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Western Wars and Arab Authoritarianism: Killing the Mankind
Mahboob A. Khawaja, Ph.D.
“Why of course the people don’t want war….but after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship….Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” (Hermann Goering, former Nazi Minister at the Nuremberg Trials)
“Imperial states build networks which link economic, military and political activities into a coherent mutually reinforcing system. This task is largely performed by the various institutions of the imperial state. Thus imperial action is not always directly economic, as military action in one country or region is necessary to open or protect economic zones. Nor are all military actions decided by economic interests if the leading sector of the imperial state is decidedly militarist.” (James Petras, “Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, 01/2011)
“The wars sustained capitalist governance and made millionaires into billionaires. “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” (Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler. WAR IS A RACKET)
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Across the Western world, living and amputated veterans and the minority ruling elite stand in respect and memories of those who had lost their lives during the WW1 and 2 and the ongoing American led “War on Terrorism” or Terrorism of Wars on the Muslim people in Iraq, Afghanistan and onward to Pakistan. Nobody knows for sure, why millions and millions of precious human lives were lost to satisfy the sadistic savagery and vengeful mind of the few warmongers. Those killed in cold blood were not present at these ceremonies nor would ever know the rationale behind the wars. Record indicates they just obeyed the commands. Western democracies face a rational challenge- a dilemma of relevance and credibility - 99% of the masses are up in arms against the systematic economic, social and political injustice - 99% of the people openly challenge the 1 % cruel monsters on the on-going warmongerings in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Proponents of the left-over myth of working liberal democracies have taken shelters in unknown hideouts. Would there be anew spirited democracy of the majority born out of the people’s movement or revolution against the customary democracy of the few insane leaders? Felicity Arbuthnot helps us to understand the proper context of human tragedy (“Remembrance Day: “Let this Silence be a Scream for Peace” Dissident Voice: 11/14/2011)
“Across the world the fanfare commemorating the “day the guns fell silent” has been trumpeted (literally, in many places) as having special resonance: 11.11.11: a once in a century event. Hypocrisy does not come more astounding than this. There has not been a single bloodless year since. More often than not, the US, Britain and European countries has been involved. But even where they were not, between the League of Nations and its successor, the United Nations, the pain of others should surely be, and have been, of concern, distress and subject of mediation and conflict resolve.”
All those who wage wars see the rest of mankind in abstract notions. Who else would know better than the Europeans - the champions of the Two World Wars, now adjusting themselves to new realities at the EU, trying to be rational and civilized, making differences heard openly and change and adaptability to emotional outbursts and rational perspectives rather than nationalism and racial superiority – the real causes of the global tragedies. All wars are outcome of the few mindless people claiming to be leaders to dominate the less fortunate and destitute human beings. They view the rest of the mankind in animalistic terms - just numbers - digits and something existing on paper with dry ink that should be controlled and dominated by their animalistic instinct as do the blood thirsty draculas. There are no objective values in the imperial philosophy of global economic development, control and domination. It is a myth lacking rational imagination and full of deceptive entrapment of the poor nations. Power and wisdom are immeasurably separated by the gulf of greed, militarization and hegemonic control over the oil-rich Arab Middle East. The neo-colonial Arab rulers and the former imperial masters demonstrate extreme cruelty and sadistic policy behavior in safeguarding their vested interests and strategic priorities for economic development plans. The plans essential envisage grand scheme of THINGS to build, destroy through intrigues and conflict and rebuild the infrastructures to sustain the imperial economies - the war led economies of in Europe and America. The former European colonists and the new United States Empire are not linked by common geography but share a common history of war mongering and war racketeering throughout the recorded history. The insanity of European nationalism led to all major global wars, killing millions and millions to safeguard the ambiguity of ethnic and national syndrome of superiority, now succumbed to and embedded in the EU but the US is not part of this configuration in a socio-political context. Its military force conducts the affairs of the EU. The Europeans learned in a hard way that wars are not the solution but unity is lessening the ingrained animosity often evolved by the impulse of time, individualistic minds and history. They realized the sense of direction to have open communication, free trades and free borders of movements for the people to develop new relationships. Arab rulers have not learned to capitalize the contemporary history and make good out of the global changes to promote free exchange of ideas, listening-learning and Islamic unity.
