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15 Jan 2012
By Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D. "In
other words – and let's say this plainly, clearly and
soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of
Rumsfeld's plan – the United States government is
planning to use "cover and deception" and secret
military operations to provoke murderous terrorist
attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald
Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other
members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to
deliberately foment the murder of innocent people –
your family, your friends, your lovers, you – in order
to further their geopolitical ambitions." (Chris Floyd
"Darkness Renewed-Terror as tool of Empire" 04/2009,
quotes William Arkin- military analyst article in the
Los Angeles Times: "Proactive, Preemptive Operations
Group -P2OG)
(Democracy at Work: To re-visit the
wounds of the Abu Ghraib)
"Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted with Cattle Prods,
Burned by Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse
inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were
committed in Iraq? They
are just some of the victims of wholesale torture
taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we
uncovered during a four-month investigation for BBC
Channel 4 . It's terrible to watch some of the videos
and realise that you're not only seeing torture in
action but, in the most extreme cases, you are
witnessing young men dying. The
prison guards stand over their captives with electric
cattle prods, stun guns, and dogs. Many of the
prisoners have been ordered to strip naked. The guards
are yelling abuse at them, ordering them to lie on the
ground and crawl. ‘Crawl, motherf*****s, crawl.' If a
prisoner doesn't drop to the ground fast enough, a
guard kicks him or stamps on his back. There's a
high-pitched scream from one man as a dog clamps its
teeth onto his lower leg. Another prisoner has a
broken ankle. He can't crawl fast enough so a guard
jabs a stun gun onto his buttocks. The jolt of
electricity zaps through his naked flesh and genitals.
For hours afterwards his whole body shakes. Acts
of savagery by man against man do not end with paper
declarations of the end of wars. More so, in the
scientifically and technologically advanced 21st
century warfare will leave catastrophic and
undiminshing impacts not just on the human lives and
habitats but throughout the Planet Earth - its echo
system and its natural functioning, growth and
sustainability. For centuries to come, the succeeding
generations will bare the horrible consequences of
man's insanity against man, against the very Nature of
Things upon which man stands not alone and lives. Chris
Floyd ("Darkness Renewed" 04/2009) outlines the
strategy embedded in the "War on Terrorism": "You
goad and provoke violent extremist groups into
retaliating against your attacks, your
civilian-slaughtering invasions and incursions into
their territory. Being unable to confront directly
your war machine – the largest, most advanced military
force in the history of the world, sustained by a
tsunami of public money that each year surpasses the
military spending of the rest of the world – they
naturally respond with "asymmetrical" operations……
this is the moment you have waited for; this is
exactly what you wanted. Now you can whip the herd
back into a martial frenzy, keep the Long War going,
and push aside the rabble's petty, small-minded
desires for a peaceful, prosperous life at home,
minding their own business." Wars
are planned and orchestrated by the few, the
privileged ruling elite; the humanity becomes the
targeted victims of the few for global hegemonic
governance. Throughout the ages, the conscientious
mankind searched for ways to undo the war and strive
for peace, the real aim for the establishments of
international institutions. But now the global
institutional capacity to deal with peace and conflict
management appears in ruin with the continued
onslaught of the American led so called War on
Terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Few weeks
earlier, there was an allied global conference in Bonn
to talk about peace and Afghanistan's reconstruction
and future. The question is why was Afghanistan
invaded and destroyed? In one nutshell, it was the
creative thinking of the most insane minds on the
planet and subsequently supported by few hired puppets
of the authoritarian Arab-Islamic world.
Realizing the eminent defeats by the handful forces of
Talaban, the allies are gathered to make their
presence known for propaganda purposes to the
beleaguered people of Afghanistan and global audience.
Talaban fighting the intruders are not the foreigners
but people of the land. The US, British and others
paid agents are foreigner mercenaries fighting in a
foreign land, culturally unknown and unconquerable by
their armed forces. Piety and peacemaking vis-à-vis
aggression and wickedness cannot be combined as
credible attributes in ones mindset and one human
character. Now, the issue is, how conveniently, the
aggressors want to redefine their strategic role and
ambitions in Afghanistan as peacemakers as if they
have achieved the goals of their aggression. Imagine,
Adolph Hitler while occupying France and continuing
bombing of London, wanted to organize a peace
conference. Would it have been a logical discourse for
the French and British people to talk peacemaking with
the aggressor? Bush and Hitler had lot in common as
both claimed to have the divine support for their
mission. Both tried to destroy the living humanity but
fell in disgrace and met ultimate defeats. A
week earlier, Talaban while talking to the BBC
reporter in Kabul, made it clear that they believe in
peacemaking but all the foreign forces must leave
Afghanistan. The same logic that French and British
politicians would have implied to Hitler. Could the
facts of human life be changed, be it Iraq,
Afghanistan or the occurrences of the 2nd
World War? The
people of Iraq and Afghanistan need change for peace
and normalcy. The change can only happen if the US led
occupying forces after the withdrawal would compensate
the victim nations and rebuild their essential
social-economic and humanitarian infrastructures
destroyed by the ferocious wars. The same formula used
at the end of the WW2. The same legal principle is
needed that the aggressors be brought to legal and
political accountability in an international war
tribunal such as Nuremberg tribunal after the end of
the WW2. E. H Carr, the famous historian, had
emphasized that history has learning role for the
future. Those who defy the logic of learning were lost
without a trace. The
aggressors have succumbed to public opposition and
withdrawn most of their combat forces. In other
instances, the invading armies have been defeated by
the mujahideens and are unable to carry out any
further brutality in those regions. Would the
aggressors tell the humanity, when would they end the
wars? So that the victims could think openly and plan
for change and peaceful transfer to making of their
own future. This is the issue that the current
gathering of nations at Bonn avoided to discuss. The
assembly was not for peacemaking but for prolonging
the failing war efforts. The leaders wanted to discuss
the developmental aid, a typical western materialistic
scenario to help the impoverished nations. The aid
gimmick is an attractive illusion to entrap the needy
nations and exploit their resources for the good of
the occupying forces. The US and Britain survive on
borrowed money from the future generations as their
own financial institutions have collapsed and so are
the political powerhouses and working agencies. But
the aid's long term purpose is to create more beggars
and poverty and dependent nations asking for external
aid and to survive on borrowed future and resources.
