Benutzer:Gabel1960/Naafez Mossadeq Ahmed

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is a bestselling author, investigative journalist, and international security scholar. He is an environment writer for The Guardian, where he tracks the geopolitics of environmental, energy and economic crises via his Guardian hosted blog, Earth Insight. He is also Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development (IPRD), an independent think tank focused on the study of violent conflict in the context of global ecological, energy and economic crises. Ahmed's academic work has focused on the systemic causes of mass violence, he has taught at the Department of International Relations, University of Sussex, and has lectured at Brunel University’s Politics & History Unit at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels, for courses in international relations theory, contemporary history, empire and globalization.

Career

Ahmed achieved an M.A. in Contemporary War & Peace Studies and a PhD in International Relations from the School of Global Studies at Sussex University, where he taught at the Department of International Relations. His focus is on Western military action, counterinsurgency, the war on terror, and the interconnections of systemic global crises, many themes of which were detailed in his 2010 book A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: and How to Save It. Ahmed and his works have been featured in numerous print and broadcast media outlets. Dr. Ahmed is also a contributing editor at the Journal for Public Intelligence founded by Robert D. Steele, former Deputy Director of the US Army’s Marine Corps Intelligence Command.

Books

Ahmed's first book, 'The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001', was the first comprehensive critical investigation of US and Western government foreign, security and intelligence policies leading up to, on, and after 9/11. The book played a key role in influencing the lines of inquiry set out by the 9/11 Family Steering Committee which was set up to monitor the work of the 9/11 Commission. 'The War on Freedom' was also among 99 books on national security and international terrorism specifically made "available to members of the Commission to use during its activities", and is currently archived in Washington DC at the US National Archives' National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (9-11 Commission) Collection.

In 'The War on Freedom', Ahmed avoids theoretical speculation, focusing on documenting anomalies in the official narrative that justified the 9/11 families' call for an independent investigation. At most, he argues that longstanding geopolitical, economic, strategic and military intelligence ties between Western governments, states that sponsor Islamist militant networks, and Islamist terrorist groups affiliated with al-Qaeda, have functioned to undermine US and western national security, and ultimately facilitated the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The book was reviewed by well-known late American essayist Gore Vidal in the London Observer newspaper, where he described Ahmed's book as "the best and most balanced report" on 9/11. Ahmed's work has also been highly recommended by Notes from the Borderlands magazine, a leading UK parapolitical investigative magazine which has frequently criticised the 9/11 Truth movement as a "cult." Describing Ahmed's research as "carefully argued and meticulously referenced", the magazine recommends his 'The War on Freedom' as "an important early work, placing 9/11 properly within the context of US foreign policy. While drawing negative inferences about the lack of an adequate US military response before/on 9/11, a world away from loony-tune rubbish about pods/holograms etc."

Ahmed's third book, 'The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism', follows up with a more extensive analysis that critically evaluates the findings of the 9/11 Commission. The book was positively reviewed by Wilfred Hoffman, former NATO Director of Information (1983-1987). Ahmed testified in US Congress about his work, focusing on problematic relationships between Western intelligence agencies and al-Qaeda affiliated Islamists after the Cold War, and even after 9/11, which, he argued, are motivated largely by efforts to control contested strategic energy resources in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. His testimony was entered into the US Congressional Record. Ahmed's testimony, as well as his lecture based on 'The War on Truth' delivered at the American University in Washington DC, was filmed and broadcast by the US national public and federal government affairs television network C-SPAN.

Ahmed's second book, 'Behind the War on Terror: Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq', connects the Bush administration's drive for intervention in Iraq to US and British policies of "surrogate imperialism" in the Middle East in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as well as to postwar and post-Cold War foreign policy practices. The book offered an extensive and detailed refutation of claims that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, based on official UN documents and intelligence sources, but also details the protracted destruction of civilian infrastructure and civilian life in Iraq due to Western interference, through coups, sanctions, and war. The book has been recommended by Chatham House for readings on Iraq and British foreign policy.

