By: Prof. Mahfuz Chowdhury
America has often fought the wrong war, at the wrong time, and against the wrong people. The wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and now Afghanistan would seem to fall into such categories. Although, apart from the human tragedy, the enormous economic fallout of the Vietnam War might be imagined, the full outcome of the Iraq war must be awaited as it is not over yet. However, the debate on the launch of the Afghan war has only begun and it would take many more years to assess the damage, assuming the war is not going to end anytime soon. This war is also affecting neighboring Pakistan and creating a great controversy in terms of its economic cost and more importantly about whether it is winnable. Opinions vary, but those who doubt that the war could be won seem to be gaining ground.

Here are some of their arguments. Afghanistan was such a sectarian and unmanageable country that super powers like the Soviets and earlier the British failed to control it. This country has not changed much since those days. The enemy that America is fighting in Afghanistan is elusive and the situation on the battleground itself is very erratic and unpredictable. The daily news of horrors such as the recent killings of the chief CIA operative including 6 other colleagues in Afghanistan, and the unprecedented and ever increasing human carnage in neighboring Pakistan should provide some important clues. In fact, the escalating conflict and mayhem in Pakistan, a nuclear country, is now adding to the genuine fear that its nuclear weapons are not safe in the hands of its government.

Is America’s goal to contain terrorism or to oppose organized Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan? If the fight is to contain fundamentalism, winning this war in Afghanistan alone is not likely to achieve it. The skeptics should only look at the unrelenting and vicious terrorist activities as well as the outright defiance that is spreading not only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but also in Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq and many other countries, including America itself. (Note the recent shooting rampage by an American army psychiatrist in Fort Hood, Texas, that claimed 13 lives plus many more injuries). Clearly, there are innumerable signs that the conflict is spreading. Indeed, after the failed 2009 Christmas Day bombing plot on a flight from Amsterdam, the U.S. government imposed intense screening of passengers at airports worldwide from 14 terror suspect nations. America had thought that it had found a willing partner in the Yemeni government that would support the deployment of American troops to fight the rising Islamic militants there. But it has been reported that the government of Yemen has rebuffed the idea for fear of losing popular support.

Religious fundamentalism is nothing new as it has been in existence since the birth of religion itself. The main theme of every religion was supposed to guide people to lead a noble life. Yet human society has experienced enormous oppression, suppression, violence, crime, brutality, fatality, and war in the name of religion. No religion is immune from the appeal of fundamentalism, and fundamentalist practices are still very much in existence, though subtly in some cases and violently in others. Without a doubt, Muslims have had their share of religious violence, and the present situation is no different. But to blame only Muslims for what is happening now would be morally wrong. How could one justify what Jews are doing to Muslims in the Middle East? Does not anyone see how Israel is provoking the Muslims?

Every heinous act of terrorism is a serious crime, and it must never be condoned under any circumstance, be it individual or collective. But, instead of looking or treating every terrorist act equally, if society condones or overlooks one and tries to punish the other, it only intensifies violence. This is precisely what seems to be the case with Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.

Islam is a world religion with a great following, and it certainly deserves respect. Yet the Muslim community always felt that they were being treated unjustly by the affluent west. The Arab-Israeli conflict has kept that feeling alive and very intense. The Muslims believe that the creation of Israel and the continued atrocities that are being perpetrated by Israel is nothing but a big conspiracy by the west to suppress them. They also believe that the Iraq and Afghan wars initiated by the United States are all part of the same conspiracy. And the religious fundamentalists are taking full advantage of public sentiment to create havoc and spread terrorism everywhere.

America claims itself to be the promoter of human rights and preaches self determination of all people. But it utterly fails to help the Palestinian cause. Why? The most difficult and painful situation for Muslims and other rational people, is to see and accept the sufferings of their fellow brethren in Palestine. The Muslims squarely blame America for the present tragedy because of its unequivocal support of Israel. After many years of armed struggle, the Palestinians have agreed to live peacefully with Israel in the internationally recognized pre 1967 border of Palestine. But Israel steadfastly refuses to compromise and continues to thumb its nose against world opinion by brutally suppressing the Palestinians, using American weaponry.

The best case for the Palestinians has probably been made by none other than the former U.S. President and a Nobel laureate Jimmy Carter, who argues in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid” that Israel’s continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Middle East. The Israeli blockade of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents for the past year?as a collective punishment, which has drawn many international condemnations including allegations of war crimes?is a glaring example of actions that openly provoke Muslims to resent America, which refuses to intervene and stop such Israeli atrocities.

There are other issues of contention for Muslims. America supports Saudi Arabia, an autocratic country with no democratic rights, while it refuses to recognize the democratically elected Palestinian representatives of Hamas in Gaza. By the way, America along with Israel once supported the Hamas in Gaza as a counter to the Fatah movement. On the other hand, many believe that Saudi Arabia is sponsoring fundamentalism by providing financial help to religious schools in Pakistan and other Muslim countries.

Additionally, America went to war in Iraq under false pretexts and different agendas, though it now claims that the purpose was to save the Iraqis from the brutality of Saddam Hussein. Muslims believe that the main purpose for invading Iraq was to protect America’s oil supply. And they have plenty of facts to justify their claim that America is driven by its economic greed. They look at the situation in Darfur, Congo, Myanmar and other countries where America failed to prevent atrocities or promote democratic rights.

Muslims even question the American policy of allowing Israel to hide its nuclear weapons and maintaining its own nuclear stockpile, while it rallies its western allies to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Ironically, America’s success against Iran would depend entirely on the co-operation of China and Russia, which might not be forthcoming as they too have their own world agendas to pursue.

The above exemplifies the ways that America has alienated Muslims over the years. Now the new generation of educated Muslims is getting impatient with American prejudices, and is effectively using the internet to communicate with and receive feedback from each other. The fundamentalists are successfully indoctrinating these young people to resort to violent tactics in the name of “Jihad“, a religious word for martyrdom. America and the rest of the world have already witnessed some of their brutal suicidal acts during and since 9/11. If the core issues are not addressed, even if America wins the war in Afghanistan, it might not dampen the spirit of young Muslims around the world to pursue their resistance. American suppression is likely to embolden the fundamentalists to embrace new or more dangerous tactics of terrorism. Violence begets violence, and it would be impossible for America to monitor, invade, occupy or control every Muslim militant country in the world.

