Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja

Warriors Continuing More Wars in the Arab world

Long ago, John Adams describing how the British lost America noted: “the pride and vanity of that nation is a disease; it is a delirium, it has been flattered and inflamed so long by themselves and others that it perverts everything.” Wars are not a prelude to peace but kill people and undermine the habitat for the living human beings, destroy humanity by raging coercive man’s instinct - animosity of each against all and of all against each, accumulative madness practically denying all prospects of peace and co-existence. Previous wars of centuries were aimed at annihilation of political and economic enemies but the 21st century conflicts are ready-made recipes not only to eliminate the mankind but also the environment in which human beings survive and the planet Earth that sustains life. Given the strategic know-how and the scientific-technological advancements, it is an established fact that any futuristic global warfare will end the very existence of man and humanity on this planet. Is it not the same march to folly that President Obama is making the history? William Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), is an editor of blog The Contrary Perspective and speaks of the American cult embedded in bombing (“The American Cult of Bombing.” Tom Dispatch and Information Clearing House: 8/19/2014):

Yet few Americans question the sanity or cult-like behavior of American presidents as they continue to seek solutions to complex issues by bombing Iraq …. Poor Iraq. From Operation Desert Shield/Storm under George H.W. Bush to enforcing no-fly zones under Bill Clinton to Operation Iraqi Freedom under George W. Bush to the latest “humanitarian” bombing under Barack Obama, the one constant is American bombs bursting in Iraqi desert air. Yet despite this bombing -- or rather in part because of it -- Iraq is a devastated and destabilized country, slowly falling apart at seams that have been unraveling under almost a quarter-century of steady, at times relentless, pounding. “Shock and awe,” anyone?

Global warriors – the shameless segment of the humanity are re-enacting another major cross-cultural conflict in Iraq. It is disguised as “humanitarian invention” to protect the endangered peoples in a war-torn highly militarized Middle Eastern culture. When “al-Qaeda” was alleged to be waging a war of insurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan, it was already a dead entry on the American strategic radar. George W. Bush enlisted the Saudi King and the Ameer of Kuwait to provide logistical support to the US Iraq’s invasion of March 2003. The US led occupying forces planned and invested large scale actions in sectarian divides to perpetuate hatred and animosities between the Shias and Sunnis within Iraq. The invaders prepared the landscape for futuristic weapon sales, interventions and strategically subservient political culture of the Iraqi and other Arabian people. The outcome produced another powerful group of ISIS now ISIL equipped with American weapons, training and transport capabilities. The ISIL group under Abubakr al-Bughdade appears to be making major strategic gains across Iraq and Syria. There is a wide gulf in what the ISIL claims and how they act for an inclusive future of the beleaguered country. The current US-British war engagements in Iraq and aerial bombing against the ISIL are aimed at long terms destabilization and destruction of the oil exporting Arab region. Its immediate priorities are to protect the oil business of the US operated interests in Erbel –Kurdish region and to enhance the sales of weapons. At the outset of the ISIL military advances, the US military operations hurriedly flew out several thousands of American oil executives out of Iraq. Under global scrutiny, President Obama is making dubious statements linking military support to internal political changes within Iraq. But reality depicts a different picture of the US geo-political strategies. During the previous year, the Obama administration concluded an agreement with Saudi Arabia to sell weapons worth of $60. Billion as the oil prices are too high - a move that does not weigh on the rational strategic scale. Israel will always be the US supported superpower in the Middle East. The Arab rulers have no sense of the global political games. The petro-dollar enriched Arab authoritarian rulers are morally and intellectually incapacitated to think of the present or how to cope with the futuristic challenges. The secretive Arabian police states are managed by the US-British forces and interests.