In his fourth book, 'The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry', Ahmed provides what remains to date the only published critical analysis of Western domestic and foreign policies leading up to the 7 July 2005 London bombings. Based on his book, Ahmed also produced a briefing paper, 'Inside the Crevice: Islamist terror networks and the 7/7 intelligence failure', sponsored and launched by the leading human rights law firm, Garden Court Chambers. The briefing was mandatory reading for all special counsel in the London Bombings Coroners Inquest, and was also used by the Oury Clark Solicitors on behalf of the 7/7 Inquiry Group - a group of 7/7 survivors and victims' families - in their application for judicial review of the UK government's refusal to hold an independent public inquiry. 'Inside the Crevice' was also supported by Des Thomas, former UK-based Senior Investigating Officer on the Metropolitan Police's 9/11 bombings inquiry, and Deputy Head of CID in New Hampshire, who wrote the forward to the report. Ahmed was interviewed about this work in a special feature on Sky News by crime correspondent Martin Brunt on the fertiliser bomb plot trial and its links to the London bombings. He was also interviewed by CBS News.

Ahmed's fifth book, 'A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It', is the first peer-reviewed academic work to analyse the intersection of climate change, energy depletion, food crisis, economic turbulence, international terrorism, and state-militarisation. The book's unique interdisciplinary approach has been widely acclaimed. A review on the Post Carbon Institute's Resilience website says that it "shows how our major crises share the same root causes and thus can be solved only by taking into account their complex interactions," and praises Ahmed for his "optimistic tone," despite the grave analysis of these global trends.. In The Oil Drum, Jeff Vail, a former US Department of Interior analyst specialising in energy infrastructure, "highly recommends" the book, concluding: "In the end, if the crisis of our modern civilization can be solved—or at least if the transition to whatever replaces it can be softened—then it will be through a syncretic understanding of the system of threats we face, such as that presented by Dr. Ahmed, that pave the way."

A review in Marx & Philosophy of Books, however, criticises the book's approach to systems theory with regards to Ahmed's proposed solutions. Although the reviewer, Dr Robert Drury King, an assistant professor at Sierra Nevada College specialising in systems, acknowledges that "Ahmed draws convincingly and commandingly on a number of fields, including climate sciences, geology, monetary and financial economics, and systems theory, among many others. The impressive scope of the book owes to the fact that Ahmed is very deliberately a wide-ranging, interdisciplinary scholar" - he questions whether there is "a clear and feasible notion of systematicity" that is "applied methodologically to the resolution of the identified crises." King says that "Ahmed’s proposed solutions to global, systemic crises remain, in fact, largely unarticulated in systematic terms" and amount largely to "voluntaristic, wishful-thinking."

Journalism

Ahmed has broken a number of major exclusives over the years, including making some successful predictions of major world events. In January 2001, he correctly predicted an impending war in Afghanistan, based on charting increasing geopolitical tension in the region and evidence of US military maneuvers in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In The War on Freedom, he was the first to report former Chief Investigative Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee David Schippers' claims that several active FBI special agents had come to him three months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks complaining that their counter-terrorist investigations into an impending plot to target "the financial district of lower Manhattan" had been "shut down", by superiors in Washington DC for unknown "political" reasons.

In 2006, he reported exclusively that some US financial analysts were predicting an imminent collapse of the global banking system. He also disclosed that US Army officials were exploring the need to re-draw the map of the Middle East to sustain access to regional energy supplies.

Writing for Raw Story, in 2006, Ahmed broke the story that the British government's liquid bomb plot narrative was incoherent, based on a senior former British military explosives expert.

In 2008, he reported that the former senior British Army official working with the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Brigadier James Ellery, had confirmed that the Iraq War was motivated to avert the impact of global peak oil on oil prices by opening up and increasing Iraq's oil production to world markets.

In 2009, he exposed the integral role of natural resource competition in the Israel-Palestine conflict, including Operation Cast Lead, in particular the central role of efforts to control new discoveries of natural gas resources in contested areas of the Occupied Territories.

In February 2011, he was the first to write, for a range of publications including The Scotsman and Sydney Morning Herald, that the Arab Spring events were triggered by a confluence of climate, energy, and economic crises combined with political repression.

