November 7 2004
Proving them wrong
pv vivekanand
THE FIRST thought that occurred to many in the Middle East and outside when they heard and saw Palestinian President Yasser Arafat being flown to France for urgent medical treatment last week was that he would never return alive to Palestine. There were two reasons for that conviction: It was presumed that Arafat was dying; and that even if he did somehow survive the health crisis, then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon would not allow his return home.
Today, Arafat is reportedly hovering between life and death in a French hospital. Reports conflict over whether he is brain dead or is showing signs of recovery from a coma.
Back home in the West Bank, the top ranks of the Palestinian leadership are putting up a facade of unity at a time of crisis, but it is clear that a power struggle is already being fought behind the scenes. The very nature of the ideologies that went into the Palestinian struggle for independence and statehood and the various phases it went through in the last four decades dictate that the transition of power would not exactly be very smooth.
Fourteen secular and Islamist groups on Friday called for Palestinian unity and insisted on a unified leadership saying the deterioration of Arafat's condition warrants collective action. Islamist groups fear that Israel would exploit the situation and further advance its quest to pre-empt realisation of the Palestinian rights in Palestine. They have vowed not to ease their armed resistance against Israeli occupation of Palestine.
The Palestinian people, for whom Arafat continues to be an icon of their more than half a century of struggle for independence and statehood, seem confused amid suggestions that Sharon's secret agents had something to do with Arafat's ill-health; that the all-resourceful Mossad had used a secret biological weapon against Arafat. Or perhaps someone, somewhere close to Arafat had been corrupted into administering a slow-acting poison to remove him from the Palestinian political scene once and for all. That would help Sharon keep his "pledge" that he would never deal with Arafat as leader and representative of the Palestinian people and also to single out someone from the top Palestinian ranks to negotiate and accept the Israeli version of peace in Palestine.
Israel is fearful of a Palestinian backlash in the event of Arafat's death. It has stepped up its military presence in the occupied territories and is braced to carry out massacres if that is what it takes to quell the Palestinian sentiments.
Bush couldn't care less
US President George W Bush, who has stood solidly behind Sharon's refusal to deal with Arafat, could not care less if the Palestinian leader passes away. One gets a feeling that Bush might not indeed be well informed about the ground realities in Palestine and he could not be bothered to learn them either. As far as he is concerned, Israel would be given what it asks for, regardless of what Arafat, the Palestinians, the Arabs and the world think of the American posture.
The Europeans are indeed more aware of the situation in Palestine than their American counterparts. They know that Europe would be among the first to suffer if the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were to spill over beyond the borders of Palestine. They realise that the Palestinians' frustration over the US-backed Israeli rejection of their legitimate rights would have more serious repercussions for Europe than the US.
That was behind the European Union's pledge on Friday to work "24 hours a day" to ensure Palestinians achieve their own state.
"To show our solidarity at this difficult time they can be sure that Europe will continue to make every effort to ensure that the Palestinian state becomes a reality," said the EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana. "We are committed to that. We will continue to work 24 hours a day. That is the message of hope that we can give to the people of Palestine at this time of suffering."
The statement is also an explicit affirmation that regardless of what happens to Arafat, the world has a responsibility not to ignore the Palestinian cause that has gone through ups and downs over the decades and the struggle that has run into a wall in the form of Ariel Sharon and his hawkish camp which has no room whatsoever for allowing the creation of a Palestinian state in Palestine.
That European affirmation in itself is the greatest tribute to Arafat, who acquired the name of "the great survivor" against odds that often seemed impossible to bet against.
Arafat led the Palestinian struggle through turmoil and crises and had to make many compromises in order to arrive at the landmark Madrid conference in 1991 where Arab-Israeli peace talks were launched against a backdrop of what the Arabs and international community thought was the good faith of UN resolutions leading to the realisation of the Palestinian aspirations.
In fact, Arafat accepted in 1989 the inevitability of having to recognise that the hard-liners' quest to "eliminate" the state of Israel was only a pipe dream, given the regional and international geopolitical realities.
Committed to pledge
In a document called the Stockholm Declaration, Arafat accepted that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) was prepared to negotiate with Israel within the framework of a comprehensive peace settlement on the basis of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338; he agreed that the to-be created Palestinian state would live in peace with Israel and other neighbours and internationally recognised borders; and that the PLO opposed "individual and state terrorism in all its forms" and would not resort to it.
Since then, Arafat remained committed to these pledges and the then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, drew from that commitment in September 1993 to press him into signing the Oslo agreements under US auspices. The Oslo agreement called for five years of interim autonomy for the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza during which the two sides would negotiate the "final status" of the territories, including the future of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees and the borders of the proposed Palestinian state.
However, changes in the Israeli political scene following the assassination of Rabin in November 1995 shattered the process launched with the Olso agreements signed under US auspices.
Israel went back on every point that it had agreed with Arafat and led to the present state of renewed armed struggle against the Jewish state's occupation of Palestinian lands.
Israel is conveniently ignoring that Arafat had crossed what many Palestinians considered as the red line in their struggle for liberation. Israel is overlooking that it was because he adopted a "moderate" political line that Arafat lost some ground with his own people.
His acceptance of the points mentioned in the Stockholm Declaration and reaffirmed in the Oslo agreements was seen by hard-liners not only as reneging on all previous commitments to secure the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation but also as offering legitimacy to Israeli injustice against the Palestinians.
As a result, many say, Arafat was deemed to have lost on both sides. He already made "unacceptable concessions" without gaining anything in return from Israel and this has alienated a segment of the Palestinian people; and Israel is no longer willing to deal with him as leader of the Palestinian people.
Sharon subjected Arafat to the height of humiliation by confining him like a prisoner to his headquarters in Ramallah for nearly three years and portrayed him like a caged lion which had lost its teeth anyway.
However, Arafat might prove Israel wrong. The Palestinian masses still consider him as their father figure and symbol of their hopes and aspirations. Indeed, there are many who hope that Abu Ammar -- Arafat's nom de guerre he adopted from a companion of the Prophet Mohammed [PUBH], Ammar Bin Yasser -- or Al Khityar (Old Man), as he is fondly known among his people, might unite the Palestinians in his death.
That is the message that came out of Gaza on Friday in the call for a collective leadership for the Palestinian struggle.
Ironically, Sharon, who treated Arafat as inconsequential while confined in Ramallah, fears Arafat in death. He opposes an Arafat burial in Jerusalem because he is apprehensive that Abu Ammar's grave could be a rallying point for the entire Palestinian nation to hit back at Israel with a vengeance.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Even before his death...
AN expected inter-Palestinian struggle for power and money is definitely happening even before Yasser Arafat is officially proclaimed dead (Some media reports suggest that Arafat's death would be announced on Ramadan 27, Leilat Al Kadr, the day the Holy Koran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed, PUBH. But, if Suha Arafat is to be believed, then Arafat is very much alive in a Paris hospital and his senior aides want to "bury him alive" in order to grab power at the helm of Palestinian affairs).
Well, let the events play out by themselves. At the same time, running parallel to the Palestinian infighting is an Israeli-mounted campaign to discredit Arafat even in what could be his last hours by suggesting that he holds in his name or proxies hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and investments outside the Middle East.
Let us tackle the second issue first — "Arafat's secret millions" as reports in the Western press describe it.
Most observers in the Middle East say it is highly doubtful that Arafat has any illegal bank account holding massive amounts for himself. Yes, there could be Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) money held in deposits and investments in the Middle East and outside, but that is not Arafat's money and it is a sure bet that he never intended it to be his personal wealth.
Having closely watched Arafat's movements and pattern of behaviour over the last three decades, most Middle East watchers tend to reject out of hand the suggestion that he secretly owns hotels, beach resorts and other commercial enterprises in Europe and elsewhere worth hundreds of millions of dollars and considers them as his personal assets.
Serving the cause
Indeed, Arafat retained sole control of PLO funds throughout the decades since he became chairman of the PLO; but it is almost certain that the money, whatever is left of the Palestinian, Arab and international contributions that he received over the decades, is invested in a manner that would serve the Palestinian cause.
Israel's hand could be seen behind a report in the British press that described Arafat as "one of the world's wealthiest heads of state" (Thank God, the London newspaper, wittingly or unwittngly, acknowledged Arafat as a head of state, a rare fete in the British press, save a couple of mainstream dailies. Surely, Israel would not have expected that description, given that the State of Palestine is not in its agenda).
During the 70s and 80s, Arafat did receive billions of dollars in Arab assistance as well as proceeds from a "liberation tax" collected from Palestinians working in Arab countries, but the generous contribution came to a halt with the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
The bulk of that money was spent on administrative expenses of the PLO as well as cash assistance to refugees and families of Palestinians killed and maimed in the resistance struggle in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. A part of the money was invested abroad whose proceeds were also spent on administrative costs since the 90s.
Arab aid to the PLO was suspended when Arafat supported Saddam Hussein in the crisis sparked by the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Although Arab governments did resume the aid after a hiatus, the actual amount was nowhere near what the PLO used to receive before 1990.
Selective recipients
The secrecy that Arafat maintained on the status of the PLO funds was always a source of concern for the rest of the Palestinian leadership. Two years ago, Arafat came under immense pressure to reveal the details, and he did submit a report to the PLO Executive Committee although it was not seen as comprehensive. Again, the logic was that Arafat did have an accounting system but he preferred to keep the cards of PLO funds close to his chest.
Let us also not forget that a Palestinian official who has claimed that "billions of dollars" in PLO funds have disappeared was discredited years ago after he himself was found to have been engaged in dubious deals that suggested siphoning off funds for personal benefit.
At best, Arafat could be accused of being varyingly selective which of the eight Palestinian factions grouped under the PLO umbrella received funds from him. And, indeed, he was generous with some of his senior aides whose support he needed in order to maintain his position.
Right or wrong, that was his style of management. Let us not forget, Arafat is described as the "greatest political survivor" of the Middle East who has always dumbfounded those who, at times of his crises, made the mistake of writing him off from the political scene.
(Once a late Palestinian leader close to Arafat retorted to someone who accused the Palestinian president of being whimsical: "Yes, he might be whimsical, but show me a non-whimsical man capable of leading the Palestinian struggle.")
International aid
International assistance to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) that Arafat set up in accordance with the Oslo agreements he signed with Israel in 1993 was mostly project-specific. Often he reported difficulty meeting administrative expenses and the donors had to step in often with cash aid to pay salaries of PNA staff, including the Palestinian police force.
Israel claims it handed over a total of $300 million to the PNA between 1993 and 2000. The money, which represented taxes Israel collected from the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza under provisions in interim agreements, should be seen in context — it cost more than $500 million every year in administrative costs alone to run the PNA.
Since 2000, in the wake of the renewed Palestinian intifada, Israel stopped those payments to the PNA.
The long and short of it is simple: Despite all his shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, Arafat could not be accused of amassing personal wealth. Whatever PLO funds and assets are there, they represent Palestinian money for all practical and technical purposes.
But then, that is not the way Israel would like the world and the Palestinian people to know it. It would like Arafat to be totally discredited and accused of amassing and salting away wealth for himself at the expense of his people. By extension, it would also discredit people who were close to him and shared his ideals and approach to the cause of his people. Israel obviously hopes that the path it has paved would eventually lead to someone who it feels would suit its purpose in terms of imposing the Israeli version of a peace agreement on the Palestinian people.
That is what the game is all about, but Israel would only find the goal elusive.
The struggle for power
It was known for long that chaos would hit Palestinian politics and leadership as and when Arafat dies. That is only a reflection of the very nature of the Palestinian scene that was for long dominated by Arafat, who had maintained his position as absolute leader by balancing his top aides against each other.
However, no one expected the intriguing way things turned out in the last 10 days.
There is no designated Arafat successor. Three names have been floated: Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who is secretary-general of the PLO, and the Tunis-based head of the PLO Political Department, Farouk Qaddoumi, who was de facto foreign minister until Arafat named Nabil Shaath to that post last year and who claims he becomes the chairman of the PLO in the absence of Arafat.
Qurei and Abbas have been working together to administer Palestinian affairs in Arafat's absence and to prevent chaos and violence should the Palestinian president die.
Qaddoumi turned up Paris last week and reportedly questioned the authority of Abbas to take over some of the powers of Arafat. He insisted that he was the immediate deputy to Arafat and Abbas should report to him, according to some reports.
However, it is not clear whether Qaddoumi, who refused to move to the Palestinian territories along with Arafat, will unlikely to drop that posture in a post-Arafat era.
Suha Arafat stepped into that scene on Monday by declaring that Qorei, Abbas and Shaath were going to France in order to usurp the role of her husband as Palestinian leader.
"Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris," she told Al Jazeera television over the phone.
"You have to realise the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she said. "He is all right and he is going home. God is great."
The trio abruptly cancelled and then rescheduled the trip.
Suha Arafat has tightly controlled information on Arafat's condition sparking Palestinian protests that she has gained too much power.
"It's an absurd situation that Suha is sitting there and deciding when, how and who," according to Palestinian minister of stat Sufian Abu Zaida. "This is a woman who hasn't seen her husband for three years. It is bizarre that at the end of his days, his wife decides who enters and who does not."
"Yasser Arafat is not the private property of Suha Arafat," said Abu Zaida.
That argument will find renosance with the Palestinian masses, for whom Arafat is the icon and symbol of their struggle for independence and life in dignity.
However, there has to be something more to Suha Arafat's outburst and it may or may not have anything to do with the "secret millions" but with his actual medical condition.
As of press time on Tuesday, there was no definite word on Arafat's condition. Only the doctors who are attending to him and Suha Arafat knew; and that seems to be the source of the dispute over the Qorei-Abbas-Shaath trip to Paris.
The dispute could take a worse turn if Suha Arafat refuses to allow the three to see her husband.
The Israeli media have indeed been playing havoc with reports of Arafat's status. They first reported that he was dead, then that he was brain dead and then that he had opened his eyes.
Rawhi Fatooh, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, who was to have accompanied the team of three to Paris, said he expects an apology from Suha Arafat for the outburst.
It seems that Suha Arafat might be arguing for a decisive role in Arafat succession.
A Nablus-born Christian, Suha served as Arafat's secretary when he was in exile in Tunis in the 1980s. She converted to Islam in 1991, and married Arafat when he was a 62 and she was 28.
She followed her husband back to the occupied territories in 1994, but left for Paris in 2000. Many saw it as her disappearance from the scene, and few expected her to assume any influence over her husband's eventual succession.
She has, it would seem, proven them wrong.
Well, let the events play out by themselves. At the same time, running parallel to the Palestinian infighting is an Israeli-mounted campaign to discredit Arafat even in what could be his last hours by suggesting that he holds in his name or proxies hundreds of millions of dollars in assets and investments outside the Middle East.
Let us tackle the second issue first — "Arafat's secret millions" as reports in the Western press describe it.
Most observers in the Middle East say it is highly doubtful that Arafat has any illegal bank account holding massive amounts for himself. Yes, there could be Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) money held in deposits and investments in the Middle East and outside, but that is not Arafat's money and it is a sure bet that he never intended it to be his personal wealth.
Having closely watched Arafat's movements and pattern of behaviour over the last three decades, most Middle East watchers tend to reject out of hand the suggestion that he secretly owns hotels, beach resorts and other commercial enterprises in Europe and elsewhere worth hundreds of millions of dollars and considers them as his personal assets.
Serving the cause
Indeed, Arafat retained sole control of PLO funds throughout the decades since he became chairman of the PLO; but it is almost certain that the money, whatever is left of the Palestinian, Arab and international contributions that he received over the decades, is invested in a manner that would serve the Palestinian cause.
