Inspired by the principles of Malcolm X / Malik El-Hajj Shabazz. A 'Third Worldist' perspective focusing on the increasing pace of south-south co-operation which is challenging and defeating neo-colonial hegemony, and the struggles of those oppressed by neo-colonialism and white supremacy (racism) who fight for their social, political and cultural freedom 'by any means necessary'
'Cage Prisoners' Asim Qureshi and Cerie Bullivant with stop the war coalition leader
john rees sandwiched in the middle. rees and the rest of the stop the war leadership seems to be defending and promoting neo-colonial death squads since at least 2011
A WHOLE load more questions raised in the Cageprisoners / JihadiJohn Emwazi scandal. Not many people are asking them as many political interests (left, liberal, british state, nato, intel services, pro Ikhwan, Qaeda, Nusra, Isis, and other pro neo-colonial death squad interests) are pro actively in a direct and indirect conspiracy to keep this all quiet. ONLY the victims and governments who are countering and fighting back this unholy alliance have a actively vested interest and modus operand to defeat this covert and not so covert neo-colonial death squad project.
Here is an incomplete list of things, analysis and probing into this developing madness:
1, Asim Qureshi and his other 'Cage Prisoner' colleagues have been utterly naive and amateurish in dealing with the press etc in this latest death squad controversy expose. They have obviously got so smug that they thought that any of the nonsense they would be saying to a hyper anti-Muslim and colonial media would have had some kind of effective approach.
2, The whole Cage Prisoner and related pro death squad circles narrative and discourse is so tricky and flawed its astounding, ie.,
a, they think that by saying in the mainstream colonial media that the Mi5 were responsible for creating someone into a head chopping nut job is gonna wash with anyone outside their death squad sympathising circles. It wouldn't, it hasn't and it won't.
b, By saying some Mi5 harassment is what was the main thing that forced him / encouraged him / pushed him into 'ISIS' IN THE WAY THEY HAVE ARTICULATED IT, is just very simple minded political nonsense, as no one outside their neo-colonial death squad circle believes any of that utter rubbish. And the conlusions from such a twisted narrative is even more ridiculous.
c, If Mi5 harassment is so bad, and the british state are so bad (which they are, indeed, they are the smartest, craftiest and bloodiest of all political entities ever known to Humanity), then why have they had secret meetings with Mi5?? Have they had any other meetings with Mi5 that we do not know about? Probably. What other direct or indirect dealings have THEY had with the intel services? MORE OF THIS INFORMATION WILL COME OUT FROM THEM, of that I have no doubt.
d, To go down a critique of the intel services is one I would encourage, but NOT in the tricky and stupid way 'Cage' are. Of course, like the british state, Cage cannot really have a proper expose of the intel services, as both the british state AND Cage and related 'takfiri' death squad fanboys/girls and organisers are deeply implicated in THE SAME death squad project in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, etc as the British and other leading nato countries, israel, turkey and the gulf monarchies are leading.
3, The fact that Asim Qureshi is so in love with Emwazi/'JJ', a whole load more questions should arise therefrom:
i, What are the ideological affinities between Cage and the project that Emwazi/JJ has seemed to get involved with?
ii, What political advice is Cage giving to wannabe death squad members like Emwazi/JJ seems to be? Cage's OWN number 1 hero - Moazzam Begg - himself has secret meetings with Mi5 to then get the green light to train death squads in Syria (and elsewhere? Libya?), SO THATS A CLEAR EXAMPLE HE AND THEY ARE SETTING TO OTHERS. How can they blame the Mi5 in this sordid neo-colonial covert operations when they themselves are dancing with the devil in secret?
iii, When did Asim Qureshi and Co realise that JJ was (in Asim's own words of late!) most likely Emwazi, and what political acts did they make in light of that? Meaning: did they try and cover their own backs? Did they have communication with the british state in relation to this, and what was the nature of that communication?
iv, WHAT OTHER death squad nut jobs are Cage protecting, facilitating, working with etc? My hunch is that MORE DEATH SQUAD NUTS THAT CAGE ARE PROTECTING WILL BE EXPOSED IN THE MONTHS AND FEW YEARS AHEAD
v, Considering that the Cage is deeply implicated in so much mess (lee rigby killers, Moazzam going to train head choppers in Syria, now Emwazi/JJ scandal), how is it that the british state can allow Cage to still operate, I hear their official semi state funding (Joseph Rowntree Foundation etc) funding has dried up, their account is frozen, I know Moazzam got a million or two as 'compensation' from the british state for his detention ordeals, but its amazing that Anjem Choudhury-like they are able to continue to operate politically and getting wall to wall mainstream coverage.
vi, Some may say that Emwazi/JJ became a maniac death squad type after his communication with Cage Prisoners. However, when we, including me use these terms like 'maniac', it implies that a person needs to be some grunting crazy foaming at the mouth nutcase to do these depraved things, but the reality is that these things are done by our neighbours, class mates etc, whoI know someone who is supportive of the Nusra/Isis stuff and also has had some work done in his favour by Cage Prisoners, and he is a very good neighbour to me growing up in my community, he would literally jump to my physical defence if someone was being aggressive to me in the local park, but then would happily justify and possibly take part in whatever madness these death squads are doing and very vocifersouly defend the ideological/'religious' basis of Isis/Nusra type of shite.
All in all, this whole nonsense should raise many many more questions and alarm bells unless people are blinded by obvious obvious obvious things cos they got a soft spot or are in love with the death squads a la Asim Qureshi and crew.
A counter response to: "He [Emwazi ie., the alleged 'Jihadi John'] was such a beautiful young man, really," - Asim Qureshi of the pro neo-colonial death squad organisation: 'Cage Prisoners' "A "beautiful man" does not behead, divide & ruin for neo-colonialism / Real beautiful men fight back neo-colonialism, unite, decolonise and advance our peoples" - Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm
Senshido's Shredder is a very effective self defence system
Sukant Chandan Sons of Malcolm
On the way to work walking down to the tube platform at farringdon station this morning, I noticed 15metres ahead of me a working class white man in his thirties (with his shorter white side kick who just gawps and smiles throughout) being a bit loud to someone on the bench, I checked the face of the guy on the bench (South Asian) and he was smiling and kind of laughing, but as I took a few more steps towards them it was clear that the white guy was being abusive so I continue to walk up and see that the guy on the bench is with his partner/wife (South Asian sister in a hijab) and I stand right in in between the white racist and the couple on the bench with both being a few yards away from me. This immediately stops the racist being abusive to the couple and he starts abusing me, (ALL of this happens within 10secs), I just stand there emotionless staring at him, a train comes and he goads me to come into the train: "don't be a f****g hero, come on the train if you want some" etc. he shows spit dripping of his tongue to me and the train starts to pull away, I continue to stare at him until he is out of sight. I speak to the couple, the white racist basically just came up to them out of the blue and started abusing them.
We exchanged a few words and I got on the train and tried to read my James Baldwin book on racism and homphobia, but was and still am overwhelmed terribly with feelings of anger and upset because:
1, its 2015 and in central london in broad daylight in a public place a racist can abuse three non-white people,
2, he can do so without anyone else intervening (there was a female white dread on the next bench who obviously didnt like the abuse but said nothing), the platform tube staff member didn't even notice,
3, I feel terrible that the couple had to endure that abuse and dealt with it as best they could, but the way they did left me feeling very disempowered, and
4, that I did not administer any immediate justice. Despite this, I suppose I did the best I could, intervened, showed that we can literally stand together and face off racists, but.
Fact is, we always need to be self defensive combat ready and prepare for that. These racists understand only one language, and I am not advocating violence, but if I had verbally pushed him back it would have gone to a physical situation within seconds, and what would have been the best antidote for scumbags like that is to spend a few weeks in hospital to reflect on their abusive behaviour. This is not for everyone, but those who can should prepare accordingly, and In this framework of self defence I don't agree with killing people unless your life is in danger and it was necessity, I do remember the pertinent words of Malcolm X: "our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery.That's a good religion."
