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Street opinion in Pakistan, and probably most
Muslim countries, holds that Islam is the sole target of America's
new wars. Even moderate Muslims are worried. The profiling of
Muslims by the INS, the placing of Muslim states on the US
register of rogues, and the blanket approval given to Israeli
bulldozers as they level Palestinian neighborhoods appear
dangerous indicators of a religious war. But Muslims undeservedly
award themselves special status and imagine what is not true.
America's goal goes much beyond subjugating inconsequential Muslim
states. Instead it seeks to remake the world according to its
needs, preference, and convenience. The war on Iraq is but the
first step.
Aggressive militarism has been openly endorsed by America's
corporate and political establishment. Mainstream commentators in
the US press now argue that, given its awesome military might,
American ambition has been insufficient. Max Boot, editor of the
Wall Street Journal, writes that "Afghanistan and other troubled
lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign
administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in
jodhpurs and pith helmets". The Washington Post calls for an
"imperialist revival" and the need for Americans to "impose their
own institutions on disorderly ones". The Atlantic Monthly remarks
that American policy makers should learn from the Greek, Roman,
and British empires for tips on how to run American foreign
policy.
Although many Americans still cling to the belief that their
country's new unilateralism is no more than "injured innocence",
and a natural response of any victim of terror, the Establishment
does not suffer from such naivety. Empire has been part of the
American way of life for a long time. The difference after 911 -
and it is a significant one - is that America no longer sees need
to battle for the hearts and minds of those it would dominate;
there is no other superpower to whom the weak can turn. In today's
Washington, a US-based diplomat recently confided to me, the
United Nations has become a dirty word. International law is on
the way to irrelevancy, except when it can be used to further US
goals.
Still, none of this amounts to a war on Islam. Some will disagree.
The fanatical hordes spilling out of Pakistan's madrassas imagine
seeing Richard the Lion Hearted bearing down upon them. Sword in
hand they pray to Allah to grant war and send the modern Saladin,
one who can miraculously dodge cruise missiles and hurl them back
to their launchers. On the other side, Christian-Jewish
extremists, extending from the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons
to the leaders of Israel's Likud, yearn for yet another crusade.
They too are convinced that inter-civilizational religious war is
not only inevitable but also desirable. Belief in final victory
is, of course, never doubted by the faithful.
But the counter-evidence to a civilizational war is much stronger.
Between 1945 and 2000 the US has fought 28 major, and countless
minor, wars. Korea, Guatemala, Congo, Laos, Peru, Vietnam,
Cambodia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Yugoslavia, and Iraq are only
some of the countries which the US has bombed or invaded. The
Vietnam War alone claimed a million lives. By comparison America's
wars on Muslim states have been far less bloody. Iraqi deaths
during the Gulf War, and the recent victims of bombing in
Afghanistan, amount to fewer than 70 thousand. Even if one throws
in casualties from the Israeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1971 and
attributes them to the US, Muslim deaths are only a few percent of
the Vietnam War total.
Material self-interest, and not antipathy to Islam, has been the
driving force behind US foreign policy. A list of America's Muslim
foes and friends makes this crystal clear. America's foes during
the 1950's and 1960's were secular nationalist leaders. Mohammed
Mossadeq of Iran, who opposed Standard Oil's grab at Iran's oil
resources, was removed by a CIA coup. Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia,
accused of being a communist, was removed by US intervention and a
resulting bloodbath that consumed about eight hundred thousand
lives. Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt, who had Islamic
fundamentalists like Saiyyid Qutb publicly executed, fell foul of
the US and Britain after the Suez Crisis. On the other hand, until
very recently, America's friends were the sheikhs of Saudi Arabia
and the Gulf states, all of whom practiced highly conservative
forms of Islam but were the darlings of Western oil companies.
Nevertheless, Washington has occasionally misunderstood American
self-interests - sometimes fatally so. "Mission myopia", as the
CIA now wanly admits, led to the network of global jihad in the
early 1980's. With William Casey as CIA director, the largest
covert operation in history was launched after Reagan signed the
"National Security Decision Directive 166", calling for American
efforts to drive Soviet forces from Afghanistan "by all means
available". US counter-insurgency experts worked closely with the
Pakistani ISI in bringing men and material from around the Arab
world and beyond. All this is well known. Less known is the
ideological help provided by US institutions, including
universities.
Readers browsing through book bazaars in Rawalpindi and Peshawar
can, even today, find textbooks written as part of the series
underwritten by a USAID $50 million grant to the University of
Nebraska in the 1980's. These textbooks sought to counterbalance
Marxism through creating enthusiasm in Islamic militancy. They
exhorted Afghan children to "pluck out the eyes of the Soviet
enemy and cut off his legs". Years after the books were first
printed they were approved by the Taliban for use in madrassas - a
stamp of their ideological correctness.
The cost of America's mission myopia has been a staggering one.
The network of Islamic militant organizations created primarily
out of the need to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan did not
disappear after the immediate goal was achieved but, instead, like
any good military-industrial complex, grew from strength to
strength. Nevertheless, until 11 September, US policy makers were
unrepentant, even proud of their winning strategy. It took a
cataclysm to bring them down to earth.
But militant organizations have done far greater harm to Muslims,
whose causes they claim to promote, than to those who they battle
against. Killing tourists and bombing churches is the work of
moral cretins and is not just cowardly and inhumane, but also a
strategic disaster. Indeed, fanatical acts can sting the American
colossus but never seriously hurt it. Though perfectly planned and
executed, the 911 operation was a strategic blunder of colossal
proportions. It vastly strengthened American militarism, gave
Ariel Sharon the license to ethnically cleanse Palestine, and
allowed state-sponsored pogroms of Muslims in Gujarat to get by
with only a squeak of international condemnation.
The absence of a modern political culture and the weakness of
Muslim civil society have long rendered Muslim states
inconsequential players on the world stage. An encircled,
enfeebled dictator is scarcely a threat to his neighbors as he
struggles to save his skin. Tragically, Muslim leaders, out of
fear and greed, publicly wring their hands but collude with the US
and offer their territory for bases as it now bears down on Iraq.
Significantly, no Muslim country has proposed an oil embargo or a
serious boycott of American companies.
What, then, should be the strategy for all those who believe in a
just world and are appalled by America's war on the weak? Vietnam,
to my mind, offers the only viable model of resistance. A stern
regard for morality, said their strategists, is the best defense
of the weak. Even though B-52s were carpet-bombing his country, Ho
Chi Minh did not call for hijacking airliners or blowing up buses.
On the contrary the Vietnamese reached out to the American people,
making a clear distinction between them and their government. By
inviting media celebrities like Jane Fonda and Joan Baez, Vietnam
generated enormous goodwill. On the other hand, can you imagine
the consequences of Vietnam's leadership being with Osama bin
Laden rather than Ho Chi Minh? That country would surely have been
a radioactive wasteland, rather than the unique victor against
imperialism.
Only a global peace movement that explicitly condemns terrorism
against non-combatants can slow, and perhaps halt, George Bush's
madly speeding chariot of war. Massive anti-war demonstrations in
Washington, New York, London, Florence, and other western cities
have brought out hundreds of thousands at a time. A sense of
commitment to human principles and peace - not fear or fanaticism
- impelled these demonstrators. But why are the streets of
Islamabad, Cairo, Riyadh, Damascus, and Jakarta empty? Why do only
fanatics demonstrate in our cities? Let us hang our heads in
shame.
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The author teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
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Pervez Hoodbhoy
Department of Physics
Quaid-e-Azam University
Islamabad 45320, Pakistan
Phone: 92-51-2829914(O)
92-51-2824257(R) |
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