Although it is the sole remaining super power, America seems to be losing its grip on its economic power. The country has yet to recover from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The unemployment rate is hovering around 10 per cent, the federal debt has already surpassed $7.5 trillion, and the federal budget deficit was $1.4 trillion in fiscal year 2009. There are other emerging economic powers now, who are preparing to compete and check American hegemony in the world. In fact, America can no longer continue to impose its will on the world community. Nor can it suppress Islamic fundamentalism or its spread by its military power alone. It clearly needs to reassess its overall foreign policies if it wishes to rein in the fundamentalists and remain an important international player.

The rise of Islamic fundamentalism with its current ferocity is a problem for the Muslim populace as well. But they will be reluctant to join the fight with true conviction unless America is willing to change its attitude towards Muslims and correct its past mistakes. A speedy and just settlement of the Palestinian crisis would be a good start. It should then be followed by a quick withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and a winding down of the Afghan war as fast as possible. Unless America plays its cards right, the consequence of its military exercise in Afghanistan will be just as futile as the war in Vietnam.

About The Author: Professor Mahfuz R. Chowdhury teaches Economics at C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University, New York, USA. He has published articles on various issues of Bangladesh and other economic issues, which are posted on numerous web sites. He has wide ranging experience in international business and commerce, and has written on failure of communism & problem with developing countries. His book, “Economic Exploitation of Bangladesh“, addresses the economics of developing countries, using Bangladesh as a case study. | More Articles By Mahfuz R. Chowdhury |

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That is especially true after the Israelis savagely destroyed Gaza since late December, killing over 1,100 Palestinians, under the watchful eye of the Bush White House. Obama needs to show the world that he is a man who will uphold justice. Some claim that the only former U.S. president to have such a large basked of problems sitting on his White House desk, the day he assumed office, was Franklin D. Roosevelt. Obama has a financial crisis, and FDR had the Great Depression, which held Americans by the throat. But Obama’s problems surpass FDR’s in their severity. FDR had no significant foreign affairs problems to deal with; America on his Day One was passing through a period of isolation, very distant from the affairs of Europe or the Middle East. Obama has an America that is occupying war-torn and oil-rich Iraq. He has an ally in Israel, which he has promised to protect. He has an enemy in international terrorism, which was made all the more dangerous by the policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Thanks to Bush, Obama has failed states in Palestine, Iraq, Pakistan, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. He faces an incredible genocide that has taken place in Gaza. In short, he has plenty of dangers–and opportunities–awaiting him at the White House.

When asked to comment early on in the crisis in Gaza, Obama replied, “There is only one president at a time.” That was seen as a smart answer by most observers, who sensed that he did not want to commit himself to a crisis he did not create, yet would have the difficult task of ending once he assumes office on January 20. As the bloodshed in Gaza snowballed, Obama said that he feels deeply for the human misery coming out of the Middle East, and would work to prevent the senseless loss of life on both sides.

Having said that, Arabs are no fools and have no illusions that Obama will be a savior to the Arab world. He would not come out and harshly criticize Israel for its use of excessive force in Gaza. There is belief however, that he will live up to his commitment to start withdrawing from Iraq in 2009, and be completely out by 2011. He will also commence on political dialogue with the Syrians and turn a new page with Damascus by sending an ambassador to Syria, for a post that has been vacant since 2005. The real challenge will be how Obama will react to the Palestinians.

Obama will be in charge of finding a solution to the crisis in Gaza. Any solution would need an honest American broker. As the Bush team packs up and prepares to leave office (with the exception of William Burns and Bill Gates,) it won’t be able to come up with any solution to Gaza. Obama starts his tenure with a rising death toll in Gaza and the task of putting a real end to the bloodshed. Obama needs to end the human suffering, which means opening the Rafah Crossing, with or without consent of Israel. If Egypt shows resentment, Obama should use his influence to get Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to yield, for humanitarian if not political reasons.

President George W. Bush once asked Condoleezza Rice, in early 2004, what the single obstacle was to peace in the Middle East. Without hesitation, she replied: “Yasser Arafat!” Well, Arafat died in November 2004 and the Arabs waited to see what Rice and Bush could offer the Middle East in the post-Arafat era. On November 12, 2004, Bush shattered Arab hopes for a new approach to the Middle East crisis when he said; “I believe that the responsibility for peace is going to rest with the Palestinian people’s desire to build a democracy.” Bush’s answer, and Rice’s previous one regarding Arafat, confirm that unfortunately neither of them ever fully grasped the core of the problem in the Middle East.

Today in 2009, they still miss the real problem Arabs face. It was not about Arafat. Nor is it related to Hassan Nasrallah or Hamas. The real keys to peace in the Middle East can be found in three golden words: land, freedom, and justice for the Palestinians.

Arabs will only begin to have faith in the U.S. when peace is brought to the Palestinians, security is maintained in Iraq (followed by a complete U.S. withdrawal), and occupied land, like the Syrian Golan Heights, is restored to its rightful owners. The road to peace in the Middle East runs through Jerusalem, however, not Baghdad.

As Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s colonial department, said in 1940:

“We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way [other] than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries – all of them! Not one village, not one tribe should be left.” In 1948, there were 475 villages in Palestine, 385 of which were bulldozed to the ground by Israel. In 1938, the “founder” David Ben Gurion told the World Council of Poale Zion, “The boundaries of Zionist aspirations include southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today’s trans-Jordan, all of the West Bank and Sinai.” Ten years later, as premier of Israel, he said, “Our aim is to smash Lebanon, trans-Jordan and Syria. We shall establish a Christian state [in Lebanon], and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate trans-Jordan, then Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” (Taken from Michael Bar Zohar’s Ben Gurion: A Biography).

