|
09 Feb 2012 By Dr. Mahboob A.
Khawaja "Having been indoctrinated by
the propaganda of those whose militarism and warist
agenda requires acceptance of the mythology of the
"good war" and the "noble warrior," the uninitiated
and unaffected most civilians and many non warrior
members of the military fail to realize this truth,
that all war is barbarism in which cruelty and brutal
atrocity is the norm rather than the exception. During
World War II, for example, often cited and celebrated
as the "good war," over 50 million civilians were
murdered by both Axis and Allied Nations. The American
servicemen in the Wikileaks video who so nonchalantly
"engaged the target" slaughtering some 12 human beings
are no different from the pilots and bombardiers from
the "greatest generation" who with equal nonchalance,
incinerated millions of civilians during the terror
bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, etc. Despite the moral depravity of their
actions, these individuals were not born killers.
Rather they were created to do our bidding……… Camillo "Mac" Bica, Professor
New York University ("Atrocity and War" OpEdNews:
04/28/2010) If
President Obama thought war is noble and heroic to
contest the presidential re-elections, he is an
affront to human rationality. Wickedness and
righteousness cannot be combined in one human
character and policy manifestation. He appears to have
opted to the dark side of human THINKING and is being
manipulated by ex-military Generals and the sadistic
enterprises of Washington-based Zionist controlled
industrial—military-political complexes. They all
perceive the mankind as subservient as something like
numbers and digits to be toyed to their absolute
economic and political dictates. If he continues to
beat the war drums against Iran, surely, he does not
have the sense of time and history to live and face
the consequences. He is not a skilled leader but a
dream warrior. Obama and Pharaoh must have shared the
same thinking and priorities. But could their ultimate
destinies be the same? "The
list goes on and on and only gets worse as each week
passes. The tally of our savagery throughout the world
numbers in the hundreds of thousands each year, and
yet the only casualties we read about refer to
"American lives lost" – and, even those number in the
thousands. All the government has to do is
characterize its victims as terrorists, or anti-U.S.,
and the public sits back and condones the killing."
Luke Hiken enlists the developmental stages of the US
warmongering: 1) Drones attacks on
civilians in Pakistan, Yemen, and Afghanistan. 2) The
ongoing murder of civilians in Iraq. 3) Support for
U.S.-installed authoritarian rulers in Syria, Yemen
and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. 4) Indiscriminate
bombing in Libya designed to kill one of the few
dictators we don't embrace in the Middle East. 5)
Declaring Iran Air Lines to be a "terrorist group" and
threatening to prosecute anyone who flies on that
airline for "Patriot Act" violations. 6) Support for
Israel's illegal blockade and opposition to a peace
flotilla to the concentration camp known as Gaza. 7)
U.S. complicity with the Mexican government in killing
over 25,000 drug dealers and their supporters 8)
Interventions and destabilization of South and Central
America, designed to overthrow governments that won't
comply with U.S. economic and political agenda
demands. 9) The use of the CIA, FBI and their
affiliates in international clandestine operations,
including assassinations and disappearances." Paul
Craig Roberts ("What do We Stand For?" ICH:
18/02/2008) crystallized the proper context to the
American legacy: "Americans traditionally thought of their country
as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world."
Today only the deluded think that. Polls show that the
rest of the world regards the U.S. and Israel as the
two greatest threats to peace. This is not surprising.
In the words of 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
aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and
brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what
we stand for…………… "The killing and occupation continue
even though we now know that the invasions were based
on lies and fabricated "evidence." The entire world
knows this. Yet Americans continue to act as if the
gratuitous invasions, the gratuitous killing, and the
gratuitous destruction are justified. There is no end
of it in sight." Bush
disguised his "crusade " against Islam and the Arab
people and claimed he was paving ways for human
rights, liberty and justice in the primitive Arab
world by attacking Iraq. The real issue was occupation
of Iraq's oil resources and protection of the dollars
as reserve currency in oil trade. President Obama came
into office to take America out of the scourge of the
terrorism of wars and return peace and normalcy to the
exhausted American sense of rationality. But instead
deformed into another self-centered egomaniac leader
matching the ambitions of his predecessor - known
psychopath George Bush. Obama appears to have failed
to learn useful lesson from the contemporary history.
Every beginning hast an end. America appears to be
led by the wrong people with wrong THINKING and doing
the wrong things. The national image and its
accompanying baggage of acclaimed features and so
called values conform to the historical record of
those leaders and nations that claimed materialist
powers and got engaged ruthlessly to run down the rest
of mankind devastating life and habitats aimlessly for
fun, for pissing on them and enjoying killing the
fellow human beings for economic and political
agendas. In their given span of time, they were
tactful to use clichés of being civilized and
challenged and threatened anyone who dared to reason
the unreason with their monstrous acts of aggression.