Israel's hand could be seen behind a report in the British press that described Arafat as "one of the world's wealthiest heads of state" (Thank God, the London newspaper, wittingly or unwittngly, acknowledged Arafat as a head of state, a rare fete in the British press, save a couple of mainstream dailies. Surely, Israel would not have expected that description, given that the State of Palestine is not in its agenda).
During the 70s and 80s, Arafat did receive billions of dollars in Arab assistance as well as proceeds from a "liberation tax" collected from Palestinians working in Arab countries, but the generous contribution came to a halt with the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.
The bulk of that money was spent on administrative expenses of the PLO as well as cash assistance to refugees and families of Palestinians killed and maimed in the resistance struggle in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. A part of the money was invested abroad whose proceeds were also spent on administrative costs since the 90s.
Arab aid to the PLO was suspended when Arafat supported Saddam Hussein in the crisis sparked by the invasion of Kuwait in August 1990. Although Arab governments did resume the aid after a hiatus, the actual amount was nowhere near what the PLO used to receive before 1990.
Selective recipients
The secrecy that Arafat maintained on the status of the PLO funds was always a source of concern for the rest of the Palestinian leadership. Two years ago, Arafat came under immense pressure to reveal the details, and he did submit a report to the PLO Executive Committee although it was not seen as comprehensive. Again, the logic was that Arafat did have an accounting system but he preferred to keep the cards of PLO funds close to his chest.
Let us also not forget that a Palestinian official who has claimed that "billions of dollars" in PLO funds have disappeared was discredited years ago after he himself was found to have been engaged in dubious deals that suggested siphoning off funds for personal benefit.
At best, Arafat could be accused of being varyingly selective which of the eight Palestinian factions grouped under the PLO umbrella received funds from him. And, indeed, he was generous with some of his senior aides whose support he needed in order to maintain his position.
Right or wrong, that was his style of management. Let us not forget, Arafat is described as the "greatest political survivor" of the Middle East who has always dumbfounded those who, at times of his crises, made the mistake of writing him off from the political scene.
(Once a late Palestinian leader close to Arafat retorted to someone who accused the Palestinian president of being whimsical: "Yes, he might be whimsical, but show me a non-whimsical man capable of leading the Palestinian struggle.")
International aid
International assistance to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) that Arafat set up in accordance with the Oslo agreements he signed with Israel in 1993 was mostly project-specific. Often he reported difficulty meeting administrative expenses and the donors had to step in often with cash aid to pay salaries of PNA staff, including the Palestinian police force.
Israel claims it handed over a total of $300 million to the PNA between 1993 and 2000. The money, which represented taxes Israel collected from the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza under provisions in interim agreements, should be seen in context — it cost more than $500 million every year in administrative costs alone to run the PNA.
Since 2000, in the wake of the renewed Palestinian intifada, Israel stopped those payments to the PNA.
The long and short of it is simple: Despite all his shortcomings, perceived or otherwise, Arafat could not be accused of amassing personal wealth. Whatever PLO funds and assets are there, they represent Palestinian money for all practical and technical purposes.
But then, that is not the way Israel would like the world and the Palestinian people to know it. It would like Arafat to be totally discredited and accused of amassing and salting away wealth for himself at the expense of his people. By extension, it would also discredit people who were close to him and shared his ideals and approach to the cause of his people. Israel obviously hopes that the path it has paved would eventually lead to someone who it feels would suit its purpose in terms of imposing the Israeli version of a peace agreement on the Palestinian people.
That is what the game is all about, but Israel would only find the goal elusive.
The struggle for power
It was known for long that chaos would hit Palestinian politics and leadership as and when Arafat dies. That is only a reflection of the very nature of the Palestinian scene that was for long dominated by Arafat, who had maintained his position as absolute leader by balancing his top aides against each other.
However, no one expected the intriguing way things turned out in the last 10 days.
There is no designated Arafat successor. Three names have been floated: Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei, former prime minister Mahmoud Abbas, who is secretary-general of the PLO, and the Tunis-based head of the PLO Political Department, Farouk Qaddoumi, who was de facto foreign minister until Arafat named Nabil Shaath to that post last year and who claims he becomes the chairman of the PLO in the absence of Arafat.
Qurei and Abbas have been working together to administer Palestinian affairs in Arafat's absence and to prevent chaos and violence should the Palestinian president die.
Qaddoumi turned up Paris last week and reportedly questioned the authority of Abbas to take over some of the powers of Arafat. He insisted that he was the immediate deputy to Arafat and Abbas should report to him, according to some reports.
However, it is not clear whether Qaddoumi, who refused to move to the Palestinian territories along with Arafat, will unlikely to drop that posture in a post-Arafat era.
Suha Arafat stepped into that scene on Monday by declaring that Qorei, Abbas and Shaath were going to France in order to usurp the role of her husband as Palestinian leader.
"Let it be known to the honest Palestinian people that a bunch of those who want to inherit are coming to Paris," she told Al Jazeera television over the phone.
"You have to realise the size of the conspiracy. I tell you they are trying to bury Abu Ammar alive," she said. "He is all right and he is going home. God is great."
The trio abruptly cancelled and then rescheduled the trip.
Suha Arafat has tightly controlled information on Arafat's condition sparking Palestinian protests that she has gained too much power.
"It's an absurd situation that Suha is sitting there and deciding when, how and who," according to Palestinian minister of stat Sufian Abu Zaida. "This is a woman who hasn't seen her husband for three years. It is bizarre that at the end of his days, his wife decides who enters and who does not."
"Yasser Arafat is not the private property of Suha Arafat," said Abu Zaida.
That argument will find renosance with the Palestinian masses, for whom Arafat is the icon and symbol of their struggle for independence and life in dignity.
However, there has to be something more to Suha Arafat's outburst and it may or may not have anything to do with the "secret millions" but with his actual medical condition.
As of press time on Tuesday, there was no definite word on Arafat's condition. Only the doctors who are attending to him and Suha Arafat knew; and that seems to be the source of the dispute over the Qorei-Abbas-Shaath trip to Paris.
The dispute could take a worse turn if Suha Arafat refuses to allow the three to see her husband.
The Israeli media have indeed been playing havoc with reports of Arafat's status. They first reported that he was dead, then that he was brain dead and then that he had opened his eyes.
Rawhi Fatooh, the speaker of the Palestinian parliament, who was to have accompanied the team of three to Paris, said he expects an apology from Suha Arafat for the outburst.
It seems that Suha Arafat might be arguing for a decisive role in Arafat succession.
A Nablus-born Christian, Suha served as Arafat's secretary when he was in exile in Tunis in the 1980s. She converted to Islam in 1991, and married Arafat when he was a 62 and she was 28.
She followed her husband back to the occupied territories in 1994, but left for Paris in 2000. Many saw it as her disappearance from the scene, and few expected her to assume any influence over her husband's eventual succession.
She has, it would seem, proven them wrong.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Bin Laden message is clear
Osama Bin Laden has declared that his objective is to force America into bankruptcy because of its anti-Muslim policies and threats to security of Muslims. His argument is that for every one dollar that Al Qaeda spends on anti-US activity, the US spends a million dollars to counter it.
The declaration came in the full transcript of a videotape from Bin Laden put on the website of Al Jazeera television. On Oct.29 Al Jazeera broadcast a one-minute segment from the videotape
The transcript on Al Jazeera website quotes Bin Laden as saying: "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah. We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat."
Al Jazeera executives said they decided to post the entire speech because rumors were circulating that the network omitted parts that "had direct threats toward specific states, which was totally untrue."
"We chose the most newsworthy parts of the address and aired them. The rest was used in lower thirds in graphics format," said an Al Jazeera official.
In the transcript, Bin Laden says that Al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations."
US intelligence officials have confirmed that the transcript was a complete one.
Bin Laden referred to British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and said:
"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars."
The total US national debt is more than $7 trillion. The US federal deficit was $413 billion in 2004, according to the Treasury Department.
"It is true that this shows that Al Qaeda has gained, but on the other hand it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something that anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced.
"And it all shows that the real loser is you," he said. "It is the American people and their economy."
As for President George Bush's Iraq policy, Bin Laden said, "the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
"So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future," Bin Laden said.
Experts have said that the tape appeared to be authentic and recently made. It was the first videotaped message from Bin Laden in nearly three years.
Following is the full English transcript of Osama Bin Ladin's videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.
Praise be to Allah who created the creation for His worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:
Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.
You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.
The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?
If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.
As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.
It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.
It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.
And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".
So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.
Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.
And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.
Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."
It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes."
And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."
As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."
And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.
Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.
The declaration came in the full transcript of a videotape from Bin Laden put on the website of Al Jazeera television. On Oct.29 Al Jazeera broadcast a one-minute segment from the videotape
The transcript on Al Jazeera website quotes Bin Laden as saying: "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah. We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat."
Al Jazeera executives said they decided to post the entire speech because rumors were circulating that the network omitted parts that "had direct threats toward specific states, which was totally untrue."
"We chose the most newsworthy parts of the address and aired them. The rest was used in lower thirds in graphics format," said an Al Jazeera official.
In the transcript, Bin Laden says that Al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahedeen to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written Al Qaeda, in order to make generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic and political losses without their achieving anything of note other than some benefits for their private corporations."
US intelligence officials have confirmed that the transcript was a complete one.
Bin Laden referred to British estimate that it cost al Qaeda about $500,000 to carry out the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 and said:
"Every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars, by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars."
The total US national debt is more than $7 trillion. The US federal deficit was $413 billion in 2004, according to the Treasury Department.
"It is true that this shows that Al Qaeda has gained, but on the other hand it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something that anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced.
"And it all shows that the real loser is you," he said. "It is the American people and their economy."
As for President George Bush's Iraq policy, Bin Laden said, "the darkness of black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
"So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future," Bin Laden said.
Experts have said that the tape appeared to be authentic and recently made. It was the first videotaped message from Bin Laden in nearly three years.
Following is the full English transcript of Osama Bin Ladin's videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.
Praise be to Allah who created the creation for His worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:
Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.
Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.
If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.
No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.
No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.
But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.
So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.
I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind.
The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.
I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.
The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.
In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.
And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.
This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.
So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?
Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.
This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.
And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.
You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.
The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?
If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.
As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.
Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.
At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.
So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.
All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.
This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.
All Praise is due to Allah.
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.
Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.
And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.
And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.
Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.
As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.
And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.
It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.
It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.
It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.
But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.
And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."
But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.
So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".
So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.
Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.
And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.
Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.
Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."
It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes."
And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."
As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."
And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.
In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.
Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.
And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.
Monday, November 01, 2004
US elections — not much of difference
PV Vivekanand
IT would not be an overstatement that the Americans would be deciding the immediate course of the world events when they vote in presidential elections today.
A vote for incumbent George Bush means continuation of the neoconservative agenda for American domination of the globe and Israeli domination of the Middle East. It translates as continued US-engineered tension around the world leading to increasing threats to the security of the American people at home as well as outside from those whose lives are threatened by direct and indirect American actions, policies and strategies.
However, a Bush defeat against John Kerry would not necessarily mean a reversal of the neoconservative campaign
since the neocons are also present among Democrats and it would only be a matter of time before they assume control of a Kerry White House. At the same time, a Kerry administration would take its own time installing itself in power and digging its feet into the ground. This might offer a temporary reprieve in the aggressive American approach to global issues.
(For us in the Middle East, a change at the helm in the US would mean a change in this region only if the administration, old or new, shifts from its lopsided Israel-oriented policy and approach, and that is not likely to happen whether Bush is re-elected or is replaced by Kerry).
The only justification, if any at all, for the American behaviour on the international scene is the unprecedented attacks of Sept.11, 2001 that saw nearly 3,000 innocent people getting killed. The assaults were deemed to have jerked the Bush administration into launching the war against terrorism that led to the invasion of Afghanistan (perhaps justifiable in view of the fact that the group blamed for the attacks was sheltered there). However, there could be no justification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, notwithstanding the post-war argument that Saddam Hussein was bad for the people of Iraq as well as the entire neighbourhood and the US was doing us all a favour by toppling him. Let us not forget that it remains a very real threat for us in the region that Iraq, which is spinning out of control, could split up and we would be at the receiving end of the spillovers of such a development.
The Americans would be better off to remind themselves of a few points as they vote today with terrorism on the forefront of the debate on who should be the next president and the Sept.11 attacks in hovering over the backdrop:
It has been established that the administration had received enough intelligence tip-offs about an impending terrorist attack in 2001 but did little to ward it off. Today, the administration is deliberately holding back vital information
on the attacks themselves as if it is trying to shield someone.
All official investigations into the attacks were shrouded in secrecy and all the facts were never placed before the American people if only because the administration did not extend the kind of co-operation that was essential to establish the truth.
One would have thought that, given the gravity of the Sept.11 attacks, the administration would have come forth with honesty and tranparency about an incident that shook the entire world and uprooted many American lives.
The bottom line is: The way the Bush administration handled the search for the true facts of the Sept.11 attacks is at best suspicious. Instead of rooting out the threat of terror attacks, it has only worsened it with its actions. Today, America is not any safer than it was before Sept.11. If anything, the threat is greater today, as leading American commentators have pointed out.
On the Iraq front, it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was in the cards from the day Bush took over the White House in January 2001 and Sept.11 provided the fig leaf he was seeking in order to implement the plans.
Almost every word Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and others in the administration have uttered in their drive to justify the war on Iraq has been proved untrue. And the Americans should be left wondering what they have gained by spending some $200 billion and sacrificing more than 1,100 American lives (not to mention the several thousand American soldiers who were maimed for life while in action in Iraq). They would be better off also to remind themselves that Israel is undoubtedly the sole beneficiary of the war against Iraq — paid for by their tax dollars — while they are told to make welfare sacrifices.
In a broader context, the Americans should remember that the world is slowly waking up to the reality that the US has turned itself into an international bully under the Bush administration. The world has seen the administration using the United Nations when it suited it to do so and dumping the world body when it deemed it fit to do so. The international community has seen how it deceived not only the American people and their elected representatives but also some countries into supporting a war based on deception, outright lies and cooked up intelligence data devoid of truth.
Beyond anything and everything, the US is unwilling to accept the reality that the threats its people face today are directly linked to its biased policies towards the world, particularly the Middle East.
Come to think of it then, it does not really matter whether Bush or Kerry wins in today's elections. The world would be a better place only if there is a paradigm shift in American thinking and the Americans are given a opportunity to vote for and insist on the restoration of respect for very basic founding principles of their great nation and application of those ideals on the international scene.
IT would not be an overstatement that the Americans would be deciding the immediate course of the world events when they vote in presidential elections today.
A vote for incumbent George Bush means continuation of the neoconservative agenda for American domination of the globe and Israeli domination of the Middle East. It translates as continued US-engineered tension around the world leading to increasing threats to the security of the American people at home as well as outside from those whose lives are threatened by direct and indirect American actions, policies and strategies.
However, a Bush defeat against John Kerry would not necessarily mean a reversal of the neoconservative campaign
since the neocons are also present among Democrats and it would only be a matter of time before they assume control of a Kerry White House. At the same time, a Kerry administration would take its own time installing itself in power and digging its feet into the ground. This might offer a temporary reprieve in the aggressive American approach to global issues.
(For us in the Middle East, a change at the helm in the US would mean a change in this region only if the administration, old or new, shifts from its lopsided Israel-oriented policy and approach, and that is not likely to happen whether Bush is re-elected or is replaced by Kerry).
