Arab nationalism is a political creed that has played a crucial role in Arab affairs throughout the last hundred years, without ever achieving anything of note. It has been associated at different times with three major political objectives, and failed to achieve its stated objectives in any of them.

A THEMATIC COMMENTARY ON THE QUR’AN by Shaykh Muhammad al-Ghazali. Pub: International Institute of Islamic Thought, USA; Islamic Book Trust Malaysia, 2000. Pp: 800; Price: RM60.00.

Despite weeks of claims in the West that the war in Afghanistan is over, that its main objectives have been achieved and the Taliban decisively defeated, that al-Qaeda is destroyed and a ‘civilized’ government installed in Kabul, hundreds of Afghans are still dying in ongoing US air attacks.

On a recent lecture tour of the Arab Muslim world, a celebrity from the American Muslim lecture circuit claimed that "civilization" was like a "caravan" and that different peoples have led the caravan.

One prominent feature of the West’s current war in Afghanistan, and its wider ‘war against terrorism,’ is the deliberate distortion of key facts in order to create a totally false impression of the situation for casual observers.

When leaders of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) held their 22nd summit on December 30-31, the air of achievement and success that once marked such occasions was nowhere to be seen.

Israel went on the offensive, both militarily and in propaganda terms, on January 9 after a Hamas operation inside 1948 Palestine (Israel) in which 4 Israeli soldiers were killed and two Hamas activists martyred. Israeli soldiers responded by demolishing 73 homes in nearby Ghazzah, according to the Islamic Association of Palestine (IAP), making 123 families — adding up to more than 800 people — homeless.

As the world’s nations line up with the US in its ‘war against terrorism’, another war has also begun. The “other” war is against Afghan women and children, and is being waged by the infamous United Nations Family Planning Agency (UNFPA).

America’s policy vis-a-vis its declared enemies — real or imagined — is clear: first demonize, and then attack and destroy them. Interestingly, even those who are considered “friends” for a while are not spared...

Two kinds of air wars have been waged in Afghanistan. One, with planes and bombs, has been conducted exclusively by the Americans, against which the Afghans and supporters of Usama bin Ladin have had no protection...

President Putin has intensified military operations against the Chechen people, trying to break their spirit. But the Chechens refuse to be intimidated: Putin now privately admits that the war is unwinnable and is proving a severe strain on Russian military resources.

India has moved quickly to cash in on the anti-terrorism frenzy sweeping the world by branding the struggle in Kashmir as terrorism.

The US and its allies have intensified military activities in Somalia and along its 2000-mile coastline to prevent ‘al-Qaeda terrorists’ from finding refuge or setting up new bases there, according to American officials.

To the chagrin of Sudanese president Omar Hassan al-Bashir, there is growing evidence to suggest that it makes little difference (perhaps none) in Washington whether Khartoum stands with or against the US-led “war on terrorism.”