The Pickle Jar
- Thread starter Dark Pickle
- Start date
SuN
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In William Faulkner's story "Raid," set in Alabama and Mississippi in the closing years of the Civil War, a white family becomes aware of a sudden, vast, nighttime migration through the scorched countryside. They can hear it and even smell it before they can see it; it's the black population voting with its feet and heading, so it fervently believes, for the river Jordan: "We couldn't see them and they did not see us; maybe they didn't even look, just walking fast in the dark with that panting, hurrying murmuring, going on … "
Northern Uganda is centered on the headstreams of the Nile rather than the Jordan, and is a strange place for me to find myself put in mind of Faulkner, but every evening at dusk the main town of Gulu starts to be inundated by a mass of frightened humanity, panting, hurrying, and murmuring as it moves urgently through the crepuscular hours. Most of the "night commuters," as they are known locally, are children. They leave their outlying villages and walk as many as eight kilometers to huddle for safety in the towns. And then, in the morning, often without breakfast and often without shoes, they walk all the way back again to get to their schools and their families. That's if the former have not been burned and the latter have not been butchered. These children are not running toward Jordan and the Lord; they are running for their lives from the "Lord's Resistance Army" (L.R.A.). This grotesque, zombie-like militia, which has abducted, enslaved, and brainwashed more than 20,000 children, is a kind of Christian Khmer Rouge and has for the past 19 years set a standard of cruelty and ruthlessness that—even in a region with a living memory of Idi Amin—has the power to strike the most vivid terror right into the heart and the other viscera.
A group of Ugandan children at a shelter in Gulu, where they will spend the night protected from L.R.A. abductors, 2005.
Here's what happens to the children who can't run fast enough, or who take the risk of sleeping in their huts in the bush. I am sitting in a rehab center, talking to young James, who is 11 and looks about 9. When he actually was nine and sleeping at home with his four brothers, the L.R.A. stormed his village and took the boys away. They were roped at the waist and menaced with bayonets to persuade them to confess what they could not know—the whereabouts of the Ugandan Army's soldiers. On the subsequent forced march, James underwent the twin forms of initiation practiced by the L.R.A. He was first savagely flogged with a wire lash and then made to take part in the murder of those children who had become too exhausted to walk any farther. "First we had to watch," he says. "Then we had to join in the beatings until they died." He was spared from having to do this to a member of his family, which is the L.R.A.'s preferred method of what it calls "registration." And he was spared from being made into a concubine or a sex slave, because the L.R.A. doesn't tolerate that kind of thing for boys. It is, after all, "faith-based." Excuse me, but it does have its standards.
Talking to James about the unimaginable ruin of his childhood, I notice that when I am speaking he stays stock-still, with something a bit dead behind his eyes. But when it comes his turn to tell his story, he immediately starts twisting about in his chair, rubbing his eyes and making waving gestures with his arms. The leader of the L.R.A., a former Catholic acolyte in his 40s named Joseph Kony, who now claims to be a spirit medium with a special mission to impose the Ten Commandments, knows what old Fagin knew: that little boys are nimble and malleable if you catch them young enough, and that they make good thieves and runners. Little James was marched all the way to Sudan, whose Muslim-extremist government offers shelter and aid—such an ecumenical spirit!—to the Christian fanatics. There he was put to work stealing food from neighboring villages, and digging and grinding cassava roots. Soon enough, he was given a submachine gun almost as big as himself. Had he not escaped during an ambush, he would have gotten big enough to be given a girl as well, to do with what he liked.
I drove out of Gulu—whose approach roads can be used only in the daytime—to a refugee camp nearer the Sudanese border. A few Ugandan shillings and a few packets of cigarettes procured me a Ugandan Army escort, who sat heavily armed in the back of the pickup truck. As I buckled my seat belt, the driver told me to unbuckle it in spite of the parlous condition of the road. "If you have to jump out," he said, "you will have to jump out very fast." That didn't make me feel much safer, but only days after I left, two Ugandan aid workers were murdered in daylight on these pitted, dusty highways. We bounced along until we hit Pabbo, where a collection of huts and shanties huddle together as if for protection. In this place are packed about 59,000 of the estimated 1.5 million "internally displaced persons" (I.D.P.'s) who have sought protection from the savagery of the L.R.A. Here, I had the slightly more awkward task of interviewing the female survivors of Joseph Kony's rolling Jonestown: a campaign of horror and superstition and indoctrination.
The women of Uganda are naturally modest and reserved, and it obviously involved an effort for them to tell their stories to a male European stranger. But they stood up as straight as spears and looked me right in the eye. Forced to carry heavy loads through the bush and viciously caned—up to 250 strokes—if they dropped anything. Given as gifts or prizes to men two or three times their age and compelled to bear children. Made to watch, and to join in, sessions of hideous punishment for those who tried to escape. Rose Atim, a young woman of bronze Nubian Nefertiti beauty, politely started her story by specifying her primary-school grade (grade five) at the time of her abduction. Her nostrils still flared with indignation when she spoke, whereas one of her fellow refugees, Jane Akello, a young lady with almost anthracite skin, was dull and dead-eyed and monotonous in her delivery. I was beginning to be able to distinguish symptoms. I felt a strong sense of indecency during these interviews, but this was mere squeamish self-indulgence on my part, since the women were anxious to relate the stories of their stolen and maimed childhoods. It was as if they had emerged from some harrowing voyage on the Underground Railroad.
Very few people, apart from his victims, have ever met or even seen the enslaving and child-stealing Joseph Kony, and the few pictures and films of him are amateur and indistinct. This very imprecision probably helps him to maintain his version of charisma. Here is what we know and (with the help of former captives and a Scotland Yard criminal profiler) what we speculate. Kony grew up in a Gulu Province village called Odek. He appointed himself the Lord's anointed prophet for the Acholi people of northern Uganda in 1987, and by the mid-90s was receiving arms and cash from Sudan. He probably suffers from multiple-personality disorder, and he takes his dreams for prophecies. He goes into trances in which he speaks into a tape recorder and plays back the resulting words as commands. He has helped himself to about 50 captives as "wives," claiming Old Testament authority for this (King Solomon had 700 spouses), often insisting—partly for biblical reasons and partly for the more banal reason of AIDS dread—that they be virgins. He used to anoint his followers with a holy oil mashed from indigenous shea-butter nuts, and now uses "holy water," which he tells his little disciples will make them invulnerable to bullets. He has claimed to be able to turn stones into hand grenades, and many of his devotees say that they have seen him do it. He warns any child tempted to run away that the baptismal fluids are visible to him forever and thus they can always be found again. (He can also identify many of his "children" by the pattern of lashes that they earned while under his tender care.) Signs of his disapproval include the cutting off of lips, noses, and breasts in the villages he raids and, to deter informers, a padlock driven through the upper and lower lips. This is the sort of deranged gang—flagellant, hysterical, fanatical, lethal, under-age—that an unfortunate traveler might have encountered on the roads of Europe during the Thirty Years' War or the last Crusade. "Yes," says Michael Oruni, director of the Gulu Children of War Rehabilitation Center, who works on deprogramming these feral kids, "children who have known pain know how to inflict it." We were sitting in a yard that contained, as well as some unreformed youngsters, four random babies crawling about in the dust. These had been found lying next to their panga-slashed mothers or else left behind when their mothers were marched away.
In October, the Lord of the Flies was hit, in his medieval redoubt, by a message from the 21st century. Joseph Kony and four other leaders of the L.R.A. were named in the first arrest warrants ever issued by the new International Criminal Court (I.C.C.). If that sounds like progress to you, then consider this. The whereabouts of Kony are already known: he openly uses a satellite phone from a base across the Ugandan border in southern Sudan. Like the United States, Sudan is not a signatory to the treaty that set up the I.C.C. And it has sponsored the L.R.A. because the Ugandan government—which is an I.C.C. signatory—has helped the people of southern Sudan fight against the theocracy in Khartoum, the same theocracy that has been sponsoring the genocide against Muslim black Africans in Darfur. Arrest warrants look pretty flimsy when set against ruthless cynicism of this depth and intensity. Kony has evidently made some kind of peace with his Sudanese Islamist patrons: in addition to his proclamation of the Ten Commandments, he once banned alcohol and announced that all pigs were unclean and that those who farm them, let alone eat them, were subject to death. So, unless he has undergone a conversion to Judaism in the wilderness, we can probably assume that he is repaying his murderous armorers and protectors.
I had a faintly nerve-racking drink with Francis Ongom, one of Kony's ex-officers, who defected only recently and who would not agree to be questioned about his own past crimes. "Kony has refused Sudan's request that he allow his soldiers to convert to Islam," said this hardened-looking man as he imbibed a Red Bull through a straw, "but he has found Bible justifications for killing witches, for killing pigs because of the story of the Gadarene swine, and for killing people because god did the same with Noah's flood and Sodom and Gomorrah." Nice to know that he is immersed in the Good Book.
The terrifying thing about such violence and cruelty is that only a few dedicated practitioners are required in order to paralyze everyone else with fear. I had a long meeting with Betty Bigombe, one of those staunch and beautiful women—it is so often the women—who have helped restore Uganda's pulse after decades of war and famine and tyranny and Ebola and West Nile fever and AIDS. She has been yelled at by Joseph Kony, humiliated by corrupt and hypocritical Sudanese "intermediaries," dissed by the Ugandan political elite, and shamefully ignored by the international "human rights" community. She still believes that an amnesty for Kony's unindicted commanders is possible, which will bring the L.R.A. children back from the bush, but she and thousands like her can always be outvoted by one brutalized schoolboy with a machete. We are being forced to watch yet another Darfur, in which the time supposedly set aside for negotiations is used by the killers and cleansers to complete their work.
A child's drawing of the L.R.A.'s attack on his village. Enlarge this photo.
The Acholi people of northern Uganda, who are the chief sufferers in all this, have to suffer everything twice. Their children are murdered or abducted and enslaved and then come back to murder and abduct and enslave even more children. Yet if the Ugandan Army were allowed to use extreme measures to destroy the L.R.A., the victims would be … Acholi children again. It must be nightmarish to know that any feral-child terrorist who is shot could be one of your own. "I and the public know," wrote W. H. Auden in perhaps his greatest poem, "September 1, 1939":
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
And that's what makes it so affecting and so upsetting to watch the "night commuter" children when they come scuttling and scampering into town as the sun departs from the sky. These schoolchildren have not yet had evil done to them, nor are they ready to inflict any evil. It's not too late for them, in other words.
I sat in the deepening gloom for a while with one small boy, Jimmy Opioh, whose age was 14. He spoke with an appalling gravity and realism about his mother's inability to pay school fees for himself and his brother both, about the fatigue and time-wasting of being constantly afraid and famished and continually on the run. In that absurd way that one does, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. His unhesitating answer was that he wanted to be a politician—he had his party, the Forum for Democratic Change, all picked out as well. I shamefacedly arranged, along with the admirable John Prendergast of the International Crisis Group, to get him the meager sum that would pay for his schooling, tried not to notice the hundreds of other eyes that were hungrily turned toward me in the darkness, wondered what the hell the actual politicians, here or there, were doing about his plight, and managed to get out of the night encampment just before the equatorial rains hit and washed most of the tents and groundsheets away.
SuN
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On October 6, 2005 it was announced by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that arrest warrants had been issued for five members of the Lord's Resistance Army for crimes against humanity following a sealed indictment. On the next day Ugandan defense minister Amama Mbabazi revealed that the warrants include Joseph Kony, his deputy Vincent Otti, and LRA commanders Raska Lukwiya, Okot Odiambo and Dominic Ongwen. According to spokesmen for the military, the Ugandan army killed Lukwiya on August 12, 2006.
A week later, on October 13, ICC Chief Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo released details on Kony's indictment. There are 33 charges, 12 counts are crimes against humanity, which include murder, enslavement, sexual enslavement and rape. There are another 21 counts of war crimes which include murder, cruel treatment of civilians, intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population, pillaging, inducing rape, and forced enlisting of children into the rebel ranks. Ocampo said that "Kony was abducting girls to offer them as rewards to his commanders."
The Ugandan military has attempted to kill Kony for most of the insurgency.
On July 31, 2006 Kony met with several cultural, political, and religious leaders from northern Uganda at his hideout in the Congolese forests to discuss the war. The following day, August 1, he crossed the border into Sudan to speak with Southern Sudan Vice President Riek Machar. Kony later told reporters that he would not be willing to stand trial at the ICC because he had not done anything wrong.
On November 12, 2006 Kony met Jan Egeland, the United Nations Undersecretary-General for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief. Kony told Reuters: "We don't have any children. We only have combatants."
On August 28, 2008, the United States Treasury Department placed Kony on its list of "Specially Designated Global Terrorists," a designation that carries financial and other penalties. It is unknown whether or not Kony has any assets that are affected by this designation.
On December 25, 2008, according to the United Nations peacekeeping force, rebels of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) allegedly massacred 189 people and abducted 120 children during a celebration sponsored by the Catholic church in Faradje, Democratic Republic of Congo. Congo's army, along with armed forces from Uganda and Sudan, launched raids against LRA rebels in December 2008 intended to disarm the LRA and end its rebellion.
SuN
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The Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (also spelled Ba'th or Baath which means "resurrection or renaissance"; Arabic: حزب البعث العربي الاشتراكي) is a political party in the Arab World advocating the related concepts of Arab nationalism, Pan-Arabism, and Arab socialism. It was founded in Damascus, Syria in 1940 by the Syrian intellectuals Michel Aflaq, and Salah al-Bitar, as a secular Arab nationalist movement opposed to Western imperialism in the Arab World, and seeking to unify all Arab countries in one state. In Arabic, Baʿath means "renaissance" or "resurrection", referring to Aflaq and al-Bitar's vision of 'resurrecting' the freedom and glory of the Arab Nation that had been destroyed by Ottoman, and Western imperialism (an idea covered in Michel Aflaq’s published works On The Way Of Resurrection).
Since its inception, the Ba'ath has functioned as a pan-Arab political party with branches in different Arab countries, but has only ever been in power in Syria and Iraq. The Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria on 8 March 1963 and has held a monopoly on political power since. Ba'athists also seized power in Iraq in 1963, but were later deposed by the Iraqi military. They re-gained power via a coup d'etat in July 1968, and remained the sole party of government until the 2003 Iraq invasion.
In 1955 a coup d'état by the military against the historical leadership of Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar led the Syrian and Iraqi parties to split into rival organizations – the Qotri (or Regionalist) Syria-based party being aligned with the Soviet Union, while the Qawmi (or Nationalist) Iraq-based party adopted a generally more centrist stance.[1] Both Ba'ath parties retained the same name and maintained parallel structures in the Arab World. After the coup, Aflaq fled to Brazil.
Inspired by the French Jacobin political doctrine linking national unity and social equity,[2] the motto of the Party is "Unity, Liberty, Socialism" (in Arabic wahda, hurriya, ishtirakiya). Unity refers to Arab unity, liberty emphasizes being free from foreign control and interference, and socialism refers to Arab socialism rather than to European socialism, or communism.
Today, the Ba'ath Party continues to govern Syria, however, the Party in Iraq was overthrown by the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and subsequently banned by the occupying Coalition Provisional Authority.