On August 18, 2014, President Obama accused ISIL group of “savagery” against the Iraqi people. Obama failed to tell the truth how the US led savagery had used uranium depleted weapons against the civilian population and habitats in Iraq and killed approximately 3 millions innocent civilians during the decade long occupation. The Iraqi genocide is hardly mentioned in the American political thinking and media coverage. There are no objective values in the imperial philosophy of global hegemony, control and domination. Power and wisdom are immeasurably separated by the gulf of greed, militarization and hegemonic control over the oil-rich Arab Middle East. The plans essentially envisage grand scheme of things to build, destroy through intrigues and backdoor conspiracies and to rebuild the infrastructures to sustain the imperial economies - the war led economies of America and West European imperialism. This is not what the Arab Middle East or Iraq in particular needs. While the authoritarian Arab rulers live in a world of fantasy, the strategic movement signals a defining moment and coercive message of deaths and destructions to the entire Arab world- continuing war in Syria and Iraq onward to Lebanon, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and UAE sheikhdoms. Iraq needs new leadership and political imagination to come to terms with its challenges of the present and hopes for the future. Its geography and political landscape is adversely fragmented between the tribal warlords and regional loyalties and rivalries of the few. America and Britain cannot escape the legacy of man-made cruelties against the civilian population of Iraq. Undoubtedly, all wars encompass humanitarian issues but none as catastrophic and deliberate as witnessed in Iraq engineered by the 2003 US -led aggression under the false pretext of WMD. Britain is currently under investigation by The Hague based ICC for possible war crimes against humanity in Iraq. The US and its allies invaded Iraq and Afghanistan to occupy and exploit the oil and gas resources and the “war on terror” has crossed over the borders into neighboring Pakistan. The ripple effects of the wars produced a culture of on-going violence, trends amongst the soldiers to commit suicide and undermining the future peace and stability of the global humanity.

War Culture Menace to Global Peace and Future of Humanity

“If war is a crime what is its name?” Asks W’Lawpsh (“And Its Name Is Treason!” Dissident Voice: 11/24/2011), and suggests nothing but “treason” and elaborates that: “the Constitution of the United States of America calls it “Treason.” …….So all in all it appears causing unconstitutional war and genocide is a crime; the crime is Treason …..The Judges are the only ones who can achieve prevention without violence. A jurisprudential revolution can prevent war and genocide simply by thinking judicially instead of politically.”

After the 9/11, George Bush erroneously claimed “they hate our freedom.” The truth is that George Bush had no freedom of his own as a President. Dick Cheney dictated Bush to wage the war and draw after the war recovery benefits to Halliburton account, and the Neo-conservatives group, Donald Rumsfeld and Condaleeca Rice to transform the Huntington’s scenario of ‘the Clash of the Civilizations’ into a virtual reality to invade and occupy the vast Arab regions. Iraq reportedly enjoys 40%-50% of the world’s untapped oil resources. The US foreign policy is intimately linked to its geo-political grandeur interests not to the common thinking and primary interests of the masses. There is a continuing evolution of ‘war thinking’ and conflict-making and conflict-keeping across the Arab world. Iraq suits best to the on-going strategic interests of the US and Britain. But Germany appears to be cautious as its Foreign Minister insists to visit the Iraqi scene and assess the real situation for further action. But contrary to international expectations and his acclaimed Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama appear to have removed the sense of shame and fear to what crimes were committed in Iraq and Afghanistan and looks embolden to carryout more acts of wars against the people in Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula. The international community is entrenched in a sickening dilemma of the few cancerous puppies unable to see the rational current of the global mankind - the net victims of monstrous culpability and fallibility of few sadistic minds. Is this not the same thinking and actions what was practiced during the WW1 and the WW2? Have we learned anything from the past to change and reform our minds and behavior when facts warrant a change, be it in policy making or global interactive behaviors? After all listening and learning are critical factors for the changing role of the 21st century political leadership and so is the flexibility mechanism to be built-in for effective leadership. But there are no intelligent and proactive leaders with a vision of Peace and One Humanity except self-geared egomaniacs using sensation of power and viciousness to torture and kill the mankind and destroy ecological habitats. But contrary to the brutal perceptions and actions of the US-former Europeans imperialists, the international community is informed, mature, and enjoys the moral and intellectual capacity to know and understand the facts of life and to challenge the politically imperiled insensitivity to universal accord and unity of the mankind against brutality of the Terrorism of Wars that unites them with a common fate more than divides them by any token of adversity or geography or formative history.

