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“ This fascinating book should be required reading for all serious students”.
By Linda S. Heard
British political columnist specializing in Mid-East affairs. Cairo, Egypt
Latheef Farook has invested 34 years of news gathering as a reporter and editor to tell a story devoid of emotionalism or exaggeration. The author avoids conspiracy theories, preferring hard facts to illustrate how Muslims have been forced to endure decades of betrayal at the hands of invaders that have often conspired with their own corrupt, self-serving or cowardly leaders.
This fascinating and compelling book is one that I would have been proud to have written myself. It's a tale of the West's expansionist will to power and unfettered greed secreted under the guise of spreading freedom and democracy. It's an indictment of the United Nations, which has served as a tool to legitimize crimes perpetrated by the big powers, and illuminates Western hypocrisy and double standards in a ruthlessly honest fashion.
The following pages not only catalogue man's inhumanity to man in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kashmir, Algeria, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and India to date, it serves as a warning when the world stands at a crucial crossroads with the spectre of Samuel Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' in
danger of being realized.
The post September 11 2001 'War on Terror' has served to demonize the planet's 1.4 billion Muslims, and facilitate the Bush administration's rampage throughout the Middle East, the Gulf and beyond.
Today, Muslim communities in the US, Britain and Europe are being treated with suspicion and often naked hostility.
Hundreds, if not thousands, of Muslims have been rounded up and incarcerated without charge in secret US gulags around the world. Those 'detainees', that have been released speak of the disrespect with which their American jailors treated their holy book. Sections of the European media have thrown fuel on the flames by publishing despicable cartoon characterizations of the Prophet Mohammed in the name of free speech.
And even as the blatant lies that were used to oil the invasion of Iraq are well known and at a time when that ravished country stands on the brink of a possible civil war, the US and its sycophants are setting their sights on Iran. They haven't even bothered to come up with new pretexts. Why should they, when the supine Western media, which briefly emerged from its stupor to say its mea culpas over its Iraq reportage, reverts to disseminating government propaganda?
When will we ever learn? It is powerful works such as this, written via a prism of objectivity, that enable us to fit together the pieces of the jigsaw and truly see how hateful the big picture really is. Like recovering addicts, we must first recognize our mistakes and desire to change before we can hope to set things right. “ This fascinating book should be required reading for all serious students”.
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