Anyway, I would like to take this opportunity to mention the Islamophobia Awards 2015, which is organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission who are the vanguard anti-racist advocacy organisation from the Muslim community who have done and continue to do excellent work around anti-Muslim racism/Islamophobia. This event is a well organised wonderful evening of jokes, comedy, and poking fun at anti-Muslim racism and those who promote it, with our special guest Aamer Rahman performing live this year.
Not only do we need to do the street and community stuff, but also need organisations like this to do the serious work on all levels to combat our enemy and empower our peoples, and also celebrate and enjoy our solidarity and we need to gather together, laugh and eat good food to deal with the nonsense we go through here in the 'west' and that which our peoples go through in the Homelands.
Western states are trumpeting ISIS as the latest threat to civilisation, claiming total commitment to their defeat, and using the group’s conquests in Syria and Iraq as a pretext for deepening their own military involvement in the Middle East.
Yet as Libya seems to be following the same path as Syria – of ‘moderate’ anti-government militias backed by the West paving the way for ISIS takeover – Britain and the US seem reluctant to confront them there, immediately pouring cold water on Egyptian President Sisi’s request for an international coalition to halt their advances. By making the suggestion – and having it, predictably, spurned – Sisi is making clear Western duplicity over ISIS and the true nature of NATO policy in Libya.
On August 29, 2011, two months before the last vestiges of the Libyan state were destroyed and its leader executed, I was interviewed on Russia Today about the country’s future. I told the station: “There’s been a lot of talk about what will happen [in Libya after the ouster of Gaddafi] – will there be sharia law, will there be a liberal democracy? What we have to understand is that what will replace the Libyan state won’t be any of those things, what will replace the Libyan state will be the same as what has replaced the state in Iraq and Afghanistan, which is a dysfunctional government, complete lack of security, gang warfare and civil war. And this is not a mistake from NATO. They would prefer to see failed states than states that are powerful and independent and able to challenge their hegemony. And people who are fighting for the TNC, fighting for NATO, really need to understand that this is NATO’s vision for their country.” Friends at the time told me I was being overly pessimistic and cynical. I said I hoped to God they were right. But my experiences over a decade following the results of my own country (Britain)’s wars of aggression in places like Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq long after the mainstream media had lost interest, led me to believe otherwise.
Of course, it was not only me who was making such warnings. On March 6, 2011, several weeks before NATO began seven months of bombing, Gaddafi gave a prophetic interview with French newspaper Le Monde du Dimanche, in which he stated: “I want to make myself understood: if one threatens [Libya], if one seeks to destabilize [Libya], there will be chaos, Bin Laden, armed factions. That is what will happen. You will have immigration, thousands of people will invade Europe from Libya. And there will no longer be anyone to stop them. Bin Laden will base himself in North Africa and will leave Mullah Omar in Afghanistan and Pakistan. You will have Bin Laden at your door step.”
He specifically warned that Derna, a town that had already provided large numbers of suicide bombers to Iraq, would become an “Islamist emirate” on the Mediterranean. Gaddafi’s warnings were mocked in the Western media (although many intelligence experts, in under-reported comments, backed his assertions), and few in Europe had ever heard of Derna. Until November 2014, that is – when ISIS announced their takeover of the city, the first of three in Libya now under their control. Their most recent conquest, Sirte, Gaddafi’s hometown, was heralded by the posting onto youtube of the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians they had captured there last December. They are widely believed to have been immigrant workers from one of the poorest parts of Egypt.
Sirte had been a pro-government stronghold during NATO’s onslaught in 2011, and one of the last cities to fall - the result of its ferocious resistance and zero support for the ‘rebels’. It was subjected to a massive siege and became the scene of some of the war crimes of the war, both by NATO and their allies on the ground. Now that the people of Sirte have been forced to live – and die – under the latest incarnation of NATO’s ‘heroic freedom fighters’ - it is becoming ever clearer why they fought so hard to keep them out in the first place. Yet even this massacre is eclipsed by the almost 600 Libyan National Army soldiers killed by ISIS and their allies in their battle to take Benghazi over the last three years.
This is the state of affairs NATO bequeathed to Libya, reversing the country’s trajectory as a stable, prosperous pan-African state that was a leading player in the African Union and a thorn in the side of US and British attempts to re-establish military domination. And it is not only Libya that has suffered; the power vacuum resulting from NATO’s wholesale destruction of the Libyan state apparatus has dragged the whole region into the vortex. As Brendan O Neill has shown in detail, the daily horrors being perpetrated in Mali, Nigeria and now Cameroon are all a direct result of NATO’s bloodletting, as death squads from across the entire Sahel-Sahara region have been given free reign to set up training camps and loot weapons across the giant zone of lawlessness which NATO have sculpted out of Libya.
The result? African states that in 2010 were forging ahead economically, greatly benefitting from Chinese infrastructure and manufacturing investment, moving away from centuries of colonial and neo-colonial dependence on extortionate Western financial institutions, have been confronted with massive new terror threats from groups such as Boko Haram, flush with new weaponry and facilities courtesy of NATO’s humanitarianism. Algeria and Egypt, too, still governed by the same independent-minded movements which overthrew European colonialism, have seen their borders destabilised, setting the stage for ongoing debilitating attacks planned and executed from NATO’s new Libyan militocracy. This is the context in which Egypt is launching the regional fightback against NATO’s destabilisation strategy.
Over the past year in particular, Egyptians have witnessed their Western neighbour rapidly descending down the same path of ISIS takeover as Syria. In Syria, a civil war between a Western-sponsored insurgency and an elected secular government has seen the anti-government forces rapidly fall under the sway of ISIS, as the West’s supposed ‘moderates’ in the Free Syrian Army either join forces with ISIS (impressed by their military prowess, hi-tech weaponry, and massive funding) or find themselves overrun by them. In Libya, the same pattern is quickly developing. The latest phase in the Libyan disaster began last June when the militias who dominated the previous parliament (calling themselves the ‘Libya Dawn’ coalition) lost the election and refused to accept the results, torching the country’s airport and oil storage facilities as opening salvos in an ongoing civil war between them and the newly elected parliament. Both parliaments have the allegiance of various armed factions, and have set up their own rival governments, each controlling different parts of the country. But, starting in Derna last November, areas taken by the Libya Dawn faction have begun falling to ISIS. Last weekend’s capture of Sirte was the third major town to be taken by them, and there is no sign that it will be the last. This is the role that has consistently been played by the West’s proxies across the region – paving the way and laying the ground for ISIS takeover. Egyptian President Sisi’s intervention – airstrikes against ISIS targets in Libya - aims to reverse this trajectory before it reaches Iraqi-Syrian proportions.
The internationally-recognised Libyan government based in Tobruk – the one appointed by the House of Representatives that won the election last summer - has welcomed the Egyptian intervention. Not only, they hope, will it help prevent ISIS takeover, but will also cement Egyptian support for their side in the ongoing civil war with ‘Libya Dawn’. Indeed, Egypt could, with some justification, claim that winning the war against ISIS requires a unified Libyan government committed to this goal, and that the Dawn’s refusal to recognise the elected parliament , not to mention their ‘ambiguous’ attitude towards ISIS, is the major obstacle to achieving such an outcome.
Does this mean that the Egyptian intervention will scupper the UN’s ‘Libya dialogue’ peace talks initiative? Not necessarily; in fact if could have the opposite effect. The first two rounds of the talks were boycotted by the General National Congress (the Libya Dawn parliament), safe in the knowledge that they would continue to receive weapons and financing from NATO partners Qatar and Turkey whilst the internationally-recognised Tobruk government remained under an international arms embargo. As the UK’s envoy to the Libya Dialogue, Jonathan Powell, noted this week, the “sine qua non for a [peace] settlement” is a “mutually hurting stalemate”. By balancing up the scales in the civil war, Egyptian support military support for the Tobruk government may show the GNC that taking the talks seriously will be more in their interests than continuation of the fight.
