The "War on Terrorism" that America lost

The "War on Terrorism" that America lost
by Mahboob A. Khawaja
(Tuesday, July 14, 2009)
"American leadership failed to achieve any declared aims of the ‘war on terrorism’ that was to promote democracy, freedom and peace in Iraq, except that it helped to create more and sustain the Muslim reactionary forces to prepare and re-organize against the imposed terrorism of the West."
The premise of the American led “war on terrorism” was based on the Nazis blueprint of flagrant lies and perpetuated “fear” to drain out all the positive and creative thinking of the American people and to enslave them for years to come while the Neo-conservatives dominated Bush Administration with overwhelming indoctrination of Nazism continued the militancy towards freedom of thought and conscience, human rights and legal justice denying America’s own history and rich values. America lost the war the day it invaded Iraq. The American Empire had no purpose and strategy to fight Islamists and its delusion represents failure and self-defeat on all the fronts. President Obama has a new challenge, more critical than any other in the American history to rebuild a collapsed superpower America with sustainable moral, financial and political standing in the new emerging world set to replace the US unilateral role in global politics.
Experiencing first-hand daily bombing and massive civilian casualties, Layla Anwar, “the Arab Women’s Blues” puts eyes witness observations into words on her web site blog from Iraq:
“Everyday, under the pretext of either al-Qaida, insurgents, militants or whatever imaginary name you coined, you have not ceased, not even for one day, slaughtering our innocents……for 4 years, you have not ceased for one single day, Not during holiday periods, not during religious celebrations, not even during the day your so called God was born….if you have a God that is.”
Wars are planned, financed and fought by governments, not by groups or ordinary people. Wars are based on political agendas and are geared for complete control over resources, people and territory. Most wars would have multiple reasons, domestic, foreign and global outreach. The American led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are fought to maintain the US domination worldwide, to occupy the untapped natural resources of the Middle East in particular the oil and gas, and to protect the American dollar as a stable international reserve currency. In September 2000, the proactive policy paper, “The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) sets out the neoconservative envision and its agenda seeking American domination over the rest of the world relative powers, and strategic plan to meet its energies demands using armed intervention to occupy all the oil resources of the Arab Middle East and elsewhere. The blueprint supports military occupation of the oil producing Arab countries and regime change where it is necessary to fulfill the policy aims of the New American Century of global domination. Centuries ago, German historian Carl Von Clausewitz wrote On War that “War is not merely a political act but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means.” The small ruling elite that plans and wages war are often afraid of citizenry reaction and refusal to accept the so called antidote for the rationality of a war. Throughout the history, European nationalism institutionalized the doctrine of the war as a necessity to promote national interest and their racial superiority over others by using war as a means to that end. Most proponents of wars have used “fear” as one of the major instruments of propaganda and manipulation to perpetuate allegiance from the ordinary folks to the elite warmongers in a crisis situation. Sheldon Richman (“War is Government Program” ICS, 05/2007), notes that “war is more dangerous than other government programs and not just for the obvious reason – mass murder….war is useful in keeping the population in a state of fear and therefore trustful of their rulers.”
Ordinary citizens do not carry passion for war as it disturbs the safe and secure, and destroys the living habitats. The ruling elite, the actual warmonger actors make people to think in their extreme terms of hatred and rejection of others so that people would be forced to align with the rulers to support and finance the war efforts. Sheldon Richman describes how Herman Goering, Hitler’s second in command, understood the discourse of war planning agenda:
“Of course the people don’t want war….but after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether, it’s a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a Communist dictatorship.”
Paul Craig Roberts (“The Collapse of America Power”: ICS, 03/2008), attempts to explain how the British Empire had collapsed once its financial assets were depleted because of the 2nd World War debts. Correlli Barnett (The Collapse of British Power, 1972) states that at the beginning of the WW2, Britain had limited gold and foreign exchange to meet the immediate needs of the war. The British Government asked America to help finance their sustainability to continue the war. Thus, ‘this dependency signaled the end of British power.’ For its draconian wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, America is heavily under debts of China, Japan and Saudi Arabia. It is well known that American treasury owes trillion of dollars to its foreign creditors and therefore, its financial dependency is increasingly becoming an obvious indicator of the end of the American superpower status and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now the US financial system has completely broken down because of the institutionalized corruption and some of the leading banking institutions have gone into forced bankruptcy, the chain reaction and implications could be seen across the American economic, social and political spectrum of life. Under the Bush administration, America has shrinked its capability and vitality of role and in fact appears dismantled as a superpower status in global affairs. It is no wonder that other nations of the world do not seem to take America and its traditional influential stratum in any serious context. Paul Craig Roberts (The Collapse of American Power”) refers to Noam Chomsky stating that under the neoconservative Bush Presidency, “America thinks that it owns the world.” But the fact of the matter is, explains Roberts, “that the US owes the world. The US ”superpower” cannot even finance its own domestic operations, much less its gratuitous wars except via the kindness of foreigners to lend it money that cannot be repaid.” It is undeniable that the US is “bankrupt” primarily because of the on-going aggressive wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. David M. Walker Comptroller General of the US and Head of the Government Accountability Office (December 2007) reports that “ in everyday language, the US Government cannot pass an audit.”
