Has the global
population as yet been able responding to the decade-old calls of Bertrand
Russell and Albert Einstein of setting aside the strong feelings they hold on
many issues and consider themselves as members of biological species? Are we,
the members of the unique biological species called ‘human’ are more actively
moving towards the directions, where on every day, we sense the threat of
bloodshed in the name of self-defense or even war thus pushing the very fate of
this beautiful planet into mere destructions? While the majority of the human
population is vehemently against war, have we been able seeing the hegemonic
power in the world, rather renouncing war? Eminent writer Noam Chomsky rightly
said, “By now, the world’s hegemonic power accords itself the right to wage war
at will, under a doctrine of anticipatory self-defense, with unstated bounds.
International laws, treaties and rules of world order are sternly imposed on
others with much self-righteous posturing, but dismissed as irrelevant for the United States
– a long-standing practice, driven to new depths by Reagan and Bush II
administration.”
Here, what I would
like to say is, the attitude or political tendencies of Clinton or today’s
Obama is no exception, if not even worst, where playing double-standard has
become a regular phenomenon for the major players of today’s global politics.
Would it not be more appropriate and appreciable if the holders of the status
called super-power would apply themselves the same standards they do to others,
if not more stringent one? Western intellectual culture, rather culture
followed by the politicians is “All for us and nothing for other people”, which
is the outcome of their “Masters of Mankind” tendency. When they deal with the
leading topic of today’s world – terror, their notion is rather
straight-forward, where terror against them is the ultimate evil and their
hegemony or terror is entirely appropriate. Take into consideration the Washington’s war against Nicaragua
in 1980, where “soft-targets” on civilians were allowed to be attacked and
murdered during military offensives, for, what Washington interpreted as “pouring democracy
at the end”, at the cost of ocean of civilian blood. Democracy itself has
different interpretation in the codes of US elites. To them, burning the
Islamic Holy book Quran by Pastor Terry Jones is treated as part of freedom of
expression or democracy, while doing the same with Bible would be blasphemous. Many
analysts believe that, politicians in US are suffering from bankruptcy of moral
clarity or idealism. In the case of Quran burning by Terry Jones and his pall,
if the US
administration would have moved quickly in stopping him from burning the Holy Scripture,
the subsequent unrest in the Muslim world and death of people could be easily
avoided.
In March 2002,
President George W Bush declared the creation of ‘Millennium Challenge
Corporation’ with the objective of boosting funding to combat poverty in the
developing world. The project had promised US$ 10 billion budget, when the MCC
was created. But just in three years, in 2005, the administration of President
Bush greatly reduced the budget, causing in resignation of the head of MCC, as
it failed to get any of the projects moving. It happened, not only because of
heavy slice on the promised budget, but visibly the government not disbursing
almost anything into the fund of Millennium Challenge Corporation. The Bush
administration even rejected the call from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to
double aid to Africa and expressed willingness to join other industrial
countries in cutting unplayable African debts only if aid was correspondingly
reduced, moves that amount to a death sentence for more than six million
Africans a year who die of preventable and treatable causes.
In 2005,
administration of President George W Bush suffered from severe dilemma on the issue
of extraditing the most dangerous Latin American terrorist named Luis Posada
Carriles to Venezuela
to face charges of bombing a Cuban airline killing seventy-three people. The
charges brought against Luis Posada were substantiated with specific evidences.
But there was a ‘major issue’ for Bush administration, which stopped them in
accepting the Venezuelan call for extraditing Posada. The fact is, after Posada
escaped Venezuelan prison, he was reportedly hired by covert operatives of United States to direct the resupply operation
for the Nicaraguan contras from El
Salvador. While refusing to extradite Luis
Posada, the US Senate and Congress passed a bill barring US aid to any nation, which would refuse any
requests of extradition from Washington. In this
case, the US Senate and Congress upheld the doctrine saying “those who harbor
terrorists are as guilty as the terrorists themselves”.
What we see in
today’s United States,
is a state patronized propaganda war or spread of hatred against Muslims and
Islam as a whole. With the fact that US have a large number of Muslim populations,
it would be really unjust and unkind to label every Muslim as jihadists while
the Islam as a rogue religion. On the other hand, no one utters a word about
terrorism by Christian extremists in many countries in the world. It should be
mentioned here that, the very recent bomb blast at Oslo
[for the first time in their history] was by a fanatic Christian. There are
also Christian terrorism in Europe and America. In a 2005 Congressional hearing about radicalization in US prisons, Sheila
Jackson Lee stated that investigators needed to analyze Christian militants in America
because they might try to "bring down the country”.
