Mahboob A. Khawaja, PhD.

There's no question that this "war" will continue indefinitely. There is no question that US actions are the cause of that, the gasoline that fuels the fire. The only question - and it's becoming