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Friday, March 07, 2003An Open Letter to George 'W' Bush, President (disputed) of the UnitedStates of America. ''Bomb Them Arabs Now, George!!''By Farish A. Noor Dear George, I know you must be busy these days, what with planning the invasion and destruction of Iraq and trying to rid the world of the 'Axis of Evil' which seems to be growing bigger and bigger by the day. (The last time I looked, it appears that 'old European' country Germany has joined the list of 'Evil countries' as well, along with Cuba and Libya.) It must be comforting to know that you live in the only free and democratic country in the world, even if ordinary Arab-Muslim males are being routinely rounded up, fingerprinted and tagged so that they won't cause any trouble in the cradle of democracy. You may not realise this, but some of us Third-World types have also been keeping our tabs on you and your spectacular political career. Writing as an academic and human rights activist based in the South, I was amazed by the electoral victory you earned in 2001. Despite the odds and common sense, you managed to win the coveted prize of being the leader of the United States of America, and by extension the free world.(1) Though the results of the elections remained in doubt for weeks and months, you managed to pull through thanks to sheer pluck and an abundance of thick-skin. This surely would have made your daddy and granddad proud, considering their own career records - your granddad Prescott Bush being once accused of keeping Nazi money in his bank in the United States.(2) Among your election promises then was to 'solve the Iraqi problem' once and for all. But talk of 'final solutions' are not new, and the last time someone spoke like that, six million Jews ended up being rounded up and sent to the gas chambers and incinerators. Today, the millions of Arab and Muslim Americans in your own country fear that what is being done to them is but a prelude to a similar scenario. Not only that, you should realise by now that more than a billion Muslims worldwide also think the same. It wasn't always like this of course. Not too long ago in the 1950s and 1960s millions of Arabs and Muslims the world over thought of America as the land of hope and plenty. During the Cold War, many Muslim states benefited from US developmental aid and military support (which in many cases simply went into useless and wasteful arms deals and armaments projects). Nonetheless they looked to America as the one country that could defend their freedom of belief and way of life, and when the Soviet juggernaut lumbered forward closer to their borders, they called on Uncle Sam for help. In fact, if you study the history of countries like Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Jordan, Syria and others closely (look them up on the map, George - I'm not making these names up) you will find that their leaders actually turned to the West, and the United States in particular, as a model for their own development. They not only admired America, they loved it and they wanted to become like it. But in time the ambiguous image of the US became clearer in the eyes of Muslims worldwide. While US leaders talked about Islam as a religion of peace and benevolence (as you have done so yourself), they were not adverse to the idea of manipulating the political, economic and socio-cultural framework of these countries at the same time. America's record of double-dealings and intrigues in the Muslim world can fill an entire library (or more) by now: From its interference in the politics of Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia to its active sponsorship of hardline radical militant movements (including the Taliban of Afghanistan) whenever it suited your purposes. Then there were the numerous attempts to topple and destabilise the leaders and governments of predominantly Muslim countries (like you are doing now, in fact), from the debacle involving the government of Mossadeq in Iran in 1954 to the downfall of Sukarno of Indonesia in 1965. If and when the US had its way, it also proved to be a generous benefactor to the cronies that they put into power afterwards. Though you may not even know where it is, let me tell you that the American government was actively involved in propping up the dictatorial regime of the Shah of Iran up to the late 1970s. The US - through its covert operations units in the CIA, OSS, etc -helped to set up the notorious SAVAK secret police of the Shah, which was used to stifle genuine democratic dissent and make sure that US oil interests in Iran were protected for as long as possible. In the end, however, America's active support of the Shah did little to bolster the credibility of the feeble monarch and only ensured the rise of the Mullahs who led the Islamic revolution in 1979. The same was true in the case of Indonesia (its on the map, George, really), where the US was a major player - again, thanks to the CIA and OSS - behind the fall of Sukarno and the rise of General-turned-President Suharto. Of course Suharto became a useful and loyal ally to the US and its economic and military interests as well: just like Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines; the puppet regime of Bao Dai-Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam; the Colonels' regime in Greece and the numerous crackpot dictators and mass murderers (Pinochet et al) that have been on your payroll in Latin America. Never mind that these made-to-order despots and tyrants were responsible for some of the worst human rights violations and crimes against humanity. They were, after all, on Washington's side and therefore among the 'good guys'. So today many of us are justifiably worried about what the US intends to do in and for Iraq after it has had its way. Some of the messages that your office boys have been sending out have not been too clear either: On the one hand you keep telling us that this is not a 'war against Islam' and that Islam is a religion of peace. Yet many of your targets (too many, in fact) happen to be Muslim as well, and we all know by now that one can say nice things about Islam in the morning and blow up a Muslim country in the afternoon. The first does not necessary exclude the second. It is also difficult for us to understand how this could be a 'war against Evil' and a battle for freedom when the US still counts as its allies a wide range of crony states where abuses of human rights have become routine practice. One has to ask this question: If the US is so concerned about protecting the human rights of the people of Iraq from its nasty leader, then why hasn't it shown the same concern for the people of Palestine whose homes have been bombed and settlements destroyed by the Israeli war machine? (Now I'm sure you know where Israel is on the map, at least.) I don't want to add more worries on your plate, as I'm sure you have too many other concerns to think about these days. But in case you have been watching the television recently you will notice that a number of large demonstrations have been carried out all over the world in the capitals of those countries whose locations you may not be able to determine. These are ordinary people of various races, religions and ethnicities who have all come out for one simple reason: to protest against what they see as American belligerence and its ever-ambitious designs on the globe as a whole. Its not that they have anything bad or nasty to say against ordinary Americans, mind you: Like I said earlier, the image of America as a nation remains ambiguous and multifaceted for most of us who live outside of it. We aren't against your culture, food, lifestyle or history per se. But it is the ambitions of America's political elite (that's you and your staff, George) that is the root of the problem here. Though they are protesting in a variety of ways and in a number of different languages, the message is the same and you need not consult your translator to know what they are saying: Stay out of our politics and stop trying to dominate the world. I, however, don't really believe that these protests will make any difference as I personally think that you and your staff have gone beyond dialogue and rational debate. The fact that your closest ally today happens to be Britain - another country with a decidedly politically-incorrect imperial past - seems to suggest that the American government is bent on fulfilling their myopic vision of America's manifest destiny as ruler of the world. Unlike my other activist and academic friends, I happen to know too much about the past of your country and the nefarious workings of its politics. Unlike the do-gooders who are chanting for peace and love, I happen to think that America today has evolved to become a militarist state with fascist ambitions of global hegemony and imperial dominance, plain and simple. In the global village of today, America stands out as the skinheaded bully with the lead pipe and chain in hand. Already we have begun to see the first signs of this awareness growing all over the world. Today when Southern intellectuals, academics, writers and activists refer to the United States, terms like 'fascist', 'militarist', 'imperialist' and 'neo-colonialist' are brought into the chain of equivalences. This for me marks the emergence of a new realism in international politics and I can only see it consolidating itself even further as your warplanes rev up their engines before they blast Iraq back to the middle-ages. For some of us at least, the last traces of naivety have been erased. Let's say it as it really is: America today is a fascist military power bent on global dominance. To call America a fascist militarist state today is not to engage in a simple play of semantic acrobatics: The signs and indicators are already there. America's political culture today is one which valorises the cult of leadership, violence and power; American domestic politics is shaped and informed by a theological discourse of absolutes and a binary oppositional dialectic that leaves no space for any middle ground ('you are either with us, or against us'); its teleology locates it at the end of history and humanity, and it has shown that it is able and willing to use excessive force - regardless of the human costs and consequences - to get its way in the world. Not a single country in the whole world shares such values or ambitions, which singles out the United States as the only country that has its exclusive designs on the rest of the planet. Rather than calling for a peaceful settlement or resolution - which will merely grant you the fig leaf of moral respectability that even the most aggressive militarist state requires - I would favour an all-out war that will tear down the façade of international consensus once and for all. Tolstoy once wrote this in 'War and Peace' (look it up in the library, George. Its under 'Russian fiction'): that war is not a game or a sport between gentlemen. War is hell. It is the epitome of evil itself, as it negates the fundamental humanity that we share and breaks the bonds of common belonging and empathy between human beings. That is what you are calling for, and in my books that places you firmly in the camp of the 'evil' ones. So come on, George - Do it now and earn yourself a place in the history books. Nobody remembers the birthdays of Iqbal, Gandhi or Mother Theresa, but the Fascists down the road still celebrate Hitler's birthday with beer and the odd Synagogue burning or two. Our grandchildren will still be reading about you in a hundred years time, in the same chapter with Tamerlane, Attila the Hun, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Pol Pot. Send in the bombers and make daddy proud - Kill! Kill! Kill! Endnotes: (1) On 19 January 2001, George W. Bush came to power after a shambles of an election that brought into question the electoral process in the country itself. Bush ran for President of the United States against the Democrat candidate Al Gore. The elections proved to be a fiasco and many irregularities were reported (at first by the 'old' European, not American press). The Democrats later claimed that Al Gore had won 539,898 more votes than Bush, and that he should have been made President instead. In the end, the results hinged on the votes in one state, Florida. But electoral reforms in the state of Florida in 1999 had effectively wiped out thousands of potential voters. This was due to the work of Katherine Harris, the Florida Secretary of State in charge of elections, who had hired the private firm Database to scour the electoral rolls and wipe out potential voters who had criminal records in the past. The fact that many of the voters with criminal records came from the ethnic minority groups also meant that 31 % of all black men in Florida were prevented from voting. (The black and latino voters were regarded as being pro-Democrat by inclination.) The Democrats claimed that the electoral reforms introduced in Florida were part of an elaborate plot to ensure a Republican victory there. They also pointed out that Katherine Harris was herself a Republican and that she was part of the Bush election campaign team. [See: Michael Moore, Stupid White Men, And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation. Regan Books and Harper Collins, New York, 2001.] (2) Himself the son of an ex-President, George W. Bush's family had been involved in business and politics in America for decades. His grandfather Prescott Bush was a businessman with close links to the financial sector and the world of politics. As one of the seven directors of the Union Banking Corporation, Prescott Bush made his fortunes during the 1930s and 1940s. But the Union Banking Corporation was partly owned by German industrialists linked to the Nazi party in Germany at the time. The Nazis channelled their money out of Germany via a Dutch bank and later invested them in several banks in the United States; one of them being the bank owned by Prescott Bush. After the Second World War the US government seized all the Nazi assets in Prescott Bush's bank and it was forced to close down in 1951. Nonetheless, Prescott Bush managed to get $US 1.5 million back. George W. Bush's father entered the Republican party and eventually rose to become the President of the United States. His fame and popularity soared in the wake of the Gulf War against Saddam Hussein of Iraq in 1990-91. Dr. Farish A. Noor is a Malaysian political scientist and human rights activist. posted by CoolSoulSmith a.k.a Rinci|ak ---------------------------
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