‘Ties headed for turbulence’

‘US values at risk’

“THE domestic political situation in the US looks no different to the climatic conditions in the State of Texas in recent days,” columnist

wrote for daily. “Although the climate situation is more obvious, with flooding and the heavy losses caused by hurricane Harvey the people have resumed their ordinary life following the storm.

“However, the political situation remains stormy because of the deep differences between the administration of the US presidency and its government institutions, and even differences between the White House staff, which led to the resignation of some of them because they were dissatisfied with the way the affairs of the White House are managed.

“Perhaps things are starting to take a new turn in the mounting criticism of President ‘Donald’ Trump, who seems unwilling to back down from his unworthy behavior, especially after his blurred remarks about the violent Charlottesville demonstrations and his refraining from criticizing the extremist groups of the white racists such as the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis because it does not match his position as the president of a superpower.

“This prompted the Democratic Senator Steve Cohen, after the events of ‘Charlottesville’ to prepare a memorandum demanding President Trump must resign because he sympathizes with these racists and does not respect the minorities and the American values.

“Apart from the above, the senator in his memo said the President has become a controversial personality in the absence of harmony between him and members of his government. Moreover, he does not have the necessary presidential constituents. Not just that, according to the memo, the president has received funds from some foreigners.

“What Cohen said is an American affair, but we add to his criticism that President Trump is a blackmailer who is trying to get other people’s money directly.

“In his meeting with Oprah Winfrey in one of her talk shows in the 1980s, he talks about Kuwait. ‘The poorest person in Kuwait lives like a monarch and as such Kuwait must pay 25 percent of its oil income’. Then he sarcastically added, ‘This is a joke’.

“Unfortunately, when he addressed the Gulf States after winning the presidential elections he asked them to compensate for the US budget deficit ignoring the fact that the Kuwaiti investments in the US exceed $400 billion and the volume of commercial exchange between the State of Kuwait and the United States of America was $6 billion in May 2017.

“Not only that, the statistics show the State of Kuwait is one of the important commercial markets for the US because Kuwait imports different types of US-made cars in addition to Boeing aircraft, various types of warplanes, weapons and various types of commodities.

“Apart from the above, Kuwait sends many students for higher studies in the American universities. This is in addition to the security agreements between the two countries in addition to their military cooperation.

“In spite of the above, we fear the close commercial ties between the State of Kuwait and the United States of America will witness some changes during the reign of President Trump and eventually see that these relations become subjected to blackmail in violation of the principles which are supposed to govern international relations and the policy of reciprocal respect among States.

“It is needless to say that the above will negatively affect the reputation of the United States of America among the people in the region as well as among the peoples of the world.”

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Al-Khalaf

“It is obvious one wonders where to look for the real danger against humanity in this world,” columnist and former MP wrote for daily.

“Is it the terrorism of extremist organizations, or is it the State dealing with uncontrolled conflicts?

“While the world is preoccupied with years of regional conflicts here and there, and ‘soft threats’ among nations, the big powers have had a share in bearing some of these threats. In the midst of this, the North Korean President Kim Jong-un has surprised the world with its recent hydrogen bomb experiment, aimed primarily at the ‘pride’ of the United States and its influence at the world level particularly in the East Asia region.

“The US President Donald Trump also did not hesitate to address the threat with nuclear weapons in response to what he called Pyongyang’s threat to his country or its allies and this means the lurking danger is no small measure.

“The situation, if the simple danger goes beyond the danger that is compounded by all mankind, if one party is to use nuclear weapons, it could cause massive destruction of large areas, kill countless individuals and destroy civilizations that the man has spent time, effort and money to build.

“It is perhaps a message to the big powers, led by the United States, that they must pay attention to the real danger rather than provoke ‘artificial’ conflicts around the world to keep the conflicting parties preoccupied in these conflicts. Needless to say, the real conflict is not between America and North Korea, but rather a conflict between the great powers themselves for the sake of limited and provisional interests.

“However, the danger here is that the parties to the conflict are playing the policy of ‘brinkmanship’, which means both parties will go ahead in their reciprocal threats but without war.

“In spite of the above, the conflicting parties are currently in agreement that any simple mistake by any of the conflicting parties shall result in the other waging a nuclear war and no one knows its range, scope, and extent.

