Mission Statement of Operation Iraqi Relief

Operation Iraqi Relief is a secular, non-sectarian, movement whose ultimate goal is to aid all Iraqi people. The Iraqi people are comprised of many ethnicities and religions; hence we see it as our duty to remain unbiased.

Much of the devastation in Iraq is resultant of foreign intervention. There is ample evidence to suggest that the current ISIS invasion is supported monetarily by the gulf states, namely Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Operation Iraqi Relief demands the US government and its allies to reassess their relationship with such nations. We also disapprove of any and all 'foreign boots on the ground’; this issue must be solved by the people of Iraq. We urge all parties to strengthen the democratically elected government in Iraq, whom we encourage to be more inclusive of religious and ethnic minorities.

It should also be known that the media at times is obfuscating the truth. By labeling the ISIS terrorists as Sunni rebels and the democratically elected Iraqi government as Shi'a, a sectarian conflict is being enflamed. The labeling of ISIS as such not only legitimizes their terror but also slanders the largely peaceful Sunni community. For this we request factual, unbiased articles to be shared in order to counter the obfuscation.

We ask all organizations and activists involved to work together in order to resolve this crisis.

The purpose of the Operation Iraqi Relief Facebook group is largely to share information and foster ideas in order to optimize all efforts on helping the Iraqi people. We understand that the given issue is controversial therefore we request the discussions to remain congenial; we will not tolerate bullying and other forms of hostility.

As the conflict continues the number of affectees increases, many of who are now refugees with little means for survival. It is our duty to aid them with:

• monetary donations
• medical supplies
• food/rations

For a list of organizations currently working in Iraq please view this list.
For general information contact.
For information pertaining to rallies, logistics, etc contact.

Operation Iraqi Relief

"Keep posting about Iraq. If something happens to us, people need to know why."
~ Muhammad Raza

The conflict in Iraq has come to a head and it is heating up to violent proportions. At this crucial junction it is of paramount importance to understand where we should stand. It is imperative to analyze the situation and make sound judgment regarding what we should be doing and why. In this article, therefore, I shall attempt to elucidate briefly the key points we need to be focusing on in order to comprehend the crisis:

• What exactly is going on in Iraq?
• Who are the parties involved in the conflict?
• Has the media been presenting us with the truth or obfuscating facts for their own benefit?
• What are our duties?

Iraq is a nation situated adjacent to the Levant region bordered by Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine in the west, Iran in the east, Saudi Arabia and Qatar in the south and Turkey up north. As obvious, the nation holds an extremely advantageous position in the Middle East, strategically, and thus the center of attention for multiple interested parties. Religiously the country is a hotbed of holy sites frequented by Shiites, Sunnis and Sufis, home to the city of Najaf, housing the tomb of the First Shi’a Imam and Fourth Sunni Caliph, Hazrat ‘Ali ibn Abu Talib, and the region of Karbala, battlefield of the historic clash between the Umayyad Caliph, Yazid ibn Muaviye ibn Abu Sufyan, and the Third Shi’a Imam, Hazrat Husayn ibn ‘Ali. Shiites constitute the majority of the population in the country comprising close to 70% of the population followed by Sunnis filling out most of the remaining 30% ethnically divided between Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. The country is also enriched with the second largest oil reserve in the world.

The modern day crisis in Iraq is a result of the fallout from the 2003 Iraq War led by the Bush Administration. That, however, is a topic of discussion for another day. Currently what we have in our hands is an issue that could very well cause the complete annihilation of the country of Iraq and, subsequently, the rest of the Middle East. The roots of the problem stretches back to the tyrannical reign of Saddam Hussein.

Saddam Hussein, when in power, was part of the Sunni minority in the country, responsible for the oppression of the Shiite majority. At the end of the Iraq War, following the fall of Saddam, it was the Shiite majority that took over power and reversed the situation. The turning of the tables, headed by Prime Minister Nouri el-Maliki, marginalized the Sunni minority and caused tension between the two Islamic denominational parties to simmer and boil. Thus, from the surface, the affair can easily be painted as some gruesome sectarian warfare between Sunnis and Shiites. The reality, however, is much more perverse and complicated.