If one is a financial investor, the obvious question asks Paul C. Roberts, “would you want to hold debt in a currency that has such a poor record against the currency of a small island country that was nuked and defeated in WW II, or against a small landlocked European country that clings to its independence and is not a member of the EU?” Consequently, the American dollar is being replaced by Euro and other currencies and soon going to be abandoned as a reserve currency in global financial system. Roberts concerns sounds as alarming bell, “if the bankrupt “superpower” will be able to scraps together the resources to bring home the troops stationed in its hundreds of bases overseas, or whether they will just be abandoned.”
This War on Terror is Bogus
Michel Meacher, the British Environment Minister under PM Blair (“This War on Terrorism is Bogus”), provides detailed insight on the real reasons of the “War on Terrorism.” He claims that the war on terror is phony as “the 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination.” He adds that “the so called “war on terrorism” is being used largely as bogus cover for achieving wider US strategic geopolitical objectives…..in fact, 9/11 offered an extremely convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action. The evidence again is quite clear that plans for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq were in hand well before 9/11.” In its report prepared by the Baker Institute of Public Policy (April 2001), it stated clearly that “the US remains a prisoner of its energy dilemma. Iraq remains a destabilizing influence too….the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East” and it its recommendations elaborated the dire need that because it was a challenging risk therefore, the “US military intervention” was the most favored action (Sunday Herald: Oct 6, 2002). Both the US and United Kingdom have increasing dependence on imported oil from the Arab Middle East. The overriding motivation for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are shielded by political smokescreen that the US and UK will run out of sufficient hydrocarbon energy supplies in 2010, whereas, the Arab and Muslim world would control almost 60% of the world oil producing capacity and perhaps more significantly 95% of the remaining global oil production capacity. The news media reports indicate that the US is predicted to produce only 39% of the domestic oil production in 2010, whereas in 1990, it produced 57% of its total oil consumption. The UK Government had projected ”severe” gas shortages by 2005, and indicated that 70% of the electricity will be drawn from gas and 90% of gas will be imported. It is interesting to note that Iraq is said to have 110 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in addition to approximately 15 - 20% of the world oil reserves. In another research report by the Commission on America’s National Interests (July 2000), it observed that the most promising new energy resources are found in the Caspian Sea, Central Asian region and it would avoid the US exclusive dependence on the Saudi Arabian oil imports. The report outlined the feasible routes for the Caspian Seas oil deliveries, one hydrocarbon pipeline via Azerbaijan and Georgia and another pipeline through Afghanistan and Pakistan would ensure the future strategic demands of the US government. To counteract the USSR influence in Afghanistan, Taliban group was created with active support of the US intelligence agencies and the Peoples Party of Pakistan under the former PM Miss Bhutto. The Taliban group was helped to form a government in Afghanistan and to ensure the future passage of a hydrocarbon pipeline via Afghanistan and Pakistan onward to the Arabian Sea. The leadership included Osama bin Laden, the close affiliate of the US sponsored war against the Soviet Union. For years, the US officials held discussion with these groups to finalize formal agreement for the passage of the oil and gas pipelines in Afghanistan. If the author of the Forbidden Truth has any credibility, the US and Taliban negotiators continued discussion of the possible pipeline until August 2001. After the 9/11 attacks, the US government was outraged and asked Pakistan’s military leader General Pervez Musharaf to dismantle the Taliban government from power in Kabul. The US government never made any claim or evidence public to suggest that Taliban as a group were involved in the September 2001 attacks on the US.
To review the documentary evidence of the 9/11 events, it is not unlikely that many strategists have seen the American Government failure to avert the 9/11 terrorist attacks as facilitating a much needed stage drama for its policy aims and an invaluable pretext to attack Iraq and Afghanistan – a military intervention already been well planned in early 2000. The PNAC policy blueprint of September 2000 projects the transformation of the American power as an unchallengeable global superpower and the need for some tangible tragedy to make it happen. The paper outlines that it “is likely to be a long one in the absence of of some catastrophic and catalyzing event- like a new Pearl Harbor.” In his analytical view, Minister Michael Meacher (“This War on terrorism is Bogus”) states that “global war on terrorism” has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command and over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project.”
Did the neo-conservative led US hegemonic war achieved any of its set goals for the global domination? Have the US and UK Governments secured any viable hydrocarbon energy routes to ensure their depleting gas and oil stocks and the much planned control over the Arab oil reserves? Is the US dollar still a welcomed international currency used by the world nations?
