Opinion Editorials, November 2014

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In a knowledge-based age, contemporary world is fraught with perpetuated violence and killings to undermine the sustainability of mankind’s future. Complex societal conflicts need rational and flexible strategies using men of new ideas, diplomacy and peaceful means to conflict management. War is not a prelude to peacemaking.  The sadistic warriors - the global warlords are using obsessive power to victimize the global humanity. In the latest issue of Foreign Policy, Tim Roemer (“The Threats We Forget” Foreign Policy: 10/24/2104) notes the remarks of the new Geneva based UN High Commissioner for Human Rights comparing the Islamic State and Ebola as the "twin plagues" unleashed upon the world. IS, the terrorist group which is gaining territory in Iraq and Syria and trying to create a "house of blood"; and Ebola, which is spreading in West Africa and other parts of the world, are "two monumental crises" that the world must face together.” 

While the Ebola crisis is adequately considered by the global community, ISIL and Badr groups (Iranian led Shia group) are mishandled by the US and European leaders.  There is a factual dichotomy that the UNHR Commissioner statement does not clarify. The ISIL did not grow out of the nowhere. The US and its allies have failed to imagine the ripple effects of their own follies and continued aggressive war and prolonged occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. ISIL and Badr group and several others are all active in daily sectarian genocidal acts across Iraq and Syria. So are the US and its allies launching bombing campaigns and killing thousands and thousands of innocent civilians. Several millions of Arab refugees scattered around helplessly are the direct results of this insanity forged on the common people. President Obama and other Western complacent leaders do not touch the facts of this prevalent global madness aimed at dismantling and occupying the entire Oil-producing Arab region. Undoubtedly, Tim Roemer (“The Threats We Forget” Foreign Policy: 10/24/2104) points out that:  The world is an unpredictable place right now -- and things could grow worse. The Islamic State might quickly escalate geopolitical problems in the Middle East, destabilize Jordan or Turkey, and begin a more systematic export of radicalized fighters around the world. That is why the United States needs to take immediate and bipartisan action against these threats. 

Western Hypocrisy or  Emerging “Jihadist” Challenge

Do the Islamic societies breed jihadis or does the US-led bogus war on terrorism produced reactionary jihadists? Where do the “Jihadists” come from? Most North American and West European intelligence establishments operate “Jihadi” watch websites to alert the public consciousness of the on-going war on terrorism.  It is a one-way descriptive fantasy of the jihadi alarm bell.  All of the Jihadis groups are fighting reactionary wars against American-led wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and across the Arab world. They owe their existence to American strategic warfare policies and practices. To counteract the former USSR occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, The US State Department and CIA envisaged, created and trained Al-Qaida organization. The “Jihadi” group was financed and led by the US armed forces personnel to fight against the former USSR installed Afghan Communist regime.  How strange the US excelsior club of “Jihadi” movement does not come to terms with the contemporary radical “Jihadists” ideology based in Iraq and Syria? The accused radical groups continue to use the US shared knowledge, equipment and tactics to fight in the Iraq-Syrian war theaters. Could an ideology be defeated with guns and bullets? All of the Jihadis were used by the Western nations in ideological conflict zones. But once they became a liability, they were abandoned and called as terrorists. While the US is bombing the innocent civilian population in Iraq-Syria-Yemen, these radical jihadi enterprises are attracting more recruitment minds and souls in the same war theatres. Tim Roemer (“The Threats We Forget” Foreign Policy: 10/24/2104) shares a willing suspicion of the disbelief:  Islamic groups are enticing and successfully attracting women to join jihad…….Over the past decade, al Qaeda has become more decentralized and dangerous. The Obama administration has efficiently destroyed and degraded their leadership, yet because they are nimble, flexible, and resilient they have spread to more than a dozen countries and reconstituted themselves. 

Certainly, a disconnect appears prominent in what the US policy proclaims and what is being done on the ground. The wrong people, with wrong thinking are engaged in doing the wrong things. The radicalized jihadi groups are the means by which the US war economy and West Europeans maintain their manipulation of ideas and ideals to support the continuous military interventions.  