They were destined to meet the same consequential end
about which they never imagined and often mocked about
that it could happen to them in their life time. The
life and Planet exist not because of any abstract
notion of the modern State and its laws but by the
order and will of God. From earth to heavens, all
things exist and operate according to the command of
God and obey His pre-destined course of action. Those
who challenged the order of the Nature of Things
became dust and artifacts in worldwide museums. They
ended up in bringing the wrath of God by violating the
Laws of the Nature and got destroyed by natural causes
such as earthquakes, flooding, storms, sound blasts
and other natural causes befitting to their wickedness
and drudgery against the mankind. What happened to the
kingdom of Pharaoh? What fate did Hitler encountered
claiming to be waging war of 1000 years? Where did the
Roman Empire ended up? How did the British and Spanish
Empires were lost without a trace? What about the most
recent USSR dismantlement? What is next for still
infancy-the US Empire? The mankind suffers without any
lapse of time as do the victims of nuclear
catastrophic accidents and bombing. The
consequential outcomes leave imprints for ages to come
on human psychology, social, economic, political
spheres and above all on the functional system of the
planets- history reveals the facts which cannot be
erased from the minds of the living humanity.
"Will Iran Be Attacked?" (paulcraigroberts.org:
02/8/2012) worrisome question pondered by Paul
Craig Roberts - one of the leading 21st
century American intellectuals: Luke Hiken ("How Should
Americans Respond to Leaders Who Are War Criminals?"
Dissident Voice: 06/29/2011), an American attorney
spells out the context:
"Throughout history, oppressed people have been
overwhelmed and immobilized by the seeming
indestructibility of the military establishment in
power. Whether it be a Hitler, an Attila, or the
powerful Ozymandias of old, the mighty call upon the
weak to "look on my works … and despair." But whether
these tyrants are defeated by their enemies, or, like
an uncontrolled forest fire that burns itself out as a
result of its own self-destructing flames, all such
empires fade and fall. The hubris and inhumanity of
our leaders and owners result in their own
annihilation – the only question is how many will have
died while they wreaked their havoc on the people and
resources of the planet." It is Always Darkest Right Before
it Goes Completely Black. There is no reality-based argument denying
this………..But the raging soul of the world will not be
assaulted without consequence. Mind and body are
intertwined and inseparable from nature, and, when
nature responds to our assaults, her replies are known
to humankind as the stuff of mythic tragedy and
natural catastrophe. Resultantly, the tattered remnants of the
neoliberal imagination (embodied in lofty but
content-devoid Obama speechifying and the clown car
demolition derby of Republican politics) spends its
days in a broken tower of the mind, insulated from
this reality: The exponentially increasing
consequences (e.g., economic collapse, perpetual war,
ecocide) created by the excesses of the present
paradigm will shake those insular towers to theirs
foundations, and, will inevitably caused the
structures to totter and collapse. We have been
"sexton slave" to this destructive order long enough;
its lodestar is a death star. Of course, this behavior defies
logic, is in breach of the law, and is an affront to
any workable code of ethics–as well as stands in
defiance to the laws of nature, including the force of
gravity. ………Paradoxically, while the forces of nature
are impersonal, the dilemma feels very personal.
Therefore, on this journey to the end of empire, when
impersonal elements are in play, one can become
alienated from the dehumanizing trajectory of the
times. Likewise, as exemplified by the U.S. political
system, what process is more impersonal than the
process of decay? Apropos, the air is permeated with a
reek of putrefaction. "That's just the way it is"
might be one of the most soul-defying phrases in the
human lexicon."
"Having been indoctrinated by the propaganda of those
whose militarism and warist agenda requires acceptance
of the mythology of the "good war" and the "noble
warrior," the uninitiated and unaffected most
civilians and many non warrior members of the military
fail to realize this truth, that all war is barbarism
in which cruelty and brutal atrocity is the norm
rather than the exception. During World War II, for
example, often cited and celebrated as the "good war,"
over 50 million civilians were murdered by both Axis
and Allied Nations. The American servicemen in the
Wikileaks video who so nonchalantly "engaged the
target" slaughtering some 12 human beings are no
different from the pilots and bombardiers from the
"greatest generation" who with equal nonchalance,
incinerated millions of civilians during the terror
bombings of Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima,
Nagasaki, etc. Despite the moral depravity of their
actions, these individuals were not born killers.