Could Broken America Regain its Moral, Political and Strategic Imagination?
While the 2008 Presidential election campaigns were in progress, America appeared collapsed, not just in moral values but politically, socially and intellectually too, and was eager to seek change for moral and political trust-building across the globe. After President Barrak Obama was sworn in as the new President, America looked morally exhausted and militarily lost, being unable to think of the much needed strategic change but more importantly, searching desperately for a navigational change in wars against the Islamists.
Chris Hedges (“America is in Need of a Moral Bailout”, "TruthDig": 03/2009) attempts to sort out some of the impending reasoning for moral and intellectual collapse:
We live in an age of moral nihilism……in decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation…. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty….Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse…..Our elites are imploding. Their fraud and corruption are slowly being exposed as the disparity between their words and our reality becomes wider and more apparent.
Author Henry Giroux (The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex) provides further insights to the dilemma:
Universities, in general, especially following the events of 9/11, were under assault by Christian nationalists, reactionary neoconservatives and market fundamentalists for allegedly representing the weak link in the war on terrorism….corporate and Pentagon money was now funding research projects and increasingly knowledge was being militarized in the service of developing weapons of destruction, surveillance and death.
According to Paul William Roberts (“Philosophical Roots of Neoconservatism”) it is widely known in the US that some of the leading figures of the PNAC and the architect of the War on Iraq paradigm like Paul Wolfowitz, were the followers of Leo Strauss, the source of neoconservatism’s philosophy, who was a follower of Heideggerand the protégée of Carl Schmitt- a Nazi who had helped Hitler to develop the Nazi judiciary. Paul William Roberts explains that Schmitt helped Leo Strauss to emigrate to America in 1938 to take up a teaching position at the University of Chicago where Paul Wolfowitz was his student and an active member of the Straussian Movement with Allan Bloom. Under the excessive corporatism and forced values of the neo-conservatism elite to discard the democratic freedom, public participation in decision making and the institutions of law and justice, the encompassing values that sustain open and democratic societies have been crushed. John Ralston Saul writes that now “a university actively seeks students who suffer from the appropriate imbalance and then sets out to exaggerate it. Imagination, creativity, moral balance, knowledge, common sense, a social view-all these things wither….as a result amorality also grows; as does extreme aggressivity when they are questioned by outsiders; as does a confusion between the nature of good versus having a ready answer to all questions. Above all, what is encouraged is the growth of an undisciplined form of self-interest, in which winning is what counts."
In his search for rational answers to the cruelties of the war on terrorism, one of the leading contemporary American intellectuals, Paul Craig Roberts asks, “What do we stand for?” ("What Do We Stand For?” ICS: 02/2008). He shares the quoted response from Arthur Silber: “ The Bush administration has announced to the world and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggressions, torture and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian sate at home. That is what we stand for.”
The moral decadence has made people concerned and fearful of the coming of the future under corporate America. John Saul adds that: sadism is as much a part of popular culture as it is of corporate culture. It dominates pornography, runs like an electric current through reality television and trash-talk programs and is at the core of the compliant, corporate collective. Corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice. And it has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our lack of compassion for the homeless, poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed and the sick….The political and economic forces fuelling such crimes against humanity-whether they are unlawful wars, systemic torture, practiced indifference to chronic starvation and disease or genocidal acts-are always mediated by educational forces." Henry Giroux points out that "Resistance to such acts cannot take place without a degree of knowledge and self-reflection. We have to name these acts and transform moral outrage into concrete attempts to prevent such human violations from taking place in the first place." How to revive the lost morality and its relevance in the American society? Across the broad social and political spectrum of contemporary American society, what is the single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy., as Immanuel Kant (“Perpetual Peace: The Relation of Theory to Practice International Law”, 1795) perceived that moral autonomy is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate. Kant truly believed that wars were the greatest threat to human civilization and if allowed to be financed by national debts, it would create a chain reaction whereby war would make European states bankrupt. America and Britain, the chief instigators of the so called “War on Terrorism” against Iraq and Afghan are certainly the outcomes of the same historical development. It seems none of them have learned from the history. After the prolonged wars, both nations appeared bankrupt and dismantled, not just in moral outlook but also in financial, social, educational and political domains, their importance and global value are hardly credible in any logical context.
Recently the retried American General Ricardo Sanchez challenged the prevailing notion of the Bush Administration “Mission accomplished” in Iraq, when he stated that the occupation of Iraq is a “nightmare with no end in sight.” He claimed that the US administration is “incompetent” and “corrupt” and that the most American people could hope for under the present circumstances is to “stave off defeat” in Iraq war. Mike Whitney (“Come and see our overflowing morgues…..come and see the rubble of your surgical strikes”) believes that General Sanchez is neither against the war nor for withdrawal. He simply doesn’t like losing…. and the United Sates is losing.” The General is reported to have admitted that “after more than four years of fighting, America continues its desperate struggle in Iraq without any concerted effort to devise a strategy that will achieve victory in that war-torn country or in the greater conflict against extremism.”