The Dehumanized Casualties of the bogus Wars - the Veterans and the Society

One of the major casualties of the bogus War on Terrorism is the war veterans who are denied humanitarian care and medical treatment and proper support and opportunities to resume normal life in the society. Many are forced to commit suicide or go on harmful drugs and ultimately undermine the health and human existence. Cyrus Massounmi ("22 Soldiers Commit Suicide Every Day, One Veteran Says Many Die For A Profit." MRConservative.com: 5/23/2013), reporting in the MRConservatice explains the saga: “22 Soldiers Commit Suicide Every Day, One Veteran Says Many Die For A Profit.” The US Army News (Rick Maze: “18 Veterans Commit suicide each day”: 4/26/2010), reported that 18-25 war veterans commit suicide every day and noted “Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department……. Suicide attempts by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans remains a key area of concern. In fiscal 2009, there were 1,621 suicide attempts by men and 247 by women who served in Iraq or Afghanistan, with 94 men and four women dying.” Finian Cunningham (“Killing Children Is the All-American Way.” Dissident Voice: 12/22/2012), raised critical concerns on the growing diasporas of the US war culture:

“Americans need to look at how their society has increasingly become a psychopathic culture of death over many decades. Americans need to realize how their hallowed capitalist ideology of the putative American Dream is in practice nothing but the destruction of communities and millions of individuals on the altar of elite profit-making. Think about the glib, common parlance used to describe the process of human destruction. Investors “make a killing”; workforces are “liquidated”; society is facing a “fiscal cliff”.

American politicians no longer enjoy moral and intellectual leadership but claim it and act like surrogated mothers to the war-lobbyists and pundits of the major military-industrial complex. Politicians waging wars against the mankind are not the competent people to answer vital issues of moral and spiritual values and significance affecting the soldiers and on the growing epidemic of combat soldiers committing suicides. Fighting soldiers and the common people are the victim of delusional and vengeful hatred of the few global warlords who have vested corporate interests in the oil and gas supplies coming out of the Arab Middle East. All troops are indoctrinated with mythology of animosity to fight the Arabs and Muslims. While on the war front, they lose rational consciousness by targeting and killing the innocents - men, women and children as are the instances in Afghanistan and Iraq and daily drone attacks on the innocent Pakistani civilians – a cold-blooded murder game of the warriors. These are the net causalities of man’s insanity against man. The real reasons are hardly mentioned in expert reports. Science and machines cannot comprehend the intricate balance between material and spiritual life and inner consciousness of the self- the human. Politicians who entangle the human beings into warmongering are void of the knowledge of Unity of Human Self - an all embracing sanctity of sacred life created by God, time, material, spiritual, thought, life and purpose of life - the ultimate source of all individual life and human unity. Politicians and concerned social scientists and military strategists perceive the broken hearts and minds of returning soldiers as they want to see it and they do not wish to see the reality as it persists. According to Congressman Ron Paul ("The Death of Daniel Somers." Ron Paul Institute, 6/24/ 2013): "The numbers sadly tell the story: more military suicides than combat deaths in 2012, some 22 military veterans take their lives every day." Daniel Somers ("War Criminals Bush and Blair Claim Another Victim - "I Am Sorry That It Has Come to This": A Soldier's Last Words." Information Clearing House: 6/24/2013), an American war veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom 2004-2005 and then again 2006-2007, was 30 years old and suffered greatly from PTSD and was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury and several other war-related conditions. On June 10, 2013, Daniel Somers wrote the following letter to his family before taking his own life. “…. My mind is a wasteland, filled with visions of incredible horror, unceasing depression, and crippling anxiety, even with all of the medications the doctors dare give. ….. I can not laugh or cry…….Thus, I am left with basically nothing. Too trapped in a war to be at peace, too damaged to be at war. This is what brought me to my actual final mission.” The war-torn human