These words, along with what is happening in Gaza, have had more of an impact on Arabs, even those who are moderate and Westernized, than Obama can possibly imagine. My friend and colleague, Abdulsalam Haykal, publisher of Syria’s English monthly Forward Magazine, was sitting next to me while I was writing this article. I discussed Ben Gurion’s words with him, and he replied that Israel will not rest until it sees a Palestinian State without the Gaza Strip. He believes, as do several Arab intellectuals, that for a variety of reasons related to Israel’s security, Israel is bent on re-occupying the Gaza Strip and push every single Palestinian out–just like Weitz said 69 years ago–preferably into Egypt or perhaps, into the West Bank.

As an African-American who grew up inspired by the American Revolution against colonialism, and as someone who knows forwards and backwards the Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution, how can Obama admire a people uprooting, terrorizing and “smashing” another people? Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is the trinity that holds the U.S. together and defines its democracy, yet it has not been applied by the US when dealing with the Middle East. Obama, with his “yes we can” attitude, must show the world that things have changed and that this is a new United States.

Obama knows how much African-Americans suffered from persecution during the civil rights movement. To mainstream Arabs, the symbols of resistance are the Palestinian women kept waiting at checkpoints for hours, the stone-throwing children and the aging men being shoved around by young Israeli soldiers, and the young boys and girls torn to pieces by the missiles landing on Gaza. Arab intellectuals and activists have read the famed speech by Reverend King, and like him they have often spoken of their dream of emancipation, from Israeli occupation. The Arabs had a dream that their children would one day live in a nation where they would not be judged by their leaders as inferior to the powerful elite; “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Like King, they had a dream that “with this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, and to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day“.

It is all about land, freedom, and justice for the Palestinians.

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About The Author: Sami Moubayed — is a Syrian political analyst and historian based in Damascus, Syria. Moubayed is the author of “Damascus Between Democracy and Dictatorship (2000)” and “Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000 (2006).” He has also authored a biography of Syria’s former President Shukri al-Quwatli and currently serves as Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Relations at al-Kalamoun University in Syria. In 2004, he created Syrianhistory.com, the first and online museum of Syrian history. He is also co-founder and editor-in-chief of FORWARD, the leading English monthly in Syria, and Vice-President of Haykal Media.

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Bush’s Mideast Dishonor

Writes: Sami Moubayed, in Damascus, Syria

I don’t think Bush needs to strengthen his legacy. It has already been deeply engraved in the history of the Middle East. George W. Bush has in fact ruined the Middle East.

No words can describe my anger at what the United States has tolerated or promoted in the Middle East under the Bush White House. The list is long: the war on Iraq, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Falluja, Mosul, the war on Lebanon, Qana, and not to forget, the circus in Palestine, the killing in Jenin, and the siege in Gaza, topped with the elimination of Yasser Arafat, a democratically elected leader. These images have always reminded me of Sept. 11, 2001. The blood of these children–in Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq–is no less valuable than that of Americans killed at the Twin Towers. Many Americans have been sending me “hate mail” recently, saying that the Bush Administration has been good to the Arabs and is trying to bring peace, security, and democracy to the Middle East. Sorry to tell them that this White House will be remembered for Abu Ghraib. It will be remembered for the atrocities in Gaza. It will be remembered for Qana.

Bush has perhaps single-handedly re-written the history of the Middle East–certainly against our will. This history has been very bloody and embarrassing for America, and it will affect America’s image for generations to come. Allow me to quote the former and legendary U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, who spoke to Congress on Dec. 1, 1862 saying: “Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. The fiery trail through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.”

In our part of the world, Bush has marched into history in great dishonor.

Each country singled out by the White House as a haven for democracy and progress has been ruined, beyond imagination, by his policies in the Arab World. America’s image has been perverted, distorted, and tarnished beyond repair in the minds of the millions of Arabs and non-Arabs who are disgusted by all the bloodshed we are seeing in Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon.

Everybody in the Arab World holds Bush responsible for all of this madness, along with prime ministers Ehud Barak, Ariel Sharon, and Ehud Olmert. I always wanted to write to the U.S. President and tell him: “Think for a minute, Mr. President, about how history will refer to you 100 years from now. Will you be ranked among great men like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, or Franklin Roosevelt? What have they done for America and what have you achieved? Washington achieved independence for America. Lincoln fought the Civil War. Wilson won World War I and Roosevelt defeated Hitler in World War II. You ruined the image of your forefathers–the great men who founded and created the modern United States.”

To a mother whose child was killed in Qana, Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, Roosevelt, and Bush, will all be viewed as criminals. A grief-stricken person will not differentiate between good and evil, or right and wrong. He or she will hold America responsible for the death of their loved ones. I personally have high admiration for the American presidents mentioned above. They were strong leaders with talent, principle, and character. Bush is responsible for ruining their image in the Arab World.

To prove my point, I repeat a phrase that I have used over and over again since 2004, quoting Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts who said: “To many people in the Middle East, the symbol of America is not the Statue of Liberty but a prisoner standing on a box wearing a dark cape, a dark hood on his head, afraid he is going to be electrocuted.”

Many discussions were held by American policymakers and intellectuals in the United States, after September 11, on one question: “Why do they hate us?” The answer can be summarized with one simple phrase: “Favoritism towards Israel.” What happened over the last eight years–in Palestine and Lebanon–was an unforgivable crime committed by Israel, under the watchful eye of the United States, thanks to Bush.

I received a very large amount of “hate mail” from Americans and pro-Israeli readers over the last few years in response to the series of articles I have written against the Israeli War on Lebanon, which coincides with July 12, 2008.

These readers were enraged by my condemnation of the United States and Israel, claiming that the “war on terror” was correct and justified. One reader wrote: “You are an ungrateful man and I am done reading your site” because of what I had just written about Israel and the United States.

At the same time, I received many, many e-mails from Arab readers who supported my arguments, saying that Bush’s bias against the Arabs was “an unforgivable crime”–in every sense of the world.