Mike Whitney attempts to provide a new humane perspective of the concerns of the Iraqi civilians who are the real victims of this ferocious war against their country. To reflect on how the adversely affected Iraqi people think of the on-going America-British led war and continuous daily bombing of the civilians in that country, Layla Anwar, An Arab Women’s Blues offers factual observations in her daily web site blog:
“Everyday, under the pretext of either al-Qaida, insurgents, militants or whatever imaginary name you coined, you have not ceased, not even for one day, slaughtering our innocents……for 4 years, you have not ceased for one single day, Not during holiday periods, not during religious celebrations, not even during the day your so called God was born….if you have a God that is.”
There was no threat of war against the national security of the US or the presence of the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) as alleged by the Bush Administration, it was a planned unilateral aggression vigorously opposed by the global citizenship and refuted by the UN and its Secretary General Kofi Anan. It was a 12th century replica of the European crusades against the Muslims to conquer them and exploit the weak and destitute. Iraq under Saddam Hussein torn apart by internal conflicts and 10 years of war with Iran, was no match to fight the combined forces of America and UK. Simply put, it was a naked aggression without any legitimate rationale that could be proved in a court of law. The then UN Secretary Kofi Anan described the act of the war as an illegal international action against Iraq. President Bush claimed to be fighting a war against ‘an international Islamist group’ as he added “they hate our freedom.” His partner, the British PM Blair complemented the statement of President Bush by blaming the Islamists, “they want to destroy our values and our ways of life.” Gwynne Dyer, a well known British author (“The International Terrorist Conspiracy”), asserts that terrorism is not an ideology but a political technique and those groups willing to opt for violence in support of their goals, may resort to it. Dyer maintains that “there is no shadowy but powerful network waging a terrorist war against the West, the whole thing is a fantasy….there never was much of an Islamist “terrorist network” anyway – certainly nothing to compare the extensive cooperation between the extreme left-wing “urban guerrilla” of the developed world (Germany’s Baader-Meinhof Gang, Italy’s Red Brigades, the Japanese Red Army etc.).
With forceful international propaganda campaigns in collaboration with the Western news media, people were made to think that there is a huge army of barbaric Islamists ready to march and launch terrorist attacks on the West in general and America in particular. But a reality check would clearly illustrate according to the US intelligence record that approximately 30,000 to 70, 000 volunteers passed through the al-Qaida camps to fight against the former Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan and mostly were trained and equipped by the American CIA. Most often the Western propagandists make the citizens to believe according to Dyer, that governments are engaged in a “titanic, unending struggle against a powerful terrorist organization of global reach.” Al-Qaida, and Osama Bin Laden so often mentioned by the Bush Administration are a new vocabulary in global politics as none had existed until the US intelligence agencies and advisors organized and sponsored their operations in Afghanistan. Although no major terrorist attacks have happened since the 9/11 incidents, the neo-cons highlight the apprehension that a major terrorist attack is imminent otherwise the trusted official agencies are wrong and the mass media outlets are wrong. People tend to assume that the ruling elite are truthful. Contrary to the dramatic fantasies staged on screen by the neo-cons, there is no major terrorist threat and the massive over reaction because of the 9/11hit hard to the people that America has a powerful military force to attack any place in the world. It is in line with the current American policy that war could enhance its strategic short-long terms interests to acquire new energy resources and to dominate the Arab Middle East and South East and Central Asia. If the 9/11 had taken place elsewhere, the response and reaction would have been totally in a different diplomatic context rather than the unilateral aggressive wars against Iraq and Afghanistan as both countries were not accused to be involved in the 9/11 attacks. A legitimate question may be raised as to why would America attack Iraq and Afghanistan when both of the countries were not a party to any conflicts with the US nor accused of involvement in the terrorist attacks of September 2001?
The “War on Terrorism” a Pretext for the Peak Oil and to Keep Dollar as World Reserve CurrencyWe need a real National Energy Policy instead of an "endless war on terrorism." Today's "blowback" is partly due to our ongoing support of corrupt Middle East regimes/dictatorships. (Johnson, Chalmers, Blowback; The Cost and Consequences of American Empire, Owl Books)
William Clark (“Revisited - The Real Reason for the upcoming War with Iraq”) offers a timely and logical explanation: “Although completely unreported by the U.S. media and government, the answer to the Iraq enigma is simple yet shocking -- it is in large part an oil currency war….. The second coalescing factor …is the quiet acknowledgement by respected oil geologists and possibly this administration is the impending phenomenon known as “Global Peak Oil." This is anticipated to occur around 2010, with Iraq and Saudi Arabia being the final two nations to reach peak oil production. The issue of Peak Oil along with the macroeconomics of `petrodollar recycling' and the unpublicized but genuine challenge to U.S. dollar hegemony from the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency.”
