The globalization of terror
04/22/2004 13:11
USA throws petrol on the fire.
Not everyone wants to belong to a global village, not everyone
considers that mankind is a community of brothers living in harmony
and friendship around a common lake - the seas.
Greed and jealousy have been mankind"s worst facets since biblical
times but have also been present in our collective identity, spurring
us on to achieve greater feats and guarantee our survival.
However, the inability to separate our innermost animalistic instincts
from the being we are supposed to have developed into, is patently
obvious in today"s world, the best examples of this inability being
the islamist extremists and the Bush regime in the United States of
America.
Talk about a culture clash or a clash between civilizations or
religions is an inadequate explanation for what has happened. Any
religion based on a written text is open to interpretation. The same
goes for the Bible, the same goes for the Qu"ran.
These books were revealed by God, through man, to mankind and provide
a basic code of practice (since without this, the human being is
capable of destroying the species). These books are a simple code of
behaviour and set out very easy basic principles to follow, the basic
message being, live together in peace.
There will always be fundamentalists in any society and Christianity,
Judaism and Islam are no exceptions. The fact that Osama bin Laden
decided to hijack chosen parts of the Qu"ran and mix them with Pashtun
lore to create the Taliban regime does not mean that all Moslems are
Taliban, or terrorists, or Islamists. (There is no space here for
arguing about the influence of Washington in creating the monster bin
Laden in the first place).
Islamists are the extremists but there are also moderates who see
right and reason, would like to settle the differendum with Israel,
living together in peace, and who do not have a score to settle with
the USA. What does the USA do to reach these people?
The USA itself becomes an extremist, perpetrates terrorist activities,
invading Iraq based on a causus belli which is a blatant lie,
slaughters ten thousand civilians, destroys the civilian
infra-structures, distributes rebuilding contracts, some without
tender and mutilates tens of thousands of people by dropping cluster
bombs into civilian areas.
The Bush regime, instead of taking the more prudent approach of sizing
up the enemy, finding out what he wants, and adopting a stance of
controlled confrontation while simultaneously, down the line,
negotiations take place at a lower level, decided to go for the
jugular, without knowing very>Latest News
An example of National Security, Bush style
The globalization of terror
66 dead and 300 injured
Ole! Ole! Vale Maduro!
Vale Zapatero!
well where it is.
If Rumsfeld were asked, he might reply "somewhere near the throat",
Bush might say "below the head" and Condoleeza Rice "above the knee".
This is precisely the approach adopted in the case of Iraq.
The Bush regime, in its illegal and murderous act of butchery against
the Iraqi people (why target civilian infra-structures and why deploy
DU and cluster bombs in civilian areas?) has provided a carte blanche
for each and every terrorist organization with or without a cause to
write on.
Before 9/11, nobody had contemplated flying civilian airliners into
buildings. After Iraq, such would be seen by many as a natural
consequence of Washington"s actions and curiously, it was Washington
which insisted on linking Baghdad with 9/11, which every knows is a
falsity.
Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda have nothing to do with one another,
indeed, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden are like the oil and the
water of the Moslem world. But the Bush regime does not understand
that. The arrogance, the ignorance and the greed, so evident in this
evil regime, come to the fore, backed by the corporate elite which
governs the country and backed by the considerable military power of
the Pentagon - a recipe for imbalance, a recipe for disaster.
However, the war against international terror is just beginning. In
former times, the State always won in any confrontation with an
individual. Not any more. Mankind has reached a level of development
whereby knowledge is no longer the prized secrets of monasteries but
in which knowledge, like everything else, has become globalized.
Therefore it does not make a lot of sense for Washington to be acting
like a medieval king, invading foreign lands and imposing his will
through force, in a world which has moved forward. Hence the anomaly
of this hideous attack on Iraq and hence the outcry among world public
opinion, which the Bush regime is too arrogant or too obtuse to
understand.
By pursuing a policy to globalise its interests in a world which wants
the globalisation of equality, the United States of America has
created a clash of rights and is responsible for globalising
international terrorism. Not surprisingly, there now appear splinter
groups who vow to attack not only the USA but any country associated
with the USA, first in Europe and now in Asia, an area until now
wholly disassociated with the phenomenon.
If Islamist extremism is the bad apple in the basket, Washington is
also the blight that attacks not only the apples, but kills the tree,
because the regime considers itself above the law, acts in an
extra-judicial way and shows no repentance or will to change.
If this were a common criminal court in many parts of the USA, the
Bush regime would be on death row.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
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