The War On Terror (Part 005)

Al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein

In 1979, Russia (then known as the Soviet Union) invaded Afghanistan. The USA armed and funded Islamic fighters (along with Saudi Arabia) in Afghanistan to fight the Russians. This was part of the Cold War strategy of fighting by proxy. These fighters included a Saudi Arabian businessman called Osama Bin-Laden. His group would eventually evolve into Al-Qaida and turn on its creators.
During the 1980s the USA backed its puppet leader in Iraq (one Saddam Hussein) in its invasion of Iran. A million people were killed in this 10 year conflict. The USA provided arms, materials for making chemical weapons and political support. It also began provocative naval manoeuvres in the Persian Gulf and attacked oil installations in Iran. In 1986 the USA destroyer, the US Vincennes, in Iranian territorial waters, shot down a passenger airliner killing 286 people.
In 1988, the Iraqi regime gassed 6,000 people in the Kurdish village of Halabja. The USA and UK failed to comment. The USA increased its military aid and the UK secretly sold arms to the country. Only when the West wanted to remove Saddam Hussein would this story be highlighted in the Western media.

Lebanon

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon killing 17,500 people. No photographs of the victims were ever displayed in Western newspapers. No minutes' silence were held in any Western city.
Over 1500 Palestinians (mainly women and children) were killed in Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Christian militia while Israeli forces sealed the exits and illuminated the area. The USA had arranged a deal where the Palestinian leadership left Lebanon for Tunisia, promising that the families left behind would be protected by "the International Community".
As a reminder, the refugee camps were in Lebanon because the inhabitants had been expelled from their homes in Palestine either in 1948 (when the State of Israel was set up) or 1967 (when the West Bank and Gaza were occupied).
The Israeli Defence Minister in charge of the invasion, one Ariel Sharon, was found to be responsible for the massacre by a court in Israel. Such a person might expect to be tried for war crimes. In fact, he became Prime Minister of Israel and, twenty years later, was called "a man of peace" by the USA president, George W Bush.
To add further insult to the pain and indignation felt by Arabs, between 1982 and 1983, the USA vetoed six separate United Nations resolutions condemning the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. One of the reasons the USA gave in 2003 when it invaded Iraq was "to uphold the authority of the United Nations".
In September 2002, the anniversary of a terrorist attack in the USA (known in the West as 9/11 even though most of the world's countries write that date as 11/9) was remembered with silences held around the country and in Europe. A few days later, the 20th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatilla massacres that still anger the Arabs was completely ignored in the Western media.
These double standards are a major cause of resentment against the West.

The Kurds

The Kurds were a people ignored by the West since their land was spliced up after the First World War.
In the 1970s, the Kurds had been armed and supported in northern Iraq because it suited the West to destabilise Iraq. In 1991, a safe zone was even declared for them. In 2003, their oppression by Saddam Hussein was one of the reasons given to justify the invasion of Iraq.
The Kurds living in Turkey did not fare so well, however.
Turkey is a NATO ally with USA bases. For many years in Turkey, the Kurdish language had been banned under penalty of imprisonment or worse. Kurds were referred to as Mountain Turks and treated as second class citizens. During the 1980s and early 1990s tens of thousands of Kurds were killed, over 3000 villages depopulated and 3 million people made homeless. Little of this was ever reported in the West.

