Opinion Editorials, February 2013

Will US-Led Crusading Wars on Muslims Ever End?

By Mahboob A. Khawaja

“The Romans were slipping into violence by a process of self-justification, and once a nation or an individual has started down this particular slope, it is impossible to apply breaks the Roman people were too unimaginative and short sighted to realize that, once murder has been justified on grounds of expediency, it can become a habit, then a disease.”  (Colin Wilson.  A Criminal History of Mankind)

The 21st century unilateral crusades are killing the humanity as if the 12th century European crusades against Islam were unending.  The hurriedly enforced allied adventure in West Africa - Mali- tells clearly that the US led bogus “War on Terror” is endless and unprovoked aggression is part of the planned Western crusade against Islam and Muslims across the globe. 

The UNO and its Security Council are just spectators, debating clubs like the failed League of Nations operated by the most influential Western States and now China- Russia are mere entities for face saving. Recall now more than year-old oppressive odyssey of the Syrian people, diplomacy at its most cruel form and shape wanting consultation and agreement of Russia to stop the on-going daily bloodsheds - a gruesome shame for the oil-enriched and financially affluent Arab leaders. All Arab leaders are waiting and seeing to count the dead bodies.

Truth digging will spell out that in global affairs if thousands or million innocent lives are demised and slaughtered in search of diplomacy, proponents of monstrous thinking will continue to insist that diplomacy should be given a chance. The perpetuated insanity is wide spread that you wonder how rationality has been suppressed and the UN diplomacy and importance of its role and responsibilities in international peace and security have become meaningless interpretations. France needed no prior consent of the UN Council to send its armies immediately to West Africa for war engagements. British support is readily available to be complemented by the US war machines to be placed anywhere if it can strengthen the crusade against Muslims.

Leon Panetta in his last days was quick to point out that the US government is ready to act against al – Qaeda anywhere any time and the War on Terrorism will continue. It raised the eye brows of many informed scholars and political observers across the international arena as it had nothing to do with War on Terrorism. From the beginning the premise of the War on Terror was a bogus one. These belligerent statements and actions surely fuel the Western passion for continuous wars any time and anywhere as long as it could be defined under aegis of War on Terror.

A week earlier General McRystal, the former ousted US Commander in Afghanistan made it known in a CNN interview that the presence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan is less than 100 people and has lost its strength and relevance for the War on Terror. If American politicians are not irrational and war addicted what else is the reasoning for their utter madness and animosity against Islam and Muslims?

Glen Greenwald (“The 'War on Terror' - by Design - Can Never End.”

the Guardian: 1/4/2013),  points out that the US warmongering has no end to its policy objectives: 

“There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire.” Greenwald recalls that:

in December 2012, the outgoing Pentagon General Counsel Jeh Johnson addressed the Oxford Union and said that the War on Terror must, at some point, come to an end: "Now that efforts by the US military against al-Qaida are in their 12th year, we must also ask ourselves: How will this conflict end? . . . . 'War' must be regarded as a finite, extraordinary and unnatural state of affairs. We must not accept the current conflict, and all that it entails, as the 'new normal.' Peace must be regarded as the norm toward which the human race continually strives . . . …..There will come a tipping point at which so many of the leaders and operatives of al-Qaida and its affiliates have been killed or captured, and the group is no longer able to attempt or launch a strategic attack against the United States, that al-Qaida will be effectively destroyed."

After analyzing some of the current belligerent trends and inhuman tragedies of the US actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan and massive killings by the illegal drone attacks, she (Jeh Johnson) asks the human conscience - the most important and unanswered question: 

“When does this thing we are in now end? And if it does not have an end — and I'm not speaking as a lawyer here, I am just speaking as a citizen who feels morally accountable for my country's actions — if it does not have an end, then morally speaking it does not seem like it is a war. And then, our country is killing people and locking them up outside the traditional judicial system in a way I think we maybe cannot be forgiven for.” 

John Pilger (Film - The War You Don't See), a reputable Western journalist describes how “We journalists... have to be brave enough to defy those who seek our collusion in selling their latest bloody adventure in someone else's country... That means always challenging the official story, however patriotic that story may appear, however seductive and insidious it is. For propaganda relies on us in the media to aim its deceptions not at a far away country but at you at home... In this age of endless imperial war, the lives of countless men, women and children depend on the truth or their blood is on us... Those, whose job it is to keep the record straight ought to be the voice of people, not power.” 

Glenn Greenwald (“The 'War on Terror' - by Design - Can Never End.”), shares a foresight in time and place to wonder:  

"Does that sound to you like a government anticipating the end of the War on Terror any time soon? Or does it sound like one working feverishly to make their terrorism-justified powers of detention, surveillance, killing and secrecy permanent?" 