The 2003 Iraq War led by the United States made the region a breeding ground for terrorist parties, most of them inspired by the austere Wahhabi Islamic ideology propagated by Saudi Arabia. ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), also known as Da’ish (ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah f’il-‘Iraq w’al-Shams) or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Levant), is one such terrorist group, an off-shoot of the notorious al-Qaeda. The former splintered off from the latter after the current leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman az-Zawahiri, declared them to be ‘too extreme.’ They gained a strong foothold in the Levantine region following the events of the momentous Arab Spring in 2010 and the Syrian revolution against President Bashar al-Assad. During the uprising, as violence escalated, ISIS started attacking all other militant parties in the area including the Jabhat an-Nusra, Jabhat al-Islamiyyah and the Free Syrian Army. As of right now, they are the most barbaric yet organized terrorist organization in the Middle East.

ISIS plans to establish a so-called independent Islamic state, a pseudo-Caliphate in the lands of Iraq and Syria, simultaneously ‘cleansing’ the countries of minorities they deem to be impurities, such as the Shiites and Yezdis. They wish to fulfill this goal through the means of vile execution and slaughter of the targeted groups. So far ISIS has been responsible for the defilement and destruction of numerous sacred sites revered equally by both sects, Shiites and Sunnis, such as the shrine of the great Muslim martyr, mystic and philosopher Hazrat Owais al-Qarani in the city of ar-Raqqah, Syria, along with the devastation of many Sufi khaneqah and Christian churches. In their Twitter, ISIS has openly threatened Shiites and vowed to exterminate them, posting tweets such as:

The sad reality of the situation in Iraq is that these barbarians have been referred to, countless times in the media, as Sunni rebels. As a Sunni Muslim myself, I find the label abhorrent. These bestial thieves and butchers are not Sunni, they do not represent Sunni Islam nor do they represent Islam. They are callous murderers and bloodthirsty fear-mongers brimming full with the venom of hate and wanton lust for human life. Fueled by the financial backing of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey, these monsters will stop at nothing short of a wretched apocalypse, turning the Levant into a rubble of ashes and necropolis of decapitated corpses.

The political and religious ideology of ISIS is not representative of mainstream Sunni Islam. Instead, what they symbolize is the ilk of the extremist Saudi Wahhabi movement, remnant of the ancient Kharijites, known for their puritanical beliefs and trigger-happy glee for death, brutally executing all those they considered to be unbelievers.

The situation in Iraq is not a sectarian affair. It is a political chess match involving multiple players puppeteering the very many militant factions present in the region. One such player is Saudi Arabia, fanning the flames of war in the region to spread their message while attempting to pose a substantial threat to their rival, Iran. It is an ideological warfare. Another player in the game is Qatar harboring a similar agenda as their Gulf contemporaries. Both countries are able to sustain their support of the terrorist organizations through their colossal financial backing provided by the Western buyers of their massive oil reserves, such as the United States.

A third and quite an interesting ally of the militant group is Turkey, seeking to revive their glory days as the Ottoman rulers of the Sunni Caliphate. Such an ambition, though, is deluded. If ISIS does manage to establish a Caliphate in the Middle East, Turkey would be the last contender to be its ruler. ISIS evidently is not going to hand over power to anyone but themselves. Turkey is essentially feeding a dog that is going bite her back and ravage her to pieces when the opportunity presents itself. ISIS is beyond the control of anyone. They have to be neutralized.

Another group involved in the warfare is a peculiar one called Jaysh Rijal at-Tariqa an-Naqshabandia (JRTN) led by Izzat Ibrahim ad-Douri, former vice president and deputy chairman of the Iraqi Revolutionary Command Council. He was second-in-command and elected successor to Saddam Hussein. The primary goal of JRTN is to reinstate the Ba'ath party to power, supposedly due to the freedom the Naqshbandi Sufis enjoyed under the Ba'athist rule of Saddam Hussein. However, the group's ties with the Naqshbandi Order is a farce.

