In the three and one half years that this so-called war on terrorism has raged on, I continued to be utterly dismayed at the amount of controversy, conjecture and conspiracy theories that continue to be embraced by Muslins and non-Muslims alike.

While it is safe to say that most people don’t believe the US military and the mainstream press that dutifully follows along, it is astounding when facts are presented, that a whole host of chatter, gossip and speculation continues even from those who claim to be among the most pious Muslims.

From the time I started JUS, not a week goes by that we don’t receive an email from a Muslim or a non-Muslim that continues to believe that Sheikh Osama Bin Laden is connected to the CIA, that 911 was a CIA (or Mossad) operation and that Al-Qaeda doesn’t exist! While we may be able to justify why non-Muslims think this way, the Muslims have got to stop believing this conspiracy nonsense!

While the Panac document give us real clues to the American agenda, over the past three years we have translated and archived under our Inside Bin Laden’s Department, hundreds of pages of material so that Muslims and non-Muslims understand where and how this conflict started, with some material dating back to 1994. The conspiracy theories that have been spun are easily sold to the Muslims; they are buying it hook, line and sinker because its is a means they can sit on their rear ends and not have to participate in the battles that are raging while still benefiting from a higher living standard and better lifestyle outside the Middle East. Interestingly, the Muslims in the Middle East blame Mossad and the Muslims in the West blame the CIA. Neither is correct. The Al-Qaeda Strategic Plan To the Year 2020 (currently on our front page) clearly shows that they have a plan too and this plan dates back to Sheikh Osama bin Laden’s Declaration of War in 1996, long before the Panac document!

The fact that the US hasn't caught Bin Laden is because they aren't looking. Of course they want war; the US is so arrogant that they think they can use "terrorism" to take over the Middle East but thank goodness a few Muslims understand their obligations. Alhamdulilah, we have the soldiers of Allah and Allah is the best of planners.

Even when presented with direct facts, the Muslim will cry conspiracy. Last week’s press release by Al-Qaeda in Iraq stating the Sheikh Abu Musab Zarqawi had been injured in a prime case and point. Al-Qaeda has always been factual in their statements but of course the US military, the DOD, the MOD, mainstream press and even the Muslims went to town on this. When news finally broke yesterday that Al-Zarqawi was back in command of the jihad in Iraq, it barely made news at all and as I write this there are still reports that Zarqawi is dead! While it is easier to spin a story than it is to retract it, why is it that some still believe the incorrect?

We all know the US war on Afghanistan was planned before 911, we know there was no WMD in Iraq, we know that Syria, Lebanon and Iran are next and we know that war is coming to the whole Middle East to establish greater Israel. And we all know the “war on terror” is a means by which the Fathers of Terrorism can accomplish this. After all the lies that have been told, how can any sane person believe that the US government, Britain, its allies who should have long ago packed their bags, are telling them the truth and how can they believe a feudal mainstream press?

Ted Turner once said that the days of big production crews would end and today’s politically controlled media would end because you and I with DVD cams would be out on the street capturing the real news and he was absolutely right. If you want real news, you don’t go to the US military that have a 50 year history of lying or mainstream news that care about what their stock is worth from advertising revenue, not the reader. Yet even now, with uncensored news sources, all the history of where the conflict came from published, footage and first hand reports, how can Muslims continue to insult the Mujahideen by believing these engagements are carried out by the CIA or Mossad or refer to all those defending Muslims lands as “resistance fighters”?

At JUS, we run uncensored news and as many direct, first hand reports from the Mujahideen that are engaged in the battles that we can translate within our daily publishing cycle. This is the best battlefield news there is. Often these statements are accompanied by footage as groups that follow the Tawheed of Allah continue to get more organized. We publish these reports, translated from Arabic by our own team, uncut and uncensored. These direct reports we consider absolutely accurate for several reasons. First it takes a tremendous amount of Imaan (faith) to rise to the battlefield to begin with when the enemy far outnumbers you and is much better equipped. Do you really think the CIA and Mossad would do this at the grass roots level? The soldiers of Allah have strong faith and know that the outcome of any battle regardless of the odds lies with Allah. They know if they are going to be successful they must be totally submitted to Allah in all ways and telling the truth is a definite requirement. As pious warriors, you will notice in these reports that their casualty figures are conservative and they often mention the number of their own fighters, sometimes by name, that are lost in the battle as martyrdom is considered a great blessing. These reports also do not claim assessments they don’t know but rather say that the casualty numbers will be provided once they have had a chance to assess them. Many of these engagements are ambushes and when the Mujahideen strike, often they must leave the scene quickly.