The only justification, if any at all, for the American behaviour on the international scene is the unprecedented attacks of Sept.11, 2001 that saw nearly 3,000 innocent people getting killed. The assaults were deemed to have jerked the Bush administration into launching the war against terrorism that led to the invasion of Afghanistan (perhaps justifiable in view of the fact that the group blamed for the attacks was sheltered there). However, there could be no justification for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, notwithstanding the post-war argument that Saddam Hussein was bad for the people of Iraq as well as the entire neighbourhood and the US was doing us all a favour by toppling him. Let us not forget that it remains a very real threat for us in the region that Iraq, which is spinning out of control, could split up and we would be at the receiving end of the spillovers of such a development.
The Americans would be better off to remind themselves of a few points as they vote today with terrorism on the forefront of the debate on who should be the next president and the Sept.11 attacks in hovering over the backdrop:
It has been established that the administration had received enough intelligence tip-offs about an impending terrorist attack in 2001 but did little to ward it off. Today, the administration is deliberately holding back vital information
on the attacks themselves as if it is trying to shield someone.
All official investigations into the attacks were shrouded in secrecy and all the facts were never placed before the American people if only because the administration did not extend the kind of co-operation that was essential to establish the truth.
One would have thought that, given the gravity of the Sept.11 attacks, the administration would have come forth with honesty and tranparency about an incident that shook the entire world and uprooted many American lives.
The bottom line is: The way the Bush administration handled the search for the true facts of the Sept.11 attacks is at best suspicious. Instead of rooting out the threat of terror attacks, it has only worsened it with its actions. Today, America is not any safer than it was before Sept.11. If anything, the threat is greater today, as leading American commentators have pointed out.
On the Iraq front, it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was in the cards from the day Bush took over the White House in January 2001 and Sept.11 provided the fig leaf he was seeking in order to implement the plans.
Almost every word Bush, Vice-President Dick Cheney and others in the administration have uttered in their drive to justify the war on Iraq has been proved untrue. And the Americans should be left wondering what they have gained by spending some $200 billion and sacrificing more than 1,100 American lives (not to mention the several thousand American soldiers who were maimed for life while in action in Iraq). They would be better off also to remind themselves that Israel is undoubtedly the sole beneficiary of the war against Iraq — paid for by their tax dollars — while they are told to make welfare sacrifices.
In a broader context, the Americans should remember that the world is slowly waking up to the reality that the US has turned itself into an international bully under the Bush administration. The world has seen the administration using the United Nations when it suited it to do so and dumping the world body when it deemed it fit to do so. The international community has seen how it deceived not only the American people and their elected representatives but also some countries into supporting a war based on deception, outright lies and cooked up intelligence data devoid of truth.
Beyond anything and everything, the US is unwilling to accept the reality that the threats its people face today are directly linked to its biased policies towards the world, particularly the Middle East.
Come to think of it then, it does not really matter whether Bush or Kerry wins in today's elections. The world would be a better place only if there is a paradigm shift in American thinking and the Americans are given a opportunity to vote for and insist on the restoration of respect for very basic founding principles of their great nation and application of those ideals on the international scene.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Bin Laden's vote
October 31, 2004
Bin Laden's vote
OSAMA Bin Laden has voted in this year's American presidential elections.
Guess who he voted for: John Kerry. Indeed, Bin Laden might not even be aware of it.
His move came contrary to expectations that whatever he did before the elections would be in favour of George W Bush since the Al Qaeda leader needed to have Bush in office for another four years in order to propagate his jihadist theories by taking advantage of the Republican president's aggressive policies and positions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and the de facto American rule of 50 million Muslims there were deemed vital for Bin Laden to project his movement as the defender and avenger for the Muslims world over.
Conventional wisdom suggested that Bin Laden would have favoured Bush in the election by either doing nothing or staging an attack in the US. He did neither. Instead, in his latest message, he sought to discredit Bush's record in protecting Americans' security. That came through a videotaped address released through Al Jazeera Television in which he clearly claimed responsibility for the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington and warned that the best way for Americans to avoid a repeat of the attacks was to stop threatening Muslims' security.
In the first such explicit statement, Bin Laden claimed responsibilities for the Sept.11 attacks and said American policies in the Middle East were the reasons for the actions.
He noted that Israeli planes firing missiles and bombing towering buildings in Lebanon in 1982 and said this had given him the idea to stage the 9/11 attacks in the US.
"As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way -- to destroy towers in America so that it can taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women," he said.
"We decided to destroy towers in America," he said. "God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and the inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance towards our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind."
"Oh, American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results," he said. "Despite entering the fourth year after Sept.11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you, and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened."
More pointedly, he ridiculed Bush by referring to the president's immediate response to the Sept.11 attacks and asserted that Bush had given the attacks more time for the assaults.
According to Bin Laden, Bush reacted slowly to the Sept. 11 attacks. At that time, the president was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, where he was seen holding a book called "My Pet Goat."
"It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone," Bin Laden said.
It is estimated that there could have been 50,000 people in the two towers at the time of the attack.
"It appeared to him (Bush) that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers," said Bin Laden. "That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God."
Obviously, Bin Laden has either seen Fahrenheit 9/11 or has been briefed about the documentary.
Fatal delay
Records show that Bush was notified by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at about 8:55am of the first airplane assault on the World Trade Center.
Ten minutes later, Chief of Staff Andrew Card informed Bush of the second attack, and the president left the Florida classroom several minutes afterwards, according to the New York Times.
Bin Laden said in the latest message that he had told Mohammed Atta, the man said to have been the leader of the 9/11 assailants, that the attacks should be carried out "within 20 minutes before Bush and his administration noticed."
Perceived terror threats to the US and the US-led war against terrorism around the world are a major factor in the American presidential elections. Bush and his supporters had been highlighting that Democrat challenger Kerry could come nowhere near the incumbent president in protecting American security.
In fact, that is the only card that the Bush camp could play. The Bush administration is widely deemed as having failed in internal economic policy (an example is unemployment, which has risen three fold since Bush took office in 2000). And the Bush White House is seen to have a dismal performance in foreign policy, given that anti-American sentiments around the world are at a new peak today.
The timing of Bin Laden's latest message needs scrutiny.
Bin Laden might have had ulterior motivations in releasing the videotape just four days before the American elections, but he hinted at none in the message itself. However, he said the outcome of the election was not important in his context.
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda; your security is in your own hands," he said. "Any state that does not mess with our security has naturally guaranteed its own security."
It was Bin Laden's first videotaped message since Sept.10, 2003.
According to experts, the taping could have been made on last Sunday, the date superimposed on the videotape.
The New York Times quoted American intelligence and law enforcement officials as saying that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had established with "a high degree of confidence" that the tape was authentic. Officials told the paper that they would try to determine whether the address contained hidden messages or clues about a possible future attack against the United States, but they said it was too early to know.
In an audio tape released in April, Bin Laden said Al Qaeda was ready for a truce with Europe if the European countries recalled their military from Muslim countries.
According to Al Jazeera, it had televised just one minute of a five-minute tape. American intelligence officials who had access to the full tape told the New York Times they saw nothing that conveyed an explicit threat.
In any event, Bin Laden's message threw a fresh element four days ahead of the elections, raising last-minute questions whether Bush or Kerry or neither could successfully lead the war against terror. What answers the voters get in the next 48 hours could determine who emerges the winner on Nov.2.
Is it the October surprise we were all waiting for?
Bin Laden's vote
OSAMA Bin Laden has voted in this year's American presidential elections.
Guess who he voted for: John Kerry. Indeed, Bin Laden might not even be aware of it.
His move came contrary to expectations that whatever he did before the elections would be in favour of George W Bush since the Al Qaeda leader needed to have Bush in office for another four years in order to propagate his jihadist theories by taking advantage of the Republican president's aggressive policies and positions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq. The American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan and the de facto American rule of 50 million Muslims there were deemed vital for Bin Laden to project his movement as the defender and avenger for the Muslims world over.
Conventional wisdom suggested that Bin Laden would have favoured Bush in the election by either doing nothing or staging an attack in the US. He did neither. Instead, in his latest message, he sought to discredit Bush's record in protecting Americans' security. That came through a videotaped address released through Al Jazeera Television in which he clearly claimed responsibility for the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington and warned that the best way for Americans to avoid a repeat of the attacks was to stop threatening Muslims' security.
In the first such explicit statement, Bin Laden claimed responsibilities for the Sept.11 attacks and said American policies in the Middle East were the reasons for the actions.
He noted that Israeli planes firing missiles and bombing towering buildings in Lebanon in 1982 and said this had given him the idea to stage the 9/11 attacks in the US.
"As I watched the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it occurred to me to punish the unjust the same way -- to destroy towers in America so that it can taste some of what we are tasting and to stop killing our children and women," he said.
"We decided to destroy towers in America," he said. "God knows that it had not occurred to our mind to attack the towers, but after our patience ran out and we saw the injustice and the inflexibility of the American-Israeli alliance towards our people in Palestine and Lebanon, this came to my mind."
"Oh, American people, I am speaking to tell you about the ideal way to avoid another Manhattan, about war and its causes and results," he said. "Despite entering the fourth year after Sept.11, Bush is still deceiving you and hiding the truth from you, and therefore the reasons are still there to repeat what happened."
More pointedly, he ridiculed Bush by referring to the president's immediate response to the Sept.11 attacks and asserted that Bush had given the attacks more time for the assaults.
According to Bin Laden, Bush reacted slowly to the Sept. 11 attacks. At that time, the president was visiting an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida, where he was seen holding a book called "My Pet Goat."
"It never occurred to us that the commander in chief of the American armed forces would leave 50,000 of his citizens in the two towers to face these horrors alone," Bin Laden said.
It is estimated that there could have been 50,000 people in the two towers at the time of the attack.
"It appeared to him (Bush) that a little girl's talk about her goat and its butting was more important than the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers," said Bin Laden. "That gave us three times the required time to carry out the operations, thank God."
Obviously, Bin Laden has either seen Fahrenheit 9/11 or has been briefed about the documentary.
Fatal delay
Records show that Bush was notified by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice at about 8:55am of the first airplane assault on the World Trade Center.
Ten minutes later, Chief of Staff Andrew Card informed Bush of the second attack, and the president left the Florida classroom several minutes afterwards, according to the New York Times.
Bin Laden said in the latest message that he had told Mohammed Atta, the man said to have been the leader of the 9/11 assailants, that the attacks should be carried out "within 20 minutes before Bush and his administration noticed."
Perceived terror threats to the US and the US-led war against terrorism around the world are a major factor in the American presidential elections. Bush and his supporters had been highlighting that Democrat challenger Kerry could come nowhere near the incumbent president in protecting American security.
In fact, that is the only card that the Bush camp could play. The Bush administration is widely deemed as having failed in internal economic policy (an example is unemployment, which has risen three fold since Bush took office in 2000). And the Bush White House is seen to have a dismal performance in foreign policy, given that anti-American sentiments around the world are at a new peak today.
The timing of Bin Laden's latest message needs scrutiny.
Bin Laden might have had ulterior motivations in releasing the videotape just four days before the American elections, but he hinted at none in the message itself. However, he said the outcome of the election was not important in his context.
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda; your security is in your own hands," he said. "Any state that does not mess with our security has naturally guaranteed its own security."
It was Bin Laden's first videotaped message since Sept.10, 2003.
According to experts, the taping could have been made on last Sunday, the date superimposed on the videotape.
The New York Times quoted American intelligence and law enforcement officials as saying that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had established with "a high degree of confidence" that the tape was authentic. Officials told the paper that they would try to determine whether the address contained hidden messages or clues about a possible future attack against the United States, but they said it was too early to know.
In an audio tape released in April, Bin Laden said Al Qaeda was ready for a truce with Europe if the European countries recalled their military from Muslim countries.
According to Al Jazeera, it had televised just one minute of a five-minute tape. American intelligence officials who had access to the full tape told the New York Times they saw nothing that conveyed an explicit threat.
In any event, Bin Laden's message threw a fresh element four days ahead of the elections, raising last-minute questions whether Bush or Kerry or neither could successfully lead the war against terror. What answers the voters get in the next 48 hours could determine who emerges the winner on Nov.2.
Is it the October surprise we were all waiting for?
Wednesday, October 20, 2004
US uncertainties and Mideast certainties
PV Vivekanand
REGARDLESS of the see-sawing opinion polls that varyingly project George Bush and John Kerry as the winner of American presidential elections on Nov.2, few are willing to place any bets on who would prevail. The situation is at best blurred or even confused 10 days before the Americans vote.
Opinion polls have an erratic record and could not be considered anywhere near an accurate prediction. And now it appears that the Americans — indeed, the rest of the world — would have to wait for weeks after the elections to know who would lead the sole superpower for the next four years because of the legal challenges spawned by the fiasco in Florida in 2000.
The Middle East has a lot at stake in the elections, starting with the crisis in Iraq, the worsening conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Bush-proposed drive to impose democracy and reform in the Arab World.
Then again, there is little hope of a dramatic shift in these situations except perhaps the "democracy" initiative, which has been rejected by the Arab World since it involves American-engineered reforms suited to serving American interests being imposed on the Arabs.
There is indeed uncertainty in the US over whether the Americans would give Bush another four years at the White House or opt for Kerry to lead the country beginning in January next year. However, there are certain certainties in the Middle East regardless of whoever emerges the winner in the US.
The situation in the Middle East could only worsen if Bush is re-elected.
Over Iraq, the incumbent asserts that his plans for Iraq are working out fine and he does not foresee any long stay for American and allied foreign forces in the country. However, he stops short of defining "long."
On the ground in Iraq, realistic predictions are that the American-led coalition forces would have to boost their strength, toughen their battle against insurgents and stay on for at least five years before Iraqis would be able to take over their country's security and governance. Never mind the plan for elections in January. The plan might or might not go ahead as envisaged, but, either way, it does not offer a realistic solution to the problems in Iraq.
No doubt, Bush, if re-elected, would go about with a vengeance to bring Iraq under control. Obviously, this would mean a dramatic rise in the number of Iraqis killed.
American casualties are something Bush would not worry too much about since he would be in his second and final term in office.
As the three presidential debates highlighted, Bush is seen detached from the realities brought about by his own investigators that his reasons were hollow for invading Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein, occupying the country and trying to instal a US-friendly government in Baghdad.
He continues to insist otherwise and this highlights the insight that Bush is not finished with the Middle East.
The expected intensity on the part of a re-elected Bush could be seen is linked to his plans for "regime change" in Iran and wider regional transformations. The US has to have the situation in Iraq under control before turning its guns on Iran and Syria as the first step towards shaping the Middle East to suit American strategic interests.
Sure enough, Iran and Syria know the game, and that explains why the US has not been finding much success in preventing foreign fighters entering Iraq to war against the the coalition forces.
If fact, Arab commentators have emphasised that the US would remain pinned down in Iraq for thr foreseeable future and would not have the stability and respite it requires to pursue its plans for elsewhere in the region, Iran, Syria and Lebanon included.
Who knows, by the time Iraq is stabilised, Bush might have finished his second term, and then it turns into another ball game.
In Palestine, Bush could be expected to firm up his stand behind Ariel Sharon's unilateral plans to impose his version of a solution on the Palestinian people. Indeed, Bush might be making a few high-decible notes occasionally, but in effect a second Bush administration would only help strengthen and speed up Sharon's designs on Palestinian land.