“Given the above, we suggest that it is high time for us — Arabs and Muslims — to realize that during the nuclear threats the world will forget our preoccupation in futile conflicts and wars that will only lead to our loss and our peoples much more. This entails that we should take care of ourselves and must hasten to stop the current destruction before our homelands disappear for good.”

“Extremist ideologies constitute ideas that taint the image of Islam and Muslims through brainwashing, intrusion and crisis fuelling,”

wrote for daily. “It’s a phenomenon that should be countered, analyzed and challenged to protect the youth and society. That’s why it is necessary to carry out scientific analysis on extremism and terrorism as a prelude toward effective cultural policies. It should be done in a way that can challenge the alien phenomenon. We would have realized the major factor of extremist groups infiltrating all institutions of the educational system if we had conducted the analysis.

“The leaders are aware of the fact that early upbringing with extremist ideologies turns students into handy tools that can easily be recruited for the local, regional and international terror networks. We have observed in the past few years that media in the Arab World plays a vital role in spreading terrorist ideologies directly or indirectly.”

“Considering the fact that terrorism has reached everywhere, it is important to determine its causes, motives and roots. Terrorism is claimed to have “Islamic” roots by skewed “fatwas” issued by people who claim to represent Islam,”

wrote for daily. “One such fatwa is the “takfiri” one. As per this fatwa, anyone who does not believe in their belief system is considered as an infidel who deserves to be killed. Through this, such people – the takfiris – are close to the concept mentioned in the Holy Quran, which refers them as those who have distorted the words of Allah and diverted them away from the intended meaning or rather context.

“The fight against terrorism should incorporate fight against anything that feeds on hatred of the other, such as hate speech and praying for the destruction of the other instead of praying for their guidance.

“The fight against terrorism also needs selfanalysis and review in the countries where the “religious people” feed on such skewed ideologies which are being confronted globally. It should be done through acknowledgement of the error before embarking on the reform process.”

“On June 11, 2017, Minister of Justice and State Minister for National Assembly Affairs Dr. Faleh Al-Azeb posted two messages on his Twitter account. In one of them, he affirmed that two ministerial decisions will be taken soon in coordination with the Civil Service Commission (CSC) for organizing the supervisory positions in Ministry of Justice. In the other post, he indicated that the seniority of candidates in the departments, sectors and the ministry will be considered for supervisory positions,” Abdulaziz wrote for

daily. “Considering the stories circulating about the fate of a number of employees who applied for supervisory positions, we have to keep the two abovementioned posts in mind, as they have to be executed practically.

“According to information received from the office of Al-Azeb, the minister has assigned the undersecretary of the ministry to issue a decision for merging the departments of the ministry with the Family Court Department. However, this will violate law No. 25/2006 and law No. 18/2011 of CSC. This decision will threaten the future of some employees whose promotions will be delayed. The message has to be delivered in its real form, which is that the decision to merge will not bring about the overlapping of the departments and the Family Court Department especially since the latter was formed one year and three months back and has stable supervisory positions occupied by the department’s employees. What the employees are asking for is to just stick to the laws and the decision of CSC.”

“By saying “teachers are thieves and cheats”, the Egyptian Minister of Education has said in simple explicit terms what no one among the parents and guardians ever dared to say,”

wrote for daily. “This statement of the minister did not go down well with the public. It was met with anger from teachers’ unions and the educational sector with calls being raised for his resignation.

“When such an accusation comes from the head of the educational sector, well… we need to believe him. We do not care about the fate of that Egyptian minister, but he has stuck his finger in the wound and revealed some, if not all, of the reasons for the deterioration of education not only in Egypt but in the entire Arab world including Kuwait, which is still suffering from a shortage of local educational outputs due to which Ministry of Education is forced to hire teachers from overseas especially from Egypt where their own minister described them as “haramia”.

“What will our Minister of Education Dr Mohammad Al-Fares say after such a statement was issued by the Egyptian minister? Dr Al-Fares’ ministry this year hired thousands of new teachers from Egypt just like in the previous years.

“Unfortunately, our Ministry of Education will continue to bring in unqualified teachers and offer them high salaries as long as there is no centralized decision that imposes “Kuwaitization” policy in the educational sector.”

— Compiled by Zaki Taleb