One tactic they do use is not to report at all in some instances as we saw in al-Qaim. This is to prevent information from leaking to the enemy. These groups will not publish before they will give inaccurate reports that will violate the laws of Allah. The other interesting thing about these reports is that they report when they miss their targets, not just when they hit them. They always follow standard Islamic practices and they are not full of bravado or make baseless claims like “1200 insurgents killed!” These direct reports simply state the facts.

Perhaps however the best validation of these reports is the footage that often accompanies them however for JUS this is a double edged sword. Critics say where is the proof that nine American soldiers were killed for example? Well we have the proof. If we publish it on our front page, the graphic nature of charred bodies, arms and legs, we will be accused of promoting “terrorism” at worst case and many readers will turn off at best. JUS operates within the law and we push the envelope as much as we can but we are obligated to stay within the boundaries that govern content. That said, we make available footage on our front page that does not show close up death scenes that accompanies a particularly direct source news report. When you see a humvee exploding, it's pretty darn obvious there are no survivors. Is the CIA or Mossad hitting that Humvee? Other footage we put on JUSClub where viewers must be members, indemnify us and accept our terms of usage. The proof is there if people want it – the fact is most don’t want to know because then they might have to act; they prefer to embrace conjecture, speculation or conspiracy theories or simply ignore it.

Muslims need to be reminded not to engage speculation:

Abu Hurairah (radyAllaahu‘anhu) reported that Allaah’s Messenger (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) once said (to his Companions): "Do you know what backbiting is?" They said: "Allaah and His Messenger know best." He said: "Your mentioning something about your brother (in his absence) that he hates (to have mentioned)." It was said: "What if there exists in my brother, that which I say (of him)?" He (sallAllaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) said: "If there is found in him what you say, then you have backbitten him. And if there is not found in him what you say, then you have slandered him." Sahih Muslim 2589

The bottom line is that the DOD, the MOD, the Bush Administration, the Blair Administration and all the puppet regimes from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia have long ago stopped being accountable to “the people”. Mainstream press has let its readers, the Mujahideen, the Iraqi resistance, the Taliban, the uprising in Saudi Arabia and countless other countries and the global popular war opposition down, and so have the Muslims. The major Mujahideen organizations now use their own media departments to get the reality of the war out because they have to. While the distaste for the brutality of the American crusade is widespread and it’s only a handful of western countries that continue to live inside a glass bubble of perceived credibility within their governments and the press, many Muslims, East and West, continue to live in a dream world that lets them sleep at night.

The fact is that death is claiming American, Coalition, Iraqi, Afghani, Mujahideen, resistance fighters and scores of civilian lives each and every day. As long as conspiracy theorists and Muslims apologists continue to justify their lack of action and the public in general remain silent on both sides of the fence, there is no end in sight.

In war, propaganda is a tool and all any sincere press can do is strive to bring qualified information by establishing the best sources possible and to get as much direct information as possible. While it may go against the grain of the current political climate that is what we at JUS endeavor to do.

We have to be very careful when it comes to ‘fact’. At any given time in space, fact is dependent on the knowledge that is available. Don’t forget it wasn’t that long ago it was thought that the world was flat. At any given point in time, it is those who are interpreting events that create “truth”. The OJ Simpson case is a prime example. After hundreds and thousand of pages of “facts” and after a ruling, the world perceived these facts along what appeared to be racial lines and we are left today with half of the people thinking he got away with murder and they other having thinking that he was persecuted.

There is a very important factor when determining events based of eyes witnesses in this war. The best source for independent accounts of casualty information has always been hospital sources. There would be no mention in today’s controlled media about the plight of the Palestinians for instance if we did not have independent hospital sources that reported Palestinian deaths. Even then, this information rarely gets any kind of real coverage in the West even though the credibility of coverage is good. Palestinians are painted as “terrorists” and Israelis as only defending themselves. This is no where near the truth! I have been to the Rafah refugee camps and have witnessed the terror and oppression the Palestinians going though first hand. We see now in Iraq that when the US goes on offensives against ”terrorists” in Iraq, which are normal civilian Iraqis for the most part, they often take out the hospitals first to eliminate this independent source of information, which I personally consider a war crime.