Rather they were created to do our bidding……… With
the recent release of the video at Wikileaks that
graphically documents, with less than Xbox clarity and
sophistication, an alleged incident of atrocity
prosecuted by American troops, all morally sensitive
human beings, regardless of their political ideology
or position on the occupations of Iraq and
Afghanistan, and the wars in Pakistan, Yemen, etc.,
are understandably outraged and righteously appalled
by such barbarism. …….. For the warriors, the
mythology has long since crumbled quickly replaced by
the reality of death and destruction" Are
the Western democracies and their superficial surge to
protect human rights, freedom and liberty is relevant
to the knowledge-based- and well informed societal
conscience of the 21st century? Could
Obama continue to fool the people that he is waging a
just war against Iran or winning the terrorism of wars
against the besieged humanity? Undoubtedly, history
tells us that all those claiming to be the role model
representing the democratic will of the people were
sadistic people of self- aggrandizement and profound
treacherous behavior to nobody except the self and
their own conscious if they had one. All the necessary
factors are interplaying in the emerging rhetoric of
wars against Iran as if another Pharaoh is setting the
scene to repeat the history. To the intelligent ones
and responsible leaders who are conscientious of
learning from the lessons of history, the Red Sea
still exhibits the reminiscent of the Pharaoh's
drowned and destroyed kingdom and his own well kept
mummy continues to be displayed to the curious
visitors at the Cairo national museum. Now, the course
of history-making is focused in the adjacent Arabian
Sea and Persian Gulf connecting the missing dots.
Contemporary politics is not a fixed entity but highly
complex and demanding test of leader's ingenuity and
challenge to effective leadership. Bush failed
miserably to meet the criterion requirements to manage
the crisis of 9/11 proportion and to conveniently opt
for War o Terrorism. Obama lacked the will and vision
to build anew America breaking with the bankrupt past.
Leaders lead and those who betray the solid
commitments and mislead, end-up in disgrace. History
portrays them as Hitler, Mussolini, George Bush, Tony
Blair and so many others delusional and entangled in
making the process of history. Throughout the recorded
history, men of knowledge and wisdom knew well their
strengths and weaknesses, and the type of advice and
people around them making the governance happen.
Indifferent and cruel are those who see the facts of
life on a clear dashboard but ignore the alarming
singles for change and adaptability – towards a
Navigational Change to avoid the self-engineered
monstrous consequential developments. Intelligent are
the ones who change their course when facts warrant a
change, they demonstrate courageous passion for facts
not for fiction and take up the challenge to make a
sustainable future happened out of human intellect
and reasoned judgment, that is leadership
intelligence and accountability to the people they
claim to serve in the 21st century.
American politicians and military strategists have
faltered many intellectual and moral fault lines as is
the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan by
THINKING BIG and falling from high and be harmed to
become a financially, morally and intellectual
bankrupt superpower burdened on human conscience and
historic sense of freedom and liberty, and desperately
looking for its relevance to the emerging economies
and global political challenges. The essence of
rationality will presuppose that rational people do
think of recourse to change the direction and policy
behaviors when realties on the ground warrant such a
critical change. Because of the domestic politics and
Zionist control of the American thinking hubs, often
the American leadership acts like a surrogate mother
to protect the Israeli interests by undermining its
own global standing and national interests. Learning
from the facts of life and making changes in
perceptions, policies and strategic direction is a
rational choice to effective leadership. One could
propose a workable diagnose to the bewildered American
mindset if Obama and Netanyahu could be sent on a
space voyage to see the Planet Earth as is from the
above and understand its operational existence – Who
is governing the universe - what Majestic Power
facilitates all that is essential for life and growth;
how the earth rotates against the sun, how the water,
seas, mountains stand in obedience to its Creator -
the Lord of World- the Creator of life and death, how
the universe and human species are connected together
and the imperatives of living in co-existence with the
rest of mankind. Perhaps, such an exploratory visit to
space will help to melt down some of their inborn
stupidity, indifference and cruelty to the fellow
human beings. Indeed, leadership adaptability to
change in democracy is a mark of intelligence and
responsibility. After
the recent worldwide revulsion by 99% People's Occupy
Movement against the perpetuated atrocities of the 1%
economic and political authoritarianism, Western
democracy appears set on a collision course with
itself when people are not the force of its functional
legitimacy and policy making, more so of Obama's
imperial expansion, targeting other nations for the
fun of killing, display of materialistic power and
delusional military hardware, torturing and bombing
innocent civilians and labeling it collateral damage -
the Abu Ghraib, Guantamobay - none embodied peace,
freedom and justice but treachery to American
historical ideals, violence, deaths, and atrocities it
claims to diffuse. Obvious facts indicate that many
times in recent history people of authority have
exercised the authoritarian absolutism to drive the
mankind to two Word Wars while preaching gospel in one
hand and warmongering and massacres in another one.
Logic demands facing truth not man-made false values
of self appeasement and coronation to power. Would
Obama take the cautionary warning and make the much
needed Navigational Change and RETHINK of drowning the
US in the Red Sea Region as it happened to the
Pharaoh. The global community does not wish to see
America drowning in its self-geared absurdity of wars
but what must humanity do if we THINK of Change?
(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) |