President Obama in his first presidential election campaign had promised to “stop the war” and bring home troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. He appeared enthusiastically interested to implement his vision “YES WE CAN” that he outlined the phenomenon of Change to shift the American warmongering unto peaceful actions during the first phase of his presidency. He gained Nobel Peace Prize just for talking. Not so, he consciously rescinded all his major undertakings including the closure of Guantanmo Bay infamous terror prison and peacemaking and co-existence with the Muslim world. He disregarded clear commitments to establish the independent State of Palestine by 2011. Glen Greenwald reflects on the irony of Obama’s broken pledges:  

"The policies adopted by the Obama administration just over the last couple of years leave no doubt that they are accelerating, not winding down, the war apparatus that has been relentlessly strengthened over the last decade. In the name of the War on Terror, the current president has diluted decades-old Miranda warnings; codified a new scheme of indefinite detention on US soil; plotted to relocate Guantanamo to Illinois; increased secrecy, repression and release-restrictions at the camp; minted a new theory of presidential assassination powers even for US citizens; renewed the Bush/Cheney warrantless eavesdropping framework for another five years, as well as the Patriot Act, without a single reform; and just signed into law all new restrictions on the release of indefinitely held detainees."

Over the decades of unchallenging aggressive adventures in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and now in Syria, West and North Africa and soon in Saudi Arab according to Robert Fisk (“Could Saudi Arabia be Next? Bad News For Palestine in 2013. 1/2/2012, The Independent), America has earned the distinction of being a leader in intrinsic and endless corrupted wars to dismantle, humiliate, kill and destroy the Arab people and maintain the surge for more bloodsheds anytime - anywhere - outlines Glen Greenwald:  There's a good reason US officials are assuming the "War on Terror" will persist indefinitely. There is zero reason for US officials to want an end to the war on terror, and numerous and significant reasons why they would want it to continue. 

To Noam Chomsky (“The Gravest Threat to World Peace” January 04, 2013, Information Clearing House), the greatest threat to global peace is not the unfounded nuclear capability of Iran or the Iran it self but the US and Israel.  

There is a sadistic war psyche and THINKING vengeful culture that persists in the US led policies and practices in South West Asia. Aggressive actions do attract decisive people’s response but the reactionary victims are all always classified as “Islamists” and “terrorists” and sometimes “collateral damage” as if human factor is irrational and unwanted in these deliberate propaganda stunts. According to Mathew Rosenberg (The New York Times), American official are perplexed with the on-going strange phenomenon that Afghan soldiers dare to fire at the American troops. In a real sense, the Master never imagined that his hired agents and official will have the nerve to attack American boots. Rosenberg elaborates his observations:

"Such insider attacks, by Afghan security forces on their Western allies, became 'the signature violence of 2012', in the words of one former American official. The surge in attacks has provided the clearest sign yet that Afghan resentment of foreigners is becoming unmanageable, and American officials have expressed worries about its disruptive effects on the training mission that is the core of the American withdrawal plan for 2014. . . …..But behind it all, many senior coalition and Afghan officials are now concluding that after nearly 12 years of war, the view of foreigners held by many Afghans has come to mirror that of the Taliban. Hope has turned into hatred, and some will find a reason to act on those feelings.”

Paul Craig Roberts (“The Institutionalization of Tyranny.” 1/19/2013: OpenEdNews), clarifies how the Bush-Obama regimes have lied and deceived the American society  to institutionalized tyranny and broke all legal and moral values to kill innocent people in other parts of globe. Paul Roberts explains that “conservatives accept the monstrous police state that has been erected, because they think it makes them safe from “Muslim terrorism”, they haven't the wits to see that they are now open to terrorism by the government…… For Washington, victory means stamping out moral conscience and protecting a corrupt government from public exposure of its war crimes.”

Glenn Greenwald (The 'War on Terror' - by Design - Can Never End) attempts to synthesize the end game: 

"There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation."

Why would anyone in the US government or its owners have any interest in putting an end to this sham bonanza of power and profit called "the war on terror"? Johnson is right that there must be an end to this war imminently, and Maddow is right that the failure to do so will render all the due-process-free and lawless killing and imprisoning and invading and bombing morally indefensible and historically unforgivable. But the notion that the US government is even entertaining putting an end to any of this is a pipe dream, and the belief that they even want to is fantasy. They're preparing for more endless war; their actions are fueling that war; and they continue to reap untold benefits from its continuation.

Islam is ONE and its manifestation seeks unity in peace and global harmony, not violence, disharmony or warmongering against the West or anybody else. Divided, scattered like seeds are Muslims and leaderless Arab people and their long due awakening to the prevalent realities of the emerging New World manipulated by the US war industries. There are lessons that other authoritarian Arab leaders should learn from the fate of Saddam, Qhadafi, Bin Ali and Bashar al-Assad. ‘Never make predictions in the Middle East’, cautions veteran journalist Robert Fisk. After more than year long unstoppable cold blooded massacres of the innocents people and massive disruptions, refugees and continued destruction of social and economic infrastructures in Syria, Robert Fisk warns if the Western back War on Terror continues, could Saudi Arabia be the next point On the epic scale of history of US led belligerency and occupation?

Colin Wilson (A Criminal History of Mankind) captions the perpetuated animosity and degenerating viciousness of the US led War on Terror and illustrates how it is a replica of the failed Roman Empire:  

“The Romans were slipping into violence by a process of self-justification, and once a nation or an individual has started down this particular slope, it is impossible to apply breaks the Roman people were too unimaginative and short sighted to realize that, once murder has been justified on grounds of expediency, it can become a habit, then a disease.”

Would the Muslims in general and the oil-enriched Arab rulers in particular, ever THINK  intelligently to stop the American incursions into their hearts and minds and to challenge the US continued unprovoked belligerency against Islam and the unjustifiable bogus War on Terror against the Muslim people worldwide?

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: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012.

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editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org