Sisi’s call for the military support of the West in his intervention has effectively been rejected, as he very likely expected it to be. A joint statement by the US and Britain and their allies on Tuesday poured cold water on the idea, and no wonder – they did not go to all the bother of turning Libya into the centre of their regional destabilisation strategy only to then try to stabilise it just when it is starting to bear fruit. However, by forcing them to come out with such a statement, Sisi has called the West’s bluff. The US and Britain claim to be committed to the destruction of ISIS, a formation which is the product of the insurgency they have sponsored in Syria for the past four years, and Sisi is asking them to put their money where their mouth is. They have refused to do so. In the end, the Egyptian resolution to the UN Security Council on Wednesday made no mention of calling for military intervention by other powers, and limited itself to calling for an end to the one-sided international arms embargo which prevents the arming of the elected government but does not seem to deter NATO’s regional partners from openly equipping the ‘Libya Dawn’ militias. Sisi has effectively forced the West to show its hand: their rejection of his proposal to support the intervention makes it clear to the world the two-faced nature of their supposed commitment to the destruction of ISIS.
There are, however, deep divisions on this issue in Europe. France is deepening its military presence in the Sahel-Sahara region, with 3000 troops based in Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali and a massive new base opened on the Libyan border in Niger last October, and would likely welcome a pretext to extend its operations to its historic protectorate in Southern Libya. Italy, likewise, is getting cold feet about the destabilisation it helped to unleash, having not only damaged a valuable trading partner, but increasingly being faced with hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the horror and destitution that NATO has gifted the region. But neither are likely to do anything without UNSC approval, which is likely to continue to be blocked by the US and Britain, who are more than happy to see countries like Russian-allied Egypt and Chinese-funded Nigeria weakened and their development retarded by terror bombings. Sisi’s actions will, it is hoped, not only make abundantly clear the West’s acquiescence in the horrors it has created – but also pave the way for an effective fightback against them.
Dan Glazebrook, for RT. Dan Glazebrook is a political writer and author of “Divide and Ruin: The West's Imperial Strategy in an Age of Crisis”.
Kim Yong Nam Sends Message of Sympathy to Egyptian President
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Kim Yong Nam, president of the Presidium of the DPRK Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, Wednesday sent a message of sympathy to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in connection with the fact that 21 Egyptians, who had been recently abducted in Libya, were mercilessly killed by terrorists.
The message extended sympathy and consolation to the president, government and people of Egypt and the bereaved families of the victims.
The DPRK government strongly denounces terrorism against Egyptians in Libya from its consistent stand of opposing all forms of terrorism and any support to it, the message said.
It reiterated the invariable support and solidarity of the DPRK with the efforts of the Egyptian government and people to protect security and stability of the country and national unity.
Ri Su Yong Sends Message of Sympathy to Egyptian FM
Pyongyang, February 18 (KCNA) -- Ri Su Yong, foreign minister of the DPRK, Wednesday sent a message of sympathy to his Egyptian counterpart Sameh Shoukry in connection with the fact that 21 Egyptians, who had been recently abducted in Libya, were mercilessly killed by terrorists.
The message expressed deep sympathy to the bereaved families of the victims and extended full support and solidarity to the efforts of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry to protect security and stability of the country and realize durable peace in the Middle East.
Malcolm X is esteemed as a towering figure in the history of Resistance against the ‘Western’ capitalist-colonial order for in the main two reasons: he and those he worked with took inspiration, leadership and positive examples from actually existing global ‘Third World’ or Black Resistance against colonialism and neo-colonialism and applied that to the struggle of Black people against the system of oppression.
Malcolm X brought a no compromising approach to the Black Liberation Struggle in the USA at a time when the Black masses were intensifying their struggle against the equally intensifying white supremacist resistance that withheld and still withholds the rights and liberation of our peoples. He took the example of the growing victories of Asia and especially Africa and explained that Black people in the USA should be taking a lead from them in terms of ideologies and organisational forms of struggle, and at the same time Malcolm X advocated that the Third World or Global South liberation struggles and newly independent radical countries should come to support the struggle of the Black masses in the West against both sections common enemy.
It was for those reasons that Malcolm X; making serious headway in marrying the global and localised struggles that the powers that be killed him and made him a martyr. Therefore across the planet people recognise Malcolm X as one of the highest personifications of the potentiality of struggle in the West. It is no wonder that he remains a primary inspiring example informing our understanding and struggles today, and for these reasons amongst others, some of us are developing the Malcolm X Movement in Britain.
Inspired by the man himself The Malcolm X Movement is a Black and Asian decolonial and anti-imperialist initiative launching in August 2015, which is trying to develop unity between the peoples of the Global South. White comrades are involved in the MXM and work just as hard as any other members, but have no veto power in the structure of the MXM. The reason why we decided on this is that there is a dearth of radical Black and Asian organisations in Britain and a preponderance of white left and westernised left organisations who either are uninterested, hostile to or/and ignorant of the histories, legacies and on going challenges and advances of the peoples, countries, movements and governments of the Global South against neo-colonialism and all the oppressions of the ‘colonial matrix of power’ including amongst others white supremacy, misogyny, environmental destruction and the physical and mental genocide against those resisting and being oppressed by neo-colonialism.
The genesis of the MXM starts in June 2012. A network of around 30 activists mostly in their late 20s came together from a variety of different political backgrounds to plan launching the movement in 2015. The initiators of this process knew back then that 2015 was a big year as it is the 50th anniversary of Malcolm X’s assassination.
Before the Malcolm X Movement (MXM) has even launched properly, we are delivering the first annual Malcolm X Film Festival in March-April and have conducted a one year long free course on white supremacy through the MXM initiative of the Assata-Tupac Liberation School, as well as our first public event. attended by nearly 200 overwhelmingly Black and Asian youth in June 2014 entitled Strike the Empire Back.
In late 2014 we began tentatively organising towards the first annual Malcolm X Film Festival as a three day event only in London, which has now turned into a series of seven events in at least six cities including in occupied Ireland (‘Northern Ireland’) in Belfast with other cities as other activists wanted to host events. The film festival is a truly historical political event for radical Black and Asian politics on this island for several reasons. It is the biggest initiative of decolonial Black and Brown led politics on this island for the last 25 years or so. Unfortunately not since the last years of the Radical Third World Bookfair has this country seen such.
The amount of support it has and is receiving is similarly unprecedented, with some 36 (and counting) organisations involved.
The event is being supported by some of the most inspiring political movements on the planet today fighting neo-colonialism such as the revolutionary Palestinian group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and their iconic leader Leila Khaled will be speaking at an event. The Libyan Popular National Movement are also an official supporting organisation despite one of their main spokespersons – Dr Moussa Ibrahim still being wanted by NATO! – speaking via video link he will be imparting how Malcolm X inspires the peoples of Libya to struggle against those who have lynched, raped and persecuted dark skinned, Black Africans and Libyans and those opposing NATO’s project there.
Also importantly we have the Black Panther veterans association, which gathers all the Black Panther veterans in the Black Panther Alumni supporting the film festival too. Members of Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic-Front) are also speaking from of one of the most effective decolonial Pan African and radical anti-imperialist states on the continent. And of course it is a real honour to have someone from the Shabazz family speaking via video link at the Malcolm X Film, sister Ilyasah Shabazz, an articulate and inspiring political activist and author in her own right and one of the daughters of Malcolm X. One cannot underemphasise how powerful it is to have the Shabazz family, the PFLP, ZANU-PF, the Black Panthers and Irish revolutionaries and many others supporting such an event.