Political Deceptions and Lies of the War on Terrorism

All the monsters of history are to be found among the absolute leaders exercising absolute power in disregard of the interests of people. Since the Washington-based major military-industrial war complex orchestrated the bogus War on Terrorism, American politics in one-sided to unfold unthinkable futuristic disasters. Glenn Greenwald (“The 'War on Terror' - by Design - Can Never End. The Guardian: 1/4/2013”), shares a foresight in time and place to make us think hard about the future:  

"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"? ….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. Guilt by accusation is policy. Diktat authority has final say…. War on terror priorities breached First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment freedoms. " 

Arguably, conflicts generate mistrust and drain out all positive human energies and thinking for peaceful change, and transformation to sustainable future and productivity. Is it hard for Obama administration to understand this truth?  Bill Moyers and Michael Winship (“The Lies that will Kill America” BillMoyers.com: 10/25/2013), know well there are more dangerous enemies within America than elsewhere and do not pretend to act like politicians in Washington:

Such ignorance will kill democracy as surely as the big money that funds and encourages the media outlets, parties and individuals who spew the lies and hate. The ground is all too fertile for those who will only believe whatever best fits their resentment or particular brand of paranoia. It is, as an old song lyric goes, “the self-deception that believes the lie.” The truth will set us free; the lie will make prisoners of us all.

To cover up their secretive and unhealthy minds, the US policy makers continue to lie and deceive the well informed global mankind. Societies evolve and progress when they are open to rational communications and enjoin cooperation and mutual respects, not conflicts and illegal and immoral intelligence spying as stumbling blocks. “Is America at war with itself and that war is illusion” wonders William Boardman (“A Country At War With An Illusion.” Information Clearing House: 8/19/2013):  “We are waging war on terrorism even as we embody terrorism. No wonder we seem sometimes to be at war with ourselves, and have been for most of the 21st century….. No American under 12 Has Lived in a Country at Peace…whatever the U.S. government knows, or thinks it knows, is not widely shared with most of its citizens….. The American Enemies List Is Decided Anonymously and Secretly.”  

How to Decode Insanity into Rationality?

Wars are planned by insane minds and sadistic political strategists. Wars kill people, dehumanize the civic culture and destroy the human habitats and undermine the natural environment to support life. There is not a single historic reference to indicate if wars were a prelude to peacemaking. The hourly paid Western news media intellectuals propagate and misinform the masses that Islamic terrorism is threatening the Western nations and their security, values and living standards. After the 9/11, George Bush used to contend “they hate our freedom.”  Outside America, no impartial observer believes that America enjoys political freedom or the capacity to make public-interest based foreign policy. The Washington-based political lobbyists and the powerful industrial-military complex set the US foreign policy agenda and conduct the warfare.  

From George W. Bush, Tony Blair (Former UK PM), Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Condeleeca Rice, Richard Pearly and all other conspirators and liars onward to Barrack Obama, all have consumed precious time and opportunities to cause massive deaths and destruction across the globe. Most probably, they will escape moral and political accountability. Were they not responsible for the longest bogus wars against the innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq?  Were they not the cruelest people to set up Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Belgram prison in Afghanistan and the Gunantamobay? These were not the hallmarks of human freedom, liberty, democracy and justice.  Do you wish to see the portrait of their achievements out of the latest holocaust against the mankind?  (“US Sponsored Genocide against Iraq 1990-2012 killed 3.3 million including 750,000 children.” Global Research: 12/06/2012). It might be hard for any morally and intellectual conscientious American policy maker to see the mirror. How dare you claim that the “jihadists” are waging war against the Western nations and their civilizations?  You are the reason for the emergence of radicalized “jihadists” throughout the globe.  