The real Naqshbandiyyah are peaceful people, far removed from militancy and politics. They have no interest in international affairs and conflict. In fact, they openly denounce any form of violence and involvement in warfare strictly goes against the central tenets of their creed. This group's fallacious claims of being affiliated to the Naqshbandiyyah is an ironic tragedy.

Thus, what is fairly obvious now is that this is not a Shiite versus Sunni issue but rather a high stakes political affair. ISIS and JRTN are not representatives of the Islamic Sunni ideology and, therefore, cannot be called Sunni rebels as the media would like to color them. Such misinformation has ruinous ramifications as laymen Sunnis, Shiites and non-Muslims who may be reading or watching the news will think that ISIS and JRTN are fighting for the cause of the suppressed Sunni population of Iraq. This is grossly untrue. In fact, Sunni scholars of Basra have openly denounced ISIS and called for the Sunnis to bear arms against them in defense. Addressing ISIS as 'Sunni rebels' legitimizes their false claims and slanders the global Sunni population.

Meanwhile Ayatollah Sistani has stated that it is wajib kifa'i for Muslims to stand against ISIS. This is important as, in Islam, there are two categories of a wajib action: wajib 'ayni and wajib kifa'i. Wajib 'ayni refers to an obligation imposed upon individual Muslims, example the daily prayers, that cannot be fulfilled for one Muslim by another. Wajib kifa'i, on the other hand, are the obligations that is imposed upon the entire Muslim community and if one Muslim from the community fulfills the duty, it counts as the action of the entire community. For instance, burial rites of the dead is wajib kifa'i, meaning that if a Muslim dies in the community it is obligatory for the community to arrange for the dead person's burial. However, not every single person in the community has to bear this responsibility. As long as someone is carrying out the procedures it counts as the fulfillment of the obligation upon the entire community.

The Ayatollah, by categorizing Jihad against the ISIS terrorists as wajib kifa'i, has thus relegated the duty to be fulfilled by the immediate Muslim community present in Iraq and the neighboring regions, in the process, discouraging Muslims outside the area from getting involved. In the address, the Ayatollah also meticulously refrained from using the words 'Shiite,' 'Sunni' or 'Muslim' issuing the obligation upon all members of the Iraqi community whether they be Shiite, Sunni, Muslim, Christian or Kurdish. This is a humanitarian struggle and we must all stand together against this threat regardless of our faith, ethnicity or nationality. It is, as said by the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., "An Injustice Anywhere Is A Threat To Justice Everywhere."



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Say No Condo

In less than a few weeks, Rutgers University approaches the graduation date of its 2014 candidates. And as we head down the road to the commencement of that ceremony, the focal point of the event so far has been the controversy surrounding the Condi Debate: Should Rutgers allow Condoleezza Rice, a war criminal, to speak at their 2014 Graduation Ceremony? A point of note here is the fact that not only has Condoleezza Rice been penciled as the commencement speaker of this year’s event but she is also to be awarded an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the institution. Why is this wrong?

First and foremost, there is the aforementioned allegation of the person in question being a war criminal, responsible for one of the greatest travesties of justice in recent history: leading a charge against a nation, namely Iraq, by inciting the emotions and sentiments of the American people opposing an entire population of a country, their race, their religion, on the basis of lies and deception.

It is a known fact today that the Iraq War was unjust and against the American principles of freedom and liberty, regardless of what the Bush Administration would have us believe. The rationale for the war that was provided to the world was the elimination of WMD’s assumed to be, illegally, in the possession of the Iraqi Government and the independence of the Iraqi people. A decade after the war, we now know that no such weapons were found, that in the January of 2005 the United States effectively terminated the search effort for unconventional weaponry in Iraq, and the Iraq Intelligence Commission concluded that the judgments of the U.S. intelligence community about the continued existence of weapons of mass destruction and an associated military program were wrong. And if the aftermath of the Iraq War has taught us anything, it is that the Iraqi people have not been liberated, they are not free, their lives have been wrongly disrupted and, tragic to state, destroyed.