I happen to personally know many of the Arab readers with whom I have communicated. They are not turbaned and bearded fanatics who roam the world with guns, wanting to destroy Israel and the United States. Rather they are fine, Westernized, American-educated and highly cultured Arab men and women (many are actually not even Muslims) who have never carried a gun in their life. One addressed the Bush administration and cursed its policy-makers saying that they have “abused the names of the great men of American history.”

The colossal difference in views, and the accumulating anger on both sides, makes dialogue and understanding extremely difficult–especially in times of war; especially under George W. Bush.

One reader commented on my work, saying that he was “disgusted” because I was “demonizing the U.S. for trying to bring peace and democracy to the Middle East.” He added, “If you are too ignorant and too stupid to see that, then maybe you aren’t worth U.S. blood and gold.” Another reader added, and I quote him at length: “Go buddy up with Syria, go buddy up with Hizbullah, Hamas, Iran, and go live in a piece of â?¦ world that glorifies suicide bombing by children, glorifies naked anti-Semitism and ignorance of the Holocaust, ‘honor kills their women and forces them to wear burkhas. Go ahead and chose to keep your part of the world uneducated, unemployed, and hopeless. Go ahead and chose to keep the Middle East the gutter of the world while America has the compassion to try and help you by removing the cancer affecting your region.”

In response, I write: What blood and what gold were spilled and paid by the Americans for the Arab World? I am astonished that an educated American would think in such a manner. America did not come to this part of the world to tutor or to educate. This is the biggest falsification brought to the world by President Bush.

Iraq was destroyed and looted under the Americans. There are over 10 people dying per day in America’s Iraq–so much for democracy and education. At one point it was more than 35 people dying per day in Iraq, meaning that more than one death occurs per hour in the “new and democratic Iraq.”

At one point more than 1,500 died per month in America’s Iraq. Mass graves–all created after Saddam Hussein, have been found in America’s Iraq, dug up by the Iraqis themselves under America’s watchful eye. Death squads are free to roam the streets, killing Iraqis by night.

Five years after the US invasion of Iraq, one cannot but wonder how the Americans missed a golden opportunity to create a secure democracy in the country to replace the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.

Optimists in the Arab world, especially pro-Western and particularly pro-American Arabs, defended the United States until curtain fall, saying that it truly would root out terrorism from Iraq, and bring both stability and democracy to the Iraqi people.

Every one of those beliefs has been shattered – over and over again, since March 2003. As Iraq enters its sixth year since 2003, it is safe to ask: what has been achieved? What can I describe as American “compassion” towards the Arabs?

Apart from the downfall of Saddam, not a single achievement is noteworthy in Iraq. The country today is a “democracy” in civil war – a democracy where human life is being wasted, along with the dreams and security of the Iraqi people. Inasmuch as free elections are a great asset of which all oppressed people dream, they mean nothing if security is lacking.

History will not remember the free elections that took place in January and December 2005 as much as it will remember the notorious pictures of the torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The killings and the death squads that haunt the streets of Iraq will live much longer in the minds of Iraqi people than the image of Saddam’s statue falling in Baghdad.

American soldiers torturing (Lynching) Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison
[Click on PICS to enlarge image]

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Special Read + More Abu Ghraib Pictures: Mr. President Bush — ‘You are a War Criminal who belongs in Guantanamo Prison’
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Bush’s America did not come to democratize the Iraqis. It came to expand its sphere of influence, replace that of the former USSR, control the rise of political Islam, rebuild the Iraq it had destroyed, make use of Iraq’s oil wealth, and safeguard the security of Israel. Must I remind my American reader of the scandals of Abu Ghraib? Those pictures alone show how much compassion the Americans have for the Arabs. Must I remind him of the killing of 24 Iraqis in cold blood by U.S. marines at Haditha in November 2005 or of the killing of 11 Iraqi civilians by U.S. troops in the village of Ishaqi in March 2006?

The Arabs remember too clearly that it was the Americans who initially supported Saddam Hussein’s rise to power in 1979, simply because he challenged Iran. It was the Americans who orchestrated the first coup d’etat in Syria in 1949, toppling the democratically elected president Shukri al-Quwatli and replacing him with General Husni al-Za’im, a stooge of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), because the latter promised to respond to U.S. needs in the Middle East. These were mainly a crackdown on communism, a ceasefire with Israel, and privileges to Tapline, a U.S. oil company.

The fact that Quwatli had been democratically elected by his people meant nothing to the CIA, the White House or the Pentagon in 1949. The fact that Yasser Arafat, another democratically elected president, was besieged to his office in 2001-2004 also meant nothing to the Americans who said that he was “irrelevant” and completely ignored him–along with the will and choice of the Palestinian people, because he refused to become an American stooge in the Middle East.

The Americans must give to win the trust of the Arabs.

Arabs will only begin to have faith in the U.S. and the Bush White House when peace is brought to the Palestinians, security is maintained in Iraq, and American statesmen show more interest in real Arab domestic issues and democracy.

The Americans have also failed to portray themselves as honest brokers in the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is the cornerstone of grievances to the Arab majority. The real problem that the Americans fail to understand is not Arafat, nor terrorism, nor Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, but land and freedom for the Palestinians. Once that is secured, a majority of Arabs will start to trust America.

The road to peace in the Middle East runs through Jerusalem, not Baghdad. On the issue of Palestine, there is consensus among the 200 million Arabs. Since September 2000, more than 50,000 people have been left homeless in Gaza alone. The Occupied Territories currently suffer from 40 percent unemployment, and in Gaza alone it is over 50 percent. When the intifada broke out in 2000, the poverty rate was 21 percent, and by December 2002 it had increased to 60 percent. In Gaza, poverty today is estimated at over 80 percent.

Due to terrible conditions, food consumption in the Occupied Territories has dropped by 25 percent, and half of the population currently lives off United Nations aid. Malnutrition among infants is 22 percent, the highest in the region, matched only in the Sahara Desert.

