Logo
    Search

    Are you O.K American Left? You went from being sceptical of your intelligence community to worshipping it.

    en-auJune 26, 2021

    About this Episode

    I was scrolling through my twitter feed and came across tweets where some (not all) American progressives were quoting their intelligence community to demonstrate how bad the former President of the United States, Donald Trump, was. The irony of these tweets isn’t lost on anyone. I was a child when America declared its war on terror and subsequently invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. At the time, I barely knew anything about the global geo-politics, but since then I would like to believe that I have learnt a fair-few things and I believe that although America was justified in invading Afghanistan, it should have left soon after neutralising the people who were responsible for 9/11. On the other hand, I do not believe Invasion of Iraq was justified at all, I know some people would say hindsight is 20/20, but if one recalls, there were people even back in 2002, 2003 who opposed the invasion of Iraq and in fact took to the streets to register their dissent against this invasion.

    If you remember, America under the Presidency of George W. Bush made a case for invasion of Iraq citing intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), since there were no WMDs found post invasion, many blamed the Bush administration for spinning the intelligence to persuade public opinion in favour of the war. However, on the 22 March 2019, almost 16 years after invasion of Iraq, an American journalist, Glenn Kessler in a Washington Post article titled “The Iraq War and WMDs: An intelligence failure or White House Spin?”, with regards to assertions by the Bush administration regarding Saddam’s nuclear capabilities concluded:

    Statements by the president, vice president, secretary of state and the national security advisor regarding a possible Iraqi nuclear weapons program were generally substantiated by the intelligence community, but did not convey the substantial disagreements”

    Also, if you remember, on the 5 February 2003, the then U.S Secretary of States, Colin Powell, delivered a presentation to the United Nations and on slide 20 of that presentation there were drawn up graphics or visuals showing how Iraq had the capability of producing biological weapons using something called “Mobile Production Facilities For Biological Agents”, and in these imaginary drawings, a twelve wheeler truck was depicted carrying some water tanks, that according to Powell could carry biological agents. With regards to these assertions by the Bush administration, Kessler states in the same article:

    Statements in the major speeches analyzed, as well as additional statements, regarding Iraq’s possession of biological agents, weapons, production capability and use of mobile biological laboratories were substantiated by intelligence information

    In an overall conclusion Kessler points out that:

    The intelligence community’s assessments on Iraq’s WMD stockpiles and programs turned out to be woefully wrong

    This is just an example of the colossal failure of American Intelligence Community and its flawed intelligence that led to invasion of Iraq, followed by significant destruction of not only Iraq but that whole region, because one can argue that the power vacuum that was created by toppling Saddam, directly led to the rise of extremists’ groups in that country and we all know the chaos that these groups caused, including the genocide of Yazidis in Iraq.

    Recent Episodes from The Hyat Report

    AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM - A GENERIC DISCUSSION

    AUSTRALIAN IMMIGRATION SYSTEM - A GENERIC DISCUSSION

    I recently hosted a space where my guest speaker and I discussed Australian Immigration System, it was a generic discussion ranging from how Australian in the recent past treated refugees who attempted to seek asylum but had come by boats to how both parties Liberals and Labour despite promising reforms in Parent visas, did not deliver  substantive change in that aspect. 

    MUSLIM WOMEN SOFT TARGETS IN INDIA AND CASE OF VANIA SHAIKH

    MUSLIM WOMEN SOFT TARGETS IN INDIA AND CASE OF VANIA SHAIKH

    Hi Everyone, so Today, I wanna talk about Vania Shaikh, a female dental student, a Muslim in India who was allegedly sexually harassed by a Hindu man, according to some reports on social media, Vania in fact protested against this harassment, however, she was allegedly physically assaulted for protesting by her abuser. This then led to vania committing suicide at her university or college campus.

     

    Now, before we get into how the Indian authorities are responding or not responding to this case or how Indian media is covering or not covering this story, I just wanna call out that anytime Muslims are persecuted anywhere in the world, be it in the east or the west, the usual narrative that is pushed is “human rights” or “women’s rights” or “let’s save Muslim women from Muslim men”. We saw this when Afghanistan was invaded, we saw this when Iraq was invaded, we saw this when the occupation of both Afghanistan and Iraq  was justified.

     

    When it comes to India, Muslims have been facing persecution since Britain’s colonisation of the sub-continent, however, it became really intense pretty much since 1947, which is the year when India got its independence. Since 1947, Muslims in India have faced numerous massacres, pogroms and riots and in each of these scenarios Muslim women were specifically targeted by the perpetrators of violence. 

     

    In light of this, I’d like to argue that the reason Muslim women face these atrocities is because the oppressors who in my opinion are filled with Anti-Muslim hatred and Islamophobia, want to humiliate Muslim men and this is not just applicable to India, but if you notice, this theory of mine can be applied to western liberal societies as well, where Muslim women are consistently demonised or in some cases even criminalised for their clothing. I think it’s very clear that these Anti-Muslim Islamophobes know that us Muslim men are very protective of our women and therefore, these people target our women to get to us or humiliate us.

     

    So let’s go back to India, where not long ago we saw how Muslim girls in the southern Indian state of Karnataka were targeted for wearing Hijab, they were barred from attending school, those girls then went to Karnataka High Court, which delivered a judgement barring Hijab, then they went to Supreme Court of India, which then delivered a split judgement meaning Hijab remains banned in those colleges of Karnataka even today. We also saw how recently convicted rapists of Bilkis Bano, a victim of Gujrat riots were released based on good behaviour. I mean…how can convicted rapists be released on good behaviour grounds? Not just this, but there is also consistent rhetoric from Hindu saints in India where they are riling up Hindu men to go after or target Muslim women. 

     

    In all of this, Muslims of India remain hopeful in the sense they still rely on their law enforcement agencies to potentially take action against these perpetrators, they still on their justice system to do the right thing. But in my opinion both Indian law enforcement and the justice system has failed Muslims of India not just once but over and over and over again. This then makes me that this is a system’s failure, that this is a systematic failure which the Indian Muslim leadership to a large extent still refuses to acknowledge. 

     

    Now coming back to Vania Shaikh, I think this crime stems from the fact that Hindu men in India are emboldened to go after and target Muslim women, because they know that they enjoy the immunity from the system that released rapists of Bilkis Bano on good behavioural grounds. So I absolutely think it is the liberal, secular system that is responsible for Muslim women being targeted without any consequences and I do not think that it is only one political party that is responsible for this, I think the silence from most other ‘secular’ parties in India on th

    IT'S NAIVE TO THINK THAT "PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS" IN INDIA STARTED IN 2014

    IT'S NAIVE TO THINK THAT "PERSECUTION OF MUSLIMS" IN INDIA STARTED IN 2014

    In this episode I talk about why it's a simplistic and a very naive argument to say that if the current government of India loses next elections then everything will be hunky dory for Muslims of India.

    In this episode, I list various events, where Muslims were the victims and these events took place under various regimes.