Saddam Hussein took a decisive action to challenge the importance of the US dollar as the only currency for the oil supplies, notes William Clark: "Saddam sealed his fate when he decided to switch to the euro in late 2000 (and later converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. to euros)…. (but the )… information about Iraq's oil currency is not discussed by the U.S. media or the Bush administration as the truth could potentially curtail both investor and consumer confidence, reduce consumer borrowing/spending, create political pressure to form a new energy policy that slowly weans us off Middle-Eastern oil.” Another writer in the Observer of February 16, 2003 notes: "A bizarre political statement by Saddam Hussein has earned Iraq a windfall of hundreds of millions of euros. In October 2000 Iraq insisted upon dumping the US Dollar -- `the currency of the enemy' -- for the more multilateral euro."
I will reiterate the fundamental issue facing our country, states William Clark: Can the US military and intelligence agencies control the governments in all oil-producing nations -- as well as their oil export currencies? In brief, the answer is no. The question becomes how many countries will we allow our government to overthrow under the false pretext of the next "war on terror?" The world community knows well that the neocons agenda is based on repeated lies and distortion of the facts but when will the American people become cognizant of their modus operandi?
Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler’s Minister of National Propaganda had the following advice to the enthusiasts of the Bush Administration (extracts from William Carks’ article):
"It is the absolute right of the State to supervise the formation of public opinion."
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."
Undeniably, the factual background for launching the ‘War on Terrorism’, explains Clark, is this administration's goal of preventing further OPEC momentum towards the euro as an oil transaction currency standard, and to secure control of Iraq's oil before the onset of Peak Oil -presumed to happen in 2010. But in order to pre-empt OPEC, they need to gain geo-strategic control of Iraq along with its 2nd largest proven oil reserves. Another macroeconomic expert (quoted in William Clark’s article) alludes to an objective observation:
"The real reason the Bush administration wants a puppet government in Iraq -- or more importantly, the reason why the corporate-military-industrial network conglomerate wants a puppet government in Iraq -- is so that it will revert back to a dollar standard and stay that way." (While also hoping to veto any wider OPEC momentum towards the euro, especially from Iran -- the 2nd largest OPEC producer who is actively discussing a switch to euros for its oil exports)."
With the onslaught of the US dollar diminishing value against the euro in global oil trade and the increasing volatile plans of the neo-conservatives against the Bush declared “axis of evil”, William Clark explains that:
in both the pre and post 9/11 intervals, the `America first' policies of the Bush administration, with its unwillingness to honor International Treaties, along with their aggressive militarization of foreign policy has significantly damaged our reputation abroad. Following 9/11, it appears that President Bush's `warmongering rhetoric' has created global tensions -- as we are now viewed as a belligerent superpower willing to apply unilateral military force without U.N. approval.
William Clark with a patriotic passion perceives the horrifying outcomes of the Bush led wars and attempts: to illustrate that such a military-centric geostrategy for Empire has produced international isolation of the U.S., and may ultimately result in our economic failure. I firmly believe our nation will be better prepared to meet this decade's challenges if the citizenry is cognizant of why the worldview is coalescing against the U.S., why our nation is attempting by force to secure Iraq's oil, revert its oil currency back to the dollar, and install a permanent US military presence in the Persian Gulf region, we must not allow the militant imperialism of this administration to bring down the American Experiment.
Did the “War on Terrorism” have any truthful reasoning to claim its justification?
John Chuckman (“How Terror has lost its Meaning", MMN, 07/2007), offers a new perspective: Terror generally kills innocent people, something no decent-minded person can accept, but what is always forgotten in the press and government treatment of terror as something alien and unimaginably bad is that war in the contemporary world does the same thing.