Christian
terrorism comprises terrorist acts by groups or individuals who claim the Christian
motivations or goals for their actions. As with other forms of religious
terrorism, Christian terrorists have relied on idiosyncratic or literal
interpretations of the tenets of faith – in this case, the Bible. Such groups
have used Old Testament and New Testament scriptures to justify violence and
killing or to seek to bring about the "end times" described in the
New Testament, while others have hoped to bring about a Christian theocracy. Beginning
after the Civil War, members of the Protestant-led, Ku Klux Klan organization
began engaging in arson, beatings, cross burning, destruction of property,
lynching, murder, rape, tar-and-feathering, and whipping against African
Americans, Jews, Catholics, and other social or ethnic minorities.
They were
explicitly Christian terrorist in ideology, basing their beliefs on a
"religious foundation" in Christianity. The goals of the KKK
included, from an early time on, intent to, "reestablish Protestant
Christian values in America
by any means possible," and believe that "Jesus was the first
Klansman." Their cross-burnings were conducted not only to intimidate
targets, but to demonstrate their respect and reverence for Jesus Christ, and
the lighting ritual was steeped in Christian symbolism, including the saying of
prayers and singing of Christian hymns. Many modern Klan organizations, such as
the Knights Party,
USA, continue to
focus on the Christian supremacist message, asserting that there is a
"war" on to destroy "western Christian civilization."
During the
twentieth century, members of extremist groups such as the Army of God began
executing attacks against abortion clinics and doctors across the United States.
A number of terrorist attacks were attributed to individuals and groups with
ties to the Christian Identity and Christian Patriot movements, including the
Lambs of Christ. Groups called Concerned Christians were deported from Israel on suspicion of planning to attack holy
sites in Jerusalem
at the end of 1999, believing that their deaths would "lead them to
heaven." The motive for anti-abortionist Scott Roeder murdering Wichita
doctor George Tiller on May 31, 2009 was a belief that abortion is criminal and
immoral, and that this belief went "hand in hand" with his religious
beliefs. The Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996, as well as subsequent
attacks on an abortion clinic and a lesbian nightclub, were made by Eric Robert
Rudolph; Michael Barkun, a professor at Syracuse University, considers Rudolph
to likely fit the definition of a Christian terrorist, whereas James A. Aho, a
professor at Idaho State University, argues instead that Rudolph was inspired
only in part by religious considerations.
Hutaree was a
Christian militia group based in Adrian, Michigan. In 2010,
after an FBI agent infiltrated the group, nine of its members were indicted by
a federal grand jury in Detroit on charges of
seditious conspiracy to use of improvised explosive devices, teaching the use
of explosive materials, and possessing a firearm during a crime of violence.
Terrorism scholar Aref M. Al-Khattar has listed The Covenant, The Sword, and
the Arm of the Lord, Defensive Action, The Freemen Community, and what
Al-Khattar called "the Christian militia that supported Timothy
McVeigh", as groups that "can be placed under the category of
far-right-wing terrorism" that "has a religious [Christian]
component".
There are currently
a number of Islam hating groups and individuals in US, who are funding a
project called “Killing a Muslim through a fellow Muslim”. Concept of this
project is to provide finance to a Muslim, who would agree to kill a fellow
Muslim. Such plans also include bombing mosques and Muslim dominated
residential areas. No doubt, such ventures would sound extremely “glamorous”
and “attractive” to a section of people in US, but, if someone will deeply
scrutinize the ultimate motive of these people, will come to realize that,
their sole intention is to destabilize the social harmony in United States as
well turn America as the number one enemy of the Muslim world. Importantly
enough, major segment of the Christian population in US as well as the entire
Jewish community are always combating any such heinous activities such as
“Killing a Muslim through a fellow Muslim”. It is only operated by a
hand-picked number of so-called Christians, who also are Catholics. Dubious
foreign funds are flowing into their hands for implementation of such plans.
Those funders of these projects are using these “agents inside US” in
continuing subversive activities, which would ultimately go against the interest
of America.
Despite the fact of
US administration’s double
standard or their policy of anticipatory self-defense, it should be taken into
consideration that the civilians in United States are not that much
affected by any such fear. In fact, they too are victim of questioned policy of
the politicians. Most importantly, it is high time for Washington
to re-assess their policies, when their own economy is in trouble. They have no
options left but to accept a plain fact that, economic strength is gradually
slipping out of their grips. China,
Japan, South Korea and India are already turning into the
dominant players in today’s world economy. On the other hand, a number of Asian
nations are no less influential militarily and in nuclear technology. The
uni-polar world order is once again switching to bi-polar, if not multi-polar
axis.
Salah Uddin Shoaib
Choudhury is the editor of Weekly Blitz