Evil is deprivation of good. If the rulers were evil and had confrontational behavior, how come the whole of the Arab society went neglectful of its primary role and duty in the world? The petrodollars enhanced economy had produced more evils than good. The individualistic absolutism is common in all of the Arab landscape. ‘All the monsters of history’ and historical blood thirsty Draculas can be seen amongst the absolute rulers of the Arab world. They were all placed in positions of influence by the defeated European Empires. The Arab people of Islamic civilization were known to be “Ummah of Khair - people of goodness and peace.” The Quranic injunction describes the Arabs as “Ummah Wasta” – the model society of just balanced in all human affairs. The ignorant and egoistic Arab rulers replaced Islam with petro-dollars carved “modernity” - a planned scheme of exclusive materialism degrading the principles of just balanced society (“al-mizaan”), both in material and spiritual norms. Under the Islamic governance, development aim was the focus of human being and Arabs became the epic center of progressive civilization for eight hundred years, whereas, oil exporting economy disgraced the Arabs to be interdependent and subservient to the West as stooges living for foods and striving for consumerism and nothing else.
With massive foreign security apparatus operating in the oil-producing Arab states, the neo-colonial rulers live under obsessive illusion of power and glory. They had no sense of time and history how to do the societal rebuilding. Their sinking behaviors and corruption minimized the chances of having awareness of their real world strength and weaknesses as they were not open to listening and learning. The internal power strives and street bloodsheds by the rulers have weakened the Arab stance on Palestine. While the global consensus is favorable to the establishment of an independent State of Palestine, the Arab world lacks political unity, coherent policy stance and commitment to help the Palestinians to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Israelis. Logic seeks truth and the truth is that Arab people do not have morally and intellectually competent and responsible leaders to represent their interests and priorities for peace and conflict resolution. It is an historic occasion for change lost by the corrupt rulers. The new generations are up in arms looking for change, where there is no glimpse of hope for change in the absolute oppressive governance supported by the Western masters for their own economic and political interests. The Arab people have become victims of their own rulers and their complacency to remain in power, fair or foul. The Europeans and now the 21st century American Empire collaborate plans and priorities to wage unending wars against the Arab-Muslim people to sustain their economies and industrialized military complexes. They define it “War on Terrorism.” Realist thinkers and scholars would call it “Terrorism of Wars” planned and orchestrated by the decadent Western human civilization under the compulsion of economic evils and mismanagement. The ruling elite are outcome of this broad-based culture of war machines, economic and political confluence.
There seems to be no endgame for the Western pathological liars pursuing the warmongering against the Muslim people worldwide. Several Arab client states are subservient to the US strategic dictates in the Middle East affairs. After military defeats by a handful of fighters (mujahideens) in Iraq and Afghanistan, the US Superpower and some of its European imperialists are blindfolding the mankind to assume that Iran is a threat to global peace and stability. The lies and deception that Hitler practiced, and the world watched as silent spectators. He is reported to have said that “tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it.” Obama is simply following the George Bush policy – “a war of thousand years” – a new 21st century crusade against the Arab and Muslim people. Strange marriage of insanity as is that Saudi rulers and Israel are willing partners to plan and attack on Iran’s nuclear installations. To enhance the failing economies of the US and Western Europe, war has become an instrument – a face saving strategy to escape the real challenges. Iran never threatened anybody’s security or territorial integrity including the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia or the Europeans. Be it America or some of the West Europeans, they appear to be the blind followers of Hitler. It is not unthinkable; they should meet the same fate as do most other transgressors in human history. Wayne Madsen (“War Clouds Form over Iran” Global Research: 11/10/2011) provides an insight to the making of war against Iran:
“Iran has now seen Israel's most-open secret ally, Saudi Arabia, appoint the former Egyptian intelligence chief and close Netanyahu friend, Omar Suleiman, as an adviser to Saudi heir apparent, Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz al-Saud, who is also the Interior Minister. The Jerusalem-Riyadh axis is being further cemented as the Obama administration is shifting 4,000 troops from Iraq to Kuwait and beefing up other U.S. military assets in Bahrain -- home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet – and Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman. The CIA and Pentagon have set up Predator drone bases in Djibouti, Seychelles, Ethiopia, and, reportedly, Saudi Arabia.”
