Digest #13 - Musk's ego | The gangs of Gaza & Zia Yusuf is a good boy
As Musk and Trump fire shots at each other, Trump sends troops into LA, Abu Shadab says he is fighting Hamas and Zia Yusuf is brought back into line.
Muslim Lens Digest is a look at a selection of news stories from a Muslim viewpoint, searching for meaning and a way forward in a world fast descending into anarchy.
Friendly fire
Blue on blue is a military term to describe friendly fire, where a military for some reason attacks someone on their own side. I first came across this term during the first Gulf War back in 1992 when I was a teenager, every allied loss seemed to be friendly fire. This both gives away my age and the length of time the West has been militarily interfering in the affairs of the Middle East.
One of the most infamous blue on blue incidents occurred in Afghanistan, known as the Tarnak Farm incident when Major Harry Schmidt of the US Air Force dropped a laser-guided 500-pound (230 kg) bomb on Canadian troops carrying out a nighttime exercise near Kandahar, killing four and injuring eight.
The gung ho nature of Major Schmidt was central to the incident, he ignored several requests to verify the targets before engaging but decided to engage anyway. He probably thought he was bombing an Afghani wedding.
The big Orange ego
Seeing America descend first into political farce and then outright civil unrest on the streets reminded me of friendly fire. The only difference that this time it was intentional.
Looking on from afar it gives a sense of the chickens coming home to roost. I don’t say this in a gloating manner but when America the great has spent more than a century lecturing the rest of the world as to the merits of democracy, to see it all descend into a Shakespearean tragedy is ironic. These are the kind of things that happen in a banana republic not on the streets of the ‘civilised’ West.
As the world descends into economic turmoil, as the good times become a distant memory the true colours of democracy, under the kinds of extreme pressures most of the developing has lived with for decades, are starting to show.
The fissures between political colleagues (let alone rivals) are becoming apparent, with Elon Musk and Donald Trump going toe to toe on X over a bill which played second fiddle to who had the biggest ego.
Musk labelled Trump a sexual predator by claiming me he was named in the Epstein files, not really a secret and to be honest Trump’s ego probably loves the idea he is named
Trump who was infamously recorded saying he would happily grab the private parts of a woman, yet he was deemed fit to run for office (the first time around). The mud has already stuck to Trump, he just doesn’t mind.
Not content with firing tweets (or X’s) at each other, Trump sent the national guard into Paramount (a suburb of Los Angles) to respond to anti-ICE protests.
At the time of editing this Trump has now sent in 2000 national guard and 700 Marines into LA.
ICE the bulldog of Trump’s anti-immigration policy are using LA as a test ground for its heavy handed approach, rounding up undocumented ‘illegals’ at Home Depot stores where they wait for daily ad-hoc labour work. Paramount is 82% Hispanic so its obvious who the target of these raids were.
Three decades after the 1992 LA riots, capitalism has failed to create a coherent society without sections othered by the system. Not surprising when the only common driving factor capitalism creates is the desire for the ‘green’.
In amongst all of this the average John Doe or Juan Pérez (documented or not) are forgotten about, left to fend for themselves from the crumbs of the elite.
The gangs of Gaza
Another military term is turn coat, when someone betrays his cause to adopt that of the opposing side, usually for money. Money has been used as part of both soft and hard power by the richer nations of the world for a long time. USAID was one such use of American soft power, this is the reason there was such uproar when Trump decided to get rid of it.
Money and power are at the heart of the Netanyahu government arming the likes of Yasser Abu Shabab in Gaza. Gangs controlled by Abu Shabab are terrorising aid routes and creating havoc in. The tactic is clear, create enough fog so the Zionists can do what they wish and then blame it on the chaos.
Netanyahu proudly admits it.
“What’s wrong with that?” he said when confronted. “It saves the lives of [Israeli] soldiers.
Words of a true coward if ever I saw one.
Abu Shadab for his part has issued a statement suggesting his actions are to protect the Palestinian people from Hamas. The full audio of the statement can be heard below.
In short Abu Shadab claims all arms have been attainted from local tribes, his ambitions are to remove Hamas. However in the nearly four minutes of audio, he never mentions the word Zionist or Israel once. It as if he is speaking in a detached reality where his aim is to bid for power with Hamas alone, where the over 50 thousand people have not been killed. Original source for audio here
The photo below shows Abu Shabab with a vehicle carrying UAE plates, original source is here
The narrative being spun by Abu Shadab is that it is Hamas that are preventing aid from reaching the people of Gaza. He is in fact doing the world a favour by fighting them to establish aid corridors.
If he is indeed funded by some of the Arab nations along with the Zionists it would not surprise me. Whatever the details its obvious that these dirty games are to prolong the suffering of the people of Gaza.
Thats a good little boy
Another turn coat in the news, this time in the UK, is Zia Yusuf who along with Nigel Farage formed the British version of Trump - Musk (or Musk - Trump to keep Elon happy).
Zia initially decided to quit as Chairman of the UK based Reform party, over a row about the burka, he labelled remarks by MP Sarah Pochin calling for a burka ban “dumb”, as it wasn’t Reform party policy.
This apparently led Zia getting abused on X (politicians really need to get off social media) and eventually he quit.
Farage said Zia had ‘lost his rag’ (British for getting angry) and that:
"I forgave him, I said 'don't do it again' but I forgave him."
I presume Zia then rolled over like a good little boy and Farage tickled his belly.
Farage then put Zia in charge of the UK version of DOGE however when asked about the burka Zia said:
"If I was an MP I would think about it very deeply, I think I probably would be in favour of banning face coverings in public writ large, not just the burka.
I'm very queasy and uneasy about banning things that for example would be unconstitutional in the US but we have a particular situation in the UK”
Come on Zia, just tell us which side you are really on, the tension is killing me.
It is fine for Zia to do the hokey cokey with this political career, however comments about banning the burka or hijab inevitably result in increased Islamophobia in society.
It is all fine and well complaining about being targeted on social media but to then make irresponsible comments that will lead to others suffering the same fate is just shameless.
How insecure do you have to be to feel threatened by a woman wearing a piece of cloth over her face. To try and veil (pun intended) this behind a security issue is intellectually insincere.
All this in a society where some women are prepared to sleep with 1000 men simply to get famous, yet a woman wearing a face covering somehow threatens society. Let that sink in!
Will someone please clean up the mess
A yellow belly is someone who is neither the victim of friendly fire nor even a turn coat but someone so lowly they don’t even get to the theatre of war (be that political or actual war).
The kind of coward that stays at home, says a few words, points at dying children and says “can someone please clean up this mess its making the neighbourhood look bad”
I could write a list of yellow bellies as long as every country in the Muslim world who have done nothing but utter words regarding Gaza. But a special mention goes to Bin Salman of Saudi, sitting on oil riches, exploiting the Hajj for wealth accumulation yet asking the international community to do something about Gaza.
He wasn’t this coy about using military force when it came to bombing Yemen. Video of his Eid message below.
These kind of statements are useless the international community have been too slow to react and most have vested interests to do nothing.
The primary responsibility lies on the Muslim rulers to save their own, even more so on the regional powers.
The Small Print
The world still awaits action on Gaza, read my article on Does it matter if Gaza is a genocide or not?. Do we need to wait to take action?
The Madleen attempting to break the aid blockade has been stopped enroute and its occupants “arrested” by the Zionists.
Rachel Reeves does a U-turn on fuel payments for pensioners in the UK. Great! after causing months of stress so altruistic of you!
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