American and British official propaganda establishments have synchronized the mass media efforts to misinform and mislead the masses as if the “terrorism” was the only evil to destroy the Western industrialized societies and their habitats. To John Chuckman, “terror is a method of redress or vengeance for those without great armies or powerful weapons, those at a great disadvantage vis-à-vis some powerful oppressor or opponent.” We have become accustomed to think that terror is meant to hurt the civilians but how is it different than the ferocious and technologically sophisticated wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which have resulted in killing of millions of innocent people including women and children who were the targeted victims of the neo-conservative war plans. Which were the most heinous crimes against the humanity, asks Chuckman, 9/11 or the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan? It is reported that in the 9/11 terrorist attack about 3000 people were perished but the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan combined killed an estimated 3 million people so far after six years of warfare. Likewise, the invasion of Iraq particularly destroyed the artifacts of ancient civilizations and undermined the livelihood of more 22 million people of Iraq. The invading American and British forces engineered the open looting of Iraq’s ancient civilization heritage. Ghali Hassan (“The Pillage of a Nation”: ICS, 07/2004) describes the American troops movement in Baghdad that “tanks and armored personnel carriers and Humvees have been placed inside and outside …the Ministry of Interior and …Ministry of Oil…why? The US troops had no concern for the public looting as they had an order not to fire on the looters. Hassan cites Dr. Eleanor Robson ( British School of Archaeology, the Guardian, June 18, 2003) that the looting two months earlier is : compared to the demolition of Iraq’s cultural heritage with Mongol sacking of Baghdad in 1258 ( the age Barbarism), and the 5th century destruction of the library of Alexandria. In Hassan words: this outright pillage of the Iraqi nation by the US is forbidden under the Geneva Convention of 1949 and the Hague Convention of 1907. It is clear that there was nothing accidental about the looting; rather it was the result of a long planned project to plunder the artistic and historical treasures that are held in the museums of Iraq. It was a business as usual, notes Ghali Hassan that the American military decision maker has put some of influential US corporations such a Halliburton and Bechtel in positions to exclusively own Iraq’s natural resources, major industries and businesses and the destruction of Iraq’s infrastructure is called as Iraq’s “Reconstruction” by the American elite and Western news media. A report complied by the US General Accounting Office (June 28, 2004) disclosed that “ Iraq is worse off than before the war began last year”.
The Defeated West Knows Not How to Leave Iraq and Afghanistan?
America and Britain have never won any wars in the Middle East or South Asia, they made historical adjustments for face saving and ended the planned colonial domination by reducing the military presence and offering legal freedom to the colonies.. It is clear that the Bush Administration under neo-conservative operation has failed to achieve any self perpetuated objectives of the so called “War on Terrorism.” Would the occupation forces abandon Iraq’s mission and rush to leave in defeat? Or would the US and British leaders continue to maintain heavy-handed pursuit of their own brand of the terrorism against the innocent people of Iraq and Afghanistan? In his soul searching argument, Mike Whitney (“Financial Collapse will End the Occupation: And it won’t be “A time of our choosing”, ICS, 04/2008) describes the current dilemma facing the American decision maker: Wars are won politically, not militarily. Bush does not understand this…the use of overwhelming force has only spread the violence and added to the political instability. Now Iraq is ungovernable…these are the signs of failure, not success. That is why the American people no longer support the occupation.
Like the British colonial policy across the globe, American Empire tried to “divide and rule” the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. They hurriedly arranged to put concrete cemented blocks between the factions in Iraq who had lived in social harmony for ages. In particular, the British and American forces launched campaigns to dramatize the symbolic differences of social identities between the ’Shia’ and the ‘Sunni’ factions of Islam in Iraq. They divided and armed them to fight with one another. The Western news media portrayed the unknown factional differences as a “clash between half-crazed Arabs…dead-enders and terrorist.” But according to Mike Whitney, that is a peculiar way to demonize the enemy at the battlefield. “In truth, the violence is entirely rational; it is the inevitable reaction to the dissolution of the state and the occupation by foreign troops.”
After almost seven years of the American invasion and occupation of Iraq and the first-hand pictorial evidence of the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, how do the ordinary Iraq people view the on-going suffering of their daily lives and devastated resources and habitats? Layla Anwar (“An Arab Women’s Blues”: web site blogger) looks up to human conscience , if there is any in “Flying Kites” and “Reflection in a sealed bottle” (quoted in Mike Whitney, “Financial Collapse will end the Occupation”):
“Come and see our flowing morgues and find our little ones for us…come and search for them in the rubble of your “surgical air raids”, you may find a little leg or a little head…pleading for your attention…come and see them amassed in the garbage dumps, scavenging morsels of food…at the gate of Babylon the Great, you are still struggling, fighting away, chasing this or the other, detaining and bombing from above.. hospitals, graveyards ….not one Iraqi whishes your presence, not one Iraqi accepts your occupation…Got news you Motherfuckers, you will never control Iraq, not in six years, not in ten years, not in 20 years…You have brought upon yourself the hate and curse of all Iraqis, Arabs and the rest of the world…now face your agony.”
To Gali Hassan (“Pillage of a Nation”): the attack on Iraq is an attack on the history of humanity by a new form of barbarism. The world will be safer only if this form of barbarism is opposed and remained isolated. For Iraqis, the only path to full sovereignty is the immediate end of the US occupation and colonization of Iraq, and returns the wealth of the nation to the Iraqi people.