A word of caution is required about “eyewitnesses” in Iraq or any Arab country for that matter. The fact is that the Arabs are not known for their truthfulness as harsh as that may sound. Having spent now two years among the Arabs, many of which are pagans disguised as Muslims, I can attest absolutely that for the most part, they will tell you black is white and white is black to meet any given agenda or for a buck or two. While there are many factors including poverty that contribute to this and it is a deep issue in and of itself, this is the reality of the matter. With western journalists far from the scene, less information coming from medical sources and often unreliable “eyewitness” reports, we are left with the same fog of war. That is why as Muslims, we must rank reports direct from the Muajhideen participating in these engagements that we know answer to a higher authority (God rather than Man) as top priority. And this dispels the myths of the conspiracy theorists entirely.

It really doesn’t take a lot of brains to figure out that since the “fall of Baghdad” and “victory” was declared, that the war in Iraq has escalated however it is still presented daily as “wrapping up operations with remnants of the Baathists” or the more recently “quelling the influx of insurgents” more than two years later!. War continues to rage in Afghanistan and Iraq; it is increasing not diminishing and the war is spreading. We are watching a repeat of the setup to the Iraq war with Iran, Syria and Lebanon and this should be obvious to even the most limited news readers. That’s why we translate news from the best sources we can get and run it uncut and uncensored. When we get first hand news reports from the Mujahideen for instance, we don’t write reports and publish a line or two in it excerpted from their reports. We translate it in its entirety and run it uncut and uncensored because we do not in any want to influence this report in any manner. The information is there and it is the reader who then can have a level of comfort knowing that this is not our take on the matter and that the contents of these reports is not tampered with to meet any agenda. We do the same thing with statements from Sheikh Osama bin Laden, Dr. Al-Zawahari and Sheikh Abu Musab Zarqawi which is a lengthy endeavor. We publish uncut and uncensored and then the reader can get the information void of any mainstream political agenda.

It really isn’t rocket science to know that something is wrong when people start flying jets into skyscrapers but it is surely much easier to cope with if we blame it on “terrorists’ or dream up conspiracy theories rather than look at where the breakdown has come the resulted in these incidents. The worse part is, the longer America keeps killing the more hatred is being fueled. This cowboy mentality to resolving problems is incomprehensible. In fact, the West as a whole dismisses that they have had any hand in creating the backlash of violence that can directly be attributed to a wicked American foreign policy aimed at the resource rich Middle East that is specifically designed to further the military industrial complex.

As for the Muslims, it time we took a hard look at our situation. The propaganda machine has been successful in convincing us we are ‘terrorists” and that the “good Muslims” are those that support the Western agenda. Allah tells us our obligation is the opposite; that it is incumbent upon each and everyone one of us to support those who are being aggressed or oppressed with our pens, finances or on the battlefields. It is not just the West that is in “righteous denial”; many Muslims are too.

There is a growing hatred for Islam and Arabs in the West because they are lead to believe by the American propaganda machine that it is these two groups that are the enemy in order to continue to justify war. If there is no enemy, there is no need for war. The propaganda has been successful in telling the West that their way of life is threatened and therefore the “us or them” attitude widely prevails albeit in a detached way. As long as the West isn’t being occupied and the casualties continue to be hidden, it appears to be of little consequence to Western masses. As long as the West can go shopping and can attain more wealth, they don’t care if this is at the expense of others. A New York life is much more highly regarded in this world than is an Iraqis. While the West gets richer through war and plunder, the rest of the world is getting poorer and suffering great injustice. This is the ultimate crime that all are committing by keeping their heads in the sand.

The Mujahideen have invited the world’s journalists to al-Qaim and other cities where Americans have suffered significant losses. We all know this isn’t going to happen but real information has a way of getting out one way or the other and sooner or later the world is going to realize what’s really going on, God Willing. Afghanis and Iraqis bleed like everyone else and they are entitled to live their lives free of the chains of America and its allies and with the help of their fellow Muslims. These countries do not want American democracy nor is that what this war is about. We all know it is pillage for profit, plain and simple, and real people are dying for it.

Allah in his holy book tells us of these times. Unfortunate indeed is it that too many Muslims are compromising their deen and joining the Kufr, let alone are failing in their responsibility to rise with all they have to defend Islam. The conspiracy theories are hogwash and it’s time to support our Mujahideen brothers as Allah commands us to. If by presenting the real truth of this war labels JUS as a “mouthpiece for CIA propaganda” because the Muslims refuse to believe that Sheikh Osama bin Laden does not work for the CIA or Mossad, that 911 was not the work of the US government or Mossad or that Sheikh Abu Musab Zarqawi is not a mythical character, then it's time to take a reality check.

If at least one Muslim comes to know the truth and rises to their obligation through our work, then I know in my own conscience that I, and those with me, are doing our part to serve to the best of our ability the Lord of the Worlds, which is collectively, our first and only consideration.