The European imperialism knew its geography and limitations but the US Empire in its early stages of infancy has conspired to cross-over the limits of geography and history and most importantly, the limits of the Laws of God to invade other parts of the globe to assert its hegemonic control over the natural resources, people and politics. Empire building is a comprehensive network ushered after the 2nd World War and accelerated in the last few decades, more so under the oil merchant Bush dynasty. James Petras (“Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, January 3, 2011), explains how the Imperial Networks plan broad scheme of subjugation of the Arab authoritarian rulers to impose its dictates:
“Empire-building is essentially a process of penetrating a country or region, establishing a privileged position and retaining control in order to secure (1) lucrative resources, markets and cheap labor (2) establish a military platform to expand into adjoining countries and regions (3) military bases to establish a chock-hold over strategic road or waterways to deny or limit access of competitors or adversaries (4) intelligence and clandestine operations against adversaries and competitors.
In either private or state economic and/or military led penetration, in furtherance of empire-building, the strategic purpose is to exploit the special economic and geopolitical features of the targeted country to create empire-centered networks. …..In the genocidal wars in the Middle East, anti-terrorism and anti-Islamic ideology is central…….The unity of purpose of European and US imperial regimes allowed for the peaceful joint takeover of the wealth of the new regions by private monopolies……Imperial Sequences: From War for Exploitation to Exploitation for War….”
The United States is a society completely militarized. Its industrial-political and military complexes are governed by the one and the same kind of people who uphold common strategic-political interests and values. Eric S. Shine (“Geneva Conventions Redefined - The New US Department of War”, Dissident Voice, June 8, 2011) explains the emerging spectrum:
“The remarkable change still underway is a complete militarization of the United States, if not also the rest of the world. Today, the most disturbing sign of this take-over of all of the civilian commons by the military, at least in the U.S., comes in the form of a new, or reinvigorated, Department of War…..in response to international terms set forth by the Geneva Convention accords. Wars of aggression and conquest were outlawed by those international agreements. Only wars to defend a nation’s borders were allowed. In 1948, with our agreeing to the terms of these accords, our Department of War was converted to a reconfigured Department of Defense and its focus changed… until now.”
“War is a racket Then and Now” (Free Thought Manifesto: 05/29/2011) describes Mark Sheffield. Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler (WAR IS A RACKET) of the US marines served 33 years but “had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until [he] retired to civil life did [he] fully realize it.” The wars sustained capitalist governance and made millionaires into billionaires. “WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.” Butler asks many rational questions:
“How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried the bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded and killed in battle?”
What are the options to wipe out the profiteering of the warmongers? Butler points out How to Smash this Racket:
“You can’t end it with disarmament conferences. You can’t eliminate it by peace parlays at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can’t wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.”
James Petras (“Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, January 3, 2011) provides a disturbing insight to the working and collaboration of the Imperial Networks in Washington and Europe: “
“The result was the total “unbalancing” of the US imperial apparatus: military action was unhinged from economic empire building. A highly influential upper caste of Zionist-militarists harnessed US military power to an economically marginal state (Israel), in perpetual hostility toward the 1.5 billion Muslim world. Equally damaging, American Zionist ideologues and policymakers promoted repressive institutions and legislation and Islamophobic ideological propaganda designed to terrorize the US population.”
Despite the human advances in science and technology and other spheres of moral, political and intellectual endeavors, the global leadership remains sadistic, egomaniac and terribly naïve about its role and responsibility toward peacemaking and progress of the mankind. German philosopher Kant had a vision for “Perpetual Peace” that European cherished but the rulers practiced war as a means to pursue peace. Over the centuries, the world has not changed a bit-the European world and the global configuration of rulers who produced Hitler and Mussolini as the role model for the killing of the humanity.
Felicity Arbuthnot (“Remembrance Day: “Let this Silence be a Scream for Peace” Dissident Voice: 11/14/2011) explains what these wars have done to the victimized humanity:
“Did the fifty to seventy million of the second world war and the fifteen million of the first, that his grandmother leads the commemorations for, die for this? What a world-class, pitiful waste.
As three Muslim countries lie in ruins, their dead uncounted, with a growing list of others threatened with the same fate, George W. Bush’s “Crusade”, continuing unabated, a group called “Muslims Against Crusades” has been banned by the Home Secretary, Theresa May. They planned a protest to mark Remembrance Sunday. Last year they burned two poppies and are pretty well designated terrorists. They may be tasteless, they are certainly justifiably aggrieved. Meanwhile the “allies” burn people.”
