Iraq and Afghanistan: Aggression Ends, but War Continues

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. 

Lines of men are now slithering across the floor of the cellblock while the guards stand over them shouting, prodding and kicking. Second by second, their humiliation is captured on a video camera by one of the guards. 

The images of abuse and brutality he records are horrifyingly familiar. These were exactly the kind of pictures from inside Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad that shocked the world this time last year.  (Deborah Davies, “Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons” 03/28/2005)

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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 21^st 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 2^nd 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.”