At issue is the American-British continued occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan and the reactionary insurgency of the local militias to defend their country. The foreign occupation and exploitation of the natural resources of Iraq and Afghanistan are the primary catalyst for more violence and destruction of life and resources. More the occupation persists; more will be fighting by the indigenous groups to oust the occupiers. Would the American led wars ever end in Iraq and Afghanistan? Mike Whitney (“Financial Collapse will End the occupation”), offers critical observations: The war in Iraq was lost before the first shot was fired. The conflict never had the support of the American people and Iraq never posed a threat to the US national security….The Bush Administration has decided to continue to prosecute a war that has already been lost morally, strategically and militarily… the US will leave Iraq sooner than many pundits believe, but it will not be at a time of our choosing. Rather, the conflict will end when the United States no longer has the capacity to wage war…. The whole pretext for the war was based on lies; it was a coup orchestrated by elites and the media to carry out a far right agenda. Now the mission has failed, but no one wants to admit their mistakes….the butchery continues without pause. Most recently, President Obama’s Adminsitration has released some of the official documents on secretive torture of some of the 9/11 detainees carried out by the Bush Administration. American public appear shocked to know more how such illegal crimes could have been carried out under the guise of the “War on Terrorism”? There are other important issues of violation of the American constitutions and legal obligations under the Bush Presidency while institutionalizing the torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Would there be increased public cry for accountability of the former Bush Administration? If so, how and when such alleged criminals would be brought to justice? Whitney believes that the Iraq war signals the end of American intervention and that the ideological foundation for the war has been exposed as an erroneous justification for unprovoked aggression against Iraq. There must be a fair system of accountability. There should be international tribunals to determine who is responsible for the death of millions of people.
War on Terrorism or Terrorism of Wars: How the West Lost and the Muslim extremists Won?
“Do we American have any honor, any humanity, any integrity, any awareness of the crimes our government is committing in our name? Do we have a moral conscience?” (Paul Craig Roberts: “What Do We Stand for?” 02/2008)
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other . . . No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare." (James Madison)
What did America and Britain gained in waging wars against the ‘Muslim extremists’ or Muslim ‘fundamentalism’ now successfully challenging the occupation forces in Afghanistan and Iraq?
As the 18th century German intellectual Immanuel Kant had asserted that wars were the greatest threat to human civilization and if allowed to happened, civic society will get destroyed and its systems will collapse under foreign debts of wars. Many other contemporary scholars warned the American neoconservative administration of disastrous global consequences as reprisal to the wars on terrorism. A review of the contemporary literature shall appreciably recognize some of the important scholars who had continued to raise the voices of Reason against the unwanted and illegal “War on Terrorism” in Iraq and Afghanistan and mention must be made of Chalmers Johnson (A Guide for Perplexed: Intellectual Fallacies of the ‘war on terror’), Stephen Holmes (Matador’s Cape: America Reckless Response to Terror), Paul Craig Roberts (“Hypocrisy Rules the West”, “Anglo-American Ascendancy Lost in Unnecessary Wars”, “the Collapse of American Power”, “ What do We Stand For?”), Mike Whitney (“Financial Collapse will end the Occupation”, “ Come and See our overflowing morgues…come and see the rubble of your surgical strikes”) Robert Fisk (The war is built on Lies” and “ the only lesson we learn is that we never learn”) and British Minister Michael Meacher (“This War on Terrorism is Bogus”).
Bill Noxid (“Proxy Wars”, ICS, 05/2007) described the disease of war that caused it however has since metastasized and now infects a large portion of the planet-open war, starvation and genocide are raging. Noxid reminds and warns the humanity about the consequences of the War on Terrorism: We do not live in a Civilization, just the illusion of one. An illusion created by those who wish to enslave your mind, body and soul. An illusion created to prevent you from seeing the chains around your ankles, the bag over your head or the gag-ball in your mouth. The intent of the creators of this illusion is now and always has been the domination of mankind through fear and death.