Arab nationalism had been influenced by 19th Century mainland European thinkers, notably conservative German philosophers such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte of the Königsberg University Kantian school.[3] and center-left French “Positivists” such as Auguste Comte and professor Ernest Renan of the Collège de France in Paris.[4] Tellingly, Baath party co-founders Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar both studied at the Sorbonne in the early 1930s, at a time when center-left Positivism was still the dominant ideology amongst France’s academic elite.
The “Kulturnation” concept of Johann Gottfried Herder and the Grimm Brothers had a certain impact. Kulturnation defines a nationality more by a common cultural tradition and popular folklore than by national, political or religious boundaries and was considered by some as being more suitable for the German, Arab or Ottoman and Turkic countries.
Germany was seen as an anti-colonial power and friend of the Arab world; cultural and economic exchange and infrastructure projects as the Baghdad Railway supported that impression. According to Paul Berman, one of the early Arab nationalist thinkers Sati' al-Husri was influenced by Fichte, a German philosopher and Nazi precursor, famous for his nation state socialism economic concepts, his antisemitic stance and his important influence on the German unification movement.
The Ba'ath party also had a significant number of Christian Arabs among its founding members. For them, most prominently Michel Aflaq, a resolutely nationalist and secular political framework was a suitable way to evade faith-based minority status and to get full acknowledgement as citizens. Also, during General Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's short-lived anti-British military coup in 1941, Iraq-based Arab nationalists (Sunni Muslims as well as Chaldean Christians) asked the Germany government to support them against British colonial rule.
After 1948, the traditional Arab Muslim elite failed to prevent the founding of Israel and was not able to provide welfare and administrative standards comparable to the western world. The secular and highly disciplined Ba'ath movement was seen as less corrupt and better organized. In multi-ethnic, multi-faith and highly divergent countries like Iraq and Syria, the Ba'ath concept allowed non-Muslims, as well as secular-minded Sunni and Shia Muslims to work under one common roof.[5] The mentioning of a socialist stance allowed as well for a closer cooperation with the Soviet Union after 1945. Starting with the 1960s, the GDA had a stronger military involvement in Syria as well.
Although Aflaq gave "unity" the priority among the party's objectives, he also stressed on democracy and liberties. He writes: "The solution of the Arabs today is in unity and their road for achieving unity is through democracy".[6]
[edit] Structure
The Ba'ath Party was created as a cell-based organization, with an emphasis on withstanding government repression and infiltration. Hierarchical lines of command ran from top to bottom, and members were forbidden to initiate contacts between groups on the same level of organization; all contacts had to pass through a higher command level. This made the party somewhat unwieldy, but helped prevent the formation of factions and cordoned off members from each other, making the party very difficult to infiltrate, as even members would not know the identity of many other Ba'athists. As the U.S. and its allies discovered in Iraq in 2003, the cell structure has also made the Party highly resilient as an armed resistance organization.
A peculiarity stemming from its Arab unity ideology is the fact that it has always been intended to operate on a pan-Arab level, joined together by a supreme National Command, which is to serve as a party leadership for branches throughout the Arab world.
From its lowest organizational level, the cell, to the highest, the National Command, the party is structured as follows:
* The Party Cell or Circle, composed of three to seven members, constitutes the basic organisational unit of the Ba'ath Party. There are two sorts of Cells: Member Cells and Supporter Cells. The latter consist of candidate members, who are being gradually introduced into Party work without being allowed membership privileges or knowledge of the party apparatus; at the same time, they are expected to follow all orders passed down to them by the full member that acts as the contact for their Cell. This serves both to prevent infiltration and to train and screen Party cadres. Cells functioned at the neighborhood, workplace or village level, where members would meet to discuss and execute party directives introduced from above.
* A Party Division comprises two to seven Cells, controlled by a Division Commander. Such Ba'athist groups occur throughout the bureaucracy and the military, where they function as the Party’s watchdog, an effective form of covert surveillance within a public administration.
* A Party Section, which comprises two to five Divisions, functions at the level of a large city quarter, a town, or a rural district.
* The Branch comes above the Sections; it comprises at least two sections, and operates at the provincial level and also, at least in Syria, with one Branch each in the country's four universities.
* The Regional Congress, which combines all the branches, was set up to elect the Regional Command as the core of the Party leadership and top decision-making mechanism, even if this later changed to an appointive procedure in Syria. A "Region" (quṭr), in Ba'athist parlance, is an Arab state, such as Syria or Iraq or Lebanon, reflecting the Party's refusal to acknowledge them as nation-states.
* The National Command of the Ba'ath Party ranked over the Regional Commands. Until the 1960s, it formed the highest policy-making and coordinating council for the Ba'ath movement throughout the Arab world at large in both theory and practice. However, from 1966, there has existed two rival National Commands for the Ba'ath Party, both largely ceremonial, after the Iraqi and Syrian Regional Commands entered into conflict and set up puppet National Commands in order to further their rival claims to represent the original party.
[edit] The Ba'ath in Syria, 1954–1963
Syrian politics took a dramatic turn in 1954 when the military regime of Adib al-Shishakli was overthrown and a democratic system restored. The Ba'ath, now a large and popular organisation, gained representation in the parliamentary elections that year. Ideologically-based organisations appealing to the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie and the working class were gaining ground in Syria, threatening to displace the old parties that represented the notables and bourgeoisie. The Ba'ath was one of these new formations, but faced considerable competition from ideological enemies, notably the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), which was intrinsically opposed to Arab nationalism and was portrayed by the Ba'ath as pro-Western, and the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), whose support for class struggle and internationalism was also anathema to the Ba'ath. In addition to the parliamentary level, all these parties as well as Islamists competed in street-level activity and sought to recruit support among the military.
The assassination of Ba'athist colonel Adnan al-Malki by a member of the SSNP allowed the Ba'ath and its allies to launch a crackdown on that party, thus eliminating one rival, but by the late 1950s, the Ba'ath itself was facing considerable problems, riven by factionalism and faced with ideological confusion among its base. The growth of the Communist Party was also a major threat. These considerations undoubtedly contributed to the party’s decision to support unification with Nasser’s Egypt in 1958, an extremely popular position in any case. In 1958, Syria merged with Egypt in the United Arab Republic. As political parties other than Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union were not permitted to operate, the Ba'th along with Syria’s other parties faced the choice of dissolution or suppression.
In August 1959, the Ba'ath Party held a congress which, in line with Aflaq’s views, approved of its liquidation into the Arab Socialist Union. This decision was not universally accepted in party ranks, however many dissented and the following year a fourth party congress was convened which reversed it.
Meanwhile, a small group of Syrian Ba'athist officers stationed in Egypt were observing with alarm the party’s poor position and the increasing fragility of the union. They decided to form a secret military committee: its initial members were Lieutenant-Colonel Muhammad 'Umran, majors Salah Jadid and Ahmad al-Mir, and captains Hafiz al-Asad and 'Abd al-Karim al-Jundi.
The merger was not a happy experience for Syria, and in 1961, a military coup in Damascus brought it to an end. Sixteen prominent politicians signed a statement supporting the coup, among them al-Hurani and al-Bitar (although the latter soon retracted his signature). The party was in crisis: the secession was extremely controversial among Syrians in general and most unpopular among the radical nationalists who formed the Ba'ath membership. A large section of the membership left in protest, setting up the Socialist Unity Vanguard and gaining considerable support. The leadership around Aflaq was bitterly contested for its timidity in opposing the separation. Al-Hawrani, now a determined opponent of reunification, left the Ba'ath and re-established his Arab Socialist Party.
Aflaq sought to reactivate the splintered party by calling a Fifth National Congress held in Hims in May 1962, from which both al-Hawrani’s supporters and the Socialist Unity Vanguard were excluded. A compromise was reached between the pro-Nasser elements and the more cautious leadership. The leadership line was reflected in the position the congress adopted in favour of "considered unity" as opposed to the demands for "immediate unity" launched by the Socialist Unity Vanguard (later the Socialist Unity Movement), the Nasserists and the Arab Nationalist Movement. Meanwhile the Syrian party’s secret Military Committee was also planning how to take power, having been granted considerable freedom of action by the civilian leadership in recognition of its need for secrecy.
[edit] The Ba'ath takes power in Syria and Iraq, 1963
In February 1963, the Iraqi Ba'ath took power after violently overthrowing Abd al-Karim Qasim and quashing communist-led resistance.
That same year, the Syrian party’s military committee succeeded in persuading Nasserist and independent officers to make common cause with it, and they successfully carried out a military coup on 8 March. A National Revolutionary Command Council took control and assigned itself legislative power; it appointed Salah al-Din al-Bitar as head of a "national front" government. The Ba'ath participated in this government along with the Arab Nationalist Movement, the United Arab Front and the Socialist Unity Movement.
As historian Hanna Batatu notes, this took place without the fundamental disagreement over immediate or "considered" reunification having been resolved. The Ba'ath moved to consolidate its power within the new regime, purging Nasserist officers in April. Subsequent disturbances led to the fall of the al-Bitar government, and in the aftermath of Jasim Alwan’s failed Nasserist coup in July, the Ba'ath monopolized power.
[edit] Ideological transformation and division, 1963–1968
The challenges of building a Ba'athist state led to considerable ideological discussion and internal struggle in the party. The Iraqi party was increasingly dominated by Ali Salih al-Sa'di, an unsophisticated thinker according to Batatu, who took a hardline leftist approach, declaring himself a Marxist. He gained support in this from Syrian regional secretary Hamoud el Choufi and from Yasin al-Hafiz, one of the party’s few ideological theorists. Some members of the secret military committee also sympathized with this line.
The far-left tendency gained control at the party’s Sixth National Congress of 1963, where hardliners from the dominant Syrian and Iraqi regional parties joined forces to impose a hard left line, calling for "socialist planning", "collective farms run by peasants", "workers' democratic control of the means of production", a party based on workers and peasants, and other demands reflecting a certain emulation of Soviet-style socialism. In a coded attack on Aflaq, the congress also condemned "ideological notability" within the party (Batatu, p. 1020). Aflaq, bitterly angry at this transformation of his party, retained a nominal leadership role, but the National Command as a whole came under the control of the radicals.
The volte-face was received with anger by elements in the Iraqi party, which suffered considerable internal division. The Nationalist Guard, a paramilitary unit which had been extremely effective, and extremely brutal, in suppressing opposition to the new regime, supported al-Sa'di, as did the Ba'athist Federation of Students, the Union of Workers, and most party members. Most of its members among the military officer corps was opposed, as was President Abd al-Salam 'Arif. Coup and counter-coup ensued within the party, whose factions did not shrink from employing the military in settling their internal differences. This eventually allowed 'Arif to take control and eliminate Ba'thist power in Iraq for the time being.
After disposing of its Nasserist rivals in 1963, the Ba'ath functioned as the only officially recognized Syrian political party, but factionalism and splintering within the party led to a succession of governments and new constitutions. On 23 February 1966, a bloody coup d'état led by right wing extremists, a radical Ba'athist faction headed by Chief of Staff Salah Jadid, overthrew the Syrian Government. A late warning telegram of the coup d'état was sent from President Gamal Abdel Nasser to Nasim Al Safarjalani (The General Secretary of Presidential Council), on the early morning of the coup d'état. The coup sprung out of factional rivalry between Jadid's "regionalist" (qutri) camp of the Ba'ath Party, which promoted ambitions for a Greater Syria and the more traditionally pan-Arab, in power faction, called the "nationalist" (qawmi) faction. Jadid's supporters were also seen as more radically right-wing. Several Ba'ath leaders were sentenced to death in absentia by a special military court headed by later Syrian Defence Minister, Mustafa Tlass, and Interim Syrian President and Vice President of Syria Abdul Halim Khaddam, as prosecutor. Many managed to make their escape and flee to Beirut. The extrenest Ba'ath wing led by Salah Jadid took power, and set the party out on a more radical line. Although they had not been supporters of the victorious far-left line at the Sixth Party Congress, they had now moved to adopt its positions and displaced the more moderate wing in power, purging from the party its original founders, Aflaq and al-Bitar.
The Syrian Ba'ath and the Iraqi Ba'ath were by now two separate parties, each maintaining that it was the genuine party and electing a National Command to take charge of the party across the Arab world. However, in Syria, the Regional Command was the real centre of party power, and the membership of the National Command was a largely honorary position, often the destination of figures being eased out of the leadership.
At this juncture, the Syrian Ba'ath party split into two factions: the 'progressive' faction, led by President and Regional Secretary Nureddin al-Atassi gave priority to the radical Marxist-influenced line the Ba'ath was pursuing, but was closely linked to the security forces of Deputy Secretary Salah Jadid, the country's strongman from 1966. This faction was strongly preoccupied with what it termed the "Socialist transformation" in Syria, ordering large-scale nationalization of economic assets and agrarian reform. It favored an equally radical approach in external affairs, and condemned "reactionary" Arab regimes while preaching "people's war" against Israel; this led to Syria's virtual isolation even within the Arab world. The other faction, which came to dominate the armed forces, was headed by Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad. He took a more pragmatic political line, viewing reconciliation with the conservative Arab states, notably Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as essential for Syria’s strategic position regardless of their political color. He also called for reversing some of the socialist economic measures and for allowing a limited role for non-Ba'athist political parties in state and society.
Despite constant maneuvering and government changes, the two factions remained in an uneasy coalition of power. After the 1967 Six-Day War, tensions increased, and Assad's faction strengthened its hold on the military; from late 1968, it began dismantling Salah Jadid's support networks, facing ineffectual resistance from the civilian branch of the party that remained under his control. This duality of power persisted until November 1970, when, in another coup, Assad succeeded in ousting Atassi as prime minister and imprisoned both him and Jadid. He then set upon a project of rapid institution-building, reopening parliament and adopting a permanent constitution for the country, which had been ruled by military fiat or provisional constitutional documents since 1963. The Ba'ath Party was turned into a patronage network closely intertwined with the bureaucracy, and soon became virtually indistinguishable from the state, while membership numbers were increased to well over one million (reflecting both a conscious desire to turn the previous vanguard party into a regime-supporting mass organization, and the fact that party membership was now vital to advancement in many sectors). The party simultaneously lost its independence from the state, and was turned into a tool of the Assad regime, which remained based essentially in the security forces. Other socialist parties that accepted the basic orientation of the regime were permitted to operate again, and in 1972 the National Progressive Front was established as a coalition of these legal parties; however, they were only permitted to act as junior partners to the Ba'ath, with very little room for independent organization.
During the factional struggles of the 1960s, three breakout factions from the party had emerged. A pro-Nasser group split from the party at the breakup of union with Egypt in 1961, and later became the Socialist Unionists' party. This group later splintered several times, but one branch of the movement was coopted by the Ba'ath into the National Progressive Front, and remains in existence as a very minor pro-regime organization. The far-left line of Yasin al-Hafiz, which had impressed Marxist influences on the party in 1963, broke off the following year to form what later became the Revolutionary Workers' Party, while Jadid's and Atassi's wing of the organization reunited as the clandestine Arab Socialist Democratic Ba'ath Party. Both the latter organizations in 1979 joined an opposition coalition called the National Democratic Gathering.
