Headline News 23/03/2016

Headlines:

• Further Repression of Muslim Community in Europe
• Wars in Palmrya and Mosul
• Obama's Triumph in Latin America

Details:

Further Repression of Muslim Community in Europe

Again after the attacks in Brussels this week, the Belgium government is following what has become standard procedure in Western countries by cracking down on Muslim communities. France still continues its 'state of emergency' even several months after the Paris attacks, leading to thousands of raids on Muslim homes as well as closures of some mosques and businesses. French Prime Minister Manuel Valls while visiting Brussels called for European countries to "invest massively in their security systems".

The increasing repression of Muslims continues despite the opinion of many within the West that such measures only increase the so-called radicalisation of Muslims. In fact, in addition to creating a climate of fear and suppression for Muslims, the West's greater purpose is to increase radicalistion, not of Muslims but of their own populations, in order to further justify their imperialistic foreign policies. This is what they did with Communism and they are doing the same with Islam.

Wars in Palmrya and Mosul

America is expected to use the opinion generated from the attacks in Brussels to further bolster its wars in Syria and Iraq. The IS group is being attacked both in Palmyra and in Mosul but the difference in intensity of the two conflicts is an indication towards the American plan for the region.

The attack in Palymra is strong and intensive. It indicates the shift in Syria from consolidating control over major cities and moving towards the elimination of all anti-Assad groups in the rest of the country; significantly, these groups were excluded from the ceasefire agreement backed by the US and Russia. But the pace in Mosul is slow, indicating that America is following a particular sequence in bringing the region back under its control, and that the taking of the core area of the IS group is left to the final stage of its plan. In February, America's DIA Chief Lt Gen Vincent Stewart told a hearing in the US Congress, "We may be able to begin the operation ... but securing or taking Mosul is an extensive operation and not something I see in the next year or so".

America has invested extensive propaganda efforts against the IS group but its real purpose is the targeting of all Muslim leaderships that are genuinely opposed to Western interests. America will not strike IS directly in its core until all its other objectives in the region are achieved.

Obama's triumph in Latin America

Obama's visit to Argentina, with the centre-right leader, Mauricio Macri, immediately after his Cuban visit points to the real prize from normalisation with Cuba. American has been working hard to reassert its position in Latin America after the neglect of this region during the Bush administration, overburdened by its wars against Muslims. Latin America was swept with what became known as a 'Pink Tide' of moderate and hard left-wing governments, supported by an extraordinary commodities boom with unparalleled revenues distributed to the people under socialist programmes.

However, the Pink Tide was severely weakened by the death of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and the weakening of his successor, Nocolas Maduro, and other key Latin American left-wing leaders such as Bolivia's Evo Moralis and Brazil's Dilma Rousseff due to the collapse of world commodity prices. Throughout the region, right-wing elitist interests are rushing to take advantage of the economic weakness that left-wing socialist policies are unable to solve. Marcia's success in the recent Argentian elections, ending more than a decade of rule by the Kirchners, is one further example of this.

But America's blatantly irrational policy towards Cuba remained a key stumbling block, which the late Hugo Chavez had succeeded in making a focal point for Latin American anger towards the United States. The continued US-Cuba estrangement after the end of the Cold War had been due more to domestic US political concerns rather than from any significant threat from Cuba itself. The substantial politically-active Cuban immigrant population based around Miami, Florida fearful of the erosion of its special status still opposes normalisation with Cuba, and Republican leaders continue to attack Obama over this policy shift.

The recent history of Latin America provides many lessons for Muslims, including that economies cannot be sustained on commodity exports alone, that America is always actively working for its dominance in the world and that neither Capitalism nor Socialism are correct solutions for mankind.