Redrawn map for Muslim world

[Neo]

Saturday, August 26, 2006javascript:; http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=2006\08\26\story_26-8-2006_pg7_1
Redrawn map for Muslim world

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: Muslim circles have expressed alarm and disgust at the publication of a redrawn Muslim world in a journal closely linked to the US armed forces.

The Armed Forces Journal, which has published the redrawn map of the world of Islam, along with a long explanatory article, is published by the Army Times Publishing Company, a part of Gannett Company, Inc, the world’s largest publisher of professional military and defence periodicals.

The proposed scheme places Pakistan on the chopping block. According to the plan, “Iran, a state with madcap boundaries, would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Balochistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today’s Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with their Afghan brethren Pakistan, another unnatural state, would also lose its Baloch territory to Free Balochistan. The remaining ‘natural’ Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the UAE would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf … Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.””

The redrawn map claims to “redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant ‘cheated’ population groups, such as the Kurds, Baloch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities.” It adds that “one haunting wrong can never be redressed with a reward of territory: the genocide perpetrated against the Armenians by the dying Ottoman Empire.”

The author, Ralph Peters, argues that even those who abhor the topic of altering borders would be well-served to engage in an exercise that attempts to conceive a fairer, if still imperfect, amendment of national boundaries “between the Bosporus and the Indus.” According to him, “We are dealing with colossal, man-made deformities that will not stop generating hatred and violence until they are corrected. As for those who refuse to ‘think the unthinkable’, declaring that boundaries must not change and that’s that, it pays to remember that boundaries have never stopped changing through the centuries. Borders have never been static, and many frontiers, from Congo through Kosovo to the Caucasus, are changing even now.” He adds that “ethnic cleansing works”.

Peter argues that for Irael to have any hope of living in “reasonable peace” with its neighbours, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders, with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns. He writes that the most “glaring injustice” between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East. He calls Iraq an unnatural state and calls for a greater Kurdish state, which will include Turkish, Syrian and Iranian Kurds. A Free Kurdistan, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan, he adds.

Iraq’s three Sunni-majority provinces might eventually choose to unify with a Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon. The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia State rimming much of the Persian Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.

The author is of the opinion that a root cause of the broad stagnation in the Muslim world is the Saudi royal family’s treatment of Mecca and Medina as their “fiefdom.” With Islam’s holiest shrines under the control of the Saudis, they have been able to project their Wahhabi vision of a “disciplinarian, intolerant faith far beyond their borders.” The rise of the Saudis to wealth and, consequently, influence has been “the worst thing” to happen to the Muslim world as a whole since the advent of Islam, and the worst thing to happen to Arabs since the Ottoman — if not the Mongol — conquest. .

Peter writes, “While non-Muslims could not effect a change in the control of Islam’s holy cities, imagine how much healthier the Muslim world might become were Mecca and Medina ruled by a rotating council representative of the world’s major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed.


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\08\26\story_26-8-2006_pg7_1

 

[RAPTOR]

Its nothing more than a Zionist /NeoCon wish list, i wouldnt pay any attention to it.

 

[Srirangan]

I think I saw the map on some other forum, anybody want to see it?

 

[Srirangan]

From: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2006/06/1833899/

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Neo,

You started the thread.

It is said here that this is a Neocon dream.

Are you as Neo conning us with being a Neocon?

 

[Srirangan]

This is a purely speculative map by the author at AFJ.

Why does Afghanistan get the northern chunk of NA/Kashmir ..

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Jana,

See the map.

Seen the area of Free Balochistan?

You go hammer and tongs and yet did not pay heed to what I said.

Here you have what some of you call a Neocon dream.

So, keep your eyes and brains open and ticking all the time and not cloud it with pet hates.

The obvious sometimes turn out to be not so obvious!

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

The MQM and the Mohajirs won't be too happy with the way it has been distributed.

 

[RAPTOR]

I wonder what the future map of bharat/hindustan will look like. I can see at least 30 different princely states being carved out of that artificial and unatural country.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I wonder too.

How does India come into this?

It is a US map.

Go tqake on the US. But then they may extend the range of their fighters which are only violating the Pakistani airspace till NWFP at will. That won't be a nice thing, right?

Or are you suggesting that the new map of India would encompass US as a part of India!

If so, it is a ridiculous idea.

I forget your actual name and I don't want to be like the President of USA candidate whom you supported that people you don't know can be called maccaca.

I won't call you a maccaca!

 

[Neo]

I know...but the ideology is so **** and being discussed over all major forums so I thought we could share a few laughs together and posted it here.

 

[Neo]

Neo,

You started the thread.

It is said here that this is a Neocon dream.

Are you as Neo conning us with being a Neocon?

Haha lol...I've always admired your way with words Sir!
Me a Neo Conservative...nah...you know be well enough to know better.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I know...but the ideology is so **** and being discussed over all major forums so I thought we could share a few laughs together and posted it here.

Neo,

Don't take anything lightly.

Everything has some origin.

Even the State of Israel or Pakistan was never contemplated in the old days.