Hafez al-Assad, one of the longest-ruling leaders of the modern Arab world, remained as president of Syria until his death in 2000, when his son Bashar al Assad succeeded him as President and as Regional and National Secretary of the party. Since then, the party has experienced an important generational shift, and a discreet ideological reorientation decreasing the emphasis on socialist planning in the economy, but no significant changes have taken place in its relation to the state and state power. It remains essentially a patronage and supervisory tool of the regime elite.
The Ba'ath today holds 134 of the 250 seats in the Syrian Parliament, a figure which is dictated by election regulations rather than by voting patterns, and the Syrian Constitution stipulates that it is "the leading party of society and state", granting it a legally enforced monopoly on real political power.
[edit] The party outside Syria
Through its Damascus-based National Command, the Syrian Ba'th Party has branches in Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan, Iraq (currently split into two factions),[citation needed] etc., although none of the non-Syrian branches have any major strength. Among the Palestinians, as-Sa'iqa, a member organization of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, is the Syrian Ba'ath party branch.
[edit] The Iraq-based Ba'ath Party
[edit] History
Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959-63.
In Iraq, the Ba'ath party remained a civilian group and lacked strong support within the military. The party had little impact, and the movement split into several factions after 1958 and again in 1966. The movement was reported to have lacked strong popular support,[7] but through the construction of a strong party apparatus the party succeeded in gaining power.
The Ba'athists first came to power in the coup of February 1963, when Abd al-Salam 'Arif became president. Interference from the historic leadership around Aflaq and disputes between the moderates and extremists, culminating in an attempted coup by the latter in November 1963, served to discredit the party. After Arif’s takeover in November 1963, the moderate military Ba'athist officers initially retained some influence but were gradually eased out of power over the following months.
In July 1968, a bloodless coup led by General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, Saddam Hussein and Salah Omar Al-Ali brought the Ba'ath Party back to power. Wranglings within the party continued, and the government periodically purged its dissident members. Emerging as a party strongman, Saddam Hussein eventually used his growing power to push al-Bakr aside in 1979 and ruled Iraq until 2003. Although almost all the Ba'athist leadership had no military background, under Hussein the party changed dramatically and became heavily militarized, with its leading members frequently appearing in uniform.
[edit] Post-Saddam
In June 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority banned the Ba'ath party. Some criticize the additional step the CPA took—of banning all members of the top four tiers of the Ba'ath Party from the new government, as well as from public schools and colleges—as blocking too many experienced people from participation in the new government. Thousands were removed from their positions, including doctors, professors, school teachers, bureaucrats and more. Many teachers lost their jobs, causing protests and demonstrations at schools and universities. Under the previous rule of the Ba'ath party, one could not reach high positions in the government or in the schools without becoming a party member. In fact, party membership was a prerequisite for university admission. In other words, while many Ba'athists joined for ideological reasons, many more were members because it was a way to better their options. After much pressure by the US, the policy of deba'athification was addressed by the Iraqi government in January, 2008 in the highly controversial "Accountability and Justice Act" which was supposed to ease the policy, but which many feared would actually lead to further dismissals.[8]
The new Constitution of Iraq approved by a referendum on October 15, 2005, reaffirmed the Ba'ath party ban, stating that:
"No entity or program, under any name, may adopt racism, terrorism, the calling of others infidels, ethnic cleansing, or incite, facilitate, glorify, promote, or justify thereto, especially the Saddamist Baath in Iraq and its symbols, regardless of the name that it adopts. This may not be part of the political pluralism in Iraq."
On December 17, 2008, the New York Times reported that up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general had been arrested over the three previous days accused of quietly working to reconstitute the Ba'ath Party.[9][10]
[edit] The party outside Iraq
The Iraq-based Ba'ath Party had branches in various Arab countries, such as Lebanon, Mauritania and Jordan. After the fall of the Saddam government, some branches have distanced themselves from the central party, such as the branches in Yemen and Sudan.
In Lebanon, the party is led by former Sunni MP for Tripoli, Abdul-Majeed Al-Rafei.
In Yemen, the 'Qawmi'/pro-Saddam branch of the Ba'ath party is led by Dr. Qasim Sallam (former MP for the district of Ta'izz), a US-educated philosopher author of "The Baath and the Arab homeland" (1980).
The party works amongst the Palestinians directly through the Arab Liberation Front (known as ALF or Jabhat al-Tahrir al-'Arabiyah) founded by Zeid Heidar, and indirectly through the relatively small pro-Iraqi wing of Fatah formerly led by Khaled Yashruti. ALF formed the major Palestinian political faction in Iraq during the Saddam years. It is numerically small, but gained some prominence due to the support given to it by the Iraqi government. It is a member organization of PLO.
In Bahrain, Rasul al-Jeshy leads the local pro-Saddam faction of the Ba'ath Party, the secular Nationalist Democratic Rally Society (Jami'at al-Tajammu' al-Qawmi al-Dimuqrati), which in an alliance with Shiite Islamists opposes the Bahrain government’s economic policies.
An Iraq-oriented Ba'ath Party branch led by exiled Ba'ath party co-founder Salah ad-Din al-Bitar and Gen. Amin Hafiz formerly existed in Syria, which the Syrian government severely repressed.
Since its inception, the Ba'ath has functioned as a pan-Arab political party with branches in different Arab countries, but has only ever been in power in Syria and Iraq. The Ba'ath Party came to power in Syria on 8 March 1963 and has held a monopoly on political power since. Ba'athists also seized power in Iraq in 1963, but were later deposed by the Iraqi military. They re-gained power via a coup d'etat in July 1968, and remained the sole party of government until the 2003 Iraq invasion.
In 1955 a coup d'état by the military against the historical leadership of Michel Aflaq and Salah Bitar led the Syrian and Iraqi parties to split into rival organizations – the Qotri (or Regionalist) Syria-based party being aligned with the Soviet Union, while the Qawmi (or Nationalist) Iraq-based party adopted a generally more centrist stance.[1] Both Ba'ath parties retained the same name and maintained parallel structures in the Arab World. After the coup, Aflaq fled to Brazil.
Inspired by the French Jacobin political doctrine linking national unity and social equity,[2] the motto of the Party is "Unity, Liberty, Socialism" (in Arabic wahda, hurriya, ishtirakiya). Unity refers to Arab unity, liberty emphasizes being free from foreign control and interference, and socialism refers to Arab socialism rather than to European socialism, or communism.
Today, the Ba'ath Party continues to govern Syria, however, the Party in Iraq was overthrown by the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and subsequently banned by the occupying Coalition Provisional Authority.
Arab nationalism had been influenced by 19th Century mainland European thinkers, notably conservative German philosophers such as Johann Gottlieb Fichte of the Königsberg University Kantian school.[3] and center-left French “Positivists” such as Auguste Comte and professor Ernest Renan of the Collège de France in Paris.[4] Tellingly, Baath party co-founders Michel Aflaq and Salah al-Bitar both studied at the Sorbonne in the early 1930s, at a time when center-left Positivism was still the dominant ideology amongst France’s academic elite.
The “Kulturnation” concept of Johann Gottfried Herder and the Grimm Brothers had a certain impact. Kulturnation defines a nationality more by a common cultural tradition and popular folklore than by national, political or religious boundaries and was considered by some as being more suitable for the German, Arab or Ottoman and Turkic countries.
Germany was seen as an anti-colonial power and friend of the Arab world; cultural and economic exchange and infrastructure projects as the Baghdad Railway supported that impression. According to Paul Berman, one of the early Arab nationalist thinkers Sati' al-Husri was influenced by Fichte, a German philosopher and Nazi precursor, famous for his nation state socialism economic concepts, his antisemitic stance and his important influence on the German unification movement.
The Ba'ath party also had a significant number of Christian Arabs among its founding members. For them, most prominently Michel Aflaq, a resolutely nationalist and secular political framework was a suitable way to evade faith-based minority status and to get full acknowledgement as citizens. Also, during General Rashid Ali al-Gaylani's short-lived anti-British military coup in 1941, Iraq-based Arab nationalists (Sunni Muslims as well as Chaldean Christians) asked the Germany government to support them against British colonial rule.
After 1948, the traditional Arab Muslim elite failed to prevent the founding of Israel and was not able to provide welfare and administrative standards comparable to the western world. The secular and highly disciplined Ba'ath movement was seen as less corrupt and better organized. In multi-ethnic, multi-faith and highly divergent countries like Iraq and Syria, the Ba'ath concept allowed non-Muslims, as well as secular-minded Sunni and Shia Muslims to work under one common roof.[5] The mentioning of a socialist stance allowed as well for a closer cooperation with the Soviet Union after 1945. Starting with the 1960s, the GDA had a stronger military involvement in Syria as well.
Although Aflaq gave "unity" the priority among the party's objectives, he also stressed on democracy and liberties. He writes: "The solution of the Arabs today is in unity and their road for achieving unity is through democracy".[6]
[edit] Structure
The Ba'ath Party was created as a cell-based organization, with an emphasis on withstanding government repression and infiltration. Hierarchical lines of command ran from top to bottom, and members were forbidden to initiate contacts between groups on the same level of organization; all contacts had to pass through a higher command level. This made the party somewhat unwieldy, but helped prevent the formation of factions and cordoned off members from each other, making the party very difficult to infiltrate, as even members would not know the identity of many other Ba'athists. As the U.S. and its allies discovered in Iraq in 2003, the cell structure has also made the Party highly resilient as an armed resistance organization.
A peculiarity stemming from its Arab unity ideology is the fact that it has always been intended to operate on a pan-Arab level, joined together by a supreme National Command, which is to serve as a party leadership for branches throughout the Arab world.
From its lowest organizational level, the cell, to the highest, the National Command, the party is structured as follows:
* The Party Cell or Circle, composed of three to seven members, constitutes the basic organisational unit of the Ba'ath Party. There are two sorts of Cells: Member Cells and Supporter Cells. The latter consist of candidate members, who are being gradually introduced into Party work without being allowed membership privileges or knowledge of the party apparatus; at the same time, they are expected to follow all orders passed down to them by the full member that acts as the contact for their Cell. This serves both to prevent infiltration and to train and screen Party cadres. Cells functioned at the neighborhood, workplace or village level, where members would meet to discuss and execute party directives introduced from above.
* A Party Division comprises two to seven Cells, controlled by a Division Commander. Such Ba'athist groups occur throughout the bureaucracy and the military, where they function as the Party’s watchdog, an effective form of covert surveillance within a public administration.
* A Party Section, which comprises two to five Divisions, functions at the level of a large city quarter, a town, or a rural district.
* The Branch comes above the Sections; it comprises at least two sections, and operates at the provincial level and also, at least in Syria, with one Branch each in the country's four universities.
* The Regional Congress, which combines all the branches, was set up to elect the Regional Command as the core of the Party leadership and top decision-making mechanism, even if this later changed to an appointive procedure in Syria. A "Region" (quṭr), in Ba'athist parlance, is an Arab state, such as Syria or Iraq or Lebanon, reflecting the Party's refusal to acknowledge them as nation-states.
* The National Command of the Ba'ath Party ranked over the Regional Commands. Until the 1960s, it formed the highest policy-making and coordinating council for the Ba'ath movement throughout the Arab world at large in both theory and practice. However, from 1966, there has existed two rival National Commands for the Ba'ath Party, both largely ceremonial, after the Iraqi and Syrian Regional Commands entered into conflict and set up puppet National Commands in order to further their rival claims to represent the original party.
[edit] The Ba'ath in Syria, 1954–1963
Syrian politics took a dramatic turn in 1954 when the military regime of Adib al-Shishakli was overthrown and a democratic system restored. The Ba'ath, now a large and popular organisation, gained representation in the parliamentary elections that year. Ideologically-based organisations appealing to the intelligentsia, the petty bourgeoisie and the working class were gaining ground in Syria, threatening to displace the old parties that represented the notables and bourgeoisie. The Ba'ath was one of these new formations, but faced considerable competition from ideological enemies, notably the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), which was intrinsically opposed to Arab nationalism and was portrayed by the Ba'ath as pro-Western, and the Syrian Communist Party (SCP), whose support for class struggle and internationalism was also anathema to the Ba'ath. In addition to the parliamentary level, all these parties as well as Islamists competed in street-level activity and sought to recruit support among the military.
The assassination of Ba'athist colonel Adnan al-Malki by a member of the SSNP allowed the Ba'ath and its allies to launch a crackdown on that party, thus eliminating one rival, but by the late 1950s, the Ba'ath itself was facing considerable problems, riven by factionalism and faced with ideological confusion among its base. The growth of the Communist Party was also a major threat. These considerations undoubtedly contributed to the party’s decision to support unification with Nasser’s Egypt in 1958, an extremely popular position in any case. In 1958, Syria merged with Egypt in the United Arab Republic. As political parties other than Nasser’s Arab Socialist Union were not permitted to operate, the Ba'th along with Syria’s other parties faced the choice of dissolution or suppression.
In August 1959, the Ba'ath Party held a congress which, in line with Aflaq’s views, approved of its liquidation into the Arab Socialist Union. This decision was not universally accepted in party ranks, however many dissented and the following year a fourth party congress was convened which reversed it.
Meanwhile, a small group of Syrian Ba'athist officers stationed in Egypt were observing with alarm the party’s poor position and the increasing fragility of the union. They decided to form a secret military committee: its initial members were Lieutenant-Colonel Muhammad 'Umran, majors Salah Jadid and Ahmad al-Mir, and captains Hafiz al-Asad and 'Abd al-Karim al-Jundi.
The merger was not a happy experience for Syria, and in 1961, a military coup in Damascus brought it to an end. Sixteen prominent politicians signed a statement supporting the coup, among them al-Hurani and al-Bitar (although the latter soon retracted his signature). The party was in crisis: the secession was extremely controversial among Syrians in general and most unpopular among the radical nationalists who formed the Ba'ath membership. A large section of the membership left in protest, setting up the Socialist Unity Vanguard and gaining considerable support. The leadership around Aflaq was bitterly contested for its timidity in opposing the separation. Al-Hawrani, now a determined opponent of reunification, left the Ba'ath and re-established his Arab Socialist Party.
Aflaq sought to reactivate the splintered party by calling a Fifth National Congress held in Hims in May 1962, from which both al-Hawrani’s supporters and the Socialist Unity Vanguard were excluded. A compromise was reached between the pro-Nasser elements and the more cautious leadership. The leadership line was reflected in the position the congress adopted in favour of "considered unity" as opposed to the demands for "immediate unity" launched by the Socialist Unity Vanguard (later the Socialist Unity Movement), the Nasserists and the Arab Nationalist Movement. Meanwhile the Syrian party’s secret Military Committee was also planning how to take power, having been granted considerable freedom of action by the civilian leadership in recognition of its need for secrecy.
[edit] The Ba'ath takes power in Syria and Iraq, 1963
In February 1963, the Iraqi Ba'ath took power after violently overthrowing Abd al-Karim Qasim and quashing communist-led resistance.
That same year, the Syrian party’s military committee succeeded in persuading Nasserist and independent officers to make common cause with it, and they successfully carried out a military coup on 8 March. A National Revolutionary Command Council took control and assigned itself legislative power; it appointed Salah al-Din al-Bitar as head of a "national front" government. The Ba'ath participated in this government along with the Arab Nationalist Movement, the United Arab Front and the Socialist Unity Movement.