It is an even bet whether Bush, if re-elected, would shift his focus back to his "democracy" initiative for the Middle East. He might do that, given that he has found Arab support wanting for his bid for second term as president and seems convinced that he does not have many friends left in the Arab World.
Spurred by his hawkish, neoconservative camp, Bush could push the "democracy" initiative, which effectively aims at pressuring Arab governments to fight groups and individuals remaining hostile to the US because of the lopsided American appraoch to the Middle East conflict and other issues of concerns to Arabs and Muslims around the world.
Ideally, Bush would like the Arab governments to consider and treat such groups and individuals as aliens in their own countries and terorrists who pose threats to regional and international security and stability. He would like to see the Arab governments act in total disregard of democratic principles that guarantee personal rights in the name of his democracy initiative. That is where the rift between the US and the Arab World is likely to widen the most.
The Arabs have made it clear that they reject reforms imposed from the outside. In fact, many Arab leaders have emphasised that Arab governments should work out their own reform progress based on the nature, ground realities and the peculiarities of their respective societies rather than wait for the Americans to bring in their "reform" package to the Arab doorstep.
It is unrealistic to see the US seeking a situation where it is a certainty that Islamists would emerge as a strong force and challenge American interests if Western-style elections were to be held in the Middle East. Therefore, there is an air of superficiality to the Bush "initiative" and the pointer is towards ulterior motives that are closely linked to protecting American and Israeli interests first and last.
How could Kerry be expected to fare if elected as president?
Kerry has outlined a plan to withdraw American forces from Iraq. However, the presidential realities would not allow him to disengage from Iraq since the invasion of that country and the American miliary presence there are part of a long-term strategy designed and implemented by the hawkish neoconservatives who seek American domination of the planet.
Cutting and running from Iraq has no room in those plans, and any such move would deal a bitter blow to the grandoise neoconservative project for global domination.
However, Kerry would need to be at the helm of affairs in the US for him to realise that quitting Iraq is not an option at all. And once that realisation sets in, then he would find it tough going to realise his pledge to "call the boys home from Iraq."
Indeed, it is open to debate whether Kerry would follow a Bush-model "scorched earth, iron-fist and make-it-or-break-it" approach to the insurgency in Iraq. If he does, then we could see additional American soldiers being sent to that country contrary to Kerry's election promises; and the US would be getting deeper into the imbroglio.
It is open to debate whether Kerry would follow the neoconservative script further, but it is definitely a certainty that he would come under pressure from the hawks who are present also in the Democrat camp. Let us not forget that the neocon design for shaping the world to suit American interests is bipartisan. Neocons in the Bush administration might find their way out of executive positions if Kerry wins the White House, but they would only be replaced by their Democrat-leaning counterparts.
The same is true for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kerry might not come forth as strong as Bush in backing Sharon, but his effective impact on the scene would not be aimed at pre-empting the Israeli prime minister's unilateral plans that seek to prevent the emergence of any possibility of an independent Palestinian state being created in Palestine.
What would be Kerry's approach to the sought-for US-serving reforms in the Arab World?
Well, this is a grey area at this juncture in time. However, Kerry would be finding himself pressed into doing something about the Bush initiative for reforms in the Arab World. How far he could withstand it or whether he succumbs to pressure remains uncertain.
'Security for Americans'
Kerry is of unknown quality in this respect, whereas Bush is known to follow an aggressive campaign, both internally and externally, as exemplified by his war against terror that followed the Sept.11 attack.
Perhaps that is the strongest card that Bush could use to wave in voters to his camp, and he has been using it liberally throughout his hustings.
Vice-President Dick Cheney has also been pushing the same strategy. This week he raised the possibility of terrorists bombing American cities with nuclear weapons and questioned Kerry could counter such an "ultimate threat ... you've got to get your mind around."
"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.
"That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.
It is not surprising that both Bush and Cheney are conveniently pushing behind them the truth that the Bush administration did have pre-Sept.11 warnings of attacks using airplanes as missiles to be slammed into high-rise buildings but did nothing about them. But the question is whether this, and the deception that the Bush administration used in order to justify the war on Iraq, are lost on the Americans.
REGARDLESS of the see-sawing opinion polls that varyingly project George Bush and John Kerry as the winner of American presidential elections on Nov.2, few are willing to place any bets on who would prevail. The situation is at best blurred or even confused 10 days before the Americans vote.
Opinion polls have an erratic record and could not be considered anywhere near an accurate prediction. And now it appears that the Americans — indeed, the rest of the world — would have to wait for weeks after the elections to know who would lead the sole superpower for the next four years because of the legal challenges spawned by the fiasco in Florida in 2000.
The Middle East has a lot at stake in the elections, starting with the crisis in Iraq, the worsening conflict in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Bush-proposed drive to impose democracy and reform in the Arab World.
Then again, there is little hope of a dramatic shift in these situations except perhaps the "democracy" initiative, which has been rejected by the Arab World since it involves American-engineered reforms suited to serving American interests being imposed on the Arabs.
There is indeed uncertainty in the US over whether the Americans would give Bush another four years at the White House or opt for Kerry to lead the country beginning in January next year. However, there are certain certainties in the Middle East regardless of whoever emerges the winner in the US.
The situation in the Middle East could only worsen if Bush is re-elected.
Over Iraq, the incumbent asserts that his plans for Iraq are working out fine and he does not foresee any long stay for American and allied foreign forces in the country. However, he stops short of defining "long."
On the ground in Iraq, realistic predictions are that the American-led coalition forces would have to boost their strength, toughen their battle against insurgents and stay on for at least five years before Iraqis would be able to take over their country's security and governance. Never mind the plan for elections in January. The plan might or might not go ahead as envisaged, but, either way, it does not offer a realistic solution to the problems in Iraq.
No doubt, Bush, if re-elected, would go about with a vengeance to bring Iraq under control. Obviously, this would mean a dramatic rise in the number of Iraqis killed.
American casualties are something Bush would not worry too much about since he would be in his second and final term in office.
As the three presidential debates highlighted, Bush is seen detached from the realities brought about by his own investigators that his reasons were hollow for invading Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein, occupying the country and trying to instal a US-friendly government in Baghdad.
He continues to insist otherwise and this highlights the insight that Bush is not finished with the Middle East.
The expected intensity on the part of a re-elected Bush could be seen is linked to his plans for "regime change" in Iran and wider regional transformations. The US has to have the situation in Iraq under control before turning its guns on Iran and Syria as the first step towards shaping the Middle East to suit American strategic interests.
Sure enough, Iran and Syria know the game, and that explains why the US has not been finding much success in preventing foreign fighters entering Iraq to war against the the coalition forces.
If fact, Arab commentators have emphasised that the US would remain pinned down in Iraq for thr foreseeable future and would not have the stability and respite it requires to pursue its plans for elsewhere in the region, Iran, Syria and Lebanon included.
Who knows, by the time Iraq is stabilised, Bush might have finished his second term, and then it turns into another ball game.
In Palestine, Bush could be expected to firm up his stand behind Ariel Sharon's unilateral plans to impose his version of a solution on the Palestinian people. Indeed, Bush might be making a few high-decible notes occasionally, but in effect a second Bush administration would only help strengthen and speed up Sharon's designs on Palestinian land.
It is an even bet whether Bush, if re-elected, would shift his focus back to his "democracy" initiative for the Middle East. He might do that, given that he has found Arab support wanting for his bid for second term as president and seems convinced that he does not have many friends left in the Arab World.
Spurred by his hawkish, neoconservative camp, Bush could push the "democracy" initiative, which effectively aims at pressuring Arab governments to fight groups and individuals remaining hostile to the US because of the lopsided American appraoch to the Middle East conflict and other issues of concerns to Arabs and Muslims around the world.
Ideally, Bush would like the Arab governments to consider and treat such groups and individuals as aliens in their own countries and terorrists who pose threats to regional and international security and stability. He would like to see the Arab governments act in total disregard of democratic principles that guarantee personal rights in the name of his democracy initiative. That is where the rift between the US and the Arab World is likely to widen the most.
The Arabs have made it clear that they reject reforms imposed from the outside. In fact, many Arab leaders have emphasised that Arab governments should work out their own reform progress based on the nature, ground realities and the peculiarities of their respective societies rather than wait for the Americans to bring in their "reform" package to the Arab doorstep.
It is unrealistic to see the US seeking a situation where it is a certainty that Islamists would emerge as a strong force and challenge American interests if Western-style elections were to be held in the Middle East. Therefore, there is an air of superficiality to the Bush "initiative" and the pointer is towards ulterior motives that are closely linked to protecting American and Israeli interests first and last.
How could Kerry be expected to fare if elected as president?
Kerry has outlined a plan to withdraw American forces from Iraq. However, the presidential realities would not allow him to disengage from Iraq since the invasion of that country and the American miliary presence there are part of a long-term strategy designed and implemented by the hawkish neoconservatives who seek American domination of the planet.
Cutting and running from Iraq has no room in those plans, and any such move would deal a bitter blow to the grandoise neoconservative project for global domination.
However, Kerry would need to be at the helm of affairs in the US for him to realise that quitting Iraq is not an option at all. And once that realisation sets in, then he would find it tough going to realise his pledge to "call the boys home from Iraq."
Indeed, it is open to debate whether Kerry would follow a Bush-model "scorched earth, iron-fist and make-it-or-break-it" approach to the insurgency in Iraq. If he does, then we could see additional American soldiers being sent to that country contrary to Kerry's election promises; and the US would be getting deeper into the imbroglio.
It is open to debate whether Kerry would follow the neoconservative script further, but it is definitely a certainty that he would come under pressure from the hawks who are present also in the Democrat camp. Let us not forget that the neocon design for shaping the world to suit American interests is bipartisan. Neocons in the Bush administration might find their way out of executive positions if Kerry wins the White House, but they would only be replaced by their Democrat-leaning counterparts.
The same is true for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Kerry might not come forth as strong as Bush in backing Sharon, but his effective impact on the scene would not be aimed at pre-empting the Israeli prime minister's unilateral plans that seek to prevent the emergence of any possibility of an independent Palestinian state being created in Palestine.
What would be Kerry's approach to the sought-for US-serving reforms in the Arab World?
Well, this is a grey area at this juncture in time. However, Kerry would be finding himself pressed into doing something about the Bush initiative for reforms in the Arab World. How far he could withstand it or whether he succumbs to pressure remains uncertain.
'Security for Americans'
Kerry is of unknown quality in this respect, whereas Bush is known to follow an aggressive campaign, both internally and externally, as exemplified by his war against terror that followed the Sept.11 attack.
Perhaps that is the strongest card that Bush could use to wave in voters to his camp, and he has been using it liberally throughout his hustings.
Vice-President Dick Cheney has also been pushing the same strategy. This week he raised the possibility of terrorists bombing American cities with nuclear weapons and questioned Kerry could counter such an "ultimate threat ... you've got to get your mind around."
"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us — biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.
"That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.
It is not surprising that both Bush and Cheney are conveniently pushing behind them the truth that the Bush administration did have pre-Sept.11 warnings of attacks using airplanes as missiles to be slammed into high-rise buildings but did nothing about them. But the question is whether this, and the deception that the Bush administration used in order to justify the war on Iraq, are lost on the Americans.
Monday, October 18, 2004
Empire of Blood and Oil
PAX AMERICANA - EMPIRE OF BLOOD AND OIL
PV VIVEKANAND
The Project for the New American Century envisions the forced creation and imposition on the world of Pax Americana, or American peace. It means creating a global empire that ensures the energy security of the United States and American domination of every part of this planet. Within the Middle Eastern context, this would easily explain why the US concocted the story that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and fraudulently manufactured proof to support that lie and threw in, for good measures, the contention that Saddam Hussein had links with Al Qaeda and posed a direct security threat to the American people. And it also explains why the US so closely aligned with Israel at the cost of its ties with the Arab and Muslim world and is gunning for Iran.
There was no intelligence failure, there was no misreading of evidence and there was no misguiding indication. The Bush administration set its objective as invasion and occupation of Iraq and then worked its way backwards to create a path leading to it. "Evidence" was manufactured whenever the need arose in the dedicated campaign to invade a sovereign country thousands of kilometres from the American shore in order to serve the interests of imperial America.
Anything that cropped up was either dismissed as irrelevant or explained away to fit in the overall scheme of things. Had there been a genuine WMD or terror threat from Iraq, it would have manifested itself. The hawks in the Bush administration would not have had to come up with fabricated charges like Saddam Hussein wanting to buy uranium from Niger and even had drones capable of hitting the US with chemical or biological weapons; nor would British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "intelligence" agencies have had to "sex up" reports on Iraq's military capabilities with outdated university theses.
It is now established that there is no ground for continued insistence that the invasion of Iraq and ouster of Saddam Hussein served to protect Americans from 9/11-style terror attacks using chemical and biological weapons.
The massive 1,000-page report prepared by the Iraq Survey Group led by American Charles Duelfer has eliminated any excuse or pretext for such insistence. The report established that Iraq had no WMD, was not engaged in any effort to develop it and its 1980s ability to produce WMD had all but eroded at the time when the US-led invading forces went into the country last year.
The 9/11 attacks helped Washington's plans to invade and occupy Iraq since they offered the Bush administration a pretext to portray Saddam as terror threat by linking him with Al Qaeda.
Lure of oil
The reality was that the US wanted to grab a piece of oil-rich real estate in the Middle East in order to secure its energy security, and, in the bargain, set up an advanced military base in the region and also get rid of a potential military threat to Washington's strategic partner, ally and protégé, Israel.
That was what happened, but what the US did not count on was messing up what it had hoped would be a smooth transition to an American-friendly regime to replace Saddam. It has proved a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and military imbroglio that defies solution.
A document drawn up in 2000 showed that George W Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure "regime change" even before he took power in January 2001.
The document, officially titled "Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century," was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The brains behind it included Dick Cheney, who went to become Bush's vice- president, Donald Rumsfeld, who was named defence secretary by Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, who now serves as Rumsfeld's deputy, Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby, who is now Cheney's chief of staff.
In fact, the document was a refurbished version of a plan drawn up by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz two years earlier. The plan was sent in January 1998 to the then president, Bill Clinton, saying:
"The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.
"In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
"We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts."
Well, Clinton did not have enough time to prepare the ground for an invasion of Iraq, and hence Bush inherited it and implemented it. Rest is history.
Colonising the world
Have a closer look at the 1998 call on Clinton. It talks only about the removal of Saddam from power "in the long term." It talks nothing about any plan beyond it. Obviously, the idea was to retain Iraq as an American colony with whatever that entails.
In fact, the 2000 report identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil" and Bush was only borrowing the term from the report when he started using it in late 2002.
While the report had highlighted the "nuclear" threat posed by the three countries grouped in the "axis of evil," the US military invaded and occupied the one country among the three which did not have any nuclear programme at all.
The report listed 27 people as having been closely involved in preparation of the document. Six of them assumed key defence and foreign policy positions in the Bush administration.
It was interesting to hear Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledging the truth this week that the US would have still gone to war on Iraq even if it had known that Saddam possessed no WMD. But Rice gave it a nice twist.
"He was someone who had an insatiable appetite for weapons of mass destruction. He had the means, he had the intent, he had the money to do it," said Rice. "You were never going to break the link between Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. And now we know that, had we waited, he would have gotten out of the sanctions, he would have undermined them by both trying to pay off people on the Security Council and doing what he could to keep his expertise in place," she said.
Perhaps Rice should spare a little time and remind herself that Chevron -- the company in which she occupied a director's seat before joining the administration -- was among the recipients of Saddam's "oil vouchers."