Other exclusives include reporting on a secret White House meeting to plan responses to a probability of Arctic sea ice diminishing far faster than conventional model projections; a US Naval Postgraduate Institute model forecasting the loss of Arctic summer sea ice by 2016; the role of peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics behind the Syria conflict;; UK Ministry of Defence predictions of how rising energy prices will prolong economic recession and provoke civil unrest in Britain;; the link between NSA mass surveillance and Pentagon planning for impact of climate, energy and economic shocks on domestic unrest and activism; among many others.

The Crisis of Civilization

Datei:The Crisis of Civilization Poster by Abby Martin.jpg

Promotional Poster for The Crisis of Civilization. Design: Abby Martin

Following the release of Ahmed's 2010 book, A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It, a chance meeting with filmmaker Dean Puckett led to the development of a feature documentary, The Crisis of Civilization.

Critical reception

The Crisis of Civilization has been received positively by viewers. Hitcham Yezza, editor of Ceasefire Magazine, found "the film’s aesthetic delightful, the result of film-maker Dean Puckett and animator Lucca Benney’s artful concoction of clips from 40s commercials, B-movies, quirky animation, and more familiar images of Bush, Bin Laden and Brzezinski." He also wrote, "this film is necessary viewing, not just for activists but for anyone who’s planning to hang around this planet for the foreseeable future. Yes, I’m looking at you." Elsewhere, Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute said of the film, "a really fantastic overview of the global situation. I don’t think I’ve seen a more comprehensive ‘welcome to the 21st century’.” The Leeds International Film Festival selected the film as a 'Festival Favourite' calling it "a powerful critique of a failed global system and a manifesto for constructive social change".

Bibliography

• The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, 11 September 2001: ISBN 0-930852-40-0, 400 pages, Progressive Press, 2002.
• Behind the War on Terror : Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq: ISBN 0-86571-506-8, 352 pages Clairview Books, 2003.
• The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism: ISBN 1-56656-596-0, 459 pages, Olive Branch Press, 2005.
• The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry: ISBN 0-7156-3583-2, 256 pages, Duckworth, 2006.
• A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It: ISBN 978-0-7453-3053-2, Pluto Press, 2010.

Academic articles

• "The International Relations of Crisis and the Crisis of International Relations: From the Securitisation of Scarcity to the Militarisation of Society", Global Change, Peace & Security (Vol. 23, No. 3, October 2011) - Winning article for 2010 Routledge-GCP&S Essay Prize
• "Colonial Dynamics of Genocide: Imperialism, Identity and Mass Violence", Journal of Conflict Transformation & Security (Vol. 1, No. 1, April 2011) pp. 8–36
• "Overcoming Paralysis on Climate Change", Survival: Global Politics & Strategy (Vol. 53, No. 1, February–March 2011) pp. 203–206
• "Water, oil and demographics: The Arab world‟s triple crisis", Europe’s World: The Only Europe-Wide Policy Journal (Vol. 17, Spring 2011) pp. 121–123
• "Globalizing Insecurity: The Convergence of Interdependent Ecological, Energy and Economic Crises", Yale Journal of International Affairs (Vol. 5, No. 2, 2010) pp. 75–90
• "India and the Crisis of Civilization: Potential Impacts of Converging Ecological, Economic and Energy Catastrophes", India Economy Review (Vol. 7, March 2010) pp. 90–97
• "The Crisis of (Post) Modernity: The De-Sacralisation of the Social, the Death of Democracy, and the Reclamation of Islamic Tradition", Arches Quarterly (Vol. 3, No. 1, Summer 2009) pp. 25–32
• "Anglo-American World Order: 30 Years After the Islamic Revolution of Iran", Islamism Digest: Journal of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism (Vol. 4, No. 2, February 2009) pp. 14–19
• "Review – Purify and destroy: the political uses of massacre and genocide, by Jacques Semelin", International Affairs (Vol. 84, No. 4, July 2008) pp. 836–837
• "Terrorism and Western Statecraft", in Paul Zarembka (ed.), The Hidden History of 9-11-2002 (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2008) pp. 143–182
• "Structural Violence as a Form of Genocide: The Impact of the International Economic Order", Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar [Entelechy: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies](University of Malaga, No. 5, Fall 2007) pp. 3–41
• "Terrorism and Western Statecraft: Al-Qaeda and Western Covert Operations After the Cold War", Research in Political Economy (Emerald: Vol. 23, 2006) pp. 149–188
• "UN Humanitarian Intervention in East Timor: A Critical Appraisal", Entelequia. Revista Interdisciplinar (University of Malaga, No. 2, Fall 2006) pp. 227–244
• "The Globalization of Insecurity: How the international economic order undermines human and national security on a world scale", Historia Actual [Contemporary History] (University of Cadiz, No. 5, 2004) pp. 113–126
• "The Discourse of Empire: United States National Security Strategies Since 1945", in Ronald Thoden (ed.), Terror und Staat: Der 11 September – Hintergrunde und Folgen: Goestregie, Terror, Geheimdienste, Medien, Kriege, Folter, Edition Zeitgeschichte (Berlin: Kai Homilius Verlag, 2004)
• "State Terrorism at the Dawn of the New American Century", Afterword to William Blum [former State Department official], ll libro nero degli Stati Uniti (Rome: Fazi Editore, 2003)
• "America and the Taliban: From Co-operation to War", Global Dialogue (Vol. 4, No. 2, Spring 2002) 7
• "Distortion, Deception and Terrorism: The Bombing of Afghanistan", International Socialist Review (No. 20, November/December 2001) pp. 36–44