American leadership failed to achieve any declared aims of the ‘war on terrorism’ that was to promote democracy, freedom and peace in Iraq, except that it helped to create more and sustain the Muslim reactionary forces to prepare and re-organize against the imposed terrorism of the West. America and Britain needed the reaction at the domestic front to justify the occupation and continuous active engagement with the Muslim extremists. The Muslim ‘fundamentalists’ had no organized armed manufacturing facilities, no banking systems, no advanced technological weaponry but America and Britain had earlier facilitated some of the much needed know-how and equipment to the Muslim extremists. American led forces had indoctrinated the Muslim extremists to fight and defeat the former USSR and the Communist ideology across the world. Few disorganized factions have helped America to accomplish that unthinkable goal for which NATO could not play any role or do any service in more than half of the century. Also, the UN, chief international body responsible for global peace and security, remained a silent structure as was the history of the League of Nations without any active role and efforts to stop the war of aggression against innocent people in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The West under America and Britain organized and trained the guerrilla movements of the Muslim extremists in many parts of the Muslim world. Disgruntled groups and their self-centered factional leaders when unpaid and neglected by the departing US agencies have turned their thoughts and guns against the Western interests and military occupation of their homelands. American and British intellectuals and strategic planners terribly ignored the knowledge, important role and value of the religious belief in making the Mujahideen to fight the proxy wars on behalf of the US. The Western intellectuals and strategic experts failed to imagine the Power of Faith or recognize the Facts of Divine knowledge that they cannot fight against Islam and God. The sophisticated weaponry they used was ineffective to dominate the power of thoughts, focused mind, commitment to serve the cause of God. All along, these years America and Britain poured in billions of dollars to the corrupt dictators who were engaged in losing battles except to maintain the status-quo of the authoritarian regimes in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in the Arab oil exporting countries. America and Britain wanted to keep the presence of these fighters-‘Mujahideen’ and kept on supplying the logistical support even arms shipments acquired from Russia and arranged to be delivered via Central Asia to Muslim fighters in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Muslim extremists had faith in the help of God, America and British trusted the advanced weaponry to achieve success at the battlegrounds. Central Asian Mongols ransacked Baghdad in the 12 the century but ultimately got assimilated into the Arab society and religion, British, Russian, Mongols and even the Alexander the Great (if there was any), could not conquer the land of Afghans. No foreign nation has ever ruled over them. It will be illogical to think that America or British colonial forces could overrun the Afghan people for long time. Iraqi and Afghan Mujahideen follow the incremental warfare, American and British have no credible purpose or strategy to fight against them. Western news media headlines disclose that large numbers of American and British troops commit suicide in the war zones and runaway from face to face encounters with the Muslim fighters. American warmongers and the British accomplices never had any clues about the culture, language and social understanding and civilization values of the masses in those parts of the Muslim world. Human greed and overwhelming trust in advanced weapons were no justification for self perpetuated ignorance and not to know the enemy. For their survival and continued existence, the Mujahideen now called “suspected Muslim militants” fight with a publicly supported plausible purpose and believe that sooner or later the terrorism of war, American aggression and the occupying forces will depart in defeat and leave their homeland as apparently is the case now after the election of a new American President in 2009. They appear determined to fight against the America-British allied forces as long as it takes, whereas, America and British forces are fearful of dying and see no legitimate aim at the battlefront against the Muslim extremists. Hans Morgenthau kept on reminding that ’power corrupts people.’ But his advice was ignored by the American politicians. History has a teaching and learning role applicable to all times and ages inn human affairs. Whenever, leaders and nations cross the limits of the Law of God, and despite repeated reminders keep on aggressive adventures against the poor and helpless people and nations, they end–up being defeated and destroyed. So was the case with Hitler, so was the outcome of the Roman and Prussian Empires as did the British Empire and as happened recently to Soviet Union Empire. They all tried to conquer others-the destitute and weak, but their aggression and violations of the Laws of God, worked against them of which they were not conscious at all, and their plans went against their own interests and strategic positions. Across the Arab Middle East, there are ruins and remains of many powerful nations who got caught in the same dilemma of power and corruption as is the case with some of leading powers of the world. The nation of AAd after Noah, built palaces out of mountains as the visitors would see at Petra in Jordan, and then the people of Thamud (North West Saudi Arabia), likewise carved up impressive palaces out of huge mountains, put eagle as the insignia of pride, they were more powerful than any contemporary nations on earth, but they got destroyed by the natural causes - sound blasts and earth quakes just in seconds. When the call came, there was no waiting, no time to runaway from the events or to escape from the punishment of God. Their splendid palaces are still in tact and visible to the open eyes and rational minds. Could any people of conscience and reason be able to Think about these real world phenomenons and analyze the consequences in waiting, and help to make the aggressors Rethink of their policy and practices? To the Mujahideen, God is living and merciful and they long for martyrdom, whereas Peak Oil dilemma and the dollar as reserve currency are dead-enders preoccupation and priorities.. The Muslim extremists are young and motivated to fight against many odds but America, the chief instigator of the “War on Terrorism” is finally exhausted, financially collapsed and with all of its major institutions becoming bankrupt under the heavy burden of unpaid foreign debts of China, Saudi Arabia and Japan, it is unable to come to terms with the prevalent reality that it is no longer a reliable superpower and it needs to rebuild its failed institutions and credible future prospects for economic and political survival. After the facts on the ground, America and Britain need not to be told by others that they have been defeated by small groups of Muslim Mujhaideens and should arrange to bring the living troops back to home to their loved ones. America and Britain lost the wars to Muslim extremists, the day they invaded Iraq and Afghanistan.
A century earlier, Robert Briffault (The Making of Humanity) must have observed a painful understanding of the human wickedness:
The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.
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