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The military operation (May 2nd
2011) which killed Osama bin Laden has raised many questions
related to the deeper truths of the phenomenon of Al Qaeda,
Terrorism and role of US in the region. What is obvious is that US
in a neat military operation violated the air space of Pakistan;
with the help of highly trained commandoes killed Osama bin Laden,
the most dreaded name in the annals of terrorism, the chief of Al
Qaeda. Barrack Husain Obama is in the seventh heaven for achieving
a feat which US intelligence claims it was trying from many years
and finally has succeeded. Obama has all the reasons to be happy
as now after garnering the Noble Price for Peace he has shaped
himself as the one who looks ‘strong’ and can annihilate the
‘enemies’. It should surely improve his electoral ratings.
Pakistan authorities have been caught in a strange situation. They
have been claiming that Osama is not living in Pakistan; there are
no terrorists in Pakistan etc. In this backdrop, lo and behold,
Osama is found at the walking distance of the famous military
academy of Pakistan. Pakistan as a state has been humiliated by
the mighty US. US violated Pakistan’s sovereignty. US did not
inform Pakistan about the military operation which it undertook on
Pakistan’s land. On the top of that US is refusing to apologize
for this violation of Pakistan’s air space, for using its military
in another country. Now fears are rife that US may do similar
things to wipe out Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Due to Pakistan’s
lie about Osama’s living in Pakistan, there are voices calling for
declaring Pakistan as a terrorist state. Indian army Chief is
telling loud and clear that Indian armed forces are also competent
to undertake such an operation.
In the whole spectacle created around the death of Osama bin
Laden, some deeper truth is being further hidden from the public
eye. The fact that truth is a multilayered phenomenon is being
ignored and the whole game of United States in first helping the
creation of Al Qaeda, supporting Osama bin Laden with money and
armaments to join the anti Russian forces is practically being
pushed under the carpet. While Pakistan has to take the blame for
‘housing’ Osama, the deeper fact is that Pakistan army and ISI had
mostly been hands in glove with the US policies for control over
the oil wealth of the region.
Just a few decades ago, during cold war, Communism was projected
as the enemy No One by United States and its minions. US policies
aimed at conquering the World economically, politically and also
militarily where possible. Socialist block was a big obstacle for
US ambition. Around this time Russian army occupies Afghanistan,
and supports Afghan Communist regimes’ efforts to bring in land
reforms. Russian move brings in a reaction in the form of US
promoting a radical version of Islam. That was incidentally also
the time when the US army was demoralized due to its defeat at the
hands of Vietnamese people struggling to establish their own
nationalism. To counter the Soviet presence in the area, US played
a clever political trick. It resorted to encouraging and
supporting the militant version of Islam. US-CIA helped set up
Madrassas in Pakistan through the ISI. These Madrassas distorted
the Islamic words Jihad and Kafir. A syllabus was developed in
Washington to brainwash the Asian Muslim youth on to the path of
terrorism. Osama, a Saudi Arabian Civil engineer was supported to
take the lead of Al Qaeda and rest is by now too well known.
While we know the doings of Al Qaeda, its terror acts in the
region, Pakistan, India both, not much is thought of the fact that
at a time it was US and its alliance with Pakistan army and ISI
that the cancerous seeds of this terrorist organization were
sowed. An arrangement was struck whereby weapons were brought in
the ships, which were not to be checked at the ports, and straight
given to the Al Qaeda, which was in the good books of US at that
time. One recalls an interesting statement by the one of the
previous US Presidents, Ronald Reagan. While introducing the
elements from Al Qaeda, who were on a visit to the White house in
1985, Regan told the puzzled media persons that the strange
looking persons; gentlemen “... are the moral equivalents of
America's founding fathers." (Ronald Regan while introducing the
Mujahedeen leaders to media on the White house lawns. (1985). It
was a time when these characters were fighting the US war in
Afghanistan, the US war for balance of power and for the hegemony
in the oil rich area.
After the gulf war 1991, in which Iraq was cornered by US, and
after many other Muslim countries were mauled by US, the Al Qaeda
outfits turned against its own creator, the United States. They
started calling it ‘The Great Satan” and poured venom against the
US. Meanwhile Pakistan was under the grip of military dictatorship
of different Generals, who were thick as thieves with the Maulanas
and were constantly being guided by US through its Ambassador
based in Pakistan. Pakistan Military and ISI, for a price, played
the role of an assistant cum errand boy for the US policies in the
area. The situation starting changing after 9/11, when the World
Trade Center was attacked and nearly 3000 people from different
countries and belonging too many religions were killed. After this
US media manufactured a new word in the dictionary of terrorism.
US media linked Islam with terrorism and word Islamic-Terrorism
was coined which became the buzz word picked by the media all over
the World. With this came the theory of ‘Clash of Civilizations’,
the guiding principle of US foreign policy.
This theory in nutshell stated that the ‘backward Islamic
civilization’ is out to attack the advanced Western Civilization.
Gorge W. Bush used the word Crusade as his cover for attacking
Afghanistan and outlined this thesis of Clash of Civilization in
simple words, “Americans are asking: why do they hate us? They
hate our freedoms-our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech,
our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each
other."(George W. Bush, in his speech in US Congress in the
aftermath of 9/11, 2001)
This thesis demonized the Muslims of the World to no end. With the
efforts for democratic revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and other
Arab countries, many a biases created deliberately against Islam
and Muslims are collapsing. US now wants to change the slogan
which can continue its project to hegemonize the World. ‘Exporting
Democracy’ may be one such slogan, which will give the legitimiacy
to its global military domination. Pakistan military regime which
served the US interests so compliantly for so many years has been
partly overtaken by civilian Government in Pakistan, which in turn
is trying to bring semblance of democracy, trying to release the
Pakistani society from the shackles of Military-Mullah complex.
This is coinciding with the change in US policy. Now probably US
no longer needs the services of Pakistan Military ISI, so an open
criticism of Pakistan after promoting it for decades. Pakistan
leadership needs to introspect about the future of the people, as
to how to escape the vice like grip of US domination and develop
the nation in alliance with regional forces. US-Pakistan relations
should be a lesson to others also. How US is capable of using the
regimes and then abandoning them after depleting them of their
self respect, is abundantly clear in this story. Other nations
trying to dine in White House need a relook at the suicidal path
being adopted by them.
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