As historian Hanna Batatu notes, this took place without the fundamental disagreement over immediate or "considered" reunification having been resolved. The Ba'ath moved to consolidate its power within the new regime, purging Nasserist officers in April. Subsequent disturbances led to the fall of the al-Bitar government, and in the aftermath of Jasim Alwan’s failed Nasserist coup in July, the Ba'ath monopolized power.
[edit] Ideological transformation and division, 1963–1968
The challenges of building a Ba'athist state led to considerable ideological discussion and internal struggle in the party. The Iraqi party was increasingly dominated by Ali Salih al-Sa'di, an unsophisticated thinker according to Batatu, who took a hardline leftist approach, declaring himself a Marxist. He gained support in this from Syrian regional secretary Hamoud el Choufi and from Yasin al-Hafiz, one of the party’s few ideological theorists. Some members of the secret military committee also sympathized with this line.
The far-left tendency gained control at the party’s Sixth National Congress of 1963, where hardliners from the dominant Syrian and Iraqi regional parties joined forces to impose a hard left line, calling for "socialist planning", "collective farms run by peasants", "workers' democratic control of the means of production", a party based on workers and peasants, and other demands reflecting a certain emulation of Soviet-style socialism. In a coded attack on Aflaq, the congress also condemned "ideological notability" within the party (Batatu, p. 1020). Aflaq, bitterly angry at this transformation of his party, retained a nominal leadership role, but the National Command as a whole came under the control of the radicals.
The volte-face was received with anger by elements in the Iraqi party, which suffered considerable internal division. The Nationalist Guard, a paramilitary unit which had been extremely effective, and extremely brutal, in suppressing opposition to the new regime, supported al-Sa'di, as did the Ba'athist Federation of Students, the Union of Workers, and most party members. Most of its members among the military officer corps was opposed, as was President Abd al-Salam 'Arif. Coup and counter-coup ensued within the party, whose factions did not shrink from employing the military in settling their internal differences. This eventually allowed 'Arif to take control and eliminate Ba'thist power in Iraq for the time being.
After disposing of its Nasserist rivals in 1963, the Ba'ath functioned as the only officially recognized Syrian political party, but factionalism and splintering within the party led to a succession of governments and new constitutions. On 23 February 1966, a bloody coup d'état led by right wing extremists, a radical Ba'athist faction headed by Chief of Staff Salah Jadid, overthrew the Syrian Government. A late warning telegram of the coup d'état was sent from President Gamal Abdel Nasser to Nasim Al Safarjalani (The General Secretary of Presidential Council), on the early morning of the coup d'état. The coup sprung out of factional rivalry between Jadid's "regionalist" (qutri) camp of the Ba'ath Party, which promoted ambitions for a Greater Syria and the more traditionally pan-Arab, in power faction, called the "nationalist" (qawmi) faction. Jadid's supporters were also seen as more radically right-wing. Several Ba'ath leaders were sentenced to death in absentia by a special military court headed by later Syrian Defence Minister, Mustafa Tlass, and Interim Syrian President and Vice President of Syria Abdul Halim Khaddam, as prosecutor. Many managed to make their escape and flee to Beirut. The extrenest Ba'ath wing led by Salah Jadid took power, and set the party out on a more radical line. Although they had not been supporters of the victorious far-left line at the Sixth Party Congress, they had now moved to adopt its positions and displaced the more moderate wing in power, purging from the party its original founders, Aflaq and al-Bitar.
The Syrian Ba'ath and the Iraqi Ba'ath were by now two separate parties, each maintaining that it was the genuine party and electing a National Command to take charge of the party across the Arab world. However, in Syria, the Regional Command was the real centre of party power, and the membership of the National Command was a largely honorary position, often the destination of figures being eased out of the leadership.
At this juncture, the Syrian Ba'ath party split into two factions: the 'progressive' faction, led by President and Regional Secretary Nureddin al-Atassi gave priority to the radical Marxist-influenced line the Ba'ath was pursuing, but was closely linked to the security forces of Deputy Secretary Salah Jadid, the country's strongman from 1966. This faction was strongly preoccupied with what it termed the "Socialist transformation" in Syria, ordering large-scale nationalization of economic assets and agrarian reform. It favored an equally radical approach in external affairs, and condemned "reactionary" Arab regimes while preaching "people's war" against Israel; this led to Syria's virtual isolation even within the Arab world. The other faction, which came to dominate the armed forces, was headed by Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad. He took a more pragmatic political line, viewing reconciliation with the conservative Arab states, notably Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as essential for Syria’s strategic position regardless of their political color. He also called for reversing some of the socialist economic measures and for allowing a limited role for non-Ba'athist political parties in state and society.
Despite constant maneuvering and government changes, the two factions remained in an uneasy coalition of power. After the 1967 Six-Day War, tensions increased, and Assad's faction strengthened its hold on the military; from late 1968, it began dismantling Salah Jadid's support networks, facing ineffectual resistance from the civilian branch of the party that remained under his control. This duality of power persisted until November 1970, when, in another coup, Assad succeeded in ousting Atassi as prime minister and imprisoned both him and Jadid. He then set upon a project of rapid institution-building, reopening parliament and adopting a permanent constitution for the country, which had been ruled by military fiat or provisional constitutional documents since 1963. The Ba'ath Party was turned into a patronage network closely intertwined with the bureaucracy, and soon became virtually indistinguishable from the state, while membership numbers were increased to well over one million (reflecting both a conscious desire to turn the previous vanguard party into a regime-supporting mass organization, and the fact that party membership was now vital to advancement in many sectors). The party simultaneously lost its independence from the state, and was turned into a tool of the Assad regime, which remained based essentially in the security forces. Other socialist parties that accepted the basic orientation of the regime were permitted to operate again, and in 1972 the National Progressive Front was established as a coalition of these legal parties; however, they were only permitted to act as junior partners to the Ba'ath, with very little room for independent organization.
During the factional struggles of the 1960s, three breakout factions from the party had emerged. A pro-Nasser group split from the party at the breakup of union with Egypt in 1961, and later became the Socialist Unionists' party. This group later splintered several times, but one branch of the movement was coopted by the Ba'ath into the National Progressive Front, and remains in existence as a very minor pro-regime organization. The far-left line of Yasin al-Hafiz, which had impressed Marxist influences on the party in 1963, broke off the following year to form what later became the Revolutionary Workers' Party, while Jadid's and Atassi's wing of the organization reunited as the clandestine Arab Socialist Democratic Ba'ath Party. Both the latter organizations in 1979 joined an opposition coalition called the National Democratic Gathering.
Hafez al-Assad, one of the longest-ruling leaders of the modern Arab world, remained as president of Syria until his death in 2000, when his son Bashar al Assad succeeded him as President and as Regional and National Secretary of the party. Since then, the party has experienced an important generational shift, and a discreet ideological reorientation decreasing the emphasis on socialist planning in the economy, but no significant changes have taken place in its relation to the state and state power. It remains essentially a patronage and supervisory tool of the regime elite.
The Ba'ath today holds 134 of the 250 seats in the Syrian Parliament, a figure which is dictated by election regulations rather than by voting patterns, and the Syrian Constitution stipulates that it is "the leading party of society and state", granting it a legally enforced monopoly on real political power.
[edit] The party outside Syria
Through its Damascus-based National Command, the Syrian Ba'th Party has branches in Lebanon, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan, Iraq (currently split into two factions),[citation needed] etc., although none of the non-Syrian branches have any major strength. Among the Palestinians, as-Sa'iqa, a member organization of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, is the Syrian Ba'ath party branch.
[edit] The Iraq-based Ba'ath Party
[edit] History
Saddam Hussein and the Ba'ath Party student cell, Cairo, in the period 1959-63.
In Iraq, the Ba'ath party remained a civilian group and lacked strong support within the military. The party had little impact, and the movement split into several factions after 1958 and again in 1966. The movement was reported to have lacked strong popular support,[7] but through the construction of a strong party apparatus the party succeeded in gaining power.
The Ba'athists first came to power in the coup of February 1963, when Abd al-Salam 'Arif became president. Interference from the historic leadership around Aflaq and disputes between the moderates and extremists, culminating in an attempted coup by the latter in November 1963, served to discredit the party. After Arif’s takeover in November 1963, the moderate military Ba'athist officers initially retained some influence but were gradually eased out of power over the following months.
In July 1968, a bloodless coup led by General Ahmad Hasan al-Bakr, Saddam Hussein and Salah Omar Al-Ali brought the Ba'ath Party back to power. Wranglings within the party continued, and the government periodically purged its dissident members. Emerging as a party strongman, Saddam Hussein eventually used his growing power to push al-Bakr aside in 1979 and ruled Iraq until 2003. Although almost all the Ba'athist leadership had no military background, under Hussein the party changed dramatically and became heavily militarized, with its leading members frequently appearing in uniform.
[edit] Post-Saddam
In June 2003, the Coalition Provisional Authority banned the Ba'ath party. Some criticize the additional step the CPA took—of banning all members of the top four tiers of the Ba'ath Party from the new government, as well as from public schools and colleges—as blocking too many experienced people from participation in the new government. Thousands were removed from their positions, including doctors, professors, school teachers, bureaucrats and more. Many teachers lost their jobs, causing protests and demonstrations at schools and universities. Under the previous rule of the Ba'ath party, one could not reach high positions in the government or in the schools without becoming a party member. In fact, party membership was a prerequisite for university admission. In other words, while many Ba'athists joined for ideological reasons, many more were members because it was a way to better their options. After much pressure by the US, the policy of deba'athification was addressed by the Iraqi government in January, 2008 in the highly controversial "Accountability and Justice Act" which was supposed to ease the policy, but which many feared would actually lead to further dismissals.[8]
The new Constitution of Iraq approved by a referendum on October 15, 2005, reaffirmed the Ba'ath party ban, stating that:
"No entity or program, under any name, may adopt racism, terrorism, the calling of others infidels, ethnic cleansing, or incite, facilitate, glorify, promote, or justify thereto, especially the Saddamist Baath in Iraq and its symbols, regardless of the name that it adopts. This may not be part of the political pluralism in Iraq."
On December 17, 2008, the New York Times reported that up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general had been arrested over the three previous days accused of quietly working to reconstitute the Ba'ath Party.[9][10]
[edit] The party outside Iraq
The Iraq-based Ba'ath Party had branches in various Arab countries, such as Lebanon, Mauritania and Jordan. After the fall of the Saddam government, some branches have distanced themselves from the central party, such as the branches in Yemen and Sudan.
In Lebanon, the party is led by former Sunni MP for Tripoli, Abdul-Majeed Al-Rafei.
In Yemen, the 'Qawmi'/pro-Saddam branch of the Ba'ath party is led by Dr. Qasim Sallam (former MP for the district of Ta'izz), a US-educated philosopher author of "The Baath and the Arab homeland" (1980).
The party works amongst the Palestinians directly through the Arab Liberation Front (known as ALF or Jabhat al-Tahrir al-'Arabiyah) founded by Zeid Heidar, and indirectly through the relatively small pro-Iraqi wing of Fatah formerly led by Khaled Yashruti. ALF formed the major Palestinian political faction in Iraq during the Saddam years. It is numerically small, but gained some prominence due to the support given to it by the Iraqi government. It is a member organization of PLO.
In Bahrain, Rasul al-Jeshy leads the local pro-Saddam faction of the Ba'ath Party, the secular Nationalist Democratic Rally Society (Jami'at al-Tajammu' al-Qawmi al-Dimuqrati), which in an alliance with Shiite Islamists opposes the Bahrain government’s economic policies.
An Iraq-oriented Ba'ath Party branch led by exiled Ba'ath party co-founder Salah ad-Din al-Bitar and Gen. Amin Hafiz formerly existed in Syria, which the Syrian government severely repressed.
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Template:Wahabi Islam Wahhabi (Arabic: Al-Wahhābīyya الوهابية) or Wahhabism is a sect attributed to Abd-al-Wahhab Najdi, an 18th century scholar from what is today Saudi Arabia. He advocated a process of purifiying Islam from what he considered (based on his own views and understanding of Islam) innovations in Islam (Bidah). He believed that those who practice innovation in Islam are Kafir.[1][2][3]
The word Kafir comes from the Arabic noun Takfeer (declaring that a person is Kafir). Such declaration by the Wahhabis has many potential consequences.
Because they gave themselves the ultimate right to declare people Kuffar[citation needed][4] (plural of Kafir or infidels), Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab's followers led an army which occupied Ta’if and Mecca (Makkah). This was followed by massacres of unarmed Muslims (including men, women, and children) and the destruction of many graves and holy sites. Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab also considered destroying the house where the Prophet Muhammad was born and destroyed Sufi shrines and sacred tombs in Mecca and Medina, including the grave of Prophet Muhammad and his companions, out of fear that it might be worshipped.[5][6]
It is often referred to as a sect within Sunni Islam, although this designation is disputed.[7] The term "Wahhabi" (Wahhābīya) was first used by opponents of ibn Abdul Wahhab.[8] It is considered derogatory by the people it is used to describe, who prefer to be called "unitarians" (Muwahiddun).[9] The terms "Wahhabi" and "Salafi" are often used interchangeably, but Wahhabi has also been called "a particular orientation within Salafism",[8] an orientation some consider ultra-conservative.[10][11] Wahhabism is specifically a theological sect, while the focus of Salafism was historically confined to reinterpreting Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh. That many modern Wahhabis are also Salafis, and now refer to themselves nearly exclusively as such, has led to confusion.[citation needed]
Wahhabism predominantly influenced the central Arabian peninsula, known as Najd, originally advocating the Hanbali school of jurisprudence.[12] It has developed considerable influence in the Muslim world through the funding of mosques, schools (madrasahs) and other means from Persian Gulf oil wealth.[13] The name stems from following the strict interpretations of Muhammed Ibn Wahhab. The primary doctrine of Wahhabi is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God[14] as pronounced by Ibn Abdul Wahhab and influenced by the writings of Ibn Taymiyya, a Hanbali jurist who in some of his writings considered calling on pious figures as intermediaries for one's prayers to be an innovation. Ibn Abdul Wahhab went further in considering it an act of idolatry, and despite being accepted by centuries of Muslim scholarship, his sect considered its practitioners and advocates to be outside of Islam and permissible to kill, raid, and enslave[citation needed] (see First Saudi State). He preached against a "perceived moral decline and political weakness" in the Arabian Peninsula and condemned what he saw as idolatry in the form of shrine and tomb visitation.
Mohammad Hayya Al-Sindhi
It was Abdullah who introduced ibn Abdul-Wahhab to Mohammad Hayya Al-Sindhi and recommended him as a student. Ibn Abdul-Wahhaab and al- Sindi became very close and ibn Abdul-Wahhaab stayed with him for some time. Al-Sindi was a great scholar of hadith. He was also well known for repudiating innovations, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab came to Madina as a relatively young scholar and studied under Al-Sindhi. He was introduced to this teacher by 'Abdallah ibn Ibrahim ibn Sayf, another scholar with whom he had studied. Scholars have described Muhammad Hayya as having an important influence on Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, encouraging him in his developing determination to denounce rigid imitation of medieval commentaries and to utilize informed individual analysis (ijtihad).Muhammad Hayya also taught Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab a rejection of popular religious practices associated with 'saints' and their tombs that is similar to later Wahhabi teachings. It is apparent, then, that Muhammad Hayya, and his general intellectual milieu, have some importance for an understanding of the origins of at least the Wahhabi revivalist impulse.[15]
[edit] Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab Najdi
Further information: First Saudi State
Further information: Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab Najdi
Mohammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab Najdi, studied in Basra (in southern Iraq) and is reported to have developed his ideas there.[16][17] He is reported to have studied in Mecca and Medina while there to perform Hajj[18][19] before returning to his home town of 'Uyayna in 1740.