Policy reports

• "Toward a Holistic Social Model of Violent Radicalization", Submission to House of Commons Select Committee for Communities & Local Government Inquiry, Preventing Violent Extremism: Sixth Report of Session 2009-10 (London: House of Commons, March 2010) pp. Ev 123-127
• "The Iran Threat: An Assessment of the Middle East Nuclear Stalemate", (London and Versonnex: Institute for Policy Research & Development and Transcend Research Institute, August 2008)
• "Inside the Crevice: Islamist terror networks and the 7/7 intelligence failure", Parliamentary Briefing Paper (London: Institute for Policy Research & Development, August 2007)· Foreword by Detective Superintendent (ret.) Des Thomas, former Deputy Head of CID, Hampshire; report launch event co-sponsored by Baroness Helena Kennedy QC and Garden Court Chambers
• "Afghanistan, the Taliban and the United States: The Role of Human Rights in Western Foreign Policy", (Phoenix, Arizona: Institute for Afghan Studies, January 2001)
• "The Impending Abyss: A Comprehensive Assessment of the Past and Future Trajectory of the Israel-Palestine Conflict", The Global Site, (Brighton: University of Sussex, July 2002)
• Co-authored with Faisal Bodi, Reza Kazim and Massoud Shadjareh, The Oldham Riots: Discrimination, Deprivation and Communal Tension in the United Kingdom, (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, June 2001)
• Suppressing Dissent: The Crackdown on Muslims in Zanzibar (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, May–June 2001)
• The Killing in Kashmir and the Terrorism Act 2000 (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, December 2000)
• Islamophobia in Papua New Guinea (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, November 2000)
• Palestine Briefing for MPs: Part 1 (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, November 2000)
• Routing Out the Opposition: The Comprehensive Repression of Human Rights in Turkish Society (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, October 2000)· Report launched by celebrated former Turkish Member of Parliament Professor Merve Kavacki, George Washington University (London: Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre, November 2000)
• Algeria and the Paradox of Democracy: The 1992 Coup, its Consequences and the Contemporary Crisis (Berlin: Algeria Watch, November 2000)
• The Smashing of Chechnya – An International Irrelevance: A Case Study of the Role of Human Rights in Western Foreign Policy (London: Islamic Human Rights Commission, April 1999)

See also

• List of British Bangladeshis

External links

• iprd.org.uk The Institute for Policy Research & Development (IPRD)
• The Cutting Edge Nafeez Ahmed's personal blog
• crisisofcivilization.com Official website of the documentary film featuring Dr. Nafeez Ahmed.

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