Her further comments on the war were even more hilarious. "Because we invaded the country, because we were able to interview the scientists and get the documents that Saddam Hussein had refused to give to the United Nations, we now know that he did not have those stockpiles," she said.
Wow! We thought the US had irrefutable evidence that Saddam had WMD before the first American military tank crossed the border to Iraq on March 20, 2003; we had no idea that the US motive behind the war was to determine whether or not Saddam had WMD.
Rice's next comment took the cake, if indeed one was left.
"He (Saddam) would have gotten out of the sanctions, and rebuilt his weapons of mass destruction programmes," Rice said. "We know he had the means to do so, it was only a matter of time. And it was time for us to take care of this threat."
So, as far as Washington was concerned, it was enough that Saddam had a wishlist of WMD and not necessarily possess them in order for the US to strike.
That brings up the question: Who authorised the US to invade any country simply because that country wished it had WMD?
Well, that where the Project for a New American Century, or Pax Americana comes into play.
Under that doctrine, the US reserves for itself the right to take any action it deems fit not only to protect its interests anywhere in the world but also to establish itself as a global empire which will have the sole responsibility as the policeman of planet Earth.
Building bases
That is further supported by reports saying that amid the fierce guerrilla war in Iraq, the US military is building more than a dozen "enduring bases" in the country to set up a permanent military presence in the Gulf.
The bases run from Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the north and are given names like Camp Victory (adjoining Baghdad airport), Camp Renegade (in Kirkuk) etc. The two American hostages beheaded last month were working as civil engineers constructing a base in Taji, north of Baghdad,
The Pentagon has not released any details of the planned bases to the public. However, it is expected that between 50,000 and 60,000 American soldiers would be housed at these bases in Iraq once Washington realises its hoped-for goal of pacifying Iraq by next year. The plan, in principle, is a repeat of what the US did in Japan after World War II.
The only top official to indirectly refer to the plan for bases in Iraq was Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who mentioned it even before the US forces invaded that country last year. The US already has bases in Kuwait and Qatar.
Installing a token government in Baghdad through elections in January and then drawing up a permanent constitution leading to fresh elections to another government in 2006 is the American definition of pacifying Iraq.
The building of the bases is parallel and separate from the ongoing US military operations in Iraq.
The US bases in Iraq will serve the military to keep a close eye on developments in the region and move forces to quickly intervene in any area where Washington perceives its interests to be threatened.
The presence will also serve as a reminder to the countries in the region that the US has at its disposal the military capability to invade and occupy countries and remove regimes.
Supplementing the American military presence in Iraq will be Israel's strength. Israel, with only sx million people, is counted among the top 10 strongest countries in the world.
However, Iran is a wild card in the game. The US has to neutralise the Iranians since the US military cannot afford to have its bases in Iraq within Iranian missile range as long as Tehran remains hostile to Washington.
The annual cost of maintaining the bases in Iraq is estimated at between $5 billion and $7 billion, according to Gordon Adams, director of Security Policy Studies at George Washington University in Washington.
The US maintains 890 military installations in foreign countries, ranging from major air force facilities to smaller installations, say a radar station. It is expected that the planned bases in Iraq would enable the Pentagon to close a few of those facilities.
However, the key question remains unanswered: It is widely accepted that a majority of Iraqis oppose the US presence in the country. How would they accept to have permanent American military bases in their land?
But then, what the people of Iraq think is not as important as what the US wants.
Rumsfeld has dismissed suggestions that the US covets Iraqi territory by maintaining bases, but then one only has to remember that the US military still has bases in Japan, nearly 60 years after World War II ended.
The National Security Strategy outlined by President Bush on Sept.20, 2002 -- or the so-called Bush Doctrine -- outlines a newly aggressive military and foreign policy, including pre-emptive attack against those who threaten American interests.
The doctrine bases itself on the neoconservative document of 2000.
As David R Francis, a respected American journalist known for objective and accurate writing, put it, the strategy "includes a plan for permanent American military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence."
He quotes from the report:
"The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of US troops."
While Bush sought to create an impression that the National Security Strategy was inspired by the Sept.11 attacks, Francis notes, the same language is used in the 2002 report.
Francis writes:
"It advocates the 'transformation' of the US military to meet its expanded obligations, including the cancellation of such outmoded defence programmes as the Crusader artillery system. That's exactly the message being preached by Rumsfeld and others.
"It urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries." (Francis notes that the Republican-dominated House of Representatives has given the Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far balked at approving it).
"To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says US forces will be required to perform 'constabulary duties' -- the United States acting as policeman of the world -- and says that such actions 'demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.'
"To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130 nations in which US troops are already deployed."
According to Francis, the report's recommendation that the US needs permanent military bases in the Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia is being followed. He notes that the Bush administration rushed to install US troops in Georgia and the Philippines, as well as our eagerness to send military advisers to assist in the civil war in Colombia.
"The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier document, drafted in 1992 by the Defence Department. That document had also envisioned the US as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power," says Francis. . When leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by George Bush Senior, he says.
Alliance with Israel
Donald Kagan, a professor of classical Greek history at Yale and an influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy who served as served as co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project "willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq."
"I think that's highly possible," Francis quotes Kagan as saying. "We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it's been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."
That brings in the alliance between the US and Israel and the American quest to ensure its energy security by not allowing any Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East to reach a position where it could call the shots in the international oil market.
The strength of the US-Israel alliance is conventionally attributed to the powerful political and financial strengths and influence of the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington as well as to the image of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East sharing American "values."
However, equally important in this equation is the US anxiety to ensure the steady flow of oil from the Middle East to suit American interests.
Proponents of this theory argue that the US has been retaining and is continuing to strengthen its relationship with Israel in order not to allow an Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East to emerge as the dominant regional power that could undermine the US quest for energy security for Americans based on Arab and Muslim oil. That explains why the US was silent when Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 and why Washington today supports Israel's contention that Iran poses a threat to it by seeking nuclear weapon-capability.
Oil dependency
A report written by Erich Marquardt appearing on www.pinr.com underlines this point. Marquardt writes:
"The primary motives behind US support of Israel can be explained by Washington's foreign policy aims of securing a Middle East capable of producing a stable supply of oil at a low price that buoys the economies of oil dependent countries. Israel, a state that is dependent on the United States due to its strategic and cultural isolation in a region that is hostile to its existence, can be relied on by Washington to assist in maintaining the status quo by preventing any Middle Eastern country from accruing enough power to alter the regional balance in a way that would damage the interests of the United States and other oil dependent countries."
Michael T Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency, points out that America's dependence on imported petroleum has been growing steadily since 1972.
Domestic production in the US was 11.6 million barrels per day in 1972 and today it stands at 9mbpd and is expected to continue to decline.
"Even if some oil is eventually extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as the Bush administration desires, this downward trend will not be reversed " he asserts.
On the other hand, the total oil consumption in the US today is estimated at around 20 million barrels per day and is expected to hit 29mbpd by 2025.
"This means ever more of the nation's total petroleum supply will have to be imported - 11mbpd today (about 55 per cent of total US consumption) but 20mbpd/d in 2025 (69 per cent of consumption)," says Klare.
In an implicit reference to the Middle East, Klare notes that an increasing share of that oil will come from "hostile, war-torn countries in the developing world, not from friendly, stable countries such as Canada or Norway. "
"Because oil is viewed as the primary motive for US involvement in these (hostile) areas, and because the giant US oil corporations are seen as the very embodiment of US power, anything to do with oil - pipelines, wells, refineries, loading platforms - is seen by insurgents as a legitimate and attractive target for attack; hence the raids on pipelines in Iraq, on oil-company offices in Saudi Arabia, and on oil tankers in Yemen," according to Klaire.
Klare notes that the US military is having a tough time ensuring the security of oil installations in Iraq, meaning that the very objective of the war remains under threat.
Blood and oil
"Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for control over Iraq's cities and the constant struggle to protect its far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack," he says. "The first contest has been widely reported in the US press; the second has received far less attention."
He points out: "Iraq is hardly the only country where US troops are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect the flow of petroleum. In Colombia, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Georgia, US personnel are also spending their days and nights protecting pipelines and refineries, or supervising the local forces assigned to this mission.
"American sailors are now on oil-protection patrol in the Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and along other sea routes that deliver oil to the United States and its allies. In fact, the US military is increasingly being converted into a global oil-protection service."
And the going is getting tougher for American forces, he notes.
"With thousands of kilometers of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities at risk, this task will prove endlessly demanding -- and unrelievedly hazardous," he says.
"While anti-terrorism and traditional national-security rhetoric will be employed to explain risky deployments abroad, a growing number of American soldiers and sailors will be committed to the protection of overseas oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker routes," Klare observes. "And because these facilities are likely to come under increasing attack from guerrillas and terrorists, the risk to American lives will grow accordingly. Inevitably, Americans will pay a higher price in blood for every additional litre of oil they obtain from abroad."
Seen in that vein, although Klare does not refer to that aspect, the natural Israeli role is to step in and take over part of the American policeman's job at some point or another; and countries like Iraq (had it remained under the Saddam regime) and Iran would challenge that Israeli role, and hence the need to ensure that they are reshaped to suit American interests. That is what happened in Iraq, and Iran would be subjected to similar treatment if the US plans go ahead as they were drawn up by the Project for the New American Century that aims to create a global American empire.
PV VIVEKANAND
The Project for the New American Century envisions the forced creation and imposition on the world of Pax Americana, or American peace. It means creating a global empire that ensures the energy security of the United States and American domination of every part of this planet. Within the Middle Eastern context, this would easily explain why the US concocted the story that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and fraudulently manufactured proof to support that lie and threw in, for good measures, the contention that Saddam Hussein had links with Al Qaeda and posed a direct security threat to the American people. And it also explains why the US so closely aligned with Israel at the cost of its ties with the Arab and Muslim world and is gunning for Iran.
There was no intelligence failure, there was no misreading of evidence and there was no misguiding indication. The Bush administration set its objective as invasion and occupation of Iraq and then worked its way backwards to create a path leading to it. "Evidence" was manufactured whenever the need arose in the dedicated campaign to invade a sovereign country thousands of kilometres from the American shore in order to serve the interests of imperial America.
Anything that cropped up was either dismissed as irrelevant or explained away to fit in the overall scheme of things. Had there been a genuine WMD or terror threat from Iraq, it would have manifested itself. The hawks in the Bush administration would not have had to come up with fabricated charges like Saddam Hussein wanting to buy uranium from Niger and even had drones capable of hitting the US with chemical or biological weapons; nor would British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "intelligence" agencies have had to "sex up" reports on Iraq's military capabilities with outdated university theses.
It is now established that there is no ground for continued insistence that the invasion of Iraq and ouster of Saddam Hussein served to protect Americans from 9/11-style terror attacks using chemical and biological weapons.
The massive 1,000-page report prepared by the Iraq Survey Group led by American Charles Duelfer has eliminated any excuse or pretext for such insistence. The report established that Iraq had no WMD, was not engaged in any effort to develop it and its 1980s ability to produce WMD had all but eroded at the time when the US-led invading forces went into the country last year.
The 9/11 attacks helped Washington's plans to invade and occupy Iraq since they offered the Bush administration a pretext to portray Saddam as terror threat by linking him with Al Qaeda.
Lure of oil
The reality was that the US wanted to grab a piece of oil-rich real estate in the Middle East in order to secure its energy security, and, in the bargain, set up an advanced military base in the region and also get rid of a potential military threat to Washington's strategic partner, ally and protégé, Israel.
That was what happened, but what the US did not count on was messing up what it had hoped would be a smooth transition to an American-friendly regime to replace Saddam. It has proved a catastrophic humanitarian crisis and military imbroglio that defies solution.
A document drawn up in 2000 showed that George W Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure "regime change" even before he took power in January 2001.
The document, officially titled "Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century," was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The brains behind it included Dick Cheney, who went to become Bush's vice- president, Donald Rumsfeld, who was named defence secretary by Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, who now serves as Rumsfeld's deputy, Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby, who is now Cheney's chief of staff.
In fact, the document was a refurbished version of a plan drawn up by Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz two years earlier. The plan was sent in January 1998 to the then president, Bill Clinton, saying:
"The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing.
"In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
"We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts."
Well, Clinton did not have enough time to prepare the ground for an invasion of Iraq, and hence Bush inherited it and implemented it. Rest is history.
Colonising the world
Have a closer look at the 1998 call on Clinton. It talks only about the removal of Saddam from power "in the long term." It talks nothing about any plan beyond it. Obviously, the idea was to retain Iraq as an American colony with whatever that entails.
In fact, the 2000 report identified Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil" and Bush was only borrowing the term from the report when he started using it in late 2002.
While the report had highlighted the "nuclear" threat posed by the three countries grouped in the "axis of evil," the US military invaded and occupied the one country among the three which did not have any nuclear programme at all.
The report listed 27 people as having been closely involved in preparation of the document. Six of them assumed key defence and foreign policy positions in the Bush administration.
It was interesting to hear Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, acknowledging the truth this week that the US would have still gone to war on Iraq even if it had known that Saddam possessed no WMD. But Rice gave it a nice twist.
"He was someone who had an insatiable appetite for weapons of mass destruction. He had the means, he had the intent, he had the money to do it," said Rice. "You were never going to break the link between Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. And now we know that, had we waited, he would have gotten out of the sanctions, he would have undermined them by both trying to pay off people on the Security Council and doing what he could to keep his expertise in place," she said.
Perhaps Rice should spare a little time and remind herself that Chevron -- the company in which she occupied a director's seat before joining the administration -- was among the recipients of Saddam's "oil vouchers."
Her further comments on the war were even more hilarious. "Because we invaded the country, because we were able to interview the scientists and get the documents that Saddam Hussein had refused to give to the United Nations, we now know that he did not have those stockpiles," she said.
Wow! We thought the US had irrefutable evidence that Saddam had WMD before the first American military tank crossed the border to Iraq on March 20, 2003; we had no idea that the US motive behind the war was to determine whether or not Saddam had WMD.
Rice's next comment took the cake, if indeed one was left.
"He (Saddam) would have gotten out of the sanctions, and rebuilt his weapons of mass destruction programmes," Rice said. "We know he had the means to do so, it was only a matter of time. And it was time for us to take care of this threat."
So, as far as Washington was concerned, it was enough that Saddam had a wishlist of WMD and not necessarily possess them in order for the US to strike.
That brings up the question: Who authorised the US to invade any country simply because that country wished it had WMD?
Well, that where the Project for a New American Century, or Pax Americana comes into play.
Under that doctrine, the US reserves for itself the right to take any action it deems fit not only to protect its interests anywhere in the world but also to establish itself as a global empire which will have the sole responsibility as the policeman of planet Earth.
Building bases
That is further supported by reports saying that amid the fierce guerrilla war in Iraq, the US military is building more than a dozen "enduring bases" in the country to set up a permanent military presence in the Gulf.
The bases run from Kirkuk in the north to Basra in the north and are given names like Camp Victory (adjoining Baghdad airport), Camp Renegade (in Kirkuk) etc. The two American hostages beheaded last month were working as civil engineers constructing a base in Taji, north of Baghdad,
The Pentagon has not released any details of the planned bases to the public. However, it is expected that between 50,000 and 60,000 American soldiers would be housed at these bases in Iraq once Washington realises its hoped-for goal of pacifying Iraq by next year. The plan, in principle, is a repeat of what the US did in Japan after World War II.