The Film Festival will feature three panels with related themed speeches and interviews from Malcolm X, especially from the last few years of his life. The speakers and discussions will echo the themes being discussed in the three panels:
Civil Rights & Black Power
Global Unity & Internationalism
Legacy, Continuity and Challenges
The idea of the first annual Malcolm X Summer Festival came out of the simple recognition that there is no flag ship annual event in Britain focused towards celebrating and learning about Black and Asian struggles, our culture of Resistance and Humanity and on-going challenges. The Malcolm X Summer Festival seeks to celebrate through a diversity of workshops, panels, film showings, and other cultural and political activities engaging thousands across the country.
The Assata-Tupac Liberation School is the educational arm of the MXM which starts another annual course this May hosted in central London but accessible to people beyond who cannot physically attend via live streams, podcasts, youtube uploads and reading outlines and reading lists delivered by revolutionary experts and participants of struggles of the Global South. And its free! The Liberation School is where young people can develop themselves with the ideological tools for becoming revolutionaries, no other organised structure other than this liberation school exists in this country which delivers an on-going professionally constructed and free educational course in basically: Revolution.
Furthermore to all of the above, the MXM is launching grassroots campaigns at the Malcolm X Summer Festival, which will address some of the direct and immediate problems that our communities are facing and exposing how they impact us on a global level.
The reason the MXM has conducted a liberation school course, a well attended and successful public event, a film festival and a summer festival before we have even launched is that we have seen too many times when organisations seek to recruit and be active that they have actually done very little and have very little to offer. Rather, the MXM has sought to show people what we are capable of achieving, what we stand for, how we operate and who we are and what we strategically and tactically seek to do for the years ahead.
When the entire so-called ‘west’ is going deeper into crisis on all levels, as the west increasingly strikes, as its global positions of hegemony are slowly being whittled away by the growing capacity of the Global South, while the repression in the west in the forms of oppression of women and girls, of young people, white supremacy, housing and social problems all of which is a asymmetric mirror reflection, a microcosm of the neo-colonial and NATO covert and overt wars against the peoples of the world, it is imperative more than ever to build a base of Resistance to this order from right here in the UK, within the heart of whiteness. The MXM invites people to get involved, to contribute what we can in our modest way to the process of standing up against this system of oppression and standing with those who have and continue to effectively counter and destroy oppression and open up a new liberated future to Humanity.
Commentary: Uncle Sam: anti-terror leader or terrorist breeder?
BEIJING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- On the world stage, the United States has assumed anti-terror leadership since the deadly Sept. 11 attack in 2001, yet underneath its glossy surface, Uncle Sam seemed to have a secret identity as a terrorist breeder.
In a display of leadership and power, the White House will convene an international conference on fighting violent extremism on Thursday, bringing together government officials from around 60 countries.
The summit aims to "highlight domestic and international efforts to prevent violent extremists and their supporters from radicalizing, recruiting, or inspiring individuals or groups in the U.S. and abroad to commit acts of violence."
That all seemed right and proper, given the rising threats of terrorism and violent extremism across the world and the deadly attacks in Western countries in recent months, but the key to realizing the goal of such a summit is missing.
Washington paid little attention to exploring the root causes of terrorism, which should be deemed intriguing, as the latest villain on its black list, the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, originated not in Iran or the DPRK, both "enemies" of Washington, but in Iraq, a state "freed" and "democratized" by the U.S. itself.
It is also thought-provoking that the IS militants drew much of their fighting experience from the West-involved war in Syria, where the Western bloc has supported rebels in their efforts to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
It would be a never ending war on terror if Washington failed to find and eliminate the root causes of terrorism and extremism. To admit it or not, Uncle Sam has effectively played the role of a terrorist breeder, when the war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria turned the region into a burning battleground with no peace, security and stability in sight. The U.S. military operation might be clean and swift, but its political plan for those states dragged into a civil war was awkward, which backfired and created dangerous swamps of turmoil that provided breeding ground for terrorism. It is high time that Washington take the opportunity of Thursday's conference to discuss with global partners and review past counter-terrorism strategies and policies, so as to reflect upon past mistakes and improve the ability to address such threats.
Any violent and extremist acts targeting civilians should be condemned in the strongest term and perpetrators brought to justice.
As counter-terrorism has become a responsibility of the international community as a whole, closer global cooperation, based on the United Nations Charter and a unified standard, is necessary to jointly secure regional and global peace and security.
Backgrounder: Those terrorists that once were "friends" of United States
BEIJING, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Barack Obama is set to meet with leaders and senior security officials from many other countries at a summit in Washington on Thursday, in an attempt to address the aggravating terrorist violence across the world.
This summit, themed "Summit on Countering Violent Extremism," will be attended by security experts and government officials from Britain and dozens of other countries in light of recent terrorist attacks in Canada, Australia, France and Nigeria.
While the United States would like to consider itself as the leader of the anti-terrorism alliance, its relationship with many extremist groups and individuals is intricate and even questionable.
Among many perilous and brutal terrorist groups in the world which have been backed by the U.S. government, Al Qaeda is the one particularly "exemplary" to show that the U.S. foreign policy is based on realpolitik and the short-term pursuit of narrow interests.
In order to battle against the Soviet's invasion in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, U.S. intelligence agencies had backed many Islamic fundamentalist groups in the land-locked country as well as in other Islamic countries.
And soon, one Arabian businessman emerged as the best protege of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States in the surrogate war between the two super powers. His name is Osama bin Laden.
Al-Qaeda, the terrorist group with many of its founders trained by the U.S. government, has become the world's largest and most notorious terrorist group. And its franchises reach almost all war-torn Islamic countries.
As for the Islamic State (IS), which is even "too extreme" in the eyes of regular al-Qaeda fighters, its key members were trained by the CIA and the Special Forces command at a secret camp in Jordan in 2012, according to RT, citing informed Jordanian officials.
What's more, the footsteps of U.S. intelligence agencies are not limited in the Islamic world.
In the 1990s, U.S. special forces and Drug Enforcement Administration worked with a Colombian vigilante group -- Los Pepes -- to track down and kill drug lord Pablo Escobar. The two main leaders of Los Pepes were Don Berna and Fidel Castano, both former employees of Escobar.
In 1997, some of Los Pepes' leaders co-founded the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, more commonly known as AUC which was responsible for numerous massacres and political assassinations in Colombia.
In the 1960s, the CIA also trained and harbored two terrorists trying to assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro and to topple the communist government in the country.
Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban citizen who fled to the United States after the Cuban Revolution, helped organize the Bay of Pigs invasion, and after it failed, he became an agent for the CIA.
He was trained at Fort Benning, a U.S. Army post outside Colubus, Georgia. From 1964 to 1968, he was involved in a series of bombings and other anti-Castro covert activities.
Posada was found guilty by a court of Panama as one of the perpetrators behind the 1967 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 people. But he lived in the United States as a refugee and was never convicted with any criminal activity there.
Posada's accomplice Orlando Bosch Avila, also a Cuban exile, was granted shelter by the U.S. government as well, though former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh called him an "unrepentant terrorist."
As the United States upholds the flag of anti-terrorism once again, it may have to abandon its selfish and short-sighted interests first.
RT Shows Global South Can Wing the Media War Against Neo-Colonialism
Sukant Chandan Sons of Malcolm
Weds 18 Feb 2015
Russia Today TV has revolutionised the exchange of information on current news and analysis in the print and especially TV medium. Before RT, the english speaking masses of the world had no access to a platform that gathers all opposition to nato and the neo-colonialists. After RT, but really after RT's critical and anti-nato coverage of Libya in 2011 (the ONLY global channel to promote a consistently anti-nato line on Libya) RT's audience rocketed and since it is a for the first time in a VERY long a MAINSTREAM channel. RT has its limitations, it is basically the inverted manifestation of Fox News in style and production but with an anti-nato editorial line.
