Hypocrisy
and Highhandedness
It
is one thing to sin, quite another to
rationalize and clothe it in the muslin
of justice and honor.
American helicopter gunships strafed
southern Somalia on January 8th, 2007
in an effort to kill Al-Qaeda leaders.
Television footage shows civilian deaths
and injuries. It is unclear whether
the Al-Qaeda members were killed or
not.
In January 2006, an American drone leveled
a home in the village of Bajaur, Pakistan
, for Al-Zarqawi was to come to dinner.
The entire family was killed and the
guest was a no-show. Musharraf was derided
in Pakistan and blamed for selling its
sovereignty on the cheap.
In October 2006, again in Bajaur, a
madrassa was leveled killing 80 students,
some as young as 7 and 10 years. Eyewitness
accounts report the destruction caused
by a drone at dawn. Musharraf, beleaguered
by the previous American attack, tried
to say that the Pakistan army carried
out the strike. Villagers report that
Pakistani helicopters came an hour later
and strafed the hills.
Time and again US attacks on various
civilian targets in Afghanistan cause
scores of civilian deaths. The mind-numbing
civilian death toll in Iraq shows no
sign of abating, especially now that
President Bush has committed 20,000
more troops to Iraq, as well as “Patriot
defense systems” which would in
all likelihood air-attack targets at
will.
Somalia and Pakistan are sovereign nations,
and the United States is signatory to
international conventions that safeguard
that sovereignty and view human life
as sacred.
Dictators like Saddam massacred with
no pretense of being democratic or just.
Stalin purged Soviet society of dissidents
by exile to the Gulag Archipelago. He
did not employ a veneer of respect for
human rights. America, on the other
hand, claims to epitomize justice and
the rule of law.
It is true that the US embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania were attacked in
1993 and 18 American soldiers were killed.
There is a difference, though, between
soldiers and non-combatants. And yet
as the Iraq tragedy continues, this
line seems to be getting more and more
blurred.
The fortunes of Muslim puppets have
changed with American whim. Saddam was
groomed to dictatorship by the United
States and provided satellite information
in the Iran-Iraq war, enabling the use
of poison gas on Iranians, as well as
the Kurds in 1988. In the legendary
“divide and rule” policy,
America promoted a Shia uprising in
1991 and then looked away when Saddam
decimated them. America, so strongly
culpable in making Saddam the monster
he became, engineered his trial such
that the poison gas massacres were not
tried; the killing of 142 Shias in Dujail
got him the death sentence. How, after
all, would the icon of justice and human
rights explain its Dr.Jekyll-and-Mr.Hyde
role in Saddam’s rule?
And for US Ambassador to Iraq, Zalmai
Khalilzad to be on vacation and Condoleeza
Rice to agree to the execution by the
vengeful Nur-al-Maliki on Eid-ul-Adha,
violating Saddam’s 30-day appeals
process as well as the Iraqi constitution
is all a sharp, collective slap on the
Muslim face.
And the taunting of Saddam at the gallows
by his executioners should cause Muslims
to hang their heads in deep shame.
The one constant enemy of America is
Iran. How is peace to be achieved in
the Middle East when the current Iraqi
government headed by Nur-al-Maliki runs
to the Ayatollahs of Iran, to bless,
among other things, Saddam’s execution
on Eid-ul-Adha? How is peace possible
when America has aligned itself with
Nur-al-Maliki who is backed by Muqtada
al-Sadr, who in turn is backed overtly
by Iran? This political paradox will
cause continued bloodshed, regardless
of any number of American troops that
fight and die in Iraq.
Bush, even in his latest speech about
the troop increase in Iraq is full of
self- righteous pride about America
’s sense of justice and its lofty
ideals of freedom and human rights.
But the atrocities by the American government
continue in Guantanamo; despite exposé’s
and worldwide condemnation, prisoners
are even now held in isolation and continuous
bright lights. The practice of “extraordinary
rendition” continues unabated;
people are picked up in various parts
of the world by US intelligence and
then transported to a third country
where they are tortured till the necessary
confession.
It is the hypocrisy that is bothersome.
If America is watchful of human rights,
why are hundreds of people killed for
the prize of one Al-Qaeda member? America
’s eyes in the sky have such high
resolution that the target is discernible,
why can’t he alone be targeted?
And therein lies the answer. He can;
but if some of his ilk can go with him,
all the better.
Calling a spade a spade is outdated
in the American government of today.
Four years ago Bush created the “American
panic” by the claim that Saddam
had weapons of mass destruction, mentioning
nuclear weapons by name. When none were
found, the premise of this illegitimate
war was changed to ”we need to
bring democracy to the Iraqi people”.
The camouflage of repeated gross injustices
in the thin veneer of honor and principle
is an insult to the intelligence of
the world, and especially the American
people.
With the symbiotic relationship of America
with puppet regimes across the Muslim
world and their enabling the wanton
killing of their own people by American
airstrikes in flagrant violation of
international law, is certainly one
of the most tragic commentaries on our
time.
In fact in its blanket strikes against
Islamists, civilian casualties are considered
collateral damage. Perhaps Bush’s
use of the word “crusade”
at the start of the Iraq war was not
a slip of the tongue after all. And
what of the Muslim leaders that enable
him?
(Mahjabeen Islam is a physician and
freelance columnist living in Toledo
Ohio . Her email is mahjabeenislam@hotmail.com)