The ISIS group owes its origin to the US strategy and military intervention in Iraq. American and British leaders infested Iraqi culture with coerced sectarian divides and violence. But after the facts, America and some of its European allies fear of a less engaged role and cumbersome futuristic domination of the oil enriched Iraq and the neighboring Saudi Arabia and UAE. They want to contain the ISIS now ISIL as an Islamic Caliphate- governing body of the conquered regions in Iraq and Syria. ISIL is one of the composite groups fighting to overthrow the authoritarian regimes, do not pose any direct threat to challenge the US-British homeland security or sovereignty.  American and Europeans do not seem to be bothered by the bloody sectarian rampage carried out by the Badr group sponsored by Iran and fighting against the Sunnis in Iraq. They just want to bomb ISIL because it claims to be an Islamic State. Other Islamic States and Badr Shia groups are not critical issues to American mindset. 

One wonders, if there is a cure to a cruel mindset?  But absolute political power cannot be justified as simple favorable perversion to torture, kill the innocent mankind and destroy the universal harmony and natural habitats on Earth. Should all the political leaders take a space journey and view the 10,000 mile per hour orbiting planet Earth and try to understand its operational existence and governance by its Creator and the vitality of human life and habitats. Do these leaders have the capacity to learn from scientific observations? If not, how could they be leaders to lead the 21st century informed humanity?  What is the cure to raging indifference and cruelty to the interests of the people of the United States and for that matter the whole of the mankind?  Professor P.L Thomas (Furman University, South Carolina) speaks out loud and clear (“Obama's Failed Hope and Change: "Forget the Politicians. They are Irrelevant.”  Speak Out: 9/04/2013):

Forget the politicians. They are irrelevant. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice! You have owners! They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought, and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies, so they control just about all of the news and information you get to hear….They want more for themselves and less for everybody else, but I’ll tell you what they don’t want: They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests.

If the leaders of a powerful nation like the US are not flexible and intelligent enough to realize the attributes of the 21st century effective leadership and be able to know and manage their comparative political strengths and weaknesses, how could they deal with the futuristic global challenges of security and peacemaking?  Would the sky fall upon the White House or the Pentagon or the planet Earth dwindle if America will use dialogue and diplomacy to communicate with the ISIL and other groups rather than war and bombing the civilians in Iraq-Syria?  American political psyche failed to imagine peace as the core aim of the informed mankind; instead investing heavily in more wars and military interventions causing massive civilian deaths and destruction of the Arab Middle East. General Allen foresees a continuing war without an end. But at the end, there got to be a meeting place for a negotiated settlement. The mindless Arab authoritarian have no accountability to the people of the Arabian Peninsula. American politicians are bankrupt in moral and intellectual pursuits and indeed buried under $17. Trillion of financial deficits. Do the Arab coalition leaders have American warranty for their continued authoritarian governance? Did they not watch the video how Saddam Hussein was hanged by the American agents in Baghdad? Or are they that foolish not to recall how Ghaddafi was murdered by the ‘jihadis’ armed and supported by the Obama administration?  Have the Arab rulers solved any of the important problems confronting the Arab masses over half of a century? Was the freedom of Palestine not the core of political issues to be addressed by the Arab leaders? Was it not more important to normalize relations with the State of Israel and establish an independent State of Palestine and free the Al-Aqsa mosque?  Bashar- al-Assad was a problem three years ago; he is still in office after killing millions and displacing three millions or so Syrian refugees. American plans are at work, but the Arabs have no plan or sense of time and history how the future will unfold for them. Would the oil exporting Arab leaders buy moral and intellectual integrity, honor and peace with petro-dollars? The so called military coalition of the dead-conscious puppet Arab leaders cannot be a moral and intellectual force to challenge the Master over its aggressive plans – more bombing, more deaths and destruction of the natural environment and ultimate surrender and occupation of the oil producing Arab nations. Woh!, surely, it looks strange democracy at work. 

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution, and comparative Western-Islamic cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest one: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity  in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany, May 2012).

Opinions expressed in various sections are the sole responsibility of their authors and they may not represent Al-Jazeerah & ccun.org.

editor@aljazeerah.info & editor@ccun.org