While I don't agree with reproducing the colonial elements of Fox and western news channels as RT has done (basically, a tendency towards although not only sensationalism, too much misogynistic-sexualised sisters presenting etc), there is a basic and extremely effective formula that RT has: put a decent amount of money into the channel, hand the project to 'savvy' younger oriented producers etc, and hey presto, Russia has now the most popular mass audiences based channel in the world! Press TV is excellent, as is TeleSUR English, Chinese CCTV, however, they are just failing to invest the resources necessary for these platforms to be as successful as RT. If they and others did so (I think Belarus, Zimbabwe, Algeria, and basically any OPEC and relatively resource-rich Global South state) should be adopting with modifications and according to their own characteristics and style a RT model that would mean that we have a pluriversal spectrum of channels that are considerably biting into the mainstream space which is still dominated by the nato neo-colonialists.
Look again to RT, they have got out Putin, Lavrov's and the Russian leadership message to the world in a most effective manner (which is now inspiring the wrath of the west who are seeking to shut it down), the genie is out of the bottle, no amount of western wars against RT and Press TV etc can stop the tide of the GlobalSouth media being on the march and upping its capacity in assisting the general wars of liberation of the Global South against nato and coloniality.
RT shows that our countries can in a short amount of time effectively win the 'hearts and minds' and 'soft power' battle with the enemy, and our side should waste no time rather put major efforts into developing their media, as the existentialist war between who dominates: nato or the Global South masses, is well and truly intensifying.
Also, it would really help that all those weak and vacillating fools who run for Qatari or George Soros, or BBC, Channel4 and other neo-colonial money and backing, might be dragged back into being of SOME use to our global struggle.
This is taken from Qiúshì; literally: "Seek Truth", which is a bi-monthly political theory periodical published by the Central Party School and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. Its goal is to "to publicize the governing PHILOSOPHY of the CPC" with content that reports on political, economic, cultural and social issues, while providing analysis of world politics and China’s foreign relations". About 60% of its articles are written by political leaders. - Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm Study and Use Dialectical Materialism, Strengthen and Coordinate our Abilities to Move the “Four Comprehensives” forward.
Not long ago, General Secretary Xi Jinping made an important speech at the 20th collective study session of the Politburo, stressing that dialectical materialism is the worldview and methodology of Chinese Communist Party members, that our Party must unite and lead the people in moving the comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous society, the comprehensive deepening of reform, comprehensively governing the country according to the law and comprehensively governing the Party strictly forward in a coordinated manner, realize the “Two Centenaries” struggle objective, and realize the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, that we must incessantly receive the nourishment and wisdom of Marxist philosophy, even more consciously uphold and use the worldview and methodology of dialectical materialism, strengthen our abilities in dialectical thinking and strategic thinking, strive to raise our skill in resolving fundamental problems in our country’s reform and development, and develop a Chinese Marxism for the 21st Century. Giving high regard to studying and grasping the worldview and methodology of Marxism, is an excellent tradition that our Party has consistently maintained through the Chinese revolution, construction and reform periods. The important speech of General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out the direction for our preparations to respond with a magnificent struggle that has many new historical characteristics, for the coordination of moving the “Four Comprehensives” forward and spare no effort for the realization of the Chinese Dream.
To persist in starting from our basic national circumstances and starting from objective reality from beginning to end to formulate policies and move work forward, we must earnestly study and grasp the basic tenets of dialectical materialism concerning the world being unified in matter, and that matter decided consciousness. The relationship between spirit and matter is a fundamental philosophical question, and is a fundamental question in real work. All of humankinds’ activities are inseparable from the two aspects of spirit and matter. Only dialectical materialism scientifically resolves the relationship between spirit and matter, has demonstrated that the world is unified in matter, and objective existence decides subjective consciousness. Because of this, in real work, we must ensure everything starts from reality, and truth must be sought from facts. The biggest objective reality in contemporary China is that our country still is, and for a long time will remain, in the primary stage of Socialism, this is the fundamental objective point for us to understand the present, plan the fu, formulate policy and move our undertaking forward, we cannot become separated from this basic point. The reason that the theory, line, principles and policies that our Party has put forward and implemented in the present stage are correct is because they have taken our country’s current social existence as basis. At present, we must both consider that the fundamental national circumstance of the primary stage of Socialism has not changed, and must also consider that our country’s economic and social development has brought new characteristics in every phase. We must correctly grasp the unity of this sort of “non-change” and “change”, we must neither mark a boat to seek a sword [an old Chinese proverb], neither can we help the plants grow by pulling on the sprouts, we must persist in starting from our country’s fundamental national circumstances and development requirements from beginning to end. When we put forward we must correctly grasp and actively adapt to the new normal in economic development, this is a judgement responding to the changes in the international and domestic environment, and of a dialectical analysis of the characteristics of our country’s economic development stage. Correctly grasping the new changes and new characteristics of our country’s different development stages, ensuring that the subjective world conforms better to objective reality, and deciding on work policies according to reality are work methods that we must closely keep in mind.
To forcefully strengthen the construction of the Socialist core value system and strengthen our country’s soft power, we must earnestly study and grasp the tenets of dialectical materialism concerning the counter effect of consciousness on matter. Dialectical materialism, under the precondition that it affirms that matter decides consciousness, also admits that consciousness displays a huge dynamic effect on understanding and changing the world, which demands that we respect the integration of objective laws and giving rein to subjective initiative. “People must have a bit of spirit.” General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that: “dialectical materialism is not a denial of the counter effect of consciousness on matter, but it believes that this sort of counter effect sometimes can be extremely huge. Our Party has put ideological construction in the first place in Party building from beginning to end, and has stressed that ‘revolutionary ideals are higher than heaven’, the reason for this is that spirit changes matter and matter changes spirit dialectically.” To realize the Chinese Dream, we must carry forward a Chinese spirit. Realizing the Chinese Dream demands that we not only strengthen in material terms, but also that we expand spiritually. From ancient times to the present, any large country’s development process has been a process of rising power in economic quantities, military power and other such hard power factors, as well as a rise in value systems, ideology, culture and other such soft power. For a nation, for a country, the most long lasting and the most profound force is a core value system commonly recognized by all of society. We must not slacken education about ideals and conviction, the construction of ideology and morality, and ideological work, forcefully foster and carry forward the Socialist core value system, and use a Chinese spirit that is rich in the flavour of the times to concentrate China’s forces.
To incessantly strengthen our consciousness about problems and strengthen our ability to vigorously respond to and resolve contradictions we run into during our progress in moving the “Four Comprehensives” forward, we must earnestly study and grasp the fundamental principles of dialectical materialism concerning material contradictions. Some leading cadres, when they run into problems or contradictions, often want to avoid or dodge the matter, one important reason for this is that they do not understand that material contradictions are the inherent drivers to promote material development. The general characteristics of dialectical materialism are connection and development, it is a theory concerning universal connection and comprehensive development. The law of the unity of opposites is the essence and core of dialectical materialism, it takes the objective universality of contradictions as preconditions, and understands that the driver of development lies in the unity of opposites of both sides of material contradictions. The problem is the manner in which material contradictions manifest themselves. Stressing that we must strengthen a consciousness of problems, persist in a problem orientation, means recognizing the universality and objectivity of contradictions, and means that we must be good at making the understanding and dissolution of contradictions into a breakthrough point to open up work situations. Problems are the voices of the times. Our Party has led the people in the revolution, construction and reform, and has always done so for the sake of resolving China’s real problems. The correct attitude for dealing with contradictions should be directly facing contradictions, and using the complementary characteristics of contradictions to promote material development through the process of resolving contradictions. At present, the Centre puts forward the accelerated transformation of economic development, adjusting economic structures, reducing excess production capacity, strengthening the construction of an ecological civilization and other such tasks, all of these are aimed at a number of profound contradictions that affect a broad area and are strongly coupled, they are for the sake of incessantly guiding action according to circumstances, they directly face and resolve contradictions. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that: “in the face of complex circumstances and onerous tasks, we must first and foremost look at the entire picture, and ensure we have a detailed knowledge of all sorts of contradictions, at the same time, we must also resolve main contradictions and the main aspects of contradictions with priority, in order to drive the resolution of other contradictions.” This demands that we not only understand contradictions and view them correctly, we must also be good at finding the main contradictions out of a mass of contradictions, look for the main aspects of contradictions on both sides of every contradiction, and persist in the dialectical unity of the “dialectical points theory” and the “focus point theory”. Only if we are good at grasping the “focus point” of “dialectical points”, grasp the focus point to lead the ordinary, both pay attention to general planning and pay attention to leading “the cow by the nose”, and moving forward with the comprehensive construction of a moderately prosperous society, the comprehensive deepening of reform, comprehensively governing the country according to the law and comprehensively governing the Party strictly in a coordinated manner, will we be able to even better build Socialism with Chinese characteristics.