The Israeli Defense Army has generated losses in Palestinian infrastructure estimated at U.S.$1.7 billion in 2002 alone. And that number is likely to increase, given the U.S. alliance with Israel and its generous donation of arms and money. When former secretary of state Collin Powell announced his plan for “democracy in the Middle East” in late 2003, he promised $29 million to promote a democratic culture to the Arabs. Whereas at the start of 2004, the White House gave Israel $300 million in donations to “help combat terrorism.”

In an interview with the Israeli daily Yediot Aharanot, Bush’s Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice once said, “I first visited Israel in 2000. I felt I was returning home, despite the fact that this was a place I have never visited. I have a deep affinity with Israel. I have always admired the history of the state of Israel and the hardness and determination of the people that founded it.” — Read: The tragic futility of Condoleezza Rice

No remark could have a worse effect on the inhabitants of the Middle East. Rice wrote her doctoral dissertation on the Cold War era and the USSR, and although she has a prestigious background in academia, she sadly has not read her Middle East history correctly. To the Arab street she is trying to appeal to today, the “founders” that she admires in Israel are nothing but invaders who realized early on that in order to survive they must uproot, kill and terrorize the Arabs and Palestinians.

Joseph Weitz, head of the Jewish Agency’s colonial department, said in 1940, “We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way [other] than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries – all of them! Not one village, not one tribe should be left.”

In 1948, there were 475 villages in Palestine, 385 of which were bulldozed to the ground by Israel.

In 1938, the “founder” Ben Gurion told the World Council of Poale Zion, “The boundaries of Zionist aspirations include southern Lebanon, southern Syria, today’s trans-Jordan, all of the West Bank and Sinai.” Ten years later, as premier of Israel, he said, “Our aim is to smash Lebanon, trans-Jordan and Syria. We shall establish a Christian state [in Lebanon], and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate trans-Jordan, then Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.” (Taken from “Ben Gurion: A Biography,” written in 1986 by Michael Bar Zohar). These words have had more of an impact on Arabs, even those who are moderate and Westernized, than the democratic promises of Rice.

As an African-American who grew up inspired by the American Revolution against colonialism, and as someone who has read, if not memorized the Bill of Rights of the U.S. constitution, how can Rice admire a people uprooting, terrorizing and “smashing” another people? — Read: Lynchings in America — A History Not Known By Many — An hereditary trait that fully explains Abu Ghraib

   1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida

   1919 lynching William Brown in Douglas County, Nebraska

   1936 lynching of Lint Shaw in Royston, Georgia

This is a question asked all over the Middle East, shedding a lot of doubt on Rice’s credibility when talking about democratizing the Arab World, and the support she has from her President. Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the trinity that holds the U.S. together and defines its democracy, yet it has not been applied by the U.S.–Bush’s America–when dealing with the Middle East.

To make things clear to readers: I am not opposed to peace with Israel nor am I anti-Semite. One of my closest friends during childhood and young adulthood had a Damascene Jewish mother. She was a remarkable lady. I am someone who sees no difference between Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, and Baha’is. All of them have the right to live in peace and security. When Arafat signed Oslo in 1993, I was one of those who strongly supported him. I still think it was the bravest decision he ever took in his life. Oslo was ruined not because of Arafat but because of the outbreak of the intifada on Sept. 28, 2000. The outbreak of violence started after Ariel Sharon’s provocation in visiting the al-Aqsa Mosque. A circle of violence started after that, and all hell broke loose in the Middle East after Sept. 11, 2001. Give me a peace-wanting government in the United States and I will support Syrian-Israeli, or Palestinian-Israeli peace talks. One of my favorite quotes was made by Yitzhak Rabin in 1993, during the signing of Oslo. He said, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; A time to kill, and a time to heal; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace.”

That was 15 years ago. These administrations, thanks to Bush, Olmert, and Rice, have spread nothing but destruction, setting Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine–and now possibly Iran–ablaze. That is their legacy. They have not surpassed “a time to hate, and a time for war.” They kept us at a “time to kill and a time to die” never bringing us a “time to heal, a time to laugh, a time to love, and a time for peace.”

Note: The picture illustrations, supporting links and anchor text to external resources are by PoliticalArticles.NET.

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About The Author: Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst and historian based in Damascus, Syria. Moubayed is the author of “Damascus Between Democracy and Dictatorship (2000)” and “Steel & Silk: Men and Women Who Shaped Syria 1900-2000 (2006).” He has also authored a biography of Syria’s former President Shukri al-Quwatli and currently serves as Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Relations at al-Kalamoun University in Syria. In 2004, he created Syrianhistory.com, the first and online museum of Syrian history. He is also co-founder and editor-in-chief of FORWARD, the leading English monthly in Syria, and Vice-President of Haykal Media.

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 Columnist – John Sammon
You know what bothers me, apart from the ethics, who’s right and who’s wrong? (America is always right, right or wrong).

America only attacks small, poor countries. Look at the list of our opponents over the past thirty years or so, Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, Afghanistan, The Balkans, Lebanon, and Cuba (oops, we didn’t attack Cuba, we almost did).

Always in the name of freedom.

It makes me yearn for World War Two, the good war, where we fought competent powerful enemies worthy of the name. Now, I know because we’re America we’re always right no matter what. I know we have right on our side in every case. That we’re infallible, incapable of error.

But do we always have to fight countries much smaller than ourselves?

This will get me labeled as unpatriotic, and not one of the my-country-right-or-wrong-God-likes-me-and-not-you crowd. But it makes me uncomfortable that we’re always beating up (in the name of right) on poor small countries, countries whose gross national product is a fraction of our own.

These are people who don’t have refrigerators like we do.

To be invaded by the United States, you have to be small, poor, and have no navy and no air force like we do.

We never take on big countries like China.

Here’s a partial list of countries that because of their size and poverty can consider themselves under risk of attack from Bombs Away John McCain if they don’t conform to the American lifestyle, and fail to provide us with raw materials, or do what we want when we want, or pattern themselves after us, or seek nuclear power (that right is reserved for America and its friends like India).

