[view of the war in a Pakistan newspaper]
Op-ed: Injustice that will scar us forever
Farish A Noor
For those of us who happen to have friends and colleagues in the United States, this is a sad moment indeed. We fear for the safety and welfare of our American friends, who will probably live in fear for the rest of their lives
Thus it has come to pass that despite the counsel, protests, admonition and appeals of the entire global community, the United States of America has decided to go it alone along with a handful of crony states hanging on to its grimy coat-tails. America’s aggression towards Iraq has proven once and for all that it is indeed an expansionist military power with limitless ambitions and the willingness to use whatever means necessary to get its way in the world.
The American government has also unmasked itself, and revealed its truly perfidious side: The whole campaign to gain international acceptance for its misdeeds was nothing more than a smokescreen to buy itself more time before it went about the real task that has been guiding its foreign policy all along — to destabilise and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein and to put in its place a puppet regime that it can control all the way from Washington.
As was the case in Afghanistan, this is yet another attempt to undermine and take over the government of a Muslim country in order to be able to ensure that the US will have indirect control of its internal management, economic development, human and natural resources, and to ensure that it will remain dependent and beholden to the West forever. There is a word for this: Imperialism.
The rest of the world stands dumbfounded and paralysed before this demonstration of brute force and violence. Yet, there remain many among us who still cannot comprehend what has happened and what is going to happen in the near future.
This state of uncertainty exists only because so many of us have been deluded all along, thinking that the United States was a genuine promoter of democracy and human rights. We were naive in our childish assumption that a country that speaks the language of liberty and justice might actually believe in what it preaches, oblivious to the cruel fact that governments — like individuals — can lie and practice deceit.
For months we played along, failing to question the blatant hypocrisy and contradictions that stared us in the face: first we were told the US would seek international approval; then we were told it would act unilaterally. First we were told the US wanted Iraq to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction; then we were told that Iraq would be invaded in any case. First we were told the US and its allies might relent should Saddam concede to their demands; then we were told the US would attack the country even if Saddam were to go into exile. The goalposts have been moved so many times, we do not even remember where they were when all of this started. A war with absolute and final consequences has been fought on the plane of relativity and truth has been the first casualty, as always.
The human costs of the Iraqi conflict will be beyond measure, but in the long run it is America that will stand to lose the most.
The American government has exposed its true nature, and American foreign policy has lost what little moral credibility it was left with. Never again will the world believe in America’s claims to be the cradle of democracy and liberty; never again will we believe that America actually believes or practices what it preaches abroad; never again will we accept the “guiding hand” of the US without fearing the dagger that will stab us in the back.
President George W. Bush will go down in history as the man who single-handedly destroyed the name, image and status of the United States for posterity. The nation that prides itself as the “home of the free and the land of the brave” has shown that it is nothing more than an introverted, isolated, marginalised and insecure state with more military power than it can handle. It is the United States that has proven itself to be the biggest threat to the freedom and liberty of other nations.
For those of us who happen to have friends and colleagues in the United States, this is a sad moment indeed. We fear for the safety and welfare of our American friends, who will probably live in fear for the rest of their lives and who will never again be able to travel abroad without having to bear the stigma of being labelled “American”. Thanks to the hawks of Washington, being an American today has become an insult and an embarrassment.
The geo-political costs of America’s latest adventure will also be high. Despite the paper-thin assurances it has given, America’s political elite fails to realise that for the rest of the world this has been nothing more than a war against the Muslims. Decades of cross-cultural dialogue and bridge-building have been destroyed in a hail of bullets and barrage of bombs. How these bridges can ever be rebuilt again is a question that nobody can answer at the moment. More worrying still is the suspicion — deeply held by many — that Washington’s elite has no interest in seeing these bridges rebuilt at all, unless it is solely on their terms and serving their interests.
For now, though, we stand weak and impotent before the might of this colossal power that has gone beyond the pale of morality and reason. All we have left are the weapons of the weak and the protests of the downtrodden: Shame on you, America. In your quest for revenge you have scarred humanity forever.
Dr Farish A Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist
dailytimes.com.pk |
