[Note: The author of the essay below, Thompson Buchanan, is a retired Foreign Service Officer who has been sickened by the sight of America squandering the great asset of global sympathy and cooperation following 9/11, and the lives and treasure of America through an unjustified “war of choice.” He served eight years in the Soviet […]

Errol Morris’ new film is:
Standard Operating Procedure

Is it possible for a photograph to change the world? Photographs taken by soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison changed the war in Iraq and changed America’s image of itself. Yet, a central mystery remains. Did the notorious Abu Ghraib photographs constitute evidence of systematic abuse by the American military, […]

Paul Krugman’s March 14th NY Times essay “Betting the Bank“, should be a wake up call that the old American Fantasy of no limits & no consequences is not only an impossibly false proposition, for one it ignores the laws of thermodynamics, but it is also at the very heart of our imploding economy.
It strikes […]

As we know, the voting and polling so far show that we want a new narrative and we want change. But where is the new narrative? And change to what, at how much pain?
How about a new narrative that incorporates thermodynamics into accepted economic theory; that addresses the demand side as rigorously as the […]

Yet again, the Democrats are following, not leading.
It strikes me that the Jena Six situation, an event that happened on December 04, 2006, is a leadership opportunity the Democratic party should have taken up more PRO-actively. It is part and parcel of the ugly racist legacy nurtured by the hateful and divisive “Southern Strategy” […]

By: DR FAROOQ HASSAN
August Monday, 20, 2007
When Pakistan’s history is being written objectively there is little doubt that it would signify one of the most remorseless power tussles between the civilian and military rulers on the one hand, and the secular and religious forces on the other.
As such as the country reaches it 60th birthday […]

Bill Moyers: Tough Talk on Impeachment

Thanks to Dewayne Hendricks for this pointer: Watch this week’s Bill Moyer’s show.

Bill Moyers talks with Bruce Fein and John Nichols
BILL MOYERS: One of the fellows you’re about to meet wrote the first article of impeachment against President Clinton. Bruce Fein did so because perjury is a legal crime. […]

Dr. Farooq Hassan, Bar at Law,
Professor of International Law, Harvard University

The military run administration in Islamabad stuck back at the top Pakistani Judge of its apex court. Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has been suspended by President Pervez Musharraf for “misuse of authority”. The president has asked the Supreme Judicial Council, which oversees the judiciary, to investigate the charges.

The military regime in Pakistan has seldom given any hope to the country’s well wishers abroad and within the country to return to barracks as mandated by the Supreme Court’s ruling in Zafar Ali Shah’s case by 2002. Now well beyond that time frame, its clear that this demolition of the judicial independence of the nation is to ensure that the judges will personally pay who dare to affirm their integrity in this year when the general is evidently hell bent upon staying in power for the third time, irrespective of what the Constitution or the electorate says.

By: Professor Dr. Farooq Hassan∗
President Pakistan Ecology Council

(Presidential Address to the Pakistan Ecology Council at the Karachi Hall, Lahore High Court Bar Association, 6 October, 2006, Lahore)

I am grateful to be invited to give this year’s main Annual address on the highly important subject of Islam and protection of the environment. As Chairman of the Bar’s Environmental Committee as well, I am pleased to be here at this historical Karachi Hall, the venue for many events dealing with this country’s constitutional history. To days talk is even more significant since it deals with the survival of the human race. My interest in this subject is not new. Let me at the outset take a brief moment of your time to submit to you that as far back as 1975, that is thirty years ago, I was elected amongst a handful of Third World delegates to the First International Ecology Congress in Vienna, in which I presented my views on a subject which was in some ways similar to the one today but without reference to the available Islamic conceptions about it. [1]

The current debates on environment and its much needed protection seems to be at the center of many controversial aspects of US foreign and domestic policy. Conservationists feel that exploitation of earth’s resources for commercial goals is leading the entirety of human race into an uncertain future. On the other hand, many Western governments, led by Washington, maintain that this threat is over exaggerated and that putting an end to useful acquisition of such resources by latest scientific methodology would be tantamount to impeding human progress.

It is the purpose of this presentation to examine this debate from an Islamic perspective. My research indicates that although some aspects of this topic have been handled by a few scholars mostly in the Arabic language, this appears to be a pioneer effort to do so in an exhaustive manner. I request therefore, that you give the message of this address, the needed significance for an adequate dissemination to the people of this country. Not only third of world countries are comprised of Muslims, a number of them are pivotal in enunciating policies with respect to oil exploration.

In this context, we may keep in mind the peculiar environmental controversy intertwined with fossil oil which Muslim states have in abundance. Their rapid utilization at the urging of mostly Western states, and by the US in particular, causes serious pollution hazards and also emission of gases that are a cause of acute danger to the ozone protection of the world’s atmosphere. This has resulted in clearly the single most dangerous pollution hazard, namely, global warming to which I shall revert to later in this presentation.

The ensuing analysis examines the Islamic injunctions, if any, on this subject. This is with a view to see the philosophy of the Muslim faith towards this most crucial of current topics of human concern. Islam is considered a comprehensive way of life whose teachings, directly or indirectly, cover every possible human relationship including what today is described as “environment”.

By: Dr. Farooq Hassan

(Synopsis of address presented at World Islamic International Awards ceremony

16th September, South hall, London, 2006)

It is my great honor to be invited here to receive the World Islamic International Award for Family from the London based World Islamic Family Coalition. As a networking coalition of Muslim NGOs our host today is involved in diverse matters including the family. This NGO is designed to provide resource services and to act as a caucus for Muslim institutions internationally. Although barely set up less than a year ago, it has begun its work with some degree of earnestness with institutions in the Islamic world. I thank the Secretary General Dr. Malik for his pioneer efforts in this regard.

But I must add that much work needs to be done by them if they have to make a mark in this field as an Islamic international NGO in Family matters. All the reputable institutions that are operating presently in the field of the family are invariably Western in origin. They are primarily organized for alleviating the misfortunes and woes faced by this basic human institution in their societies. I am not aware of a single non Western NGO in the field of the family to have embarked upon a venture such as our hosts have done with any significant impact.