Iraq

In 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait. The West sent troops to "liberate" Kuwait. The autocratic and unelected monarch of Kuwait was returned to power. So much for spreading democracy.
In this war, over 200,000 civilians were killed and 1,800,000 were made homeless. The Western media concentrated on the "smart" bombs used by the West and the 9 UK and 148 USA soldiers killed. When asked about Iraqi casualties, USA General Colin Powell replied: "It's really not a number I'm terribly interested in". So much for the West caring about the Iraqi people.
Remember also that the border between Iraq and Kuwait was put there by the UK.
After the war, the USA sold military hardware worth $100,000 million to neighbouring countries. And to show how important democracy and freedom is to the West, 90% of all the arms sales were to unelected governments.
The United Nations, under pressure from the USA and UK, began economic sanctions on Iraq. The World Food Program and UNICEF reported that 1,211,285 people died of embargo-related causes between August 1990 and August 1997. This figure includes over 500,000 children under 5. Both totals are bigger than the 130,000 people that Amnesty International estimated to have died in Iraq between 1979 and 1989 as a result of the country's human-rights record. In addition, many Iraqis suffer from cancers induced by the Depleted Uranium used by the West when bombing the country.
Between 1992 and 2003, the UK and USA regularly bombed Iraq from the air. This was the longest Anglo-American bombing campaign since World War II with bombing occurring on a daily basis and yet it was almost ignored by the Western media. In one year alone (1999), USA and UK aircraft dropped over 1,800 bombs hitting 450 targets. Consider the media coverage if this was happening in London or Madrid or New York.
The two powers have always maintained that the military action was to police no-fly zones authorised by United Nations Security Council Resolution 688. Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali was Secretary General of the United Nations when this resolution was passed in 1992. He stated that "The issue of no fly zones was not raised and therefore not debated: not a word. They offer no legitimacy to countries sending their aircraft to attack Iraq. They are illegal".
After 12 years of bombings and sanctions, Iraq was ripe for invasion and occupation. This was achieved by the USA (with help from the UK) against the wishes of the United Nations. In 1917 Lieutenant-General Stanley Maude, a UK general, marched into and occupied Baghdad with the words "Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators". In 2003, history repeated itself.
And the reasons for the invasion? Was it weapons of mass destruction? Liberation for the Iraqis? Democracy? Let us attempt to get an answer from those who should know. David Frum is a speech writer for the USA president, George W Bush. He writes:
"An American-led overthrow of Saddam Hussein – and the replacement of the radical Baathist dictatorship with a new government more closely aligned with the United States would put America more wholly in charge of the region than any power since the Ottomans, or maybe even the Romans."
Michael Klare is a USA political scientist. He confirms the truth:
"The removal of Saddam Hussein and his replacement by someone beholden to the United States is a key part of a broader United States strategy aimed at assuring permanent American global dominance."

The War on Terror

The war between the rich and well armed, democratic Western countries (mainly USA, UK, France, Israel) and the peoples of the Arab world has been in progress since the end of the First World War. It has been mainly fought on the lands of the Arabs. It has been fought directly with military force or indirectly with economic sanctions and with the support of puppet governments that serve the interests of the West and their companies. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs have died in this war. Most of these deaths remain unreported in the Western media and unmourned.
This war played little part in the lives of the Europeans and North Americans until about 70 years after the Sykes-Picot Agreement and the Balfour Declaration. Around the mid 1980s, Arab groups began attacking Western targets. These included civilian, diplomatic and economic interests in Europe, North America and the rest of the world.
Western governments and their media had previously ignored the suffering, oppression, death and dispossession of millions of Arabs. Now they were outraged. The Arabs were labelled as evil and fanatical. Their religion was insulted and demonised. The people of the West were told that Arabs were attacking the West for no reason. They hated Western civilisation, culture and standard of living. They hated freedom and democracy. No historical background to the conflict was given. It was important to keep the real reasons behind the conflict away from the public domain.
Westerners were informed that Arabs were unlike the freedom loving Americans, lacked the culture of the French and had no idea of fair play like the British.
Observers who suggest that Arab attacks on Western targets might have something to do with Western foreign policy or the political situation in the Middle East, are accused of being anti-American or anti-Semitic. The official line is that the attackers are terrorists and had no demands that could be negotiated. In addition, the targets of the terrorists are the entire "civilised" world, rather than the USA and its allies and their interests.
Other countries have joined in the charade. Israel has reclassified its occupation of Palestine as part of the "international war on terror". Russia uses the same rhetoric when crushing resistance to its rule in Chechnya. India uses the "war on terror" to justify its continual occupation and oppression of Kashmir. The USA and UK collude with these world views as it keeps opposition to their policies in the Middle East muted.
Islam, the major religion of the Middle East, is demonised and derided so as to make it easier to treat its people as less than human. All Muslims are judged by the actions of a few extremists. This is the equivalent of judging Western society, Christianity or Judaism by some or all of the following:

Christian Americans who shoot doctors practicing abortion and who attempt to ban the teaching of evolution in schools;

The actions and writings of the racist Ku Klux Klan (USA), the British National Party (UK) or the Front National (France);

Israeli settlers who shoot Palestinains while they are praying in their mosques.

One of the leading terrorist groups is Al-Qaida, lead by Osama Bin-Laden. He makes frequent statements to the West which are not reported. It is useful to keep up the myth that groups like Al-Qaida have no demands that can be negociated with. For this reason I quote some of their statements.
The following statement was made in 2001 as the USA and UK invaded Afghanistan:
"The Palestinian people have been living under the Jewish and Zionist occupation and nobody moves to help them. Here we are as an Arab land, this is a land that has been desecrated. People have come to take its wealth. The American interests are everywhere all over the world. America must know that the battle will not leave this land until America leaves our land. Until it stops supporting Israel, until it stops the blockade against Iraq. The Americans must know that by coming to the land of Afghanistan, they have opened a new page of animosity between us and the forces of the unbelievers. And they must know that the land of Afghanistan and the Mujahideen are being subjected to a full crusade with the objective of getting rid of the Islamic nation."
Al-Qaida is a violent indiscriminate terrorist group. Their language is flowery and full of religious references. Their actions against civilians cannot be condoned. However, the grievances listed above are real and resonate with much of the Arab world - indeed, the Muslim world. Attempting to crush groups like this will not remove the grievances. Only by removing the many injustices perpetrated by the West will groups like this lose support. Only by treating the Arabs as human beings and as equals and not trying to control their land, resources, governments and culture can there be a just and lasting peace.
The message was clearly laid out after the bombing of Madrid (Spain) in March 2004 that killed 200 people and brought "regime change" to Europe:
"Stop targeting us, release our prisoners and leave our land and we will stop attacking you. The people of the US allied countries have to put pressure on their governments to immediately end their alliance with the US in the war against terror (Islam)."
A month later, Al-Qaida offered a truce to the countries of Europe:
"I am offering a truce to European countries, and its core is our commitment to cease operations against any country which does not carry out an onslaught against Muslims or interfere in their affairs as part of the big American conspiracy against the Islamic world. Whoever wants reconciliation and the right (way), then we are the ones who initiated it, so stop spilling our blood so we can stop spilling your blood."
"Security is a need for all humans, and we could not let you have a monopoly on it for yourselves. People who are aware would not let their politicians jeopardize their security."
"By describing us and our actions as terrorism, you are necessarily describing yourself and your actions. ... Our actions are reactions to your actions that destroy and kill our people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine."
Al-Qaida are aware of the economics behind the 2003 invasion of Iraq:
"This war brings billions of dollars to big companies, either to those that manufacture weapons or those who reconstruct Iraq, like Halliburton and its sister companies. And from here it becomes clear who benefits from the outbreak of wars and bloodshed: war traders and vampires who administer world politics from behind the curtain."
And, of course, there is always Palestine, a continuing sore to the Arabs:
"I plead with the honest people, intellectuals, activists and traders to form a permanent committee to raise people's awareness for the justice of our causes-- on top of which comes Palestine."
Arab and Muslim societies have many problems (like their Western counterparts) . They must be allowed to solve their problems and develop at their own pace. If the West is to help it must be as friends and by request; not as colonisers and certainly not by force.
The War on Terror has not just begun - it has just changed location.