To strengthen our ability for dialectical thinking and raise our skill in mastering complex situation and dealing with complex issues, we must earnestly study and grasp the fundamental methods of dialectical materialism concerning material dialectics. “Handling affairs according to dialectics” is a celebrated remark of Comrade Deng Xiaoping, which was greatly admired by Comrade Mao Zedong. To consciously handle affairs according to material dialectics, the most important matter is that we must make the entire process of material activity into a dialectical development and grasp it in this manner, look at problems by studying them in a comprehensive and dialectical manner, and oppose metaphysical thinking methods. General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed that: “The more our undertaking develops in breadth and depth, the more we must incessantly strengthen our ability for dialectical thought.” At present, the relationships between all sorts of interests in our country’s society is becoming extremely complex, there are more problems that on their own can affect the whole situation, and it is especially necessary to “recommend handling matters according to dialectics”, be good at dealing with the relationship between partial matters and the complete situation, the present and the long-term, focus concerns and non-focus concerns, seek profit and avoid harms in weighing pros and cons, and make the most beneficial strategic choices. To comprehensively deepen reform, we must give prominence to the systematic nature, integrated nature and coordinated nature of reform, and ensure that the fruits of reform and extended to the whole body of the people in greater numbers and even more fairly. Handling affairs according to dialectics demands that our observation of circumstances and work must overcome subjective wilfulness, we cannot be like blind men groping an elephant, look at the sky from the bottom of the well, pull up sprouts to help them grow, fit everything into a Procrustean bed, or draw feet on a snake. To raise our ability for dialectical thinking, we must be objective rather than subjective, develop rather than remain static, be comprehensive rather than biased, be systemic rather than fragmented, and be universally contacted rather than look at matters in isolation, when we analyse and resolve problems, we must correctly grasp objective reality, truly grasp laws, and appropriately deal with all sorts of major relationships.
To persist in practicing the first viewpoint, and incessantly move forward theoretical innovation on a practical basis, we must earnestly study and grasp the tenets of dialectical materialism concerning understanding and practicing dialectical relations. Dialectical materialism makes practice into a basis for understanding, it makes dialectics into a theory of reflection, and so establishes a dynamic theory of reflection. The practical viewpoint is the primary and basic viewpoint of dialectical materialist epistemology. It stresses that understanding is the dynamic reflection of the objective on the subjective on a practical basis; from perceptual knowledge to rational knowledge, and from rational knowledge to practice, are two big leaps in the process of understanding. Theory must be connected to reality, theory must be unified with practice. For us to move work in all areas forward, we cannot rely on “bookism”, we must rely on deriving true knowledge from practice. At the same time, we must give high regard to the role of theory, strengthen self-confidence about theory and a strategic ability to concentrate, correct theories that have been obtained through repeated practice and comparison must be firmly and unwaveringly upheld. The unity of theory and practice is realized in incessant development. We must, on the basis of the changes of the times and development in practice, under the leadership of the Party Centre with Comrade Xi Jinping as General Secretary, incessantly deepen our understanding, incessantly summarize experiences, incessantly realize the beneficial interaction of theoretical innovation and practical innovation, and coordinate moving forward with the “Four Comprehensives” and developing a 21st Century Chinese Marxism through this sort of unity and interaction.
Egypt and regional allies have no choice but to defeat the death squads in Libya
Sukant Chandan Sons of Malcolm
Mon 16 Feb 2015
One of the death squads which is facilitating nato interests across the Muslim world - 'Isis' - has committed another supremacist crime in the murder of 21 Egyptian Copts who were in Libya as labourers. This was done in the Libyan city of Sirte, which saw a brutal bombing by the bigger and biggest supremacist force in the world - nato during its 7 month blitz of Libya in 2011. Sirte was a beautiful city which was the permanent headquarters of the African Union, so the nato destruction of the city and this current Isis crime there is the continuation of the destruction of Libya as a shiefl, defender and unifier of Africa.
There are many who supported nato's Arab Sting in Libya (and Syria) that are no wringing their hands to try the impossible to excuse themselves from their role in opening the doors directly to the death squads under the Arab Spring cover. I myself in hindsight was foolish enough to support the Arab Sting in Tunisia and Egypt, however as soon as nato got openly involved in Libya and Syria in the early part of 2011, the proverbial scales fell of from one's eyes and what was due was a total reworking of the analysis of what these uprisings were actually intended to achieve by the support and leadership given to them by the Gulf Monarchist (especially Qatar), western states and mainstream media and sectarian and politically neo-colonial liberal forces of the alliance between death squads, the Ikhwan and George Soros-type funded tomfoolery.
The rise of Abdel Fatteh Sisi into the leadership of Egypt signalled the popular historic push back against the Arab Sting, and it was a necessity to the very existence of Egypt that the death squads 'good cop' to their 'bad cop' in the form of the pro-nato Muslim Brotherhood was neutralised, and that has been largely achieved in Egypt: the Muslim Brotherhood's service to nato and the mass rejection of them by the Egyptian people has meant that for the forseeable future they are totally finished, and now can only but lash out and join in terrorism and give excuses and cover for it.
Part of this historic push back against the nato counter revolution which is the Arab Sting is Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and a few others containing the death squad fall out from a major launch pad and operating base which Libya has become. The limited air strikes by Egypt against the death squads in Libya is a sad and tragic development, but is a partial and inadequate response to a strategy of containment that the region desperately sees lest the fall out continues to ravage the region in a neo-colonial designed divide and ruin and traumatising fall out which is impacting the whole North African, Sahel and Sub Saharan regions.
Egypt will not be able to contain or defeat Isis and other death squads by air strikes, what is needed is a relatively massive coordinated campaign by the anti death squad forces which might and does include alliances with General Haftar who is in the coalition against the Misrata and allied death squads, the most sectarian and depraved of them all in Libya, along with those Libyan forces in the camp of those who built a relatively (and compared to today an incomparably wonderful country!) functional Libya in the form of the Jamahirya and other more honest Libyan forces which seek to unite and stabilise the country. This coordinated effort must mean serious military assistance in Libya, which must include serious special forces support to the allied forces in Libya and even Egyptian and other 'boots on the ground' in some considerable numbers.
Of course, Egypt has a recent history of giving direct troops to those fighting the nato agenda in the region, most notably Egypt's support to the revolutionaries in Yemen against a similar coalition of nato and Gulfie forces in the late 1960s. Ideally, Iran would join in this Egyptian and allied effort in Libya, however, Iran are still at least in public keeping up media and political hostilities as they are not over the fact that Morsi and the Ikhwan are historically finished, and anyway, Iran have major headaches at the very least in Iraq and Syria to deal with. However, considering Ayotollah Khamenei recently opened denounced the death squads in Libya (the closest thus far Iran has come to distancing itself from the very forces it is now criticising that it supported in 2011), it is in the direct interests of Iran and Syria to defeat the menace in Libya and elsewhere. Indeed, one is reminded of Muammar Gaddafi's comments in the summer of 2011 that his resistance against nato and their death squads is a direct defence of Syria and Iran. It seems that Iran, however excruciatingly slowly, are coming to realise the validity of Gaddafi's work, struggle and sacrifice.