The only top official to indirectly refer to the plan for bases in Iraq was Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who mentioned it even before the US forces invaded that country last year. The US already has bases in Kuwait and Qatar.
Installing a token government in Baghdad through elections in January and then drawing up a permanent constitution leading to fresh elections to another government in 2006 is the American definition of pacifying Iraq.
The building of the bases is parallel and separate from the ongoing US military operations in Iraq.
The US bases in Iraq will serve the military to keep a close eye on developments in the region and move forces to quickly intervene in any area where Washington perceives its interests to be threatened.
The presence will also serve as a reminder to the countries in the region that the US has at its disposal the military capability to invade and occupy countries and remove regimes.
Supplementing the American military presence in Iraq will be Israel's strength. Israel, with only sx million people, is counted among the top 10 strongest countries in the world.
However, Iran is a wild card in the game. The US has to neutralise the Iranians since the US military cannot afford to have its bases in Iraq within Iranian missile range as long as Tehran remains hostile to Washington.
The annual cost of maintaining the bases in Iraq is estimated at between $5 billion and $7 billion, according to Gordon Adams, director of Security Policy Studies at George Washington University in Washington.
The US maintains 890 military installations in foreign countries, ranging from major air force facilities to smaller installations, say a radar station. It is expected that the planned bases in Iraq would enable the Pentagon to close a few of those facilities.
However, the key question remains unanswered: It is widely accepted that a majority of Iraqis oppose the US presence in the country. How would they accept to have permanent American military bases in their land?
But then, what the people of Iraq think is not as important as what the US wants.
Rumsfeld has dismissed suggestions that the US covets Iraqi territory by maintaining bases, but then one only has to remember that the US military still has bases in Japan, nearly 60 years after World War II ended.
The National Security Strategy outlined by President Bush on Sept.20, 2002 -- or the so-called Bush Doctrine -- outlines a newly aggressive military and foreign policy, including pre-emptive attack against those who threaten American interests.
The doctrine bases itself on the neoconservative document of 2000.
As David R Francis, a respected American journalist known for objective and accurate writing, put it, the strategy "includes a plan for permanent American military and economic domination of every region on the globe, unfettered by international treaty or concern. And to make that plan a reality, it envisions a stark expansion of our global military presence."
He quotes from the report:
"The United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of US troops."
While Bush sought to create an impression that the National Security Strategy was inspired by the Sept.11 attacks, Francis notes, the same language is used in the 2002 report.
Francis writes:
"It advocates the 'transformation' of the US military to meet its expanded obligations, including the cancellation of such outmoded defence programmes as the Crusader artillery system. That's exactly the message being preached by Rumsfeld and others.
"It urges the development of small nuclear warheads "required in targeting the very deep, underground hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries." (Francis notes that the Republican-dominated House of Representatives has given the Pentagon the green light to develop such a weapon, called the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, while the Senate has so far balked at approving it).
"To preserve the Pax Americana, the report says US forces will be required to perform 'constabulary duties' -- the United States acting as policeman of the world -- and says that such actions 'demand American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations.'
"To meet those responsibilities, and to ensure that no country dares to challenge the United States, the report advocates a much larger military presence spread over more of the globe, in addition to the roughly 130 nations in which US troops are already deployed."
According to Francis, the report's recommendation that the US needs permanent military bases in the Middle East, in Southeast Europe, in Latin America and in Southeast Asia is being followed. He notes that the Bush administration rushed to install US troops in Georgia and the Philippines, as well as our eagerness to send military advisers to assist in the civil war in Colombia.
"The 2000 report directly acknowledges its debt to a still earlier document, drafted in 1992 by the Defence Department. That document had also envisioned the US as a colossus astride the world, imposing its will and keeping world peace through military and economic power," says Francis. . When leaked in final draft form, however, the proposal drew so much criticism that it was hastily withdrawn and repudiated by George Bush Senior, he says.
Alliance with Israel
Donald Kagan, a professor of classical Greek history at Yale and an influential advocate of a more aggressive foreign policy who served as served as co-chairman of the 2000 New Century project "willingly embraces the idea that the United States would establish permanent military bases in a post-war Iraq."
"I think that's highly possible," Francis quotes Kagan as saying. "We will probably need a major concentration of forces in the Middle East over a long period of time. That will come at a price, but think of the price of not having it. When we have economic problems, it's been caused by disruptions in our oil supply. If we have a force in Iraq, there will be no disruption in oil supplies."
That brings in the alliance between the US and Israel and the American quest to ensure its energy security by not allowing any Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East to reach a position where it could call the shots in the international oil market.
The strength of the US-Israel alliance is conventionally attributed to the powerful political and financial strengths and influence of the pro-Israeli lobby in Washington as well as to the image of Israel as the only democracy in the Middle East sharing American "values."
However, equally important in this equation is the US anxiety to ensure the steady flow of oil from the Middle East to suit American interests.
Proponents of this theory argue that the US has been retaining and is continuing to strengthen its relationship with Israel in order not to allow an Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East to emerge as the dominant regional power that could undermine the US quest for energy security for Americans based on Arab and Muslim oil. That explains why the US was silent when Israel bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 and why Washington today supports Israel's contention that Iran poses a threat to it by seeking nuclear weapon-capability.
Oil dependency
A report written by Erich Marquardt appearing on www.pinr.com underlines this point. Marquardt writes:
"The primary motives behind US support of Israel can be explained by Washington's foreign policy aims of securing a Middle East capable of producing a stable supply of oil at a low price that buoys the economies of oil dependent countries. Israel, a state that is dependent on the United States due to its strategic and cultural isolation in a region that is hostile to its existence, can be relied on by Washington to assist in maintaining the status quo by preventing any Middle Eastern country from accruing enough power to alter the regional balance in a way that would damage the interests of the United States and other oil dependent countries."
Michael T Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Petroleum Dependency, points out that America's dependence on imported petroleum has been growing steadily since 1972.
Domestic production in the US was 11.6 million barrels per day in 1972 and today it stands at 9mbpd and is expected to continue to decline.
"Even if some oil is eventually extracted from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, as the Bush administration desires, this downward trend will not be reversed " he asserts.
On the other hand, the total oil consumption in the US today is estimated at around 20 million barrels per day and is expected to hit 29mbpd by 2025.
"This means ever more of the nation's total petroleum supply will have to be imported - 11mbpd today (about 55 per cent of total US consumption) but 20mbpd/d in 2025 (69 per cent of consumption)," says Klare.
In an implicit reference to the Middle East, Klare notes that an increasing share of that oil will come from "hostile, war-torn countries in the developing world, not from friendly, stable countries such as Canada or Norway. "
"Because oil is viewed as the primary motive for US involvement in these (hostile) areas, and because the giant US oil corporations are seen as the very embodiment of US power, anything to do with oil - pipelines, wells, refineries, loading platforms - is seen by insurgents as a legitimate and attractive target for attack; hence the raids on pipelines in Iraq, on oil-company offices in Saudi Arabia, and on oil tankers in Yemen," according to Klaire.
Klare notes that the US military is having a tough time ensuring the security of oil installations in Iraq, meaning that the very objective of the war remains under threat.
Blood and oil
"Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for control over Iraq's cities and the constant struggle to protect its far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack," he says. "The first contest has been widely reported in the US press; the second has received far less attention."
He points out: "Iraq is hardly the only country where US troops are risking their lives on a daily basis to protect the flow of petroleum. In Colombia, Saudi Arabia and the Republic of Georgia, US personnel are also spending their days and nights protecting pipelines and refineries, or supervising the local forces assigned to this mission.
"American sailors are now on oil-protection patrol in the Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the South China Sea, and along other sea routes that deliver oil to the United States and its allies. In fact, the US military is increasingly being converted into a global oil-protection service."
And the going is getting tougher for American forces, he notes.
"With thousands of kilometers of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities at risk, this task will prove endlessly demanding -- and unrelievedly hazardous," he says.
"While anti-terrorism and traditional national-security rhetoric will be employed to explain risky deployments abroad, a growing number of American soldiers and sailors will be committed to the protection of overseas oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker routes," Klare observes. "And because these facilities are likely to come under increasing attack from guerrillas and terrorists, the risk to American lives will grow accordingly. Inevitably, Americans will pay a higher price in blood for every additional litre of oil they obtain from abroad."
Seen in that vein, although Klare does not refer to that aspect, the natural Israeli role is to step in and take over part of the American policeman's job at some point or another; and countries like Iraq (had it remained under the Saddam regime) and Iran would challenge that Israeli role, and hence the need to ensure that they are reshaped to suit American interests. That is what happened in Iraq, and Iran would be subjected to similar treatment if the US plans go ahead as they were drawn up by the Project for the New American Century that aims to create a global American empire.
Sunday, October 17, 2004
Convergence of interests
Neocons and Al Qaeda
pv vivekanand
WITH two weeks to go to the day when the American people will vote in presidential elections, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has warned that there was still a
possibility that plans are afoot for terrorist attacks in the US ahead of the polls.
Couple the warning, issued by FBI Director Robert Mueller on Friday, with the assertion by some commentators that President George W Bush needs nothing less than a terrorist attack in order to be elected for a second term.
Meuller's warning that the US remained vulnerable to the threat of a terror attack before the election revived American fears after a hiatus of several weeks during which top officials stayed away from waving Al Qaeda as the bogeyman to remind voters that Bush has experience in fighting terror while Kerry is of unknown quality.
However, all officials, including Meuller, coupled the warning with a caution that there was no specific intelligence regarding the timing, location and method of such possible attacks.
While many commentators acknowledge that Bush's re-election could be guaranteed in the event of a terrorist attack taking place before Nov.2, no one — except the most bitter critics of the Bush administration — has suggested that hawks in Washington could stage such an incident in order to ensure a second White House term for the incumbent.
Indeed, it is abundantly clear that the neoconservatives in the administration have long-term plans to implement their agenda for American supremacy in the world and Israeli domination of the Near and Middle East. The neocons' political survival and implementation of their grandiose plans of imposing pax Americana on the globe depends on Bush being re-elected. They are desperate for Bush to remain in the White House. So do American corporates who are siphoning off billions of dollars spent in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore it need not be top politicians who might concoct a terror attack of a containable level that would pre-empt Bush moving house in January next year. The reasoning is that Americans would see a pre-election terror attack as an attempt to influence the polls and mindlessly react with anger and fear and re-elect Bush.
Among those affirming that Bush's key to a second term at the White House is a terrorist attack is the well-known FOX News political analyst, Dick Morris.
In a programme telecast on FOX last week, Morris said he expects a "huge turnout" for the elections and this would favour Kerry.
"I do believe he’ll get a very strong, very intense minority vote," Morris said of the Democrat candidate. "There’s only one thing that can save George Bush. Think about how we felt in August. Think about how jeopardised and endangered we felt with photos of the stock exchange and IMF building circulating. The Al Qaeda militants, bombs possibly at the two conventions, the Olympics.
"We felt really in danger. Now we feel fat and happy. We’re felling pretty good. We turn on the TV set about Iraq. We watch it with half an eye, but nobody really thinks there’s gonna be anything happening here. If that’s the environment on November 2nd, Kerry’s gonna win. But, if — and I’m not suggesting Bush would fabricate it — but if, in fact, Al Qaeda chooses to begin actions, to threaten stuff, to do stuff here, which they did in Israel and they did in Madrid right before the election, then I think that could elect Bush...Osama Bin Laden will determine if Bush wins or not.”
There are many who argue that Bush could suffer if Al Qaeda were to stage an attack before elections since voters will back Kerry against the president, who has repeatedly boasted that he alone kept terror attacks away the US since Sept.11; but then he sent out Americans to be killed outside the US — remember the more than 1,000 Americans killed in Iraq since March 2003?
The question that remains unanswered is what are the options of the neocons not to lose their immediate grip in power in Washington. No doubt they would claw back to power sooner or later; they are bipartisan and have their inroads among the Democrats. But, given the pressing need to not to relax the grip on Iraq and maintain the course of events as they scripted it in the Middle East and elsewhere, they could ill-afford to have a "regime change" in Washington before their agenda is not fully played out.
Indeed, that is where the interests of the neocons converge with that of Osama Bin Laden — if he is alive and politically alert — in ensuring that Bush is re-elected.
Like the neocons, Al Qaeda would also suffer in the short term if Kerry wins since it needs someone as aggressive as the Republican president as well as continued American occupation of Iraq and military actions in Afghanistan in order to build and consolidate the anti-US camp in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
pv vivekanand
WITH two weeks to go to the day when the American people will vote in presidential elections, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has warned that there was still a
possibility that plans are afoot for terrorist attacks in the US ahead of the polls.
Couple the warning, issued by FBI Director Robert Mueller on Friday, with the assertion by some commentators that President George W Bush needs nothing less than a terrorist attack in order to be elected for a second term.
Meuller's warning that the US remained vulnerable to the threat of a terror attack before the election revived American fears after a hiatus of several weeks during which top officials stayed away from waving Al Qaeda as the bogeyman to remind voters that Bush has experience in fighting terror while Kerry is of unknown quality.
However, all officials, including Meuller, coupled the warning with a caution that there was no specific intelligence regarding the timing, location and method of such possible attacks.
While many commentators acknowledge that Bush's re-election could be guaranteed in the event of a terrorist attack taking place before Nov.2, no one — except the most bitter critics of the Bush administration — has suggested that hawks in Washington could stage such an incident in order to ensure a second White House term for the incumbent.
Indeed, it is abundantly clear that the neoconservatives in the administration have long-term plans to implement their agenda for American supremacy in the world and Israeli domination of the Near and Middle East. The neocons' political survival and implementation of their grandiose plans of imposing pax Americana on the globe depends on Bush being re-elected. They are desperate for Bush to remain in the White House. So do American corporates who are siphoning off billions of dollars spent in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Therefore it need not be top politicians who might concoct a terror attack of a containable level that would pre-empt Bush moving house in January next year. The reasoning is that Americans would see a pre-election terror attack as an attempt to influence the polls and mindlessly react with anger and fear and re-elect Bush.
Among those affirming that Bush's key to a second term at the White House is a terrorist attack is the well-known FOX News political analyst, Dick Morris.
In a programme telecast on FOX last week, Morris said he expects a "huge turnout" for the elections and this would favour Kerry.
"I do believe he’ll get a very strong, very intense minority vote," Morris said of the Democrat candidate. "There’s only one thing that can save George Bush. Think about how we felt in August. Think about how jeopardised and endangered we felt with photos of the stock exchange and IMF building circulating. The Al Qaeda militants, bombs possibly at the two conventions, the Olympics.
"We felt really in danger. Now we feel fat and happy. We’re felling pretty good. We turn on the TV set about Iraq. We watch it with half an eye, but nobody really thinks there’s gonna be anything happening here. If that’s the environment on November 2nd, Kerry’s gonna win. But, if — and I’m not suggesting Bush would fabricate it — but if, in fact, Al Qaeda chooses to begin actions, to threaten stuff, to do stuff here, which they did in Israel and they did in Madrid right before the election, then I think that could elect Bush...Osama Bin Laden will determine if Bush wins or not.”
There are many who argue that Bush could suffer if Al Qaeda were to stage an attack before elections since voters will back Kerry against the president, who has repeatedly boasted that he alone kept terror attacks away the US since Sept.11; but then he sent out Americans to be killed outside the US — remember the more than 1,000 Americans killed in Iraq since March 2003?