After his return to 'Uyayna, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab began to attract followers there, including the ruler of the town, Uthman ibn Mu'ammar. With Ibn Mu'ammar's support, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began to implement some of his ideas such as leveling the grave of Zayd ibn al-Khattab, one of the Sahaba (companions) of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, and ordering that an adulteress be stoned to death. These actions were disapproved of by Sulaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Ghurayr of the tribe of Bani Khalid, the chief of Al-Hasa and Qatif, who held substantial influence in Nejd and ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was expelled from 'Uyayna.[20]
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was invited to settle in neighboring Diriyah by its ruler Muhammad ibn Saud in 1740 (1157 AH), two of whose brothers had been students of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Upon arriving in Diriyya, a pact was made between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, by which Ibn Saud pledged to implement and enforce Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's teachings, while Ibn Saud and his family would remain the temporal "leaders" of the movement.
[edit] Saudi sponsorship
Beginning in the last years of the 18th century Ibn Saud and his heirs would spend the next 140 years mounting various military campaigns to seize control of Arabia and its outlying regions, before being attacked and defeated by Ottoman forces. The invasions were justified as the destruction of the villages of polytheists as authorized in the Qu'ran.
One of their most famous and controversial attacks was on Karbala in 1802 (1217 AH). There, according to a Wahhabi chronicler `Uthman b. `Abdullah b. Bishr:
"[Wahhabis] scaled the walls, entered the city ... and killed the majority of its people in the markets and in their homes. [They] destroyed the dome placed over the grave of al-Husayn [and took] whatever they found inside the dome and its surroundings. .... the grille surrounding the tomb which was encrusted with emeralds, rubies, and other jewels. .... different types of property, weapons, clothing, carpets, gold, silver, precious copies of the Qur'an."[citation needed]
In the early 20th Century, the Wahhabist-oriented Al-Saud dynasty conquered and unified the various provinces on the Arabian peninsula, founding the modern day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.[21] This provided the movement with a state. Vast wealth from oil discovered in the following decades, coupled with Saudi control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have since provided a base and funding for Wahhabi missionary activity.
The Saudi government established the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a state religious police unit, to enforce Wahhabi rules of behaviour.[12] Afghanistan maintained a similar government ministry from 1992 to the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. It was revived by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan as the Ministry for Haj and Religious Affairs.
The Wahhabi subscribe to the understanding of primary doctrine of the uniqueness and unity of God (Tawhid).[14][23] The first aspect is believing in Allah's Lordship that He alone is the believer's lord (Rabb). The second aspect is that once one affirms the existence of Allah and His Lordship, one must worship Him and Him alone.
Wahhabi theology treats the Qur'an and Hadith as the only fundamental and authoritative texts. Commentaries and "the examples of the early Muslim community (Ummah) and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661 C.E.)" are used to support these texts but are not considered independently authoritative.[24]
Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab further explains in his book Kitab-at-Tawhid (which draws on material from the Qur'an and the narrations of the prophet) that worship in Islam includes conventional acts of worship such as the five daily prayers; fasting; Dua (supplication); Istia'dha (seeking protection or refuge); Ist'ana (seeking help), and istigatha (seeking benefits). Therefore, making dua to anyone or anything other than Allah, or seeking supernatural help and protection which is only befitting of a divine being from something other than Allah are acts of shirk and contradict Tawhid. Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab further explains that Prophet Muhammad during his lifetime tried his utmost to cut all ways and roots towards shirk.
The most important of these commentaries are those by Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (even though he was not among the first three generations) including his book Kitab al-Tawhid, and the works of Ibn Taymiyyah. Abd-al-Wahhab was a follower of Ahmad ibn Hanbal's school of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) like most in Nejd at the time, but "was opposed to any of the schools (Madh'hab) being taken as an absolute and unquestioned authority". Therefore, he condemned taqlid[25] at the scholarly level.
Wahhabism also denounces the practice of blind adherence to the interpretations of scholars, except his own interpretation, and the blind acceptance of practices that were passed on within the family or tribe. Of the most widely used excuse of the pagans around the time of the prophet was that they worshiped idols because they saw their forefathers engaged in that practice. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab wrote in support of the responsibility of the individual Muslim to learn and obey the divine commands as they were revealed in the Quran and the Sunnah.[26] He upheld the view that blind deference to authority eventually leads one to neglect their direct connection with Qur'an and Sunnah. Islam is not a religion in which one must be bound by priests and rabbis for any recourse to religious texts. He uses as evidence an "ayah" of the Qur'an in which Allah condemns the children of Israel for taking their rabbis as authorities besides Allah. This was because they gave supreme authority to scholars without any critical and evaluative mindset and gave ultimate loyalty and connection to the scholars and creation rather than Allah and his revealed texts.
[edit] Fiqh
The Wahhabis/Salafis consider themselves to be 'non-imitators' or 'not attached to tradition' (ghayr muqallidun), and therefore answerable to no school of law at all, observing instead what they would call the practice of early Islam. However, to do so does correspond to the ideal aimed at by Ibn Hanbal, and thus they can be said to be of his 'school'.[27]
[edit] Criticism and controversy
[edit] Naming controversy: Wahhabism and Salafism
Among those who criticize the use of the term Wahhabi is social scientist Quintan Wiktorowicz. In a footnote of his report, Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,[28] he said:
Opponents of Salafism frequently affix the "Wahhabi" designator to denote foreign influence. It is intended to signify followers of Abd al-Wahhab and is most frequently used in countries where Salafis are a small minority of the Muslim community but have made recent inroads in "converting" the local population to the movement ideology. ... The Salafi movement itself, however, never uses this term. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find individuals who refer to themselves as Wahhabis or organizations that use "Wahhabi" in their title or refer to their ideology in this manner (unless they are speaking to a Western audience that is unfamiliar with Islamic terminology, and even then usage is limited and often appears as "Salafi/Wahhabi").
Indeed, to this day, the term is still used to stir up conflict between Muslims.[29]
Other observers describe the term as "originally used derogatorily by opponents", but now commonplace and used even "by some Najdi scholars of the movement."[8] .
[edit] Criticism by other Muslims
In "The Refutation of Wahhabism in Arabic Sources, 1745-1932, "Kingdom without Borders Google Books, Hamadi Redissi provides original references to the description of Wahhabis as a divisive sect (firqa) and outliers (Kharijites) in communications between Ottmans and Egyptian Khedive Muhammad Ali. Redissi details refutaions of Wahhabis by scholars (muftis) among them Ahmed Barakat Tandatawin who in 1743 describes Wahhabism as ignorance (Jahala). In 1801 and 1802, the Saudi Wahhabis under Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy Shi'a cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, massacred parts of the Shi'a population and destroyed the tombs of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, and Ali (Ali bin Abu Talib), the son-in-law of Muhammad. (see: Saudi sponsorship mentioned previously) In 1803 and 1804 the Saudis captured Mecca and Medina and destroyed historical monuments and various holy Muslim sites and shrines, such as the shrine built over the tomb of Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, and even intended to destroy the grave of Muhammad himself as idolatrous.[1][2][3]
Some Muslims, such as the Islamic Supreme Council of America, and Abdul Hadi Palazzi classify Wahhabbism as pseudo-Sunni Islam.[30][31] A detailed review of
[edit] Attitudes towards Non-Muslims
A study by the NGO Freedom House found Wahhabi publications in a number of mosques in the United States preaching that Muslims should not only "always oppose" infidels "in every way", but "hate them for their religion ... for Allah's sake", that democracy "is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century", and that Shia and certain other non-Wahhabi Muslims were infidels.[32][33]
The Saudi government responded by pointing out: "[It has] worked diligently during the last five years to overhaul its education system [but] [o]verhauling an educational system is a massive undertaking... As with previous reports, Freedom House continues to exhibit a disregard for presenting an accurate picture of the reality that exists in Saudi Arabia." [34]
The anti-rightist group "rightweb" also criticized the Freedom House study. It quoted a review of the study by Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) which complained the study cited documents from only a few mosques, arguing most mosques in the US are not under Wahhabi influence.[35] ISPU comments on the study were not entirely negative however, and concluded:
American-Muslim leaders must thoroughly scrutinize this study. Despite its limitations, the study highlights an ugly undercurrent in modern Islamic discourse that American-Muslims must openly confront. However, in the vigor to expose strains of extremism, we must not forget that open discussion is the best tool to debunk the extremist literature rather than a suppression of First Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.[35]
Thus the report's findings may be open to criticism by placing it in its political context: for example, Noam Chomsky has criticised Freedom House as having "long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the government and international right wing."[36]
[edit] Militant and Political Islam
What connection, if any, there is between Wahhabism and Jihadi Salafis is disputed. Among others, Daniel Pipes claims there is "a direct line between the Wahhabis and Osama bin Laden". However, Natana De Long-Bas, senior research assistant at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, argues:
The militant Islam of Osama bin Laden does not have its origins in the teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and is not representative of Wahhabi Islam as it is practiced in contemporary Saudi Arabia, yet for the media it has come to define Wahhabi Islam in the contemporary era. However "unrepresentative" bin Laden's global jihad is of Islam in general and Wahhabi Islam in particular, its prominence in headline news has taken Wahhabi Islam across the spectrum from revival and reform to global jihad.[37]
Noah Feldman, draws a distinction between what he calls the "deeply conservative" Wahhabis and what he calls the "followers of political Islam in the 1980s and 1990s," such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. While Saudi Wahhabis were "the largest funders of local Muslim Brotherhood chapters and other hard-line Islamists" during this time, they opposed jihadi resistance of Muslim governments and assassination of Muslim leaders because of their belief that "the decision to wage jihad lay with the ruler, not the individual believer".[38]
Karen Armstrong believes that Osama bin Laden, like most extremists, follows the ideology of Sayyid Qutb, not "Wahhabism".[29]
[edit] Destruction of Islam's early historical sites
Main article: Destruction of sites associated with early Islam
The Wahhabi teachings strongly disapprove of veneration of the historical sites associated with early Islam, on the grounds that only God should be worshipped and that veneration of sites associated with mortals leads to idolatry.[39] Consequently, a significant number of buildings associated with early Islam, historic mosques, mausoleums and other artifacts have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi followers from early 1800s through the present day.[40][41] This practice has proved controversial and has received considerable criticism from the Sunni and Shia Muslims and in the non-Muslim world.
[edit] International influence
According to Western observers like Gilles Kepel, Wahhabism gained considerable influence in the Islamic world following a tripling in the price of oil in the mid-1970s. Having the world's largest reserves of oil but a relatively small population, Saudi Arabia began to spend tens of billions of dollars throughout the Islamic world promoting Wahhabism, which was sometimes referred to as "petro-Islam".[42] According to the documentary called The Qur'an aired in the UK, presenter Antony Thomas suggests the figure may be "upward of $100 billion".[43]
Its largess funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith", throughout the Muslim world, according to journalist Dawood al-Shirian.[44] It extended to young and old, from children's madrasas to high-level scholarship.[45] "Books, scholarships, fellowships, mosques" (for example, "more than 1500 mosques were built from Saudi public funds over the last 50 years") were paid for.[46] It rewarded journalists and academics who followed it; built satellite campuses around Egypt for Al Azhar, the oldest and most influential Islamic university.[47]
The financial power of Wahhabist advocates, according to observers like Dawood al-Shirian and Lee Kuan Yew, has done much to overwhelm less strict local interpretations of Islam[44] and has caused the Saudi interpretation to be perceived as the "gold standard" of religion in many Muslims' minds.[48]
Some of the hundreds of thousands of South Asians expats living in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf have been influenced by Wahhabism and preach Wahhabiism in their home country upon their return.[citation needed] Agencies controlled by the Ministry of Islamic, Endowments, Call (Dawa) and Guidance Affairs of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are responsible for Tableegh to the non Muslim expats and are converting hundreds of non Muslims into Islam every year.[citation needed]
[edit] Explanation for influence
Khaled Abou El Fadl has attributed the appeal of Wahhabism to some Muslims as stemming from
* Arab nationalism, which followed the Wahhabi attack on the Ottoman Empire;
* reformism, which followed a return to Salaf (as-Salaf aṣ-Ṣāliḥ
* Wahhabi control of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which gave Wahhabis great influence on Muslim culture and thinking;
* the discovery of Persian Gulf oil fields, which after 1975 allowed Wahhabis to promote their interpretations of Islam using billions from oil export revenue
The word Kafir comes from the Arabic noun Takfeer (declaring that a person is Kafir). Such declaration by the Wahhabis has many potential consequences.
Because they gave themselves the ultimate right to declare people Kuffar[citation needed][4] (plural of Kafir or infidels), Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab's followers led an army which occupied Ta’if and Mecca (Makkah). This was followed by massacres of unarmed Muslims (including men, women, and children) and the destruction of many graves and holy sites. Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab also considered destroying the house where the Prophet Muhammad was born and destroyed Sufi shrines and sacred tombs in Mecca and Medina, including the grave of Prophet Muhammad and his companions, out of fear that it might be worshipped.[5][6]
It is often referred to as a sect within Sunni Islam, although this designation is disputed.[7] The term "Wahhabi" (Wahhābīya) was first used by opponents of ibn Abdul Wahhab.[8] It is considered derogatory by the people it is used to describe, who prefer to be called "unitarians" (Muwahiddun).[9] The terms "Wahhabi" and "Salafi" are often used interchangeably, but Wahhabi has also been called "a particular orientation within Salafism",[8] an orientation some consider ultra-conservative.[10][11] Wahhabism is specifically a theological sect, while the focus of Salafism was historically confined to reinterpreting Islamic jurisprudence, or fiqh. That many modern Wahhabis are also Salafis, and now refer to themselves nearly exclusively as such, has led to confusion.[citation needed]
Wahhabism predominantly influenced the central Arabian peninsula, known as Najd, originally advocating the Hanbali school of jurisprudence.[12] It has developed considerable influence in the Muslim world through the funding of mosques, schools (madrasahs) and other means from Persian Gulf oil wealth.[13] The name stems from following the strict interpretations of Muhammed Ibn Wahhab. The primary doctrine of Wahhabi is Tawhid, or the uniqueness and unity of God[14] as pronounced by Ibn Abdul Wahhab and influenced by the writings of Ibn Taymiyya, a Hanbali jurist who in some of his writings considered calling on pious figures as intermediaries for one's prayers to be an innovation. Ibn Abdul Wahhab went further in considering it an act of idolatry, and despite being accepted by centuries of Muslim scholarship, his sect considered its practitioners and advocates to be outside of Islam and permissible to kill, raid, and enslave[citation needed] (see First Saudi State). He preached against a "perceived moral decline and political weakness" in the Arabian Peninsula and condemned what he saw as idolatry in the form of shrine and tomb visitation.