And most of all, not attack their neighbors. The right to attack is reserved for America. Here’s the list:

Chad — This tiny Central African country, named for a voting stub (chad), would be easy for the United States to defeat. Hell, they don’t have anything except sand and flies. In fact, their chief commodity export are gnats.

Switzerland — If we run out of milk, we know where we can get it (lots of cows). The only problem here are the mountains (we have specialized troops that can climb those), and the sexy blondes in the villages who might prove a distraction. It can be overcome by our modern technology.

Yemen — This is a plumb ready for the taking. Think of it. Oil rich. On the ocean where the Red Sea meets the Arabian Sea. Beautiful waterfront condos overlooking the sea. Prime real estate. No air force to speak of. Navy? Can Arabs sail? Hell no. The only problem is, it’s a republic. That’s okay, we can blame 9-11 on ‘em. Yemen has another advantage. Many different tribes. We can get them to warring with each other.

Djibouti — Another Arab country in the Horn of Africa. Once again, potential oil and ocean views. We could overrun them in three days. It’s a Moslem country so this would figure in with our remaking the Middle East. But the main reason is it would give our hip soldiers (who love slang) the chance to wear tee shirts that say, “you bet Djibouti (your booty).”

Netherlands Antilles — This tiny island off the coast of Venezuela, I can’t think of one good reason to invade. Except maybe, it’s close to South America and would give us more of a presence there. We’ve always tried to boss South America.

This is only a partial list.

There are many more such countries that can be taught freedom.

© Copyright 2008 by SammonSays.com

The United States is one of the last remaining land empires. That it is made the butt of opprobrium and odium is hardly surprising, or unprecedented. Empires – Rome, the British, the Ottomans – were always targeted by the disgruntled, the disenfranchised and the dispossessed and by their self-appointed delegates, the intelligentsia.

Yet, even by historical standards, America seems to be provoking blanket repulsion.

The Pew Research Center published in December 2002 a report titled “What the World Thinks in 2002″. “The World”, was reduced by the pollsters to 44 countries and 38,000 interviewees. Two other surveys published last year – by the German Marshall Fund and the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations – largely supported Pew’s findings.

The most startling and unambiguous revelation was the extent of anti-American groundswell everywhere: among America’s NATO allies, in developing countries, Muslim nations and even in eastern Europe where Americans, only a decade ago, were lionized as much-adulated liberators.

Four years later, things have gotten even worse.

Between March and May 2006, Pew surveyed 16,710 people in Britain, China, Egypt, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Spain, Turkey and the United States.

Only 23% of Spaniards had a positive opinion of the USA, down from 41% the year before. A similar drop was evinced in India (from 71% to 56%), Russia (from 52% o 43%), Indonesia (from 38% to 30%), and Turkey (from 23% to 12%). In Britain, America’s putative ally, support was down by one third from 2002, to 50% or so. Declines were noted in France, Germany, and Jordan, somewhat offset by marginal rises in China and Pakistan.

Two thirds of Russians and overwhelming majorities in 13 out of 15 countries regarded the conduct of the USA in Iraq as a greater threat to world peace that Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The distinction formerly made between the American people and the Bush administration is also eroding. Majorities in only 7 of 14 countries had favorable views of Americans.

“People around the world embrace things American and, at the same time, decry U.S. influence on their societies. Similarly, pluralities in most of the nations surveyed complain about American unilateralism.”- expounded the year 2002 Pew report.

Yet, even this “embrace of things American” is ambiguous.

Violently “independent”, inanely litigious and quarrelsome, solipsistically provincial, and fatuously ignorant – this nation of video clips and sound bites, the United States, is often perceived as trying to impose its narcissistic pseudo-culture upon a world exhausted by wars hot and cold and corrupted by vacuous materialism.

Recent accounting scandals, crumbling markets, political scams, human rights violations, technological setbacks, and rising social tensions have revealed how rotten and inherently contradictory the US edifice is and how concerned are Americans with appearances rather than substance.

To religious fundamentalists, America is the Great Satan, a latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, a cesspool of immorality and spiritual decay. To many European liberals, the United states is a throwback to darker ages of religious zealotry, pernicious bigotry, virulent nationalism, and the capricious misrule of the mighty.

According to most recent surveys by Gallup, MORI, the Council for Secular Humanism, the US Census Bureau, and others – the vast majority of Americans are chauvinistic, moralizing, bible-thumping, cantankerous, and trigger-happy. About half of them believe that Satan exists – not as a metaphor, but as a real physical entity.

America has a record defense spending per head, a vertiginous rate of incarceration, among the highest numbers of legal executions and gun-related deaths. It is still engaged in atavistic debates about abortion, the role of religion, and whether to teach the theory of evolution.

According to a series of special feature articles in The Economist, America is generally well-liked in Europe, but less so than before. It is utterly detested by the Muslim street, even in “progressive” Arab countries, such as Egypt and Jordan. Everyone – Europeans and Arabs, Asians and Africans – think that “the spread of American ideas and customs is a bad thing.”

Admittedly, we typically devalue most that which we have formerly idealized and idolized.

To the liberal-minded, the United States of America reified the most noble, lofty, and worthy values, ideals, and causes. It was a dream in the throes of becoming, a vision of liberty, peace, justice, prosperity, and progress. Its system, though far from flawless, was considered superior – both morally and functionally – to anything ever conceived by Man.

Such unrealistic expectations inevitably and invariably lead to disenchantment, disillusionment, bitter disappointment, seething anger, and a sense of humiliation for having been thus deluded, or, rather, self-deceived. This backlash is further exacerbated by the haughty hectoring of the ubiquitous American missionaries of the “free-market-cum-democracy” church.

Americans everywhere aggressively preach the superior virtues of their homeland. Edward K. Thompson, managing editor of “Life” (1949-1961) warned against this propensity to feign omniscience and omnipotence: “Life (the magazine) must be curious, alert, erudite and moral, but it must achieve this without being holier-than-thou, a cynic, a know-it-all, or a Peeping Tom.”

Thus, America’s foreign policy – i.e., its presence and actions abroad – is, by far, its foremost vulnerability.