The question that remains unanswered is what are the options of the neocons not to lose their immediate grip in power in Washington. No doubt they would claw back to power sooner or later; they are bipartisan and have their inroads among the Democrats. But, given the pressing need to not to relax the grip on Iraq and maintain the course of events as they scripted it in the Middle East and elsewhere, they could ill-afford to have a "regime change" in Washington before their agenda is not fully played out.
Indeed, that is where the interests of the neocons converge with that of Osama Bin Laden — if he is alive and politically alert — in ensuring that Bush is re-elected.
Like the neocons, Al Qaeda would also suffer in the short term if Kerry wins since it needs someone as aggressive as the Republican president as well as continued American occupation of Iraq and military actions in Afghanistan in order to build and consolidate the anti-US camp in the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Rommel's mines, Rabta plant and murder plot
by PV Vivekanand
LIBYA has been very much in the news this week. From a conventional point of view, the highlight was German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's groundbreaking visit to Tripoli in another move that seals the international rehabilation of Libya after decades of confrontation and sanctions that had isolated the North African Arab country. Schroder was the first German leader to visit Libya. British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited in April.
Little noticed this week was a report that the US is supporting Libya in converting a chemical-weapons plant into a factory making life-saving drugs to battle AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases. That clearly sets another pillar in the emerging scenario of a US-Libyan alliance in a dramatic turnabout when compared with the bitter enmity of the two in the 80s and 90s.
Another was the closing in a US court of a file by the 23-year sentence handed down to an American Muslim in a case involving an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate the Saudi crown prince in the fallout from a verbal clash at an Arab summit.
In the meantime, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi lived up to his reputation by demanding from Schroder German compensation for the millions of landmines left in Libyan desert during World War II.
Surely, Qadhafi would have been remembering that Libya had paid compensation to victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in a deal with the US and UK and in the 1989 downing of a French airliner over Niger as well as to 168 non-American — mostly German — victims of the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin disco. Two Americans and a Turkish woman died in the disco bombing; compensation for the Americans is being held back on a different track with the US.
Given his record to raise controversies, it was only natural that Qadhafi would nudge up the issue of the more than 17 million landmines strewn all over Libya's western desert, particularly near the town of El Alamein, where in 1942 the British army under Bernard Montgomery decisively defeated Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps more than 60 years ago. Qadhafi complained that dozens of Libyans were still being injured and killed by the anti-tank and anti-personnel mines ( Indeed, not all the mines are German; they include British and Italian and Libya has not raised any demand for British and Italian compensation. That was one observation made by the German media after Schroder left Libya).
"Many of my countrymen die each year from these mines," Qadhafi was reported to have told Schroder. "Germany should pay towards their removal." He also showed Schröder maps of where the mines had been buried.
The Libyan demand, presented during a three-hour banquet Qadhafi hosted in honour of Schroder on Friday, should be seen against a call issued by the African Union conference in Addis Ababa last month for many European countries which fought in Africa in World War II to contribute part of their defence budgets to land-mine clearance.
And Schroder replied in the negative. "We look to normalisation between our two countries in the future — we don’t look to the past," he said in a brief statement reflecting his view that the mines issue is non-negotiable.
However, that does not negate the validity of the African Union call. Landmines are killing and maiming people dozens every day is not only in Africa but in almost every area of past conflicts, including Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam.
It is an international issue and there is an international effort to address it. Libya is said to be in talks with British tycoon Branson to help pay for developing a breakthrough device to harmlessly defuse landmines.
It is unlikely that Qadhafi had expected Schroder to respond positively to his demand for compensation. It is a safe bet that the Libyan leader was only reminding Schroder that things works both ways; that the Libyans are entitled to seek compensation for German deeds since Tripoli honoured the German demand for compensation for the West Berlin blast in 1986. Never mind the issue is six decades old.
It was also typical of Libya to have sought to send another message by including in Schroder's itinerary a visit to a memorial to the victims of the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986. The US attack was in retaliation for the West Berlin blast.
Reports in Germany said Schroder's aides had a tough time shooting down the Libyan proposal and told Tripoli it was "totally unacceptable" for Schröder to make such a visit. But Libya made the point anyway since the $35 million compensation deal with Germany excludes American victims of the blast. Their demand for damages would be considered in tandem with Libya's demand for compensation for the Libyan victims of the American retaliatory missiles attacks against Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986.
Qadhafi's assertion that the West owes him thanks for Libya's role in fighting international terorrism was also politically oriented. Libya wants to go on the record in the international scene that "regardless of what other nations are doing," it is an active member of the US-led war against terorrism and is no longer a pariah. Germany and other western states owed him their gratitude "for his services to international peace," Qadhafi told Schroder, who in turn ackowledged it and welcomed the changed status of Libya.
However, Libya remains on Washington's list of countries supporting "terrorism."
In the din of the controversies raised during the Schroder visit, a report by the Washington Times did not seem to have received the media coverage it warranted.
The report said that under American recommendations, the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had approved, in principle, "technical changes" to the global treaty on chemical arms that would make conversions of chemical-weapon plants for civilian purposes.
During the deliberations of the council that the US announced it was "very supportive" of Libya's effort in this respect and urged the 41-member body to endorse the Libyan Rabta facility's conversion "to produce low-cost pharmaceuticals to treat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, for use mainly in Africa."
"The United States supports the proposal both because it makes sense in this particular instance -- we strongly support redirecting this equipment to pharmaceutical production for the benefit of the developing world -- and because it provides a means of dealing with similar situations if they arise in the future," the State Department said.
"The process of conversion, and the facility once converted, will be subject to international verification to ensure that no materials are misused for chemical weapons purposes," it said.
Libya joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in February after it annouonced in December that it was abandoning its programmes for weapons of mass destruction in a secretly negotiated agreement with the US and UK.
The "technical changes" adopted by the council give Libya until 2010 to carry out the conversions.
Libya has already contracted an Italian firm to do the conversion at the Rabta plant,
Investigations triggered by Libya's disclosures about its effort to possess nuclear weapons are continuing. Prosecutors in Switzerland launched investigations last week against two Swiss citizens suspected of illegally exporting nuclear bomb-making technology to Libya.
One of the suspects is thought have been part of the clandestine international network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, which helped Libya's nuclear programme.
In yet another Libya-linked development, a prominent American Muslim activist who admitted participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz was sentenced on Friday to the maximum 23 years in prison for illegal business dealings with Libya.
Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, pleaded guilty in July to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from high-ranking Libyan officials while serving as a go-between for them and Saudi dissidents.
Alamoudi was not charged in connection with the alleged assassination plot, but the prosecution cited the plot as reason for him to receive the maximum sentence.
A naturalised US citizen from Eritrea who helped found the American Muslim Council and related American Muslim Foundation, Alamoudi pleaded guilty to violating sanctions against travel and trade with Libya, making false statements on his immigration application, and a tax violation. As part of a plea deal, he surrendered his US citizenship.
The prosecution submitted that Libya plotted to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah after Qadhafi and the Saudi leader had a heated exchange of words during a March 2003 Arab League summit. Libyan officials were alleged to have invited Alamoudi to Tripoli and paid him several hundred thousand dollars, part of it for himself and the rest for Saudi dissidents who introduced to him associates who could carry out the plot, according to the prosecution.
The plot unravelled when British customs discovered $340,000 in cash in his possession at Heathrow airport. He was arrested in September 2003 when he returned to the US. Suspects were also detained in Saudi Arabia.
The alleged Libyan instigation of the conspiracy was played down by Washington in what was seen as a US resolve not to undermine Tripoli's changed status to a friend if not an ally and Qadhafi's move to reinstate his country into mainstream international politics.
Washington acknowledged that it had known of reports "that Libya was in contact with Saudi dissidents who have threatened violence against the Saudi royal family" before Qadhafi's pledge on Dec.19 abandoning his weapons programmes and renouncing terrorism.
"We raised those concerns directly with the Libyan leadership, and they assured us that they would not support the use of violence for settling political differences with any state," a US spokesman sad in July.
LIBYA has been very much in the news this week. From a conventional point of view, the highlight was German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's groundbreaking visit to Tripoli in another move that seals the international rehabilation of Libya after decades of confrontation and sanctions that had isolated the North African Arab country. Schroder was the first German leader to visit Libya. British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited in April.
Little noticed this week was a report that the US is supporting Libya in converting a chemical-weapons plant into a factory making life-saving drugs to battle AIDS, malaria and other deadly diseases. That clearly sets another pillar in the emerging scenario of a US-Libyan alliance in a dramatic turnabout when compared with the bitter enmity of the two in the 80s and 90s.
Another was the closing in a US court of a file by the 23-year sentence handed down to an American Muslim in a case involving an alleged Libyan plot to assassinate the Saudi crown prince in the fallout from a verbal clash at an Arab summit.
In the meantime, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi lived up to his reputation by demanding from Schroder German compensation for the millions of landmines left in Libyan desert during World War II.
Surely, Qadhafi would have been remembering that Libya had paid compensation to victims of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing in a deal with the US and UK and in the 1989 downing of a French airliner over Niger as well as to 168 non-American — mostly German — victims of the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin disco. Two Americans and a Turkish woman died in the disco bombing; compensation for the Americans is being held back on a different track with the US.
Given his record to raise controversies, it was only natural that Qadhafi would nudge up the issue of the more than 17 million landmines strewn all over Libya's western desert, particularly near the town of El Alamein, where in 1942 the British army under Bernard Montgomery decisively defeated Erwin Rommel's Afrika Korps more than 60 years ago. Qadhafi complained that dozens of Libyans were still being injured and killed by the anti-tank and anti-personnel mines ( Indeed, not all the mines are German; they include British and Italian and Libya has not raised any demand for British and Italian compensation. That was one observation made by the German media after Schroder left Libya).
"Many of my countrymen die each year from these mines," Qadhafi was reported to have told Schroder. "Germany should pay towards their removal." He also showed Schröder maps of where the mines had been buried.
The Libyan demand, presented during a three-hour banquet Qadhafi hosted in honour of Schroder on Friday, should be seen against a call issued by the African Union conference in Addis Ababa last month for many European countries which fought in Africa in World War II to contribute part of their defence budgets to land-mine clearance.
And Schroder replied in the negative. "We look to normalisation between our two countries in the future — we don’t look to the past," he said in a brief statement reflecting his view that the mines issue is non-negotiable.
However, that does not negate the validity of the African Union call. Landmines are killing and maiming people dozens every day is not only in Africa but in almost every area of past conflicts, including Afghanistan, Cambodia and Vietnam.
It is an international issue and there is an international effort to address it. Libya is said to be in talks with British tycoon Branson to help pay for developing a breakthrough device to harmlessly defuse landmines.
It is unlikely that Qadhafi had expected Schroder to respond positively to his demand for compensation. It is a safe bet that the Libyan leader was only reminding Schroder that things works both ways; that the Libyans are entitled to seek compensation for German deeds since Tripoli honoured the German demand for compensation for the West Berlin blast in 1986. Never mind the issue is six decades old.
It was also typical of Libya to have sought to send another message by including in Schroder's itinerary a visit to a memorial to the victims of the US bombing of Tripoli in 1986. The US attack was in retaliation for the West Berlin blast.
Reports in Germany said Schroder's aides had a tough time shooting down the Libyan proposal and told Tripoli it was "totally unacceptable" for Schröder to make such a visit. But Libya made the point anyway since the $35 million compensation deal with Germany excludes American victims of the blast. Their demand for damages would be considered in tandem with Libya's demand for compensation for the Libyan victims of the American retaliatory missiles attacks against Tripoli and Benghazi in 1986.
Qadhafi's assertion that the West owes him thanks for Libya's role in fighting international terorrism was also politically oriented. Libya wants to go on the record in the international scene that "regardless of what other nations are doing," it is an active member of the US-led war against terorrism and is no longer a pariah. Germany and other western states owed him their gratitude "for his services to international peace," Qadhafi told Schroder, who in turn ackowledged it and welcomed the changed status of Libya.
However, Libya remains on Washington's list of countries supporting "terrorism."
In the din of the controversies raised during the Schroder visit, a report by the Washington Times did not seem to have received the media coverage it warranted.
The report said that under American recommendations, the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons had approved, in principle, "technical changes" to the global treaty on chemical arms that would make conversions of chemical-weapon plants for civilian purposes.
During the deliberations of the council that the US announced it was "very supportive" of Libya's effort in this respect and urged the 41-member body to endorse the Libyan Rabta facility's conversion "to produce low-cost pharmaceuticals to treat HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, for use mainly in Africa."
"The United States supports the proposal both because it makes sense in this particular instance -- we strongly support redirecting this equipment to pharmaceutical production for the benefit of the developing world -- and because it provides a means of dealing with similar situations if they arise in the future," the State Department said.
"The process of conversion, and the facility once converted, will be subject to international verification to ensure that no materials are misused for chemical weapons purposes," it said.
Libya joined the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) in February after it annouonced in December that it was abandoning its programmes for weapons of mass destruction in a secretly negotiated agreement with the US and UK.
The "technical changes" adopted by the council give Libya until 2010 to carry out the conversions.
Libya has already contracted an Italian firm to do the conversion at the Rabta plant,
Investigations triggered by Libya's disclosures about its effort to possess nuclear weapons are continuing. Prosecutors in Switzerland launched investigations last week against two Swiss citizens suspected of illegally exporting nuclear bomb-making technology to Libya.
One of the suspects is thought have been part of the clandestine international network of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, which helped Libya's nuclear programme.
In yet another Libya-linked development, a prominent American Muslim activist who admitted participating in a Libyan plot to assassinate Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz was sentenced on Friday to the maximum 23 years in prison for illegal business dealings with Libya.
Abdurahman Alamoudi, 52, pleaded guilty in July to accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from high-ranking Libyan officials while serving as a go-between for them and Saudi dissidents.
Alamoudi was not charged in connection with the alleged assassination plot, but the prosecution cited the plot as reason for him to receive the maximum sentence.
A naturalised US citizen from Eritrea who helped found the American Muslim Council and related American Muslim Foundation, Alamoudi pleaded guilty to violating sanctions against travel and trade with Libya, making false statements on his immigration application, and a tax violation. As part of a plea deal, he surrendered his US citizenship.
The prosecution submitted that Libya plotted to assassinate Crown Prince Abdullah after Qadhafi and the Saudi leader had a heated exchange of words during a March 2003 Arab League summit. Libyan officials were alleged to have invited Alamoudi to Tripoli and paid him several hundred thousand dollars, part of it for himself and the rest for Saudi dissidents who introduced to him associates who could carry out the plot, according to the prosecution.
The plot unravelled when British customs discovered $340,000 in cash in his possession at Heathrow airport. He was arrested in September 2003 when he returned to the US. Suspects were also detained in Saudi Arabia.
The alleged Libyan instigation of the conspiracy was played down by Washington in what was seen as a US resolve not to undermine Tripoli's changed status to a friend if not an ally and Qadhafi's move to reinstate his country into mainstream international politics.
Washington acknowledged that it had known of reports "that Libya was in contact with Saudi dissidents who have threatened violence against the Saudi royal family" before Qadhafi's pledge on Dec.19 abandoning his weapons programmes and renouncing terrorism.
"We raised those concerns directly with the Libyan leadership, and they assured us that they would not support the use of violence for settling political differences with any state," a US spokesman sad in July.
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
The Unholy Alliance
The Unholy alliance
by pv vivekanand
The US will never find success in its 'war against terrorism' without addressing its lopsided Israel-centred policies and approaches to Palestinian problem and the overall Arab-Israeli conflict.The US quest not to allow an Arab/Muslim country to emerge as a regional power and threaten American energy security is as much behind Washington's alliance with Israel as anything else.