Mohammad Hayya Al-Sindhi
It was Abdullah who introduced ibn Abdul-Wahhab to Mohammad Hayya Al-Sindhi and recommended him as a student. Ibn Abdul-Wahhaab and al- Sindi became very close and ibn Abdul-Wahhaab stayed with him for some time. Al-Sindi was a great scholar of hadith. He was also well known for repudiating innovations, Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab came to Madina as a relatively young scholar and studied under Al-Sindhi. He was introduced to this teacher by 'Abdallah ibn Ibrahim ibn Sayf, another scholar with whom he had studied. Scholars have described Muhammad Hayya as having an important influence on Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, encouraging him in his developing determination to denounce rigid imitation of medieval commentaries and to utilize informed individual analysis (ijtihad).Muhammad Hayya also taught Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab a rejection of popular religious practices associated with 'saints' and their tombs that is similar to later Wahhabi teachings. It is apparent, then, that Muhammad Hayya, and his general intellectual milieu, have some importance for an understanding of the origins of at least the Wahhabi revivalist impulse.[15]
[edit] Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab Najdi
Further information: First Saudi State
Further information: Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab Najdi
Mohammad Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab Najdi, studied in Basra (in southern Iraq) and is reported to have developed his ideas there.[16][17] He is reported to have studied in Mecca and Medina while there to perform Hajj[18][19] before returning to his home town of 'Uyayna in 1740.
After his return to 'Uyayna, Ibn Abd al-Wahhab began to attract followers there, including the ruler of the town, Uthman ibn Mu'ammar. With Ibn Mu'ammar's support, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab began to implement some of his ideas such as leveling the grave of Zayd ibn al-Khattab, one of the Sahaba (companions) of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad, and ordering that an adulteress be stoned to death. These actions were disapproved of by Sulaiman ibn Muhammad ibn Ghurayr of the tribe of Bani Khalid, the chief of Al-Hasa and Qatif, who held substantial influence in Nejd and ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was expelled from 'Uyayna.[20]
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was invited to settle in neighboring Diriyah by its ruler Muhammad ibn Saud in 1740 (1157 AH), two of whose brothers had been students of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab. Upon arriving in Diriyya, a pact was made between Ibn Saud and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, by which Ibn Saud pledged to implement and enforce Ibn Abd al-Wahhab's teachings, while Ibn Saud and his family would remain the temporal "leaders" of the movement.
[edit] Saudi sponsorship
Beginning in the last years of the 18th century Ibn Saud and his heirs would spend the next 140 years mounting various military campaigns to seize control of Arabia and its outlying regions, before being attacked and defeated by Ottoman forces. The invasions were justified as the destruction of the villages of polytheists as authorized in the Qu'ran.
One of their most famous and controversial attacks was on Karbala in 1802 (1217 AH). There, according to a Wahhabi chronicler `Uthman b. `Abdullah b. Bishr:
"[Wahhabis] scaled the walls, entered the city ... and killed the majority of its people in the markets and in their homes. [They] destroyed the dome placed over the grave of al-Husayn [and took] whatever they found inside the dome and its surroundings. .... the grille surrounding the tomb which was encrusted with emeralds, rubies, and other jewels. .... different types of property, weapons, clothing, carpets, gold, silver, precious copies of the Qur'an."[citation needed]
In the early 20th Century, the Wahhabist-oriented Al-Saud dynasty conquered and unified the various provinces on the Arabian peninsula, founding the modern day Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932.[21] This provided the movement with a state. Vast wealth from oil discovered in the following decades, coupled with Saudi control of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have since provided a base and funding for Wahhabi missionary activity.
The Saudi government established the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, a state religious police unit, to enforce Wahhabi rules of behaviour.[12] Afghanistan maintained a similar government ministry from 1992 to the downfall of the Taliban in 2001. It was revived by the Supreme Court of Afghanistan as the Ministry for Haj and Religious Affairs.
The Wahhabi subscribe to the understanding of primary doctrine of the uniqueness and unity of God (Tawhid).[14][23] The first aspect is believing in Allah's Lordship that He alone is the believer's lord (Rabb). The second aspect is that once one affirms the existence of Allah and His Lordship, one must worship Him and Him alone.
Wahhabi theology treats the Qur'an and Hadith as the only fundamental and authoritative texts. Commentaries and "the examples of the early Muslim community (Ummah) and the four Rightly Guided Caliphs (632-661 C.E.)" are used to support these texts but are not considered independently authoritative.[24]
Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab further explains in his book Kitab-at-Tawhid (which draws on material from the Qur'an and the narrations of the prophet) that worship in Islam includes conventional acts of worship such as the five daily prayers; fasting; Dua (supplication); Istia'dha (seeking protection or refuge); Ist'ana (seeking help), and istigatha (seeking benefits). Therefore, making dua to anyone or anything other than Allah, or seeking supernatural help and protection which is only befitting of a divine being from something other than Allah are acts of shirk and contradict Tawhid. Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab further explains that Prophet Muhammad during his lifetime tried his utmost to cut all ways and roots towards shirk.
The most important of these commentaries are those by Ibn Abd-al-Wahhab (even though he was not among the first three generations) including his book Kitab al-Tawhid, and the works of Ibn Taymiyyah. Abd-al-Wahhab was a follower of Ahmad ibn Hanbal's school of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) like most in Nejd at the time, but "was opposed to any of the schools (Madh'hab) being taken as an absolute and unquestioned authority". Therefore, he condemned taqlid[25] at the scholarly level.
Wahhabism also denounces the practice of blind adherence to the interpretations of scholars, except his own interpretation, and the blind acceptance of practices that were passed on within the family or tribe. Of the most widely used excuse of the pagans around the time of the prophet was that they worshiped idols because they saw their forefathers engaged in that practice. Ibn Abd al-Wahhab wrote in support of the responsibility of the individual Muslim to learn and obey the divine commands as they were revealed in the Quran and the Sunnah.[26] He upheld the view that blind deference to authority eventually leads one to neglect their direct connection with Qur'an and Sunnah. Islam is not a religion in which one must be bound by priests and rabbis for any recourse to religious texts. He uses as evidence an "ayah" of the Qur'an in which Allah condemns the children of Israel for taking their rabbis as authorities besides Allah. This was because they gave supreme authority to scholars without any critical and evaluative mindset and gave ultimate loyalty and connection to the scholars and creation rather than Allah and his revealed texts.
[edit] Fiqh
The Wahhabis/Salafis consider themselves to be 'non-imitators' or 'not attached to tradition' (ghayr muqallidun), and therefore answerable to no school of law at all, observing instead what they would call the practice of early Islam. However, to do so does correspond to the ideal aimed at by Ibn Hanbal, and thus they can be said to be of his 'school'.[27]
[edit] Criticism and controversy
[edit] Naming controversy: Wahhabism and Salafism
Among those who criticize the use of the term Wahhabi is social scientist Quintan Wiktorowicz. In a footnote of his report, Anatomy of the Salafi Movement,[28] he said:
Opponents of Salafism frequently affix the "Wahhabi" designator to denote foreign influence. It is intended to signify followers of Abd al-Wahhab and is most frequently used in countries where Salafis are a small minority of the Muslim community but have made recent inroads in "converting" the local population to the movement ideology. ... The Salafi movement itself, however, never uses this term. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find individuals who refer to themselves as Wahhabis or organizations that use "Wahhabi" in their title or refer to their ideology in this manner (unless they are speaking to a Western audience that is unfamiliar with Islamic terminology, and even then usage is limited and often appears as "Salafi/Wahhabi").
Indeed, to this day, the term is still used to stir up conflict between Muslims.[29]
Other observers describe the term as "originally used derogatorily by opponents", but now commonplace and used even "by some Najdi scholars of the movement."[8] .
[edit] Criticism by other Muslims
In "The Refutation of Wahhabism in Arabic Sources, 1745-1932, "Kingdom without Borders Google Books, Hamadi Redissi provides original references to the description of Wahhabis as a divisive sect (firqa) and outliers (Kharijites) in communications between Ottmans and Egyptian Khedive Muhammad Ali. Redissi details refutaions of Wahhabis by scholars (muftis) among them Ahmed Barakat Tandatawin who in 1743 describes Wahhabism as ignorance (Jahala). In 1801 and 1802, the Saudi Wahhabis under Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy Shi'a cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, massacred parts of the Shi'a population and destroyed the tombs of Husayn ibn Ali, the grandson of Muhammad, and Ali (Ali bin Abu Talib), the son-in-law of Muhammad. (see: Saudi sponsorship mentioned previously) In 1803 and 1804 the Saudis captured Mecca and Medina and destroyed historical monuments and various holy Muslim sites and shrines, such as the shrine built over the tomb of Fatimah, the daughter of Muhammad, and even intended to destroy the grave of Muhammad himself as idolatrous.[1][2][3]
Some Muslims, such as the Islamic Supreme Council of America, and Abdul Hadi Palazzi classify Wahhabbism as pseudo-Sunni Islam.[30][31] A detailed review of
[edit] Attitudes towards Non-Muslims
A study by the NGO Freedom House found Wahhabi publications in a number of mosques in the United States preaching that Muslims should not only "always oppose" infidels "in every way", but "hate them for their religion ... for Allah's sake", that democracy "is responsible for all the horrible wars of the 20th century", and that Shia and certain other non-Wahhabi Muslims were infidels.[32][33]
The Saudi government responded by pointing out: "[It has] worked diligently during the last five years to overhaul its education system [but] [o]verhauling an educational system is a massive undertaking... As with previous reports, Freedom House continues to exhibit a disregard for presenting an accurate picture of the reality that exists in Saudi Arabia." [34]
The anti-rightist group "rightweb" also criticized the Freedom House study. It quoted a review of the study by Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU) which complained the study cited documents from only a few mosques, arguing most mosques in the US are not under Wahhabi influence.[35] ISPU comments on the study were not entirely negative however, and concluded:
American-Muslim leaders must thoroughly scrutinize this study. Despite its limitations, the study highlights an ugly undercurrent in modern Islamic discourse that American-Muslims must openly confront. However, in the vigor to expose strains of extremism, we must not forget that open discussion is the best tool to debunk the extremist literature rather than a suppression of First Amendment rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.[35]
Thus the report's findings may be open to criticism by placing it in its political context: for example, Noam Chomsky has criticised Freedom House as having "long served as a virtual propaganda arm of the government and international right wing."[36]
[edit] Militant and Political Islam
What connection, if any, there is between Wahhabism and Jihadi Salafis is disputed. Among others, Daniel Pipes claims there is "a direct line between the Wahhabis and Osama bin Laden". However, Natana De Long-Bas, senior research assistant at the Prince Alwaleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, argues:
The militant Islam of Osama bin Laden does not have its origins in the teachings of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and is not representative of Wahhabi Islam as it is practiced in contemporary Saudi Arabia, yet for the media it has come to define Wahhabi Islam in the contemporary era. However "unrepresentative" bin Laden's global jihad is of Islam in general and Wahhabi Islam in particular, its prominence in headline news has taken Wahhabi Islam across the spectrum from revival and reform to global jihad.[37]
Noah Feldman, draws a distinction between what he calls the "deeply conservative" Wahhabis and what he calls the "followers of political Islam in the 1980s and 1990s," such as Egyptian Islamic Jihad and later Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. While Saudi Wahhabis were "the largest funders of local Muslim Brotherhood chapters and other hard-line Islamists" during this time, they opposed jihadi resistance of Muslim governments and assassination of Muslim leaders because of their belief that "the decision to wage jihad lay with the ruler, not the individual believer".[38]
Karen Armstrong believes that Osama bin Laden, like most extremists, follows the ideology of Sayyid Qutb, not "Wahhabism".[29]
[edit] Destruction of Islam's early historical sites
Main article: Destruction of sites associated with early Islam
The Wahhabi teachings strongly disapprove of veneration of the historical sites associated with early Islam, on the grounds that only God should be worshipped and that veneration of sites associated with mortals leads to idolatry.[39] Consequently, a significant number of buildings associated with early Islam, historic mosques, mausoleums and other artifacts have been destroyed in Saudi Arabia by the Wahhabi followers from early 1800s through the present day.[40][41] This practice has proved controversial and has received considerable criticism from the Sunni and Shia Muslims and in the non-Muslim world.
[edit] International influence
According to Western observers like Gilles Kepel, Wahhabism gained considerable influence in the Islamic world following a tripling in the price of oil in the mid-1970s. Having the world's largest reserves of oil but a relatively small population, Saudi Arabia began to spend tens of billions of dollars throughout the Islamic world promoting Wahhabism, which was sometimes referred to as "petro-Islam".[42] According to the documentary called The Qur'an aired in the UK, presenter Antony Thomas suggests the figure may be "upward of $100 billion".[43]
Its largess funded an estimated "90% of the expenses of the entire faith", throughout the Muslim world, according to journalist Dawood al-Shirian.[44] It extended to young and old, from children's madrasas to high-level scholarship.[45] "Books, scholarships, fellowships, mosques" (for example, "more than 1500 mosques were built from Saudi public funds over the last 50 years") were paid for.[46] It rewarded journalists and academics who followed it; built satellite campuses around Egypt for Al Azhar, the oldest and most influential Islamic university.[47]
The financial power of Wahhabist advocates, according to observers like Dawood al-Shirian and Lee Kuan Yew, has done much to overwhelm less strict local interpretations of Islam[44] and has caused the Saudi interpretation to be perceived as the "gold standard" of religion in many Muslims' minds.[48]
Some of the hundreds of thousands of South Asians expats living in Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf have been influenced by Wahhabism and preach Wahhabiism in their home country upon their return.[citation needed] Agencies controlled by the Ministry of Islamic, Endowments, Call (Dawa) and Guidance Affairs of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are responsible for Tableegh to the non Muslim expats and are converting hundreds of non Muslims into Islam every year.[citation needed]
[edit] Explanation for influence
Khaled Abou El Fadl has attributed the appeal of Wahhabism to some Muslims as stemming from
* Arab nationalism, which followed the Wahhabi attack on the Ottoman Empire;
* reformism, which followed a return to Salaf (as-Salaf aṣ-Ṣāliḥ
* Wahhabi control of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, which gave Wahhabis great influence on Muslim culture and thinking;
* the discovery of Persian Gulf oil fields, which after 1975 allowed Wahhabis to promote their interpretations of Islam using billions from oil export revenue
SuN
.:~**~.~**~.~**~:.
The Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Persian: سپاه پاسداران انقلاب اسلامی , Sepāh e Pāsdārān e Enqelāb e Eslāmi, also Sepāh) also known as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is a branch of Iran's military, founded after the Iranian revolution.[1] Sepāh is thought to number as many as 120,000 with its own small naval and air units. It also controls the paramilitary Basij militia,[2] and in recent years has developed into a "multibillion-dollar business empire."[3] The Chief Commander of the Guardians is Mohammed Ali Jafari, who was preceded by Yahya Rahim Safavi.
Like many young Iranians during the 1980-88 Iran–Iraq War, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a member of the Army of Guardians, in the Basij militia. In recent years the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has become a vast military-based conglomerate. It is active in oil and gas, telecom, and farming, to name a few sections, and has considerable economic and political influence [4]. The Guard's expanding economic role is mirrored by an even greater role in politics and security since the presidential election in June 2009 [5].
