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The
problem is that labeling and demonizing a people as evil is easy. Comment by Larry Ross, May 26, 2004 The following excellent article shows how Americans are being conditoned to accept a climate of perpetual war and genocidal policies - like a new crusade based on hatred and suspicion of Iraqis and Muslims. Abid Ullahjan refers to Lewis Lehrman and Irving Kristol as "intellectual warlords", favoured by U.S. media. These "warlords" are also active supporters of Israeli policies. They have played a key role with other neo-conservatives in originating U.S. policy to invade Iraq and other states in the middle east. They now wish to divert public attention from the fact that the Iraq war was planned, launched and justified "on the basis of lies". The war in Iraq is now being perpetuated and widened, as is Sharon's war against Palestine. Foul torture policies by the U.S. and "the worst kinds of crimes against humanity" have created many more people in Iraq who oppose the U.S. war, and Bush, Blair and Howard's so-called "coaliton of the willing". They want the U.S. to leave Iraq now. However, having advocated a policy of war, genocide and torture, Lehrman, Kristol and other neo-conservatives are very determined to continue it with the re-election of the Bush presidency. Neo-conservatives are entrenched in positions of power in the Bush Administration. One thing we could do in New Zealand, is try to educate people who now want to go all the way with Bush. Some people wish to open our ports to Bush's warships, and place NZ troops at his disposal in Iraq and in future US wars. They need education and lobbying on how the present US policies are a threat to New Zealand and the world. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
But there also was the legacy of emotion - of a kind now common across Iraq, and swelling into a storm. "I won't allow myself to rest until I have got revenge for him," Rana said. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1223233,00.html ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
By ABID ULLAH JAN, Published: May 24, 2004
The more one reads hot opinion from the “intellectual” war lords in the US “mainstream” media, the more it confirms that there is no end in sight to occupations, deaths and destruction and the worst kind of human right abuses human history has ever witnessed. Lewis E. Lehrman and William Kristol’s article in the Washington Post and Thomas Friedman’s in the New York Times, both published on May 23, 2004, are classic examples of blaming others for the US crimes against humanity and proposing wiping out a people as the only solution. Thomas Friedman says that the US could not find “any W.M.D. in Iraq,” but in the process it “found there a disturbing number of P.M.D.'s — people of mass destruction.” It is not a revelation. The US must not be surprised to find such people anywhere it may go for annihilation of a people with “shock and awe” after enforcing 12 years of genocidal sanctions. These “intellectual” war lords cannot think of anything other than war must not forget that whom they call P.M.D. did not come to the US to destroy it. It is the US which went in there. Furthermore, the decision to stay or leave is still in the US hands. Friedman writes that there have been 50 to 75 suicide bomb attacks in Iraq in the last year: “So the first question I have is this: Where are all these suicide bombers coming from? How do you just get these people off the shelf?” The right questions should rather be: Why were this people not there before the US occupation? Why didn’t they do this to liberate themselves from the much longer tyranny of Saddam Hussein? The self-deluded analyst goes on to misguide Americans and the rest of the world with the argument that it is so because “some group or groups have the ability to recruit a large pool of people willing to kill themselves in attacks against American or Iraqi targets on short notice — and we don't have a clue how this process works.” But Sir Thomas Friedman! Again, this is not the answer. They question is, after all why America? Why not Switzerland of Canada? And, why not before the invasion and occupation? The logic that they loved Saddam’s “wrapped tyranny” and hate liberation by the US does not make any sense here. What comes first, the US crimes against humanity or the “groups ability to recruit”? What is the solution? To eliminate the “groups” — which in fact are no one but desperate victims of one or another kind of injustice perpetrated by the US — or to admit lies and deceptions used for waging wars and get out immediately? Friedman naively states, “We don't know who these people are?” They are Iraqis, Sir. All the evidence that goes against the US official stories of terrorism is dismissed as conspiracy theories. Here is the official conspiracy theory which the NY Times didn’t feel ashamed to publish. According to Friedman, the people resisting in Iraq “are coming from Europe, Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia.” What he couldn’t explain at the moment is “how the underground railroad that gets them from their local mosques to Iraq operates, how they connect up with the operating cells in Iraq and how they get wired and indoctrinated for suicide missions.” To justify his advocacy for perpetual war, it is sufficient for Friedman to mention and prove through borrowed words that resistance to the US is product of “local mosques,” “Arab mass media,” “extremist elements in Muslim culture,” and “sexually repressed people,” who are “taught that death is a permanent vacation of guilt-free pleasure.” Did anyone note the root causes of the problem in the above lines? These are: Muslims, their culture and Islam. There is no mention of the lies upon lies, the genocide through sanctions, the use of multiple standards, brutal occupations and the deliberate, systematic psychological degradation all around. One must not wonder if release of the picture from Iraqi prisons turns out to be part of a strategically planned act of war for breaking down moral of Muslims as a whole. Borrowing from Israeli lexicon, Friedman calls all those who resist US occupation as “utter nihilists,” who “just want to ensure that America fails to produce anything decent in Iraq.” Erecting something decent always needs decent foundations. A war launched on the basis of lies, perpetuated through the use of indiscriminate force and the worst kind of crimes against humanity can never bring something decent out of the hands of the perpetrators of these crimes. After justifying war for years, Friedman now considers “enough troops” as “the necessary foundation for any decent outcome in Iraq.” Unfortunately Friedman is not alone. It is time for the Americans to identify such minds of mass destructions. If it were not for their years’ of sophisticated lies against Islam and Muslims, the US may never have such a duplicitous foreign policy and it may never have gone for wars and occupations. It is these minds of mass destruction which first turn a people into monsters and enemies and then call for their elimination. To these media war lords, such as Lehrman and Kristol, using the following words in a Washington Post article might be normal. But all this does not sound reasonable to the rest of the world. Note the arrogance of power and the contempt for the occupied people in their words: “Unless we win,…we must of course win,… this requires striking a decisive military blow… the immediate task is therefore the destruction of the armies and militias of the insurgency -- not taking and holding territory, not winning the hearts and minds of Iraqis, not conciliating opponents and critics, not gaining the approval of other nations. All of these can follow after victory over the violent insurrection…. must be destroyed…. Fallujah must be conquered … must be rendered powerless…. decisive military victories… a decisive tactical victory … decisive military blows struck against violent opposition…” Imagine the tone and stress on the proposal: These are one-seventh of the total words used in the article. The problem is that labeling and demonizing a people as evil is easy. However, eliminating them after malicious classification is impossible. The US can take a lesson from the recent past when Hitler failed to eliminate a people through short-cut methodology, and then the same people failed to eliminate another people in the 56 years long effort of ethnic cleansing. The real solution lies in cooling down these war lords. A kind of total ban on their war mongering and spreading of hate against a people and their religion would work. The US will never admit its crimes against humanity and will continue with its policies of injustice and double standards as long as these war lords are not delegitimized. If the government cannot take action because these same people who routinely lecture policy makers in Washington, it is up to the public to reject this suicidal trend and their Nazi-like ambitions. Nazis too didn’t sound too odd in their time, nor were Germans willing to silence them. The Americans must shut this play down before it sinks the US forever to come.
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