The discussion developmental aid and withdrawal of the
foreign forces from Afghanistan sends a clear signal
of defeat and prospective surrender to the Talaban
fighting for the freedom of their homeland.
Future must be anew, not the repetition of the past.
Future making does not lie with the aggressors nor
with the failed international institutions, it is with
the will and resolve of the people of Iraq and
Afghanistan to oust the aggressors and recover their
homes and habitats for rebuilding their lives and
human dignity. Taken at their face value what
Commander Bush claimed at the time that the US led
forces went to Iraq and Afghanistan in pursuit of
freedom, liberty and justice for the people. Instead
they planned and developed the institutions of Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq and Belgraham prison in
Afghanistan. Facts speak for themselves. All you need
to do is to see the outcomes, the triumphs of the
American version of liberty, human rights and justice,
the horrifying photos of the prisoners are easily
available through the internet, speaking their own
language of the American-British civilized
achievements in the Arab-Islamic world. Mr. Karzai,
the self-made president of Afghanistan, claimed that
he and the participating members of the Arab-Islamic
world represent the Islamic version of the civility
and not terrorism. Mr. Karzai or others in attendance,
the Arab-Muslim staged puppets do not represent the
interest and priorities of the Muslim Ummah. The
people of the Islamic world view them all as pan on
the global political chessboard being financed,
supported and kept in office to steal the future of
the people of Afghanistan and the Muslim world. They
are seen as part of the problem, not part of any
workable solution. The
abstract phenomenon of state- the sitting members of
the UNO, lack any human conscience to be accountable
to the global humanity already in great distress and
sufferings. The UNO, the US and other intransigent
state actors feel no shame for their atrocities
against the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Iraq,
the US forces have massacred more than three million
innocent civilians and millions displaced or forced to
become refugees in foreign lands. Fullugha alone
depicts the inhuman atrocities of the US war as it is
full of the phosphorous bombing impacts - agriculture
is destroyed, drinking water is poisonous, the lands
are polluted and not worthy of productivity- thousands
and thousands of people were made homeless and
incapacitated for no other reason except they were
Muslims and Iraqis. This is the outcome of the US
sponsored liberal democracy at work in Fullugha.
Afghan landscape tells its own story with million
uprooted from ancestral homes and forced to go to
foreign countries in search of protection and mere
human survival. The aggressors do not wish to see the
problem, that they are the real problem, not
otherwise. How soon the aggressors would leave
Afghanistan, nobody can tell. The ancient and
civilized people of Iraq and Afghanistan know it well
who are the peacemakers and who are the aggressors.
The aggressors appear desperate to quit but the Bonn
conference seems to indicate that urgent necessity but
intellectually confused, morally corrupt and with high
rates of self-suicidal deaths US-British militarily
apparatus exhausted, and not sure how best to get out
of the terrible mess they have created for the people
of Iraq and Afghanistan and the whole of the humanity
in turmoil. Recently, a Malaysian legal tribunal has
issued the judgment and declared Bush and Blair as
responsible for crimes against the humanity in Iraq
and Afghanistan. Would the Western world's responsible
legal authorities take the necessary action to
implement the verdict of the international tribunal? A
century earlier C.E, M. Joad (Guide to Modern
Wickedness), captioned the human tragedy in these
words:
"….Human nature is at least in part wicked and in
part foolish, how can human beings be prevented from
suffering from the results of their wickedness and
folly? ….Men simply do not see that war is foolish and
useless and wicked. They think on occasion that it is
necessary and wise and honourable, for war is not the
work of bad men knowing themselves to be wrong, but of
good men passionately convinced that they are right."
(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global
security, peace and conflict resolution with keen
interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and
civilizations and author of several publications
including the latest one: Arabia at Crossroads: Arab
People Strive for Freedom, Peace and New Leadership.
VDM Publishers Germany-UK, September 2011. Comments
are welcome at: kmahboob@yahoo.com) |
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