then I can relate to this. I also wish things were different. But I don't want democracy.
Dictators in the Middle East and Pakistan are US puppets. The US endorses the dictator's abuse of power because the US world-domination could only thrive on their tyranny. So if we are going to protest against anyone, let it be the US Presidents. If there is going to be overthrowing of any government, let it be the US government first. Henry David Thoreau said, "there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root" :)  Make sense? Thankfully I don't believe in riots or violent revolutions so I am against all forms of anarchy and coups. I want peace on earth and good will for every man and woman. I want to enjoy September instead of feeling scared this time of the year. I want to be 13 again -  splash around in puddles, draw cartoons on my arms, jump in a pile of leaves, eat sweet jam tarts and sleep with my window open on starry nights.

But is democracy, the world's only chance to peace? Will I never know happiness without democracy?  My professor for POL203 said that the rhetoric around US constitution is almost divine. If you hear the MPs speaking about democracy these days, it seems as if it were a god they worship, they revere democracy, blindly and unconditionally. So why this obsession with democracy? What is democracy? Democracy is when the politicians pretend to be listening to the people when in fact they are taking orders from big businesses because these businesses finance their political parties, organize their election campaign and provide them with public offices. These business also generally shape societal values, particularly through their ownership of the media and market.
Don't believe me? NBC owns and operates American television networks, numerous cable channels, and a group of local stations in the United States, as well as motion picture companies, several television production companies, and branded theme parks. NBC Universal is headquartered in the Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. Rockefeller Plaza is a complex of 19 commercial buildings built by the Rockefeller family. The Rockefeller family owns much of the oil businesses, industries and banks. Now that you know this, tell me what does NBC air? What does any US and Canadian media air anyway? What are the politicians saying? There are roughly 0.9 million Muslims in Canada and Steven Harper has the audacity to call Islam the country's biggest threat? Did he forget democracy at this time? Have some respect Mr. Harper! It is our people who make up your country. It is we who work as laborers and cab drivers to doctors, lawyers, teachers and engineers. But does the Canadian media show Muslims in a positive light? No! The only "Muslim" show that made it do CBC was one that mocked everything Islamic. How does the Canadian government treat us? It banned our scholar, Dr. Zakir. It banned our clothes, the niqab. Oh I love democracy, yey! *rolls eyes*

Want to know how else democracy works?
Bush received $3.8 billion for his 2000 Presidential campaign from Halliburton. At the time Chenney was CEO of Halliburton. Coincidence that Bush won 2000 election and Chenney became his vice-president? Another key staff of the Bush administration, Condoleezza Rice, named National Security Advisor to Bush was the former Manager of Chevron Oil. Wait...it gets better.
In 1997, Halliburton invited the T-men to their corporate headquarters in Texas to discuss an oil pipeline project.  Chenney at the time said that "Afghanistan was the most strategically significant region to them." In Feb. 1998, the T-men declined the US oil pipeline offer (remember what I said earlier that the T-men refused to be corrupted and they didn't take any bribes?). Thereupon VP of International Relations clearly urged the replacement of the Taliban government with one that was more acceptable to Halliburton. He argued that creation of a 42 inch oil pipeline across Afghanistan would yield them profit increase of 500% by 2015.
Not long after, in August of 1999, US began to wail to the world that the T-men's were terrorists. The US framed bombing US embassies in  Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In retaliation, Clinton mowed down all of Afghanistan with over 80 missiles. In Oct. of 1999 UN imposed sanctions on Afghanistan demanding the T-men to give up Osama bin Laden, who was supposedly a CIA-operative. Why didn't the UN sanction the US to return their agent?
When Bush became President in 2000 thanks to Halliburton's contributions, Laila Helms, the nice of CIA former CIA agent Richer Helms was the go-between US and Afghanistan. She was sent to negotiate the US pipeline project with the T-men. In May, 2001 US officially gave Afghanistan an ultimatum that "either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet of bombs." (Ref: Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie in the Forbidden Truth). We all know what happened in Sept. 2001. The Taliban were removed from government, Hamid Karzai took their place. Interestingly, Karzai was a corporation consultant for UNOCAL (Union Oil Company of California). Under Karzai of course the American dream pipeline was built. Not only did the US profit from the oil but also gained  406,700+ hectares of opium and a pretext to plunder Iraq.

Well, that is democracy for you! Its actually worse than dictatorships. At last Saddam Hussein didn't lie. He said he is going to attack Iran and Kuwait. He was straightforward with his reasons.  The democratic governments will give the average person just enough freedom to hang them with. Where do you find the most atheism and anarchic societies in the world? In democracies of course!  The phenomena of Satan worship and Satanic Bible originated in democratic countries. Don't believe me? The first Church of Satan was build in California, US. The first Satanic Bible written on donkey skin with blood is preserved as a centerpiece in some museum in Sweden. The highest interest rates, the highest crime rates, the highest depression and suicide rates are found only in democracies. La howla walla quwatta illa bilah. So why do we want Afghanistan to become a democracy again?
O Muslims, read Surah Naml and tell me what did Suleiman (a.s) say when he the bird informed him of the Kingdom of Sheba. Did he say, 'mashaAllah what free people, they worship the sun?' Or did he invite them to submit to Allah? Afghanistan needs Islam, the world needs Islam - not democracy! PS. Islam is submission to Allah whereas Democracy is submission to Shaytan and the desires of the nafs.

I wish there was a nicer way to present these sad truths of September. If everyone could just free ourselves from prejudice, against the T-men and against Islam, maybe we can see again the spectacular symphony of Fall colours. Perhaps if we turned off our TV sets and studied the Qur'an and studied history, we could understand that the events on 9/11 were only a farce and a sham. After this and only after this, September can beautiful again....