Since its origin as an ideologically driven militia,[6] the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. Its expanded social, political, military, and economic role under president Ahmadinejad's administration — especially during the 2009 presidential election and post-election suppression of protest — has led many analysts to argue that its political power has surpassed even that of the Shiite clerical system.
The IRGC is a combined arms force with its own ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence[19], and special forces. It also controls the Basij militia, which has a potential strength of eleven million. The Basij is a volunteer-based force, with 90,000 regular soldiers and 300,000 reservists. The IRGC is officially recognized as a component of the Iranian military under Article 150 of the Iranian Constitution.[20] It is separate from, and parallel to, the other arm of the Iran's military, which is called Artesh (another Persian word for army).
The IRGC controls the borders of Iran. This is a source for much of the widespread corruption commonly known throughout the IRGC.
The IISS Military Balance 2007 says the IRGC has 125,000+ personnel and controls the Basij on mobilisation.[21] It estimates the IRGC Ground and Air Forces are 100,000 strong and is 'very lightly manned' in peacetime. It estimates there are up to 20 infantry divisions, some independent brigades, and one airborne brigade.[22]
The IISS estimates the IRGC Naval Forces are 20,000 strong including 5,000 Marines in one brigade of three or four Marine Battalions.[23], and are equipped with some coastal defence weapons (some HY-2/CSS-C-3 Seersucker SSM batteries and some artillery batteries) and 50 patrol boats (including 10 Chinese Houdang fast attack craft). The IRGC air arm, says the IISS, controls Iran's strategic missile force and has an estimated one brigade of Shahab-1/2 with 12-18 launchers, and a Shahab-3 unit. The IISS says of the Shahab-3 unit 'estimated 1 battalion with estimated 6 single launchers each with estimated 4 Shahab-3 strategic IRBM.'
The elite Ghods (or Quds) Force, sometimes described as the successor to the Shah's Imperial Guards, is estimated to be 2,000-5,000 in number.[2] It is a special operations unit, handling activities abroad. The United States describes it as a terrorist organization that backs militants in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.[24] There are suspicions that Ghods cadres are involved in recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, but the evidence is thin.
[edit] Senior commanders
Further information: List of senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
* Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari (Commander-in-chief)[25]
* Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Chief of the Joint Staff)[26]
* Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi (Revolutionary Guards' Ground Forces)[27]
* Brigadier General Hossein Salami (Revolutionary Guards' Air Force)[27]
* Rear Admiral Morteza Saffari (Revolutionary Guards' Navy)[28]
* Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Commander-in-chief of the Mobilized Basij forces)[29]
* Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani (Quds Force)[30] General Suleimani was responsible for negotiating several accords between Iraqi political figures.
* Brigadier General Abdol-Ali Najafi (Secret unit)[31]
[edit] History
The force's main role is in national security. It is responsible for internal and border security, law enforcement, and also Iran's missile forces. IRGC operations are geared towards asymmetric warfare and less traditional duties. These include the control of smuggling, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and resistance operations.[32] The IRGC is intended to complement the more traditional role of the regular Iranian military, with the two forces operating separately and focusing on different operational roles.[32]
The IRGC was formed in May 1979 as a force loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but later became a full military force alongside the army in the Iran–Iraq War. It was infamous for its human wave attacks, for example during Operation Ramadan, an assault on the city of Basra.
The IRGC does not report to the President of Iran, but is directed by the clerical branch of government.
Political
Ayatollah Khomeini urged that the country's military forces should remain unpoliticized. However, the Constitution, in Article 150, defines the IRGC as the "guardian of the Revolution and of its achievements" which is at least partly a political mission. His original views have therefore been the subject of debate. Supporters of the Basiji have argued for politicization, while reformists, moderates and Hassan Khomeini opposed it. President Rafsanjani forced military professionalization and ideological deradicalization on the IRGC to curb its political role, but the Pasdaran became natural allies of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei when reformists threatened him.[44] The IRGC grew stronger under President Ahmedinejad, and assumed formal command of the Basiji militia in early 2009.[45]
As an elite group, members of Pasdaran have influence in Iran's political world. President Ahmadinejad joined the IRGC in 1985, serving first in military operation in Iraqi Kurdistan before leaving the front line to take charge of logistics. A majority of his first cabinet consisted of IRGC veterans.[46] Nearly one third of the members elected to Iran's Majlis in 2004 are also "Pásdárán".[47] Others have been appointed as ambassadors, mayors, provincial governors and senior bureaucrats.[24] However, IRGC veteran status does not imply a single viewpoint.[44]
In the days before the 2009 presidential election, the Revolutionary Guard warned against a "velvet revolution" and vowed to crush any attempt at one.[48] Three weeks after the election the Guard's commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, "publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security during the post-election unrest" and called this `a revival of the revolution,` in a press conference.[45] Another Guard general Yadollah Javani, stated that there would be no middle ground in the dispute over the election results, there being only two currents -- "those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it."
Several sources have commented on increased power of the Guard following the election, saying that "it appears that the military likely will become the strongest stakeholder" in Iran,[8] that "many Iranians" fear "the outcome of the election was just a thinly-veiled military coup" by the Guard,[7] or even that Iran has now become a "regular military security government" with only "a facade of a Shiite clerical system.”[3]
[edit] Economic activity
See also: Economy of Iran
IRGC first expanded into commercial activity through informal social networking of veterans and former officials. It is now a vast conglomerate, controlling Iran’s missile batteries and nuclear program but also a multibillion-dollar business empire reaching almost all economic sectors.[3] It is thought to control around a third of Iran's economy through a series of subsidiaries and trusts.[49] The Los Angeles Times estimates that IRGC ties to over one hundred companies, with its annual revenue exceeding $12 billion in business and construction.[50] IRGC has been awarded billions of dollars in contracts in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, as well as major infrastructure projects.[51] It runs laser eye-surgery clinics, makes cars, builds bridges and roads, develops gas and oil fields and controls black-market smuggling.[3][44]
The following commercial entities have been named by the United States as owned or controlled by the IRGC and its leaders.[52]
* Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, the IRGC’s major engineering arm & one of Iran’s largest contractors employing about 25,000 engineers and staff on military (70%) and non-military (30%) projects[44] worth over $7 billion in 2006.[52]
* Oriental Oil Kish
* Ghorb Nooh
* Sahel Consultant Engineering
* Ghorb-e Karbala
* Sepasad Engineering Co
* Omran Sahel
* Hara Company
* Gharargahe Sazandegi Ghaem
The IRGC also exerts influence over bonyads, wealthy, non-governmental ostensibly charitable foundations controlled by key clerics. The pattern of revolutionary foundations mimics the style of informal and extralegal economic networks from the time of the Shah. Their development started in the early 1990s, gathered pace over the next decade, and accelerated even more with many lucrative no-bid contracts from the Ahmadinejad presidency. The IRGC exerts informal, but real, influence over many such organizations including:
* Bonyad-e Mostazafen va Janbazan (Foundation of the Oppressed or The Mostazafan Foundation)
* Bonyad Shahid va Omur-e Janbazan (Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs)[44]
There are many allegations of IRGC black market operations, racketeering, and smuggling (including a widely rumoured near monopoly over the smuggling of alcohol, cigarettes and satellite dishes, among other things in great demand)[53] via jetties not supervised by the Government.[44][54]
From its origin as an ideologically driven militia, the IRGC has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. Its part in suppressing dissent has led many analysts to describe the events surrounding the 12 June 2009 presidential election as a military coup, and the IRGC as an authoritarian military security government for which its Shiite clerical system is no more than a facade.[3]
In September 2009, the Government of Iran sold 51% of the shares of the Telecommunication Company of Iran to the Mobin Trust Consortium (Etemad-e-Mobin), a group affiliated with the Guards, for the sum of $7.8 billion. This was the largest transaction on the Tehran Stock Exchange in history.[55] A private firm was excluded from bidding one day before shares were put on sale - despite being initially approved by Iran’s Privatization Organization - because of a “security condition.”[56]
[edit] Controversy
Main article: Controversies surrounding Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
Since its establishment, IRGC has been involved in many economic and military activities among which some raised controversies. The organization has been accused of smuggling — including importing illegal alcoholic beverages into Iran[57] — training Hezbollah[58] and Hamas[59] fighters, and has been accused by the US government of being involved in the Iraq War.[60]
In December 2009 evidence uncovered during an investigation by the Guardian newspaper and Guardian Films linked the IRGC to the kidnappings of 5 Britons from a government ministry building in Baghdad in 2007. Three of the hostages, Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alec Maclachlan, were killed. Alan Mcmenemy's body was never found but Peter Moore was released on 30th December 2009. The investigation uncovered evidence that Moore, 37, a computer expert from Lincoln was targeted because he was installing a system for the Iraqi Government that would show how a vast amount of international aid was diverted to Iran's militia groups in Iraq.[61]
According to Geneive Abdo IRGC members were appointed "as ambassadors, mayors, cabinet ministers, and high-ranking officials at state-run economic institutions" during the administration of president Ahmadinejad [9] Appointments in 2009 by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have given "hard-liners" in the guard "unprecedented power" and included "some of the most feared and brutal men in Iran."[9]
Like many young Iranians during the 1980-88 Iran–Iraq War, Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a member of the Army of Guardians, in the Basij militia. In recent years the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps has become a vast military-based conglomerate. It is active in oil and gas, telecom, and farming, to name a few sections, and has considerable economic and political influence [4]. The Guard's expanding economic role is mirrored by an even greater role in politics and security since the presidential election in June 2009 [5].
Since its origin as an ideologically driven militia,[6] the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. Its expanded social, political, military, and economic role under president Ahmadinejad's administration — especially during the 2009 presidential election and post-election suppression of protest — has led many analysts to argue that its political power has surpassed even that of the Shiite clerical system.
The IRGC is a combined arms force with its own ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence[19], and special forces. It also controls the Basij militia, which has a potential strength of eleven million. The Basij is a volunteer-based force, with 90,000 regular soldiers and 300,000 reservists. The IRGC is officially recognized as a component of the Iranian military under Article 150 of the Iranian Constitution.[20] It is separate from, and parallel to, the other arm of the Iran's military, which is called Artesh (another Persian word for army).
The IRGC controls the borders of Iran. This is a source for much of the widespread corruption commonly known throughout the IRGC.
The IISS Military Balance 2007 says the IRGC has 125,000+ personnel and controls the Basij on mobilisation.[21] It estimates the IRGC Ground and Air Forces are 100,000 strong and is 'very lightly manned' in peacetime. It estimates there are up to 20 infantry divisions, some independent brigades, and one airborne brigade.[22]
The IISS estimates the IRGC Naval Forces are 20,000 strong including 5,000 Marines in one brigade of three or four Marine Battalions.[23], and are equipped with some coastal defence weapons (some HY-2/CSS-C-3 Seersucker SSM batteries and some artillery batteries) and 50 patrol boats (including 10 Chinese Houdang fast attack craft). The IRGC air arm, says the IISS, controls Iran's strategic missile force and has an estimated one brigade of Shahab-1/2 with 12-18 launchers, and a Shahab-3 unit. The IISS says of the Shahab-3 unit 'estimated 1 battalion with estimated 6 single launchers each with estimated 4 Shahab-3 strategic IRBM.'
The elite Ghods (or Quds) Force, sometimes described as the successor to the Shah's Imperial Guards, is estimated to be 2,000-5,000 in number.[2] It is a special operations unit, handling activities abroad. The United States describes it as a terrorist organization that backs militants in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.[24] There are suspicions that Ghods cadres are involved in recent terrorist attacks in Pakistan, but the evidence is thin.
[edit] Senior commanders
Further information: List of senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards
* Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari (Commander-in-chief)[25]
* Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Chief of the Joint Staff)[26]
* Brigadier General Mohammad-Reza Zahedi (Revolutionary Guards' Ground Forces)[27]
* Brigadier General Hossein Salami (Revolutionary Guards' Air Force)[27]
* Rear Admiral Morteza Saffari (Revolutionary Guards' Navy)[28]
* Brigadier General Mohammad Hejazi (Commander-in-chief of the Mobilized Basij forces)[29]
* Brigadier General Qassem Soleimani (Quds Force)[30] General Suleimani was responsible for negotiating several accords between Iraqi political figures.
* Brigadier General Abdol-Ali Najafi (Secret unit)[31]
[edit] History
The force's main role is in national security. It is responsible for internal and border security, law enforcement, and also Iran's missile forces. IRGC operations are geared towards asymmetric warfare and less traditional duties. These include the control of smuggling, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and resistance operations.[32] The IRGC is intended to complement the more traditional role of the regular Iranian military, with the two forces operating separately and focusing on different operational roles.[32]
The IRGC was formed in May 1979 as a force loyal to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, but later became a full military force alongside the army in the Iran–Iraq War. It was infamous for its human wave attacks, for example during Operation Ramadan, an assault on the city of Basra.
The IRGC does not report to the President of Iran, but is directed by the clerical branch of government.
Political
Ayatollah Khomeini urged that the country's military forces should remain unpoliticized. However, the Constitution, in Article 150, defines the IRGC as the "guardian of the Revolution and of its achievements" which is at least partly a political mission. His original views have therefore been the subject of debate. Supporters of the Basiji have argued for politicization, while reformists, moderates and Hassan Khomeini opposed it. President Rafsanjani forced military professionalization and ideological deradicalization on the IRGC to curb its political role, but the Pasdaran became natural allies of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei when reformists threatened him.[44] The IRGC grew stronger under President Ahmedinejad, and assumed formal command of the Basiji militia in early 2009.[45]
As an elite group, members of Pasdaran have influence in Iran's political world. President Ahmadinejad joined the IRGC in 1985, serving first in military operation in Iraqi Kurdistan before leaving the front line to take charge of logistics. A majority of his first cabinet consisted of IRGC veterans.[46] Nearly one third of the members elected to Iran's Majlis in 2004 are also "Pásdárán".[47] Others have been appointed as ambassadors, mayors, provincial governors and senior bureaucrats.[24] However, IRGC veteran status does not imply a single viewpoint.[44]
In the days before the 2009 presidential election, the Revolutionary Guard warned against a "velvet revolution" and vowed to crush any attempt at one.[48] Three weeks after the election the Guard's commander, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, "publicly acknowledged they had taken over the nation's security during the post-election unrest" and called this `a revival of the revolution,` in a press conference.[45] Another Guard general Yadollah Javani, stated that there would be no middle ground in the dispute over the election results, there being only two currents -- "those who defend and support the revolution and the establishment, and those who are trying to topple it."