According to the Pew study, the image of the Unites States as a benign world power slipped dramatically in the space of two years in Slovakia (down 14 percent), in Poland (-7), in the Czech Republic (-6) and even in fervently pro-Western Bulgaria (-4 percent). It rose exponentially in Ukraine (up 10 percent) and, most astoundingly, in Russia (+24 percent) – but from a very low base.

The crux may be that the USA maintains one set of sanctimonious standards at home while egregiously and nonchalantly flouting them far and wide. Hence the fervid demonstrations against its military presence in places as disparate as South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, and Saudi Arabia.

In January 2000, Staff Sergeant Frank J. Ronghi sexually molested, forcibly sodomized (“indecent acts with a child”) and then murdered an 11-years old girl in the basement of her drab building in Kosovo, when her father went to market to do some shopping. His is by no means the most atrocious link in a long chain of brutalities inflicted by American soldiers overseas, the latest of which are taking place in Iraq. In all these cases, the perpetrators were removed from the scene to face justice – or, more often, a travesty thereof – back home.

Americans – officials, scholars, peacemakers, non-government organizations – maintain a colonial state of mind. Backward natives come cheap, their lives dispensable, their systems of governance and economies inherently inferior. The white man’s burden must not be encumbered by the vagaries of primitive indigenous jurisprudence. Hence America’s fierce resistance to and indefatigable obstruction of the International Criminal Court.

Opportunistic multilateralism notwithstanding, the USA still owes the poorer nations of the world close to $200 million – its arrears to the UN peacekeeping operations, usually asked to mop up after an American invasion or bombing. It not only refuses to subject its soldiers to the jurisdiction of the World Criminal Court – but also its facilities to the inspectors of the Chemical Weapons Convention, its military to the sanctions of the (anti) land mines treaty and the provisions of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty, and its industry to the environmental constraints of the Kyoto Protocol, the rulings of the World Trade Organization, and the rigors of global intellectual property rights.

Despite its instinctual unilateralism, the United States is never averse to exploiting multilateral institutions to its ends. It is the only shareholder with a veto power in the International Monetary Fund (IMF), by now widely considered to have degenerated into a long arm of the American administration. The United Nations Security Council, raucous protestations aside, has rubber-stamped American martial exploits from Panama to Iraq.

It seems as though America uses – and thus, perforce, abuses – the international system for its own, ever changing, ends. International law is invoked by it when convenient – ignored when importune.

In short, America is a bully. It is a law unto itself and it legislates on the fly, twisting arms and breaking bones when faced with opposition and ignoring the very edicts it promulgates at its convenience. Its soldiers and peacekeepers, its bankers and businessmen, its traders and diplomats are its long arms, an embodiment of this potent and malignant mixture of supremacy and contempt.

But why is America being singled out?

In politics and even more so in geopolitics, double standards and bullying are common. Apartheid South Africa, colonial France, mainland China, post-1967 Israel – and virtually every other polity – were at one time or another characterized by both. But while these countries usually mistreated only their own subjects – the USA does so also exterritorialy.

Even as it never ceases to hector, preach, chastise, and instruct – it does not recoil from violating its own decrees and ignoring its own teachings. It is, therefore, not the USA’s intrinsic nature, nor its self-perception, or social model that I find most reprehensible – but its actions, particularly its foreign policy.

America’s manifest hypocrisy, its moral talk and often immoral walk, its persistent application of double standards, irks and grates. I firmly believe that it is better to face a forthright villain than a masquerading saint. It is easy to confront a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Mao, vile and bloodied, irredeemably depraved, worthy only of annihilation. The subtleties of coping with the United States are far more demanding and far less rewarding.

This self-proclaimed champion of human rights has aided and abetted countless murderous dictatorships. This alleged sponsor of free trade is the most protectionist of rich nations. This ostensible beacon of charity contributes less than 0.1% of its GDP to foreign aid (compared to Scandinavia’s 0.6%, for instance). This upright proponent of international law (under whose aegis it bombed and invaded half a dozen countries this past decade alone) is in avowed opposition to crucial pillars of the international order.

Naturally, America’s enemies and critics are envious of its might and wealth. They would have probably acted the same as the United States, if they only could. But America’s haughtiness and obtuse refusal to engage in soul searching and house cleaning do little to ameliorate this antagonism.

To the peoples of the poor world, America is both a colonial power and a mercantilist exploiter. To further its geopolitical and economic goals from Central Asia to the Middle East, it persists in buttressing regimes with scant regard for human rights, in cahoots with venal and sometimes homicidal indigenous politicians. And it drains the developing world of its brains, its labour, and its raw materials, giving little in return.

All powers are self-interested – but America is narcissistic. It is bent on exploiting and, having exploited, on discarding. It is a global Dr. Frankenstein, spawning mutated monsters in its wake. Its “drain and dump” policies consistently boomerang to haunt it.

Both Saddam Hussein and Manuel Noriega – two acknowledged monsters – were aided and abetted by the CIA and the US military. America had to invade Panama to depose the latter and to molest Iraq for the second time in order to force the removal of the former.

The Kosovo Liberation Army, an American anti-Milosevic pet, provoked a civil war in Macedonia tin 2001. Osama bin-Laden, another CIA golem, restored to the USA, on September 11, 2001 some of the materiel it so generously bestowed on him in his anti-Russian days.

Normally the outcomes of expedience, the Ugly American’s alliances and allegiances shift kaleidoscopically. Pakistan and Libya were transmuted from foes to allies in the fortnight prior to the Afghan campaign. Milosevic has metamorphosed from staunch ally to rabid foe in days.

This capricious inconsistency casts in grave doubt America’s sincerity – and in sharp relief its unreliability and disloyalty, its short term thinking, truncated attention span, soundbite mentality, and dangerous, “black and white”, simplism.

In its heartland, America is isolationist. Its denizens erroneously believe that the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave is an economically self-sufficient and self-contained continent. Yet, it is not what Americans trust or wish that matters to others. It is what they do. And what they do is meddle, often unilaterally, always ignorantly, sometimes forcefully.