Whatever will transpire in the region in relation to the death squads, it is clear that Libya has since the destruction of the country in through 2011 has become a major asset to the leading nato countries, it is serving way too much of an advantage in being the launch pad for the british, yanks and french and their Guld allies in laying to waste whole regions which could otherwise see stability and prosperity as they increasingly ally with China and Russia in a win-win partnership. Egypt and the countries, government and peoples of the whole region will be and are facing the full might and slyness or nato, and to defeat such a force Egypt needs a tight unity with all leading Global South forces regionally and globally. In this sense, the recent development of strategic unity between Egypt and Russia is of major importance.
Egypt retaliates with air strikes after ISIS marches 21 Coptic Christians along a lonely Libyan beach and beheads them en masse for their faith
* Egyptian warplanes struck at least Islamic State targets near the Islamist-held city of Derna in eastern Libya today * Strikes come after ISIS-affiliated militants beheaded 21 Egyptians Coptic Christians in a sickening filmed massacre * Men were paraded by their masked killers before being savagely beheaded on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea * The Egyptian government last night vowed to 'avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers'
Pope Francis expressed 'profound sadness' over the slayings, saying the victims were 'murdered for their faith'
Egypt launched airstrikes on Islamic State targets in Libya this morning as it 'seeks retribution' for the barbaric filmed beheading of 21 Coptic Christians.
There were at least seven strikes in Derna in the east of the country, which has become a hotbed of Islamic extremism since Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in 2011.
It is the first time Egypt has announced military action against Islamist targets in its western neighbour, having previously denied it targeted militants there, and the first time militants connected with the Islamic State terror group have been hit with airstrikes outside Syria and Iraq.
The strikes are in response to a gruesome video, released last night, showing a group of orange jumpsuit-clad Coptic Christians being marched to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea by masked, knife-wielding militants.
The 21 men, who were Egyptian migrant workers kidnapped last month, are then seen being forced onto their knees before they are beheaded simultaneously by the militants standing behind them.
A statement released by the Egyptian military this morning said: 'Your armed forces on Monday carried out focused air strikes in Libya against Daesh camps, places of gathering and training, and weapons depots'.
Daesh is a a derogatory Arabic acronym for the Islamic State terror group, commonly referred to as ISIS or ISIL in the West.
Egyptian state television followed up the military statement by showing footage of warplanes it said were taking off to conduct the strikes.
'Avenging Egyptian blood and retaliating against criminals and killers is a duty we must carry out,' the military said.
The air strikes came hours after President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi threatened a 'suitable response' to the killings of the Christians who had travelled to Libya seeking work.
Sisi, a former army chief who overthrew the Islamist president and then won elections touting his firm hand, faced a chorus of demands to retaliate after the beheadings.
Libya's air force meanwhile announced it had launched strikes in the eastern city of Darna, which was taken over by an IS affiliate last year.
Egyptian television has repeatedly played the sickening five-minute video since its release, albeit without the beheadings actually being shown.
The footage shows black-clad militants leading their captives in orange jumpsuits along a beach before forcing them to kneel
Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: 'Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for.'
A caption on the five-minute video reads: 'The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian Church.'
Images taken from the video of waves breaking on the beach turning red from the blood of the victims spread among Egyptians on social media, enraging many.
The White House led condemnation of the apparent beheadings, describing the killers as 'despicable' and adding that the brutality shown 'further galvanises the international community to unite against ISIL,' an alternative acronym for the group.
Pope Francis also expressed 'profound sadness' over the beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians by Islamic militants in Libya, saying they had been killed for their faith.
'They were executed for nothing more than the fact that they were Christians,' Francis said in unscheduled remarks in his native Spanish following a meeting with John Chalmers, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
'The blood of our Christian sisters and brothers is testimony that cries out (to us),' the pontiff added.
'Be they Catholics, Orthodox, Copts, Lutherans, it does not matter. They are Christians, their blood is the same, their blood confesses (their faith in) Christ.'
French President Francois Hollande, whose government is poised to sign a deal selling Egypt advanced Rafale fighter jets on Monday, expressed his 'concern at the expansion of Daesh in Libya,' using another name for ISIS.
Libya's embattled parliament, which is locked in a conflict with Islamists, expressed condolences in a statement and called on the world to 'show solidarity with Libya' against militants.
IS militants have been hammered by US-led air strikes in Iraq and Syria after taking over swathes of the two countries and the group has active affiliates in Egypt and Libya.
In recent months Libya has seen the worst unrest since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi, which will complicate any efforts to combat the country's many Islamic extremist groups.
The internationally recognized government has been confined to the country's far east since Islamist-allied militias seized the capital Tripoli last year, and Islamist politicians have reconstituted a previous government and parliament.
Egypt has strongly backed the internationally recognized government, and U.S. officials have said both Egypt and the United Arab Emirates took part in a series of mysterious airstrikes targeting Islamist-allied forces last year.
The Egyptian government declared a seven-day mourning period after the release of the video and President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi addressed the nation late Sunday night.
'These cowardly actions will not undermine our determination' said el-Sissi, who also banned all travel to Libya by Egyptian citizens.
'Egypt and the whole world are in a fierce battle with extremist groups carrying extremist ideology and SHARING the same goals,' he added.
The Coptic Church issued a statement saying it was 'confident' the Christians' killers would be brought to justice, as it confirmed those beheaded were Egyptian Copts.
Al-Azhar, the prestigious Cairo-based seat of Islamic learning, denounced the killings as 'barbaric'.
The video, entitled 'A message signed with blood to the nation of the cross', has a scrolling caption in the first few seconds referring to the hostages as 'people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian Church'.
The makers of the video identify themselves as the Tripoli Province of the Islamic State group and had claimed in January to have abducted 21 Christians.
The video makes reference to Egyptian woman Camilia Shehata, the wife of a Coptic priest whose alleged conversion to Islam sparked a sectarian dispute in Egypt in 2010.
It says the beheadings were revenge for the treatment of Shehata, who they claim was held against her will by the Church post-conversion.
The latest ISIS video comes after the jihadis released footage earlier this month showing the gruesome burning alive of Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh, who the group captured after his F-16 came down in Syria in December.
Militants in Libya had been holding the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians hostage for weeks, all laborers rounded up from the city of Sirte in December and January.
The makers of the video identify themselves as the Tripoli Province of the Islamic State group.
Tens of thousands of Egyptians work in Libya, mainly in the construction sector, and they have been targeted as the country has descended into chaos.
The killings raise the possibility that the Islamic militant group - which controls about a third of Syria and Iraq in a self-declared caliphate - has established a direct affiliate less than 500 miles from the southern tip of Italy.
One of the militants in the video, speaking English, makes direct reference to that possibility, saying the group now plans to 'conquer Rome.'
Yesterday, images emerged of ISIS militants publicly executing two alleged spies and mercilessly crucifying another to a road sign in the Syrian city of Al-Bab.
On Thursday, the extremist group announced it was holding an Israeli-Arab who posed as foreign a fighter to spy for the country's intelligence agency, Mossad.
Why should China say no to "wrong Western values"?
BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- The West breathed a collective sigh [gasp] when Chinese education minister recently vowed to ban "wrong Western values" in universities.
Those who follow the antiquated paradigm of autocracy versus democracy will invariably label the announcement as ideological tightening and claim China is closing the door to western culture.
But this sort of conclusion, without prudent review of why the Chinese government resists these "wrong Western values" or the context of this decision, is in itself wrong.