It happened and they exist and both are doing well.

Did anyone believe US would invade Iraq and Saddam made a common criminal when there are many common criminals passing off as leaders of countries?

Did anyone believe that Kerry could be so damned that his election became a farce.

Did anyone believe that Gore would get defeated?

Now Turkey, which is feared and reviled by the Arabs is once again coming back into the Arab scene. Did any Arab believe that this could happen?

Did you ever believe that the good work done in Afghanistan would lead to the branding of Moslems as terrorists? And all Asian profiled as terrorist no matter which country they came from?

Don't take anything at face value.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

I am keeping this map and I shall follow the world events and see if anything is suspiciously close to this map.

That is what I will do.

It affects me as much as it affects you.

 

[Neo]

By Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON, Aug 26: The US State Department has rejected suggestions that Washington is planning to redraft the boundaries of the greater Middle East, including Pakistan, along ethnic and religious lines.

The purported plan appeared recently in the US Armed Forces Journal along with two maps showing the new boundaries.

The article, by Ralph Peters, was the work of an individual and did not reflect the views of the US government, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said.

“We are working very hard for a new Middle East that is a free democratic Middle East where people can realise a better way of life, a more prosperous, better educated way of life … but there’s no question of redrawing the maps,” he said. The call for changes in the Middle East, he said, was not generated by the US. “This is a call that comes from the Middle East itself, from the people of the Middle East. So our vision for the Middle East is a vision that is coming from the Middle East itself and that is for a more free, democratic and prosperous Middle East.”

In the article, titled ‘Blood borders,’ Mr Peters argues that borders in the Middle East and Africa were “the most arbitrary and distorted” in the world and need restructuring. Four countries – Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – are singled out for major re-adjustments. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are also defined as “unnatural states”.

The author argues that such adjustments were necessary to redress the grievances of ethnic and religious minorities living inside large Muslim states.

“The boundaries projected in the maps accompanying this article redress the wrongs suffered by the most significant ‘cheated’ population groups, such as the Kurds, Baloch and Arab Shia, but still fail to account adequately for Middle Eastern Christians, Bahais, Ismailis, Naqshbandis and many another numerically lesser minorities.”

The author also argues that for Israel to have any hope of living in reasonable peace with its neighbours, it will have to return to its pre-1967 borders — with essential local adjustments for legitimate security concerns.

But he admits that the issue of the territories surrounding Jerusalem, a city stained with thousands of years of blood, “may prove intractable beyond our lifetimes.”

According to him, “the most glaring injustice in the notoriously unjust lands between the Balkan Mountains and the Himalayas” is the absence of an independent Kurdish state. There are between 27 million and 36 million Kurds living in contiguous regions in the Middle East, greater than the population of present-day Iraq, which makes the Kurds the world’s largest ethnic group without a state of its own.

While pleading for the creation of an independent Kurdistan, the author says that such a state, stretching from Diyarbakir through Tabriz, “would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan.”

A just alignment in the region would leave Iraq’s three Sunni-majority provinces as a truncated state that might eventually choose to unify with Syria that loses its littoral to a Mediterranean-oriented Greater Lebanon.

The Shia south of old Iraq would form the basis of an Arab Shia state rimming much of the Gulf. Jordan would retain its current territory, with some southward expansion at Saudi expense. “For its part, the unnatural state of Saudi Arabia would suffer as great a dismantling as Pakistan.”

The author suggests the holy cities of Makkah and Madina be ruled by a rotating council representative of the world’s major Muslim schools and movements in an Islamic Sacred State — a sort of Muslim super-Vatican — ‘where the future of a great faith might be debated rather than merely decreed.’

“True justice — which we might not like — would also give Saudi Arabia’s coastal oil fields to the Shia Arabs who populate that sub-region, while a south-eastern quadrant would go to Yemen.

The Saudi family is to be given a small Saudi Homelands Independent Territory around Riyadh.

Iran would lose a great deal of territory to Unified Azerbaijan, Free Kurdistan, the Arab Shia State and Free Balochistan, but would gain the provinces around Herat in today’s Afghanistan — a region with a historical and linguistic affinity for Persia. Iran would, in effect, become an ethnic Persian state again, with the most difficult question being whether or not it should keep the port of Bandar Abbas or surrender it to the Arab Shia State.

What Afghanistan would lose to Persia in the west, it would gain in the east, as Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier tribes would be reunited with the Afghans. Pakistan would also lose its Baloch territory to Free Balochistan. The remaining “natural” Pakistan would lie entirely east of the Indus, except for a westward spur near Karachi.

The city-states of the United Arab Emirates would have a mixed fate — as they probably will in reality. Some might be incorporated in the Arab Shia State ringing much of the Persian Gulf (a state more likely to evolve as a counterbalance to, rather than an ally of, Persian Iran). Since all puritanical cultures are hypocritical, “Dubai, of necessity, would be allowed to retain its playground status for rich debauchees. Kuwait would remain within its current borders, as would Oman.”

http://www.dawn.com/2006/08/27/top11.htm