The country of Iraq is now in shambles. Women and girls forced into prostitution to feed their families; the men of the house, dead; children orphaned and mothers widowed, the Iraq War has been nothing more than outright carnage, slaughter of innocent civilians in the name of America, a country founded on the values of justice, freedom and liberty. There should be absolutely no doubt that Condoleezza Rice and her cohorts in the Bush Administration do not stand for said values. Thus, the future leaders of the United States should not be made to believe that a lady of her standpoint is, by any means, a hero.

In honoring Condoleezza Rice as the commencement speaker of this year’s graduation ceremony, Rutgers does not only condone her actions and decisions which have cost the lives of half a million people, loss of lives that Dr. Rice coined as “collateral damage,” but the institution glorifies them, portrays them as actions that are praiseworthy, that should be looked up to, and it is utterly appalling and morally reprehensible to do so, or stand by and allow it to be done. The future leaders of America are not to view the waste of human life as collateral damage, as a difference of opinion; these loss of lives, not just Iraqi lives but American lives, could have, and should have been avoided.

The aftermath of the Iraq War is a laundry list of crimes against humanity with war veterans living through the effects of terminal depression, anxiety and PTSD, along with the Iraqi people left with not even the most basic of resources required to sustain life. Resources such as clean water, electricity, shelter and food have been rendered absent. Diseases run rampant and medical aid is non-existent. Women raped, men murdered and crippled mentally and physically to the point that the lines between life and death have been blurred and erased. This is only the tip of the iceberg when we are talking about the tally of brutalities left at the wake of Condoleezza Rice who signaled the unjustified butchery of so many lives. Should the University of Rutgers really be allowed to honor such a person?

What exactly are we honoring here? Are we honoring the meaningless deaths of half a million people? Are we honoring the decision to water-board Abu Zubaydah? Are we honoring the rape of Iraqi women, the murder of Iraqi children, the pillage of a nation based on false suppositions? And, let us think of the war veterans and the soldiers who died in battle. Why were they sent to the gallows for no reason? What was the end goal and has it been met? Survey says, no.

The resultant effects of the Iraq War is not only the literal deaths of the people involved but the metaphorical deaths of two nations, not just Iraq but the United States as well, for with the breach of the values that this proud country was founded upon is the death of this nation. The United States is no longer seen as the beacon of justice and hope. Rather, it is now a country deeply entrenched in Islamophobia, responsible for the unjust demonization of Arabs, South Asians and Muslims. Dr. Rice has been, at times, a complying bystander, and in others, an active participant in this tragedy. And one of the greatest tragedies if Condoleezza Rice is allowed to speak at the commencement ceremony of the Rutgers 2014 graduations is that there will be students of Iraqi heritage graduating and they will have to bear the fact that the murderer of their fellow countryfolk will be speaking at their graduation. How would the children of Holocaust survivors feel if a Nazi general were asked to speak at their graduation?

As a student of Rutgers and a proud Bangladeshi-American Muslim, I state that it is not too late for us to fall back on our values of justice and do the right thing. I urge each and everyone of you to stand up against the decision to invite Condoleezza Rice to our great university. Please say no to this injustice.



— Fahim Ferdous Kibria

Rutgers Community Must Stand Against Rice Invitation

Brandeis University reversed its decision to award Ayaan Hirsi Ali with an honorary degree last week because of her Islamophobic rhetoric. The argument for rescinding her honorary degree is hefty, but not nearly as formidable as the argument to rescind Condoleezza Rice’s invitation and honorary degree here at Rutgers. Unlike Rice, Ali is not considered by most of the world to be a war criminal. For a much lesser offense, the Brandeis administration moved forward anyway. At Rutgers, President Robert L. Barchi has confined the debate on Rice’s invitation to a question of free speech in America, instead of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people who had families, dreams, friends and passions. This neglects the reality of the invitation and simplifies the issue to one that is incredibly narcissistic. Rutgers is one of the greatest universities in the world, and as such, it is imperative that we intellectually engage the question of our commencement speaker as an inclusive, thoughtful community. With this in mind, we must also remember that some of our own community members are deeply hurt and personally affected by the consequences of the Iraq War. The invitation to Condoleezza Rice began on the foot of exclusivity and disregard for consciousness and justice on this campus.