Several sources have commented on increased power of the Guard following the election, saying that "it appears that the military likely will become the strongest stakeholder" in Iran,[8] that "many Iranians" fear "the outcome of the election was just a thinly-veiled military coup" by the Guard,[7] or even that Iran has now become a "regular military security government" with only "a facade of a Shiite clerical system.”[3]
[edit] Economic activity
See also: Economy of Iran
IRGC first expanded into commercial activity through informal social networking of veterans and former officials. It is now a vast conglomerate, controlling Iran’s missile batteries and nuclear program but also a multibillion-dollar business empire reaching almost all economic sectors.[3] It is thought to control around a third of Iran's economy through a series of subsidiaries and trusts.[49] The Los Angeles Times estimates that IRGC ties to over one hundred companies, with its annual revenue exceeding $12 billion in business and construction.[50] IRGC has been awarded billions of dollars in contracts in the oil, gas and petrochemical industries, as well as major infrastructure projects.[51] It runs laser eye-surgery clinics, makes cars, builds bridges and roads, develops gas and oil fields and controls black-market smuggling.[3][44]
The following commercial entities have been named by the United States as owned or controlled by the IRGC and its leaders.[52]
* Khatam al-Anbia Construction Headquarters, the IRGC’s major engineering arm & one of Iran’s largest contractors employing about 25,000 engineers and staff on military (70%) and non-military (30%) projects[44] worth over $7 billion in 2006.[52]
* Oriental Oil Kish
* Ghorb Nooh
* Sahel Consultant Engineering
* Ghorb-e Karbala
* Sepasad Engineering Co
* Omran Sahel
* Hara Company
* Gharargahe Sazandegi Ghaem
The IRGC also exerts influence over bonyads, wealthy, non-governmental ostensibly charitable foundations controlled by key clerics. The pattern of revolutionary foundations mimics the style of informal and extralegal economic networks from the time of the Shah. Their development started in the early 1990s, gathered pace over the next decade, and accelerated even more with many lucrative no-bid contracts from the Ahmadinejad presidency. The IRGC exerts informal, but real, influence over many such organizations including:
* Bonyad-e Mostazafen va Janbazan (Foundation of the Oppressed or The Mostazafan Foundation)
* Bonyad Shahid va Omur-e Janbazan (Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs)[44]
There are many allegations of IRGC black market operations, racketeering, and smuggling (including a widely rumoured near monopoly over the smuggling of alcohol, cigarettes and satellite dishes, among other things in great demand)[53] via jetties not supervised by the Government.[44][54]
From its origin as an ideologically driven militia, the IRGC has taken an ever more assertive role in virtually every aspect of Iranian society. Its part in suppressing dissent has led many analysts to describe the events surrounding the 12 June 2009 presidential election as a military coup, and the IRGC as an authoritarian military security government for which its Shiite clerical system is no more than a facade.[3]
In September 2009, the Government of Iran sold 51% of the shares of the Telecommunication Company of Iran to the Mobin Trust Consortium (Etemad-e-Mobin), a group affiliated with the Guards, for the sum of $7.8 billion. This was the largest transaction on the Tehran Stock Exchange in history.[55] A private firm was excluded from bidding one day before shares were put on sale - despite being initially approved by Iran’s Privatization Organization - because of a “security condition.”[56]
[edit] Controversy
Main article: Controversies surrounding Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution
Since its establishment, IRGC has been involved in many economic and military activities among which some raised controversies. The organization has been accused of smuggling — including importing illegal alcoholic beverages into Iran[57] — training Hezbollah[58] and Hamas[59] fighters, and has been accused by the US government of being involved in the Iraq War.[60]
In December 2009 evidence uncovered during an investigation by the Guardian newspaper and Guardian Films linked the IRGC to the kidnappings of 5 Britons from a government ministry building in Baghdad in 2007. Three of the hostages, Jason Creswell, Jason Swindlehurst and Alec Maclachlan, were killed. Alan Mcmenemy's body was never found but Peter Moore was released on 30th December 2009. The investigation uncovered evidence that Moore, 37, a computer expert from Lincoln was targeted because he was installing a system for the Iraqi Government that would show how a vast amount of international aid was diverted to Iran's militia groups in Iraq.[61]
According to Geneive Abdo IRGC members were appointed "as ambassadors, mayors, cabinet ministers, and high-ranking officials at state-run economic institutions" during the administration of president Ahmadinejad [9] Appointments in 2009 by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have given "hard-liners" in the guard "unprecedented power" and included "some of the most feared and brutal men in Iran."[9]
NeonMercuryASH
beer, I want beer
K
NeonMercuryASH
beer, I want beer
lal
NeonMercuryASH
beer, I want beer
mope
SuN
.:~**~.~**~.~**~:.
AIDS dementia complex
AIDS dementia complex (ADC; also known as HIV dementia, HIV encephalopathy, HIV-associated dementia and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder) is a common neurological disorder associated with HIV infection and AIDS. It is a metabolic encephalopathy induced by HIV infection and fueled by immune activation of brain macrophages and microglia.[1] These cells are actively infected with HIV and secrete neurotoxins of both host and viral origin. The essential features of ADC are disabling cognitive impairment accompanied by motor dysfunction, speech problems and behavioral change. Cognitive impairment is characterised by mental slowness, trouble with memory and poor concentration. Motor symptoms include a loss of fine motor control leading to clumsiness, poor balance and tremors. Behavioral changes may include apathy, lethargy and diminished emotional responses and spontaneity. Histopathologically, it is identified by the infiltration of monocytes and macrophages into the central nervous system (CNS), gliosis, pallor of myelin sheaths, abnormalities of dendritic processes and neuronal loss.[1][2]
ADC typically occurs after years of HIV infection and is associated with low CD4+ T cell levels and high plasma viral loads. It is sometimes seen as the first sign of the onset of AIDS. Prevalence is between 10-24% in Western countries[3] and has only been seen in 1-2% of India based infections.[4][5] With the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), the incidence of ADC has declined in developed countries, however its prevalence is increasing.[6][7] HAART may prevent or delay the onset of ADC in people with HIV infection, and may also improve mental function in people who already have ADC.
Dementia only exists when neurocognitive impairment in the patient is severe enough to interfere markedly with day-to-day function. That is, the patient is typically unable to work and may not be able to take care of him or herself. Before this, the patient is said to have a mild neurocognitive disorder.
Diagnostic criteria
1. Marked acquired impairment of at least two ability domains of cognitive function (e.g. memory, attention): typically, the impairment is in multiple domains, especially in learning, information processing and concentration/attention. The cognitive impairment is ascertained by medical history, mental status examination or neuropsychological testing.
2. Cognitive impairments identified in 1. interfere markedly with day-to-day functioning.
3. Cognitive impairments identified in 1. are present for at least one month.
4. Cognitive impairments identified in 1. do not meet the criteria for delirium, or if delirium is present, dementia was diagnosed when delirium was not present.
5. No evidence of another, pre-existing aetiology that could explain the dementia (e.g. another CNS infection, CNS neoplasm, cerebrovascular disease, pre-existing neurological disease, severe substance abuse compatible with CNS disorder.[8]
While the progression of dysfunction is variable, it is regarded as a serious complication and, untreated, can progress to a fatal outcome. Diagnosis is made by neurologists who carefully rule out alternative diagnoses. This routinely requires a careful neurological examination, brain scans (MRI or CT scan) and a lumbar puncture to evaluate the cerebrospinal fluid. No single test is available to confirm the diagnosis, but the constellation of history, laboratory findings, and examination can reliably establish the diagnosis when performed by experienced clinicians. The amount of virus in the brain does not correlate well with the degree of dementia, suggesting that secondary mechanisms are also important in the manifestation of ADC.
[edit] Research
AIDS Dementia Complex (ADC) is not a true opportunistic infection. It is one of the few conditions caused directly by HIV itself, but it is not quite as simple as that because the central nervous system can be damaged by a number of other causes:
* opportunistic infections - there are many
* Primary cerebral lymphoma or metastasis of other AIDS-related cancers
* direct effects of HIV in the brain
* toxic effects of drug treatments
* malnutrition
Many researchers believe that HIV damages the vital brain cells, neurons, indirectly. According to one theory, HIV either infects or activates cells that nurture and maintain the brain, known as macrophages and microglia. These cells then produce toxins that can set off a series of reactions that instruct neurons to kill themselves. The infected macrophages and microglia also appear to produce additional factors chemokines and cytokines - that can affect neurons as well as other brain cells known as astrocytes. The affected astrocytes, which normally nurture and protect neurons, also may now end up harming neurons. The HIV virus protein gp120 inhibits the stem cells in the brain from producing new nerve cells.[9] In the neuronal cells, the HIV gp120 induces mitochondrial-death proteins like caspases which may influence the upregulation of the death receptor Fas leading to apoptosis.[10] Researchers hope that new drugs under investigation will interfere with the detrimental cycle and prevent neuron death.
[edit] ADC stage characteristics
* Stage 0 (Normal) Normal Mental and Motor Function
* Stage 0.5 (Subclinical) Minimal symptoms of cognitive or motor dysfunction characteristic of ADC, or mild signs (snout response, slowed extremity movements), but without impairment of work or capacity to perform activities of daily living (ADL). Gait and strength are normal.
* Stage 1 (Mild) Evidence of functional intellectual or motor impairment characteristic of ADC, but able to perform all but the more demanding aspects of work or ADL. Can walk without assistance.
* Stage 2 (Moderate) Cannot work or maintain the more demanding aspects of daily life, but able to perform basic activities of self care. Ambulatory, but may require a single prop.
* Stage 3 (Severe) Major intellectual incapacity - cannot follow news or personal events, cannot sustain complex conversation, considerable slowing of all output. And/or motor disability - cannot walk unassisted, requiring walker or personal support, usually with slowing and clumsiness of arms as well.
* Stage 4 (End Stage) Nearly vegetative. Intellectual and social comprehension and responses are at a rudimentary level. Nearly or absolutely mute. Paraparetic or paraplegic with urinary incontinence and fecal incontinence.
AIDS dementia complex (ADC; also known as HIV dementia, HIV encephalopathy, HIV-associated dementia and HIV-associated neurocognitive disorder) is a common neurological disorder associated with HIV infection and AIDS. It is a metabolic encephalopathy induced by HIV infection and fueled by immune activation of brain macrophages and microglia.[1] These cells are actively infected with HIV and secrete neurotoxins of both host and viral origin. The essential features of ADC are disabling cognitive impairment accompanied by motor dysfunction, speech problems and behavioral change. Cognitive impairment is characterised by mental slowness, trouble with memory and poor concentration. Motor symptoms include a loss of fine motor control leading to clumsiness, poor balance and tremors. Behavioral changes may include apathy, lethargy and diminished emotional responses and spontaneity. Histopathologically, it is identified by the infiltration of monocytes and macrophages into the central nervous system (CNS), gliosis, pallor of myelin sheaths, abnormalities of dendritic processes and neuronal loss.[1][2]
ADC typically occurs after years of HIV infection and is associated with low CD4+ T cell levels and high plasma viral loads. It is sometimes seen as the first sign of the onset of AIDS. Prevalence is between 10-24% in Western countries[3] and has only been seen in 1-2% of India based infections.[4][5] With the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), the incidence of ADC has declined in developed countries, however its prevalence is increasing.[6][7] HAART may prevent or delay the onset of ADC in people with HIV infection, and may also improve mental function in people who already have ADC.
Dementia only exists when neurocognitive impairment in the patient is severe enough to interfere markedly with day-to-day function. That is, the patient is typically unable to work and may not be able to take care of him or herself. Before this, the patient is said to have a mild neurocognitive disorder.
Diagnostic criteria
1. Marked acquired impairment of at least two ability domains of cognitive function (e.g. memory, attention): typically, the impairment is in multiple domains, especially in learning, information processing and concentration/attention. The cognitive impairment is ascertained by medical history, mental status examination or neuropsychological testing.
2. Cognitive impairments identified in 1. interfere markedly with day-to-day functioning.
3. Cognitive impairments identified in 1. are present for at least one month.
4. Cognitive impairments identified in 1. do not meet the criteria for delirium, or if delirium is present, dementia was diagnosed when delirium was not present.
5. No evidence of another, pre-existing aetiology that could explain the dementia (e.g. another CNS infection, CNS neoplasm, cerebrovascular disease, pre-existing neurological disease, severe substance abuse compatible with CNS disorder.[8]
While the progression of dysfunction is variable, it is regarded as a serious complication and, untreated, can progress to a fatal outcome. Diagnosis is made by neurologists who carefully rule out alternative diagnoses. This routinely requires a careful neurological examination, brain scans (MRI or CT scan) and a lumbar puncture to evaluate the cerebrospinal fluid. No single test is available to confirm the diagnosis, but the constellation of history, laboratory findings, and examination can reliably establish the diagnosis when performed by experienced clinicians. The amount of virus in the brain does not correlate well with the degree of dementia, suggesting that secondary mechanisms are also important in the manifestation of ADC.
[edit] Research
AIDS Dementia Complex (ADC) is not a true opportunistic infection. It is one of the few conditions caused directly by HIV itself, but it is not quite as simple as that because the central nervous system can be damaged by a number of other causes:
* opportunistic infections - there are many
* Primary cerebral lymphoma or metastasis of other AIDS-related cancers
* direct effects of HIV in the brain
* toxic effects of drug treatments
* malnutrition
Many researchers believe that HIV damages the vital brain cells, neurons, indirectly. According to one theory, HIV either infects or activates cells that nurture and maintain the brain, known as macrophages and microglia. These cells then produce toxins that can set off a series of reactions that instruct neurons to kill themselves. The infected macrophages and microglia also appear to produce additional factors chemokines and cytokines - that can affect neurons as well as other brain cells known as astrocytes. The affected astrocytes, which normally nurture and protect neurons, also may now end up harming neurons. The HIV virus protein gp120 inhibits the stem cells in the brain from producing new nerve cells.[9] In the neuronal cells, the HIV gp120 induces mitochondrial-death proteins like caspases which may influence the upregulation of the death receptor Fas leading to apoptosis.[10] Researchers hope that new drugs under investigation will interfere with the detrimental cycle and prevent neuron death.
[edit] ADC stage characteristics
* Stage 0 (Normal) Normal Mental and Motor Function
* Stage 0.5 (Subclinical) Minimal symptoms of cognitive or motor dysfunction characteristic of ADC, or mild signs (snout response, slowed extremity movements), but without impairment of work or capacity to perform activities of daily living (ADL). Gait and strength are normal.
* Stage 1 (Mild) Evidence of functional intellectual or motor impairment characteristic of ADC, but able to perform all but the more demanding aspects of work or ADL. Can walk without assistance.
* Stage 2 (Moderate) Cannot work or maintain the more demanding aspects of daily life, but able to perform basic activities of self care. Ambulatory, but may require a single prop.
* Stage 3 (Severe) Major intellectual incapacity - cannot follow news or personal events, cannot sustain complex conversation, considerable slowing of all output. And/or motor disability - cannot walk unassisted, requiring walker or personal support, usually with slowing and clumsiness of arms as well.
* Stage 4 (End Stage) Nearly vegetative. Intellectual and social comprehension and responses are at a rudimentary level. Nearly or absolutely mute. Paraparetic or paraplegic with urinary incontinence and fecal incontinence.
SuN
.:~**~.~**~.~**~:.
John claimed his name was "Fred". After asking worker to assist him to inject speed, oral was performed. After this, the worker was on the bed with him when his eyes rolled back and he stated his name was "exquisite" and his personality seemed to change.
He began to apply heavy pressure to to the workers neck with 2 thumbs, and attempted to strangle her.
After referring to him as "Fred" he ceased this behavior and seemed to snap out of his violent state.
The worker was driven back to the street, with the John giving her his business card, which stated he was a painter and decorator.
He began to apply heavy pressure to to the workers neck with 2 thumbs, and attempted to strangle her.
After referring to him as "Fred" he ceased this behavior and seemed to snap out of his violent state.
The worker was driven back to the street, with the John giving her his business card, which stated he was a painter and decorator.