FROM our vantage point in the Middle East, the biggest mistake the US has made is to convince itself that it could win the "war against terrorism" without touching upon its "strategic relationship" with Israel — that it could successfully tackle the threats it faces without having to introduce objective and logical thinking coupled with international legitimacy in its approach to the Palestinian problem and the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
There could be no separation between the US-Israeli relationship and the US fight against terrorism. The two are so intertwined that without shifting stand on Israel, the US stands little chance of success in countering the threat of "terrorism."
One of the major causes of the growing distance between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds — from where the perpetrators of the Sept.11 attacks came — is Washington's almost unlimited support for Israel and "strategic" alliance with the Jewish state.
Over the decades, the US has set a record that clearly establishes that it not overlooks but also perpetuates Israel's occupation of Arab territories and brutal treatment and oppression of the Palestinians, supports Israel's refusal to accept the legitimate rights of the Palestinians as the basis for peace in the Middle East, continues to offer Israel unrestricted military, financial, diplomatic and political support and protects Israel against international action at every forum, including the UN Security Council and regional and world organisations.
Furthermore, the US continues to send advanced military technology and weapons to Israel that the occupation power employ against the Palestinians living under its occupation and against neighbouring Arab countries (Lebanon and Syria).
Given the US conditions and end-user conditions attached to American weapon sales to any country, Washington's silence over Israel's use of US-made planes, missiles, rockets and explosives against the Palestinians has only added more colour to the scenario of the American-Israeli alliance pitted against the Arab and Muslim world.
If that was not enough, then consider Washington's public approval of Israel's policy of targeted killings of Palestinian resistance leaders and the crackdown within the US of organisations which sympathise with the Palestinian cause.
Successive US administrations since the 60s are seen as having upheld Israel's interests above American interests. Washington strategists could not but be aware that their Israel-centred policies have done severe damage to its relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds and but are unwilling to reconsider their approach.
On the internal front, the billions of American government dollars that flow to Israel have given rise to questions why the American taxpayer should subsidise a state which consistently defies the United Nations and flouts human rights to a level that embarrasses the United States. However, those questions, the intensity of which is continuing to grow, have not made any real difference to American policy in the Middle East.
Some American analysts tend to summarise that the main source for Arab and Muslim anti-US hostility is Washington's support for "unpopular" Arab and Muslim regimes. But an overwhelming majority of authoritative analysts and commentators, both in the US and outside, assert that this argument is a red herring.
Such a sentiment, if it exists, they argue, takes a backseat in the overall picture since those who harbour it would also be aware that the US would drop "friendly regimes" anywhere in the world as a hot potato if it suits its purpose and that is not the case with Israel.
There are several theories that purportedly explain why the US has established and is maintainting its alliance with Israel that has only brought grief to the people of America.
These include an argument that Jews and pro-Israeli Christian Americans control everything worth controlling in the US — including banking, the media, the film industry, the military establishment and high-tech companies as well as important segments of US intelligence networks — and therefore no American politician, Democrat or Republican, could withstand Jewish-induced pressure in favour of Israel and against Muslims and Arabs if he or she were to hope to politically survive in the US.
Then there is the perception that the US-Israeli alliance is natural if only because Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East and the only country in the region which shares "American values" (never mind Israel's step-motherly approach its citizens of Arab origin). A US-Israeli relationship based on a democracy-based common ground is deemed to be backed by a majority of Americans regardless of religious beliefs and political ideologies; and that is why legislation favouring Israel — directly and indirectly — finds its way through the US Congress like a hot knife cutting through butter.
The third theory, which has emerged strongly to the scene in the wake of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq — is equally important and perhaps even more relevant.
Proponents of this theory argue that the US has been retaining and is continuing to strengthen its relationship with Israel in order not to allow an Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East to emerge as the dominant regional power that could undermine the US quest for energy security for Americans based on Arab and Muslim oil. That explains why the US was silent when Israeli bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 and why Washington today supports Israel's contention that Iran poses a threat to it by seeking nuclear weapon-capability.
A report written by Erich Marquardt appearing on www.pinr.com underlines this point. Marquart writes:
"The primary motives behind US support of Israel can be explained by Washington's foreign policy aims of securing a Middle East capable of producing a stable supply of oil at a low price that buoys the economies of oil dependent countries. Israel, a state that is dependent on the United States due to its strategic and cultural isolation in a region that is hostile to its existence, can be relied on by Washington to assist in maintaining the status quo by preventing any Middle Eastern country from accruing enough power to alter the regional balance in a way that would damage the interests of the United States and other oil dependent countries."
As a result, the US is rendered into a position where it does not want to pressure Israel in any aspect, let alone into making compromises involving what the Israelis consider as their God-given rights and religious tenets that are too sensitive for an external force to touch upon.
That also means Washington has to ignore Israel's refusal to abide by mandatory UN Security resolutions and to flout all international conventions, agreements and code of conduct of nations as well as its stepped-up military brutality to put down Palestinian resistance. Washington could not allow any international censure of Israel either and hence the established pattern of American veto of any Security Council resolution critical of Israel.
Thrown into that equation is the US-led war against terrorism sparked by the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
It was reported that Palestinians on rooftops in Ramallah "celebrated" the Sept.11 attacks. Although the report was subsequently discounted as erroneous, it underlined one of the basic elements at play — that the attacks had an implicit link with the American-Israeli alliance that has not only denied the Palestinians their legitimate rights but also subjected them to untold misery and suffering under Israeli occupation.
That perception has only grown from strength to strength since then. Today, Israel is even more brutal in its efforts to subdue the Palestinians before Sept.11. It has unleashed a reign of terror in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It is clear that it has no intention to respect and recognise the rights of the Palestinians and that it is hell-bent on eliminating Palestinian resistance ahead of forcing down their throat the Israeli version of an illegitimate solution.
More importantly, the US is no longer considered a honest mediator. If anything, Washington has aligned itself more closely than ever with Israel and is seen as having turned itself into a party to the conflict on the Israeli side of the fence. The Bush administration's endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plans to quit Gaza and consolidate and expand the Jewish settlements in the West Bank has sealed Palestinian, Arab and Muslim conviction that they could no longer expect any honest and objective American intervention in their favour in Palestine.
The way the US government treated Arabs and Muslims, including American citizens, in the wake of the Sept.11 attacks — summary detentions, deportations and humiliating treatment as well as profiling as if with a vengeance — has further alienated the Arab and Muslim world from the sole superpower.
Add to that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and unmistakable signs that Washington has lined up Syria and Iran to follow Iraq for "regime change."
Notwithstanding the oil-based geopolitical interests of the US that went into the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, the American action and plans in the region are seen as serving Israeli interests.
Today, the image the US has among the Arabs and Muslims that of a tyrannical power bent upon having its way around the globe and stopping at nothing to achieve this objective and maintaining an unbreakable alliance with a country, Israel, that considers Arabs and Muslims as less than humans.
The result: the US remains a perpetual target for extremist attacks and there would be no respite until Washington stops in its pro-Israel track and decide that it has lost and stands to lose much than it gained from its alliance with Israel.
Bill Christison, a former senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst who worked on Middle East issues for 30 years, hit the nail on the head when they wrote:
"There will be no resolution to the war on terror and no easing of the hatred of the United States by our own allies and by the Arab and Muslim world until there is a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that gives as much justice to Palestinians as to Israelis. We ignore the direct danger Israel poses to us at our own peril. Our drive for empire already came back to bite us three years ago on Sept.11, and it will come back again as long as we fail to distinguish our own interests from Israel's."
by pv vivekanand
The US will never find success in its 'war against terrorism' without addressing its lopsided Israel-centred policies and approaches to Palestinian problem and the overall Arab-Israeli conflict.The US quest not to allow an Arab/Muslim country to emerge as a regional power and threaten American energy security is as much behind Washington's alliance with Israel as anything else.
FROM our vantage point in the Middle East, the biggest mistake the US has made is to convince itself that it could win the "war against terrorism" without touching upon its "strategic relationship" with Israel — that it could successfully tackle the threats it faces without having to introduce objective and logical thinking coupled with international legitimacy in its approach to the Palestinian problem and the wider Arab-Israeli conflict.
There could be no separation between the US-Israeli relationship and the US fight against terrorism. The two are so intertwined that without shifting stand on Israel, the US stands little chance of success in countering the threat of "terrorism."
One of the major causes of the growing distance between the US and the Arab and Muslim worlds — from where the perpetrators of the Sept.11 attacks came — is Washington's almost unlimited support for Israel and "strategic" alliance with the Jewish state.
Over the decades, the US has set a record that clearly establishes that it not overlooks but also perpetuates Israel's occupation of Arab territories and brutal treatment and oppression of the Palestinians, supports Israel's refusal to accept the legitimate rights of the Palestinians as the basis for peace in the Middle East, continues to offer Israel unrestricted military, financial, diplomatic and political support and protects Israel against international action at every forum, including the UN Security Council and regional and world organisations.
Furthermore, the US continues to send advanced military technology and weapons to Israel that the occupation power employ against the Palestinians living under its occupation and against neighbouring Arab countries (Lebanon and Syria).
Given the US conditions and end-user conditions attached to American weapon sales to any country, Washington's silence over Israel's use of US-made planes, missiles, rockets and explosives against the Palestinians has only added more colour to the scenario of the American-Israeli alliance pitted against the Arab and Muslim world.
If that was not enough, then consider Washington's public approval of Israel's policy of targeted killings of Palestinian resistance leaders and the crackdown within the US of organisations which sympathise with the Palestinian cause.
Successive US administrations since the 60s are seen as having upheld Israel's interests above American interests. Washington strategists could not but be aware that their Israel-centred policies have done severe damage to its relations with the Arab and Muslim worlds and but are unwilling to reconsider their approach.
On the internal front, the billions of American government dollars that flow to Israel have given rise to questions why the American taxpayer should subsidise a state which consistently defies the United Nations and flouts human rights to a level that embarrasses the United States. However, those questions, the intensity of which is continuing to grow, have not made any real difference to American policy in the Middle East.
Some American analysts tend to summarise that the main source for Arab and Muslim anti-US hostility is Washington's support for "unpopular" Arab and Muslim regimes. But an overwhelming majority of authoritative analysts and commentators, both in the US and outside, assert that this argument is a red herring.
Such a sentiment, if it exists, they argue, takes a backseat in the overall picture since those who harbour it would also be aware that the US would drop "friendly regimes" anywhere in the world as a hot potato if it suits its purpose and that is not the case with Israel.
There are several theories that purportedly explain why the US has established and is maintainting its alliance with Israel that has only brought grief to the people of America.
These include an argument that Jews and pro-Israeli Christian Americans control everything worth controlling in the US — including banking, the media, the film industry, the military establishment and high-tech companies as well as important segments of US intelligence networks — and therefore no American politician, Democrat or Republican, could withstand Jewish-induced pressure in favour of Israel and against Muslims and Arabs if he or she were to hope to politically survive in the US.
Then there is the perception that the US-Israeli alliance is natural if only because Israel is the sole democracy in the Middle East and the only country in the region which shares "American values" (never mind Israel's step-motherly approach its citizens of Arab origin). A US-Israeli relationship based on a democracy-based common ground is deemed to be backed by a majority of Americans regardless of religious beliefs and political ideologies; and that is why legislation favouring Israel — directly and indirectly — finds its way through the US Congress like a hot knife cutting through butter.
The third theory, which has emerged strongly to the scene in the wake of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq — is equally important and perhaps even more relevant.
Proponents of this theory argue that the US has been retaining and is continuing to strengthen its relationship with Israel in order not to allow an Arab/Muslim country in the Middle East to emerge as the dominant regional power that could undermine the US quest for energy security for Americans based on Arab and Muslim oil. That explains why the US was silent when Israeli bombed Iraq's Osirak nuclear plant in 1981 and why Washington today supports Israel's contention that Iran poses a threat to it by seeking nuclear weapon-capability.
A report written by Erich Marquardt appearing on www.pinr.com underlines this point. Marquart writes:
"The primary motives behind US support of Israel can be explained by Washington's foreign policy aims of securing a Middle East capable of producing a stable supply of oil at a low price that buoys the economies of oil dependent countries. Israel, a state that is dependent on the United States due to its strategic and cultural isolation in a region that is hostile to its existence, can be relied on by Washington to assist in maintaining the status quo by preventing any Middle Eastern country from accruing enough power to alter the regional balance in a way that would damage the interests of the United States and other oil dependent countries."
As a result, the US is rendered into a position where it does not want to pressure Israel in any aspect, let alone into making compromises involving what the Israelis consider as their God-given rights and religious tenets that are too sensitive for an external force to touch upon.
That also means Washington has to ignore Israel's refusal to abide by mandatory UN Security resolutions and to flout all international conventions, agreements and code of conduct of nations as well as its stepped-up military brutality to put down Palestinian resistance. Washington could not allow any international censure of Israel either and hence the established pattern of American veto of any Security Council resolution critical of Israel.
Thrown into that equation is the US-led war against terrorism sparked by the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.
It was reported that Palestinians on rooftops in Ramallah "celebrated" the Sept.11 attacks. Although the report was subsequently discounted as erroneous, it underlined one of the basic elements at play — that the attacks had an implicit link with the American-Israeli alliance that has not only denied the Palestinians their legitimate rights but also subjected them to untold misery and suffering under Israeli occupation.
That perception has only grown from strength to strength since then. Today, Israel is even more brutal in its efforts to subdue the Palestinians before Sept.11. It has unleashed a reign of terror in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. It is clear that it has no intention to respect and recognise the rights of the Palestinians and that it is hell-bent on eliminating Palestinian resistance ahead of forcing down their throat the Israeli version of an illegitimate solution.
More importantly, the US is no longer considered a honest mediator. If anything, Washington has aligned itself more closely than ever with Israel and is seen as having turned itself into a party to the conflict on the Israeli side of the fence. The Bush administration's endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral plans to quit Gaza and consolidate and expand the Jewish settlements in the West Bank has sealed Palestinian, Arab and Muslim conviction that they could no longer expect any honest and objective American intervention in their favour in Palestine.
The way the US government treated Arabs and Muslims, including American citizens, in the wake of the Sept.11 attacks — summary detentions, deportations and humiliating treatment as well as profiling as if with a vengeance — has further alienated the Arab and Muslim world from the sole superpower.
Add to that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and unmistakable signs that Washington has lined up Syria and Iran to follow Iraq for "regime change."
Notwithstanding the oil-based geopolitical interests of the US that went into the decision to invade and occupy Iraq, the American action and plans in the region are seen as serving Israeli interests.
Today, the image the US has among the Arabs and Muslims that of a tyrannical power bent upon having its way around the globe and stopping at nothing to achieve this objective and maintaining an unbreakable alliance with a country, Israel, that considers Arabs and Muslims as less than humans.
The result: the US remains a perpetual target for extremist attacks and there would be no respite until Washington stops in its pro-Israel track and decide that it has lost and stands to lose much than it gained from its alliance with Israel.
Bill Christison, a former senior official of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Kathleen Christison, a former CIA political analyst who worked on Middle East issues for 30 years, hit the nail on the head when they wrote:
"There will be no resolution to the war on terror and no easing of the hatred of the United States by our own allies and by the Arab and Muslim world until there is a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict that gives as much justice to Palestinians as to Israelis. We ignore the direct danger Israel poses to us at our own peril. Our drive for empire already came back to bite us three years ago on Sept.11, and it will come back again as long as we fail to distinguish our own interests from Israel's."
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