consciousness needs spiritual and moral enhancement support to come out of the self-inflicted tragic and inhuman experience of killing other human beings. Politicians and society that drives soldiers to the madness of war fronts to kill others and get killed have no sense of moral responsibility to facilitation of remedial human help to console and motivate the entrenched life - the wounded inner soul of the combat soldiers. All experiences are immediate and individual. Others see the prevalent reality differently with overwhelming societal and political expediency. Strange as is, during the presidential elections, nobody questions the politicians: why do 22 American war veterans are daily committing suicide? Are they just digits and numbers to be counted as statistic or sacred embodiment of precious human life and soul who served the country? Do they not deserve to be looked after in a humane way and responsible systematic manner once they serve the interests of the country?

Remaking of the Arab World: Is it too late for the Arab Rulers to Think of Navigational Change?

Politically exhausted and financially bankrupt America because of the two bogus wars on terrorism, and morally and intellectually incapsitated Arab authoritarians are partners in complacency, the result appears to be the worst combination of lost future. Every beginning has an end. The contemporary warlords need to see the mirror and the urgency of a navigational change, if they have the moral and intellectual capacity to Think and Act and to spare the mankind from further catastrophic tragedies. The 21st century of knowledge based political change and learning for sustainable future should have an Inner Human Eye - the Human Conscience - focused on Change and to serve the rational interests of the populace and global humanity. Long dead “al-Qaeda” is no longer an issue and its political replacement the ISIL has become the top agenda item for the Western media outlets, US and British leaders and their continuing stated warnings to the region. If the ISIL kills innocent people as did the US and British forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, the group will lose the moral ground for its success and political support.

Storm is mounting at the door steps but the Arab rulers show indifference to the vital public interests for political change and institutionalized societal development. The economically advanced oil exporting Arab societies need urgently to see the mirror and so do their egoistic and mindless rulers. There are no shifting metaphor in foreign policy stance and change in confrontational behaviors causing civilian bloodbaths. Time and history is not on their side as American plans to destabilize the oil producing Arab world are already in place with the bombing of ISIL in Iraq. None seem to have the peoples support or political strength to challenge the US new doctrine of occupation of the Arab Middle East. The strategic pursuit will help America and Israel to achieve premier objectives what otherwise would have been unthinkable to reshape the map of the Arab states. The coercive militarization of the Arab societies does not correspond to the nature of things across the Arabian moral and spiritual culture. The outcomes could be used unilaterally by the conquerors to solve many chronic problems including the freedom of Palestine. The egoistic Arab rulers are divided and incapable to think of the future. After more than sixty years of oil pumped economy, what kind of societal role model have they produced? Militarization of the Arab states, secret police apparatus as killing machines, erecting sky-hi buildings, putting up splendid palaces, unbeatable malls, highways, and air terminals - all exhaustible materialistic thoughts for economic pursuits- exclusive material progress by denying moral and spiritual dimensions of human emancipation. The bulk of issues concern incompetent leadership, freedom of communication, and missing public institutions to advance societal development and harmony and people-oriented accountable and democratic system of political governance. The US and its allies focus on militarization of all the Arabian Peninsula. The military intervention in Iraq and soon to other reactionary parts of the Arab world clearly sets the high level of insecurity for the present regimes. Iraq is a conveniently available staging post to pursue the plan and to destroy the rest of the Arab states and neo-colonial political existence. None of the contemporary Arab states have legitimate people’s supported governance complementing the Islamic principles and injunctions. The US led coercive wars and the complacent Arab rulers combine the disastrous and frightful program for continuing aggressive wars. The Arab world is heading towards self-manufactured disasters and ultimate annihilation. Classical political scholar Robert Briffault (The Making of Humanity, London, 1918) represents the true nature of warmongering human mindset:

“The hell of human suffering, evil and oppression is paved with good intentions. The men who have most injured and oppressed humanity, who have most deeply sinned against

it, were according to their standards and their conscience good men; what was bad in them, what wrought moral evil and cruelty, treason to truth and progress, was not at all in

their intentions, in their purpose, in their personal character, but in their opinions.”

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(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including the latest: Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Lambert Publishing Germany, May 2012).