China does not oppose the ideas of liberty, democracy, equality and human rights, which are among the core values of western culture. In fact, these concepts are included in the Constitution. However, China's understanding of these concepts may differ to the West.
Many in the West misunderstand China, confidently predicting the fall of the Communist Party of China (CPC), they wish for the country to purge itself of its old political system, to replace it with a more western model: In this way, they believe, China would be "accepted" by the West.
There is no universal criteria to judge political values. Therefore, China must assimilate western values within its own political culture. Otherwise, it could ruin the future and fate of the entire nation.
China has always stressed the protection of human rights, which are the basic goals of countries seeking for good governance. However, it holds different values from the Western thought that human rights are natural born.
China holds that the concept of human rights depends on objective conditions, like history, traditions, and economic and social development, thus, there is no universal concept of human rights.
Unlike western countries, which pay more attention to liberty, protection of private property and other civil and political rights, China, a developing country, prioritizes the right to subsistence and development.
In addition, humans do not only have civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights.
Liberty is cherished the world over, including in China. In the political spectrum, liberty is a symbol of Western political thought that is based mainly on the individual. Chinese traditions and Marxist ideology, however, is based on collective liberalism.
Liberty also depends on objective conditions so some liberties in Western countries cannot be adapted to Chinese circumstances.
While hailing the contribution of western democracy to the development of civilization, China cannot copy another country's political system.
China's people's congress system emphasizes the legislative body's support for and supervision over the government to achieve effective decision making.
It rejected a multi-party system; the west-style "separation of powers".
The people's congress system serves the common interest of the masses, and is the best way to ensure the Chinese people are the true masters of their own country.
China did not just stumble upon its current political system by accident, nor did it happen by random invention.
It is a result of a laborious processes of trial and error; reflection and institutionalization. During this process, some western concepts such as multiparty elections and the separation of powers were proved unsuitable for China' s development.
History has told the Chinese that denying the leadership of the CPC and socialism leads to chaos and stagnation.
China has no right to criticize the culture or values of other countries, but it has the right to choose its own.
When slander directed toward the leadership of the CPC and smear campaigns against socialism confusing the young in universities, why can China not say no?
Denying these "wrong Western values" does not mean China is going to limit academic freedom in universities. Instead, it is promoting educational cooperation and exchanges with foreign countries.
The exclusion of these unsuitable values will not see foreign textbooks banned in Chinese universities. Rather, China will absorb and apply all advanced cultures and thoughts from all over the world.
As for political systems, China welcomes equal discussion and study, rather than criticism or lack of consideration of others' conditions.
"Belt and Road" not reaction to U.S. Pivot to Asia
"Either the observers who pitched the two against each other are unwilling to see the Belt and Road initiatives go smoothly or they want to strain China-U.S. ties at a time when the two nations are aiming to build a new type of major-country relationship."
BEIJING, Feb. 13 (Xinhua) -- Rather than seeking regional dominance,China's plans to build an East-West trade network across the Asian continent are pacifist in nature because of their inclusiveness and aim at mutual benefit.
Western media outlets have portrayed the proposals as a counterweight to the U.S. "Pivot to Asia" strategy of rebalancing its resources towards the Asia-Pacific. But they should note two historical episodes related to the Silk Road, the planned network's forebear. One features Zhang Qian, who spread Chinese culture when exploring the routes and brought into China products including grapes and sesame two thousand years ago.
The other concerns admiral Zheng He and his fleet's seven voyages overseas, the longest of which took him to the eastern African coast over the equator. On these expeditions, Zheng carried with him not blood and fire but porcelain, silk and tea.
As an effort to revive the ancient routes of peace and exchange that the two luminaries explored, the "Silk Road Economic Belt" and the "21st Century Maritime Silk Road" initiatives -- referred to collectively as the "Belt and Road" -- do not challenge the fronts of Washington's trademark policy, which is widely seen as an effort to ensure U.S. hegemony and security interests remain unchallenged in the region.
To achieve that goal, the United States plans to deploy 60 percent of its fleet in the Pacific, and equip the Pacific Command with the most cutting-edge capabilities by 2020, in addition to increasing its diplomatic and economic resources in the region.
Instead of seeking to establish an enlarged military presence that is likely to complicate the regional SECURITY situation, China's proposals are purely about infrastructure, trade and economic cooperation, a vision very much in the same vein as those of Zhang and Zheng.
That's why the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, which was founded to finance infrastructure construction and promote regional interconnections, is popular among countries along the Silk Road routes, with the number of founding members rising to 26 since October.
In addition, China will contribute 40 billion U.S. dollars to set up the Silk Road Fund, which will be used to help projects related to connectivity for countries along the routes.
As a developing nation coping with the new normal of slower economic growth, the vision, proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, is also dedicated to facilitating the economic development of China's less developed western provinces and regions, which border many Asian neighbors along the Silk Road.
More importantly, the benefits of the Belt and Road will go beyond China and its Asian neighbors. As evidenced by the Venetian merchant and traveler Marco Polo, who reached China by the route, the initiatives will boost people-to-people exchange and understanding between East and West.
At a two-day seminar that concluded on Thursday in China's eastern city of Quanzhou, a famous ancient port visited by Marco Polo, Liu Qibao, head of the publicity department of the Communist Party of China's Central Committee, stressed the Silk Road initiatives are bringing opportunities for common prosperity.
When considering these factors, the logic of linking the initiatives with the U.S. strategy of maintaining its influence in Asia is untenable.
Either the observers who pitched the two against each other are unwilling to see the Belt and Road initiatives go smoothly or they want to strain China-U.S. ties at a time when the two nations are aiming to build a new type of major-country relationship.
Commentary: Maritime Silk Road initiative to reduce friction, catalyze common prosperity
BEIJING, Feb. 12 (Xinhua) -- Even a not-so-close scrutiny of the maritime Silk Road proposed by China will allow the observer to know that the route passes large areas in the South China Sea.
With China laying bear its concepts and intentions of win-win development, common prosperity and cultural inclusiveness in initiating such a route, it is believed that the project will also be helpful in solving disputes on the much-hyped "troubled water."
With its primary function as a trade route, the Maritime Silk Road will promote common development of the region and boost Asia's role as an important and sustainable engine for the growht of global economy, for the project entails hardware improvements which is crucial for the economic upgrade.
What's more important, the benefits does not stop there. More frequent exchanges of people, commodities and ideas will lead to better understanding between trading partners, as proven by the original Silk Road that spans Asia, Africa and Europe.
The proposal put forward by Chinese President Xi Jinping to rejuvenate the ancient trade route reflects China's earnestness to spur regional growth and share development opportunities with neighbors and far-away partners as well.
The idea was echoed many times at a two-day seminar that concluded Thursday in China's eastern coastal city of Quanzhou, once the world's largest trading port that even dwarfed the glamour of Alexandria in Egypt as showed in historical data and accounts of renowned travellers like Marco Polo.
Refuting irresponsible allegations by China-demonizers that the initiative betrays China's ambition to dominate the region, many analysts and experts attending the seminar expounded nature of the Maritime Silk Road proposal: what China seeks is not regional domination but win-win situation, not confrontation but cooperation, not hegemony but peaceful co-existence.
The spirit, also manifested in China's approach in resolving disputes with some neighbors in regard to the South China Sea, deserves applause from media outlets that base their reports on truth rather than bias.
Some Western media outlets have turned a habitual blind eye to the constructive efforts by China to make the South China Sea a sea of peace but tried every trick to play up "China threat," and there is no exception when it comes to reporting the China-proposed maritime Silk Road.
As noted by Xinhua News Agency's President Cai Mingzhao at the Quanzhou seminar, the media plays an irreplaceable role in promoting mutual understanding and friendship among countries.
For media outlets that even do not bother to conceal their habitual prejudice against China, they should be reminded that by always casting China in the negative light they do risk their credibility.