As a graduating senior, my commencement was ruined the moment I found out Rice was this year’s speaker. I find it difficult knowing that my soon-to-be alma mater is honoring a woman who is complicit in some of the worst human rights violations. This is a level of dehumanization that I never foresaw from the current Rutgers administration.

Let’s think about this objectively. The United States was adamantly against the utilization of chemical weapons in the Syrian crisis and threatened to take military action if a solution was not reached in which such weapons would no longer be used. Ironically, the Bush administration used chemical weapons in Fallujah, Iraq. This is an overt double standard. As Americans, we must hold ourselves accountable to our own standards of morality — otherwise, the rest of the world will not respect us. Rutgers will become a propellant of this hypocrisy if we invite and honor Condoleezza Rice. We have the power as a university community to make the choice to rescind her invitation or welcome her. Her invitation is not set in stone. With the stroke of a pen, Barchi can rescind her invitation and her honorary Doctor of Laws degree. For justice, we must stop at nothing, and we cannot forget why she has done more harm than good.

To be a war criminal is a dishonor. This title is reserved for those who commit crimes against humanity. Holistically, this is not just in reference to the usage of chemical weapons in Fallujah. It includes the usage of the term “collateral damage” to decrease the number of reported deaths, the Abu Ghraib prison and the Iraqi refugee crisis, in which more than 4 million Iraqis have no permanent home, and millions of Iraqi children were left parentless as a result of the war. These children have no homes, and since the country is still in shambles, there is no education system and no mechanism to ensure that the youth of Iraq will ever find the opportunity and hope that we have in abundance. We must have more compassion and empathy when discussing this issue.

Are we as Rutgers students going to sit down and give Barchi and the Board of Governors the right to assert that her invitation is impossible to rescind? Barchi frankly does not speak for me or for many of us. This decision alone, and his adamant unwillingness to introduce debate as a means to actually rescinding her invitation, essentially highlights his callousness — the same callousness that could push the Board of Governors to send a war criminal an invitation to speak at our University’s commencement.

Ask yourself this question: Does Rice really deserve an honorary degree? Disregard Barchi’s email in which he asserted that he would not compromise on his decision to invite her — the power should be in our hands to decide whether or not she is welcome to speak at our commencement on May 18. At the heart of this question is whether or not we will stand up for what is right. All human life is precious and invaluable. We hold the ones we love as close as we possibly can. This invitation ignores the idea of loving one another, no matter where they come from. At Rutgers, I believe the love I’ve received here has brought me to where I am today, up until this moment at the very end of my four years on the banks. In the words of Cornel West, “justice is what love looks like in public.” This cannot hold more truth than in these moments leading up to this year’s commencement. We can choose to love those we’ve never met by respecting their dignity and loving their humanity, or we can choose to ignore them and honor a woman who, along with the rest of the Bush administration, took it away from them.

Rutgers, we can do better than this. And by better, I mean that we can make a difference in our world — together. Rescinding her invitation does not look nearly as bad as inviting Rice to speak in the first place. In fact, in 20 years, our university will be commemorated for retracting the invitation because it was the right thing to do, in the same way we are commemorated for being the first public university to partially divest from Apartheid South Africa. Back then, we did the right thing, and the entire world reveres us for it. The movement to divest came from the students and faculty who tirelessly pushed for what they believed in. It seems that Barchi and the Board of Governors threw these principles out of the window when they decided to invite and honor Rice. We, however, have not.

— Sherif Ibrahim, The Daily Targum

RUSA & RUDU Debate: Condoleezza Rice as 2014 Commencement Speaker

Operation Iraqi Freedom

— Hadiya Abdelrahman