Militarization complements the characteristics of warmongering and it has been institutionalized in the Western democratic system of governance and its spill-over impact is spreading fast across the globe. Arabs are no exception particularly those living under the controlled strategic shadow of the European-American imperialism. Once upon a time the Arab rulers claimed “moral superiority” in wars and peacemaking when they were Muslims and practiced Islam as a code and value of life, happiness and success, Today with flourishing petro-dollar sponsored “modernity” Arabs ruler are at loss and considerable disgrace at home and abroad. Their minds and actions are deprived of reason and reality. The armed forces that were supposedly meant for Islam are being used to maintain the security of palaces and authoritarianism contrary to the teachings of Islam. Arab armies are killing their own people who want change and freedom from political oppression of the few in Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula.
There are no Arab armies to protect the besieged masses from the authoritarian cruelty or to stand for Islam. There are solid indicators and political movements for change and reformation of the neo-colonial led political governance - outdated and obsolete for the 21st century human affairs. There are loud voices of REASON demanding change and reformation - “Islaha” and replacement of the corrupt and individualistic absolutism seen in Syria, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen and across the Arab world. The Arab world is up in flames and the global war racketeers are watching how best to market more weaponry and killing machines to balance the high priced oil cartel. The solutions to Arab neo-colonialism appear to be hard to come out of the existence political structures and mindsets of the absolute rulers. The Muslim thinkers and scholars must find ways to develop new, creative and workable alternatives for change, societal peace and harmony. The rulers will not change but change will replace the rulers as it looks certain in Libya, Syria, Bahrain and Yemen and elsewhere but it is a bloody change built on sacrifices of the innocent masses against the rule of the few ignorant and self- actuated dictators kept in power by the Western warmongers. Absolute power corrupts the absolute. For almost half a century “Razor King” type ruthless authoritarian Arab rulers have been kept in power as agents of influence by the European-American collaborative Empire. The secretive armed networks are supported by petrodollars and equipped with Western supplied weapons to control the challenging masses and kill the people demanding freedom from foreign subjugation. Arabs have no public institutions to THINK of peaceful alternatives to authoritarianism or to hold the rulers to political accountability. The imperial masters and collaborators worked hard to establish the environment of perpetuated fear and violence.
Frank Scott (“The No Brain Zone”, MediaMonitors Network, March 15, 2011) offers the real perspective:
“Failing empires, nations and institutions are often run by people whose intellectual capacity reflects deteriorating material conditions. The greater the crisis, the more likely that the morally crippled, psychologically damaged or mentally challenged may assert command. But when the crisis is systemic and transcends borders, the weapons handled by the incompetents are so lethal, and the area blanketed with ignorance extends from nation to state to municipality, more than a local population is under assault.”
To James Petras (“Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, January 3, 2011),
“Imperial states build networks which link economic, military and political activities into a coherent mutually reinforcing system. This task is largely performed by the various institutions of the imperial state. Thus imperial action is not always directly economic, as military action in one country or region is necessary to open or protect economic zones. Nor are all military actions decided by economic interests if the leading sector of the imperial state is decidedly militarist.”
The warriors - the war predators of the Western industrialized complexes preach peace, equality and democracy for the developing world but transform and equip the recipient nations with militarization and weapons of mass destruction. The flourishing trade is not intended for strategic equilibrium amongst the warring parties or regions except to safeguard the strategic interests of the New Empire and its global hegemony over the oil producing Middle Eastern Arab nations. Frank Scott (“The No Brain Zone”) adds:
“The Arab world is hardly alone in experiencing demands from a newly radicalized public, though it has taken the global lead. European Union movements are finally being emulated by American workers who are rising up against the social inequities which grow more apparent with each new public loss to assure more private profit. As never before, humanity seems to be moving toward political democracy in simultaneously occurring national struggles, spurred on by common experience of inequality, disrespect and exploitation.”