Elsewhere, inevitable unilateralism is mitigated by inclusive cosmopolitanism. It is exacerbated by provincialism – and American decision-makers are mostly provincials, popularly elected by provincials. As opposed to Rome, or Great Britain, America is ill-suited and ill-equipped to micromanage the world.

It is too puerile, too abrasive, too arrogant and it has a lot to learn. Its refusal to acknowledge its shortcomings, its confusion of brain with brawn (i.e., money or bombs), its legalistic-litigious character, its culture of instant gratification and one-dimensional over-simplification, its heartless lack of empathy, and bloated sense of entitlement are detrimental to world peace and stability.

America is often called by others to intervene. Many initiate conflicts or prolong them with the express purpose of dragging America into the quagmire. It then is either castigated for not having responded to such calls – or reprimanded for having responded. It seems that it cannot win. Abstention and involvement alike garner it only ill-will.

But people call upon America to get involved because they know it rises to the challenge. America should make it unequivocally and unambiguously clear that – with the exception of the Americas – its sole interests rest in commerce. It should make it equally known that it will protect its citizens and defend its assets, if need be by force.

Indeed, America’s – and the world’s – best bet are a reversion to the Monroe and (technologically updated) Mahan doctrines. Wilson’s Fourteen Points brought the USA nothing but two World Wars and a Cold War thereafter. It is time to disengage.

Note – America the Narcissist

The majority of worldwide respondents to the last two global Pew enter surveys (in 2002 and 2006) regarded the United States as the greatest menace to world peace – far greater than the likes of Iraq or China. Thinkers and scholars as diverse as Christopher Lasch in “The Cultural Narcissist” and Theodore Millon in “Personality Disorders of Everyday Life” have singled out the United States as the quintessential narcissistic society.

The “American Dream” in itself is benign. It involves materialistic self-realization, the belief in the ideal of equal opportunities and equal access to the system, and in just rewards for hard work, merit, and natural gifts. But the Dream has been rendered nightmarish by the confluence with America’s narcissistic traits.

America’s internal ethos is universally-accepted by all Americans. It incorporates the American Dream and the conviction that America stands for everything that is good and right. Consequently, as the reification of goodness, the United States is in constant battle with evil and its ever-changing demonic emissaries – from Hitler to Saddam Hussein.

There is no national consensus about America’s external ethos. Some Americans are isolationists, others interventionists. Both groups are hypervigilant, paranoid, and self-righteous – but isolationists are introverted and schizoid. Theirs is siege mentality. Interventionists are missionary. They feel omnipotent and invincible. They are extroverted and psychopathic.

• Read the article Collective Narcissism

• Read about Christopher Lasch HERE.

This pathology can be traced back and attributed to a confluence of historical events and processes, the equivalents of trauma and abuse in an individual’s early childhood.

The United States of America started out as a series of loosely connected, remote, savage, and negligible colonial outposts. The denizens of these settlements were former victims of religious persecution, indentured servants, lapsed nobility, and other refugees. Their Declaration of Independence reads like a maudlin list of grievances coupled with desperate protestations of love and loyalty to their abuser, the King of Britain.

The inhabitants of the colonies defended against their perceived helplessness and very real inferiority with compensatory, imagined, and feigned superiority and fantasies of omnipotence. Victims frequently internalize their abusers and themselves become bullies. Hence the rough, immutable kernel of American narcissism.

The United States was (until the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s) and still is, in some important respects, a
pre-Enlightenment, white supremacist society. It is rife with superstition, prejudice, conspicuous religiosity, intolerance, philistinism, and lack of social solidarity. Its religiosity is overt, aggressive, virulent and
ubiquitous. It is replete with an eschatology, which involves a changing cast of demonized “enemies”, both political and cultural.

The Civil War was fought between 2 America’s: the South, a perverted rendition of Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, and the North, a harbinger of modern, multicultural immigrant societies. The North and the American Dream prevailed, the slaves were freed, and the Southern way of life, that of “gentlemen with leisure”, was replaced by a workaholic society where everyone is a slave to money and leisure is an ever rarer commodity.

• Read about American eschatology HERE.

Americans’ religion is a manifestation of their “Chosen People Syndrome”. They are missionary, messianic, zealous, fanatical, and nauseatingly self-righteous, bigoted, and hypocritical. This is especially discernible in the double-speak and double-standard that underlies American foreign policy.

• Read the articles For the Love of God and In God We Trust

American altruism is misanthropic and compulsive. They often give merely in order to control, manipulate, and sadistically humiliate the recipients.

• Read the article To Give with Grace

Narcissism is frequently comorbid with paranoia. Americans cultivate and nurture a siege mentality which leads to violent acting out and unbridled jingoism. Their persecutory delusions sit well with their adherence to social Darwinism (natural selection of the fittest, let the weaker fall by the wayside, might is right, etc.).

Consequently, the United States always finds itself in company with the least palatable regimes in the world: together with Nazi Germany it had a working eugenics program (the 1935 anti-Jewish Nuremberg Laws and the Nazi sterilization law were modeled after American anti-miscegenation and sterilization statutes), together with the likes of Saudi Arabia it executes its prisoners, it was the last developed nation to abolish slavery, alone with South Africa it had instituted official apartheid in a vast swathe of its territory.

Add to this volatile mix an ethos of malignant individualism, racism both latent and overt, a trampling, “no holds barred” ambitiousness, competitiveness, frontier violence-based morality, and proud simple-mindedness – and an ominous portrait of the United States as a deeply disturbed polity emerges.

Also Read:

• The Semi-failed State

• The Second Civil War

• The Reluctant Empire

• To Give with Grace

• In God We Trust

• The Sergeant and the Girl

• Containing the United States

• Democracy and New Colonialism

• The American Hostel

• Add Me to the List, Mr. Blair

• Narcissism, Group Behavior, and Terrorism

• The Iraqi and the Madman

• Islam and Liberalism

Video Reference: Understanding Anti-Americanism