War is a crime, the new 21st century human civilization has come to realize but crimes and criminals are dealt by legal courts and there are none to apprehend the global criminals enjoying the most political powerhouses and making global policies and decisions. Contrary to the values of the American history of freedom, liberty and justice, President George Bush invented the “War on Terrorism” and made America a place of fear and crippled human society. Eric S. Shine (“Geneva Conventions Redefined”) adds the real perspective:
“President George W. Bush accelerated these attacks on the Geneva Convention accords to a point where our own soldiers, in the midst of intense conflict, stood in jeopardy of losing these important safeguards. This earth-shattering change, irreconcilable not only with these accords, but with our own Constitution, and with our foundational system of civilian self-governance, was already well underway. And, sadly and forebodingly, these changes were largely unnoticed by our citizenry…”
There is no balancing act between the petrodollars generated revenues, overwhelming corruption and money laundering schemes of economic development and the aspirations of the people of the Arab landscape for change, democracy and new leadership in a people-oriented system of political governance. There are no known cure to ignorance and cruelty except to challenge the vices with voices of REASON. Indifference and insanity rules while the petrodollars generated material wealth and transitory economic progresses, the Arab rulers remained unimaginative and authoritarian to realize that once killing of the innocent civilians is justified on grounds of modernity and political expediency, it has become a vicious act of oppression lacking wisdom and a cancerous disease that continues to engross the whole of the Middle East. European collaborative and American led scheme of modernization is a prelude to warmongering, warriors dream coming true to build the infrastructures, destroy them by wars and rebuild the devastated economies of the Arab Middle East. This is how the US economy with a history of over 220 wars flourishes over the ages. The reality that egomaniac rulers are unable to comprehend. Their armies are killing their own people.
The imperial networks and war rackets are encouraging more conflicts to invest in rebuilding the destroyed globe. This is a business as usual that the Arab mind cannot understand. If there were no oil pumping in the Arab world, they had little weight on the imperial network scale. Oil exports are the reason for their relative importance as stooges of the imperial bank data. The real issues of the Arab world have been living in denials. Palestine and its freedom from Israeli occupation is no longer a first agenda item. Wars and death and destruction are the top notch agenda items in relations between the West and the Arab world. Perhaps the discovery of “oil” was a conspiracy (“Fitna”) to forfeit the Arab culture and Islamic civilization. The Arab people long for change, peace and new leadership. The people’s freedom movements are making bold headways throughout the Middle East. The ruthless rulers are using the armed forces to crush the innocent people. The bloodbaths being witnessed in the streets of Yemen, Libya, Syria, Cairo, Bahrain and elsewhere provide a staunch reminder that there is something terribly wrong with human thinking and military actions. The war machines being used by the psychopath Arab rulers were meant to defend the Arab masses and their culture, not destroy them. What do such crimes indicate about the nature of the society in which bloodbaths are taking place under the aegis of economic development and militarization? Do the paranoid and crime-riddled Arab rulers envisage an advanced culture of “modernity?” Wars are killing the people, destroying the planet and those who posses power exhibit no wisdom, and with overwhelming naïve egoism and embittered insanity rulers and imperial warriors are driving the people to reactionary wars to dream of triumph and glory over human mind and soul. With global wars overriding the ordinary citizens of the world, feel incapacitated and share a terrible sense of loss and helplessness and wonder how to save the humanity from the scourge of imperial led war racketeering and the consequences of man’s treachery, triviality and viciousness against the mankind.
“On Remembrance Day”, Felicity Arbuthnot makes the voices of reason to be heard,
“we remember the wars where the lives of the 99% were sacrificed by the 1% in pursuit of money and power: There is everything right about remembering the dead who die in futile wars. There is everything wrong about using the past dead to justify current wars.
We stand with the World War Two generation who built the Welfare State now under threat, who had bitter memories of the previous war where soldiers were promised they would return to ‘homes fit for heroes’ but instead returned to hunger, the dole queue and the ‘means test’. We recall the ‘winter soldiers’ who crossed a river of fire from unthinkingly obeying orders to becoming active agents of social change – soldiers of conscience such as Siegfried Sassoon who hurled his medals into the River Mersey to protest World War One and Joe Glenton, the first serving British soldier to go to jail rather than return to Afghanistan. In America, war veterans have been on the frontline of our movement, our thoughts today are with Scott Olsen, an American Iraq War Veteran now in a critical condition in hospital after police brutality at an Occupy Oakland protest.”
“The greatest threat to our world and its peace” stated Hermann Hesse, the author and political activist (1877-1962) … “comes from those who want war, who prepare for it, and who, by holding out vague promises of future peace or by instilling fear of foreign aggression, try to make us accomplices to their plans.”
Long time ago, Eric Bogle synthesized the poem- The Green Fields of France and many have sung it to remind the mankind of a just cause in waiting at the global table of the contemporary war racketeers and sadistic warmongers:
Did you really believe, when they told you the cause,
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well, the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing and dying it was all done in vain
Oh Willy McBride it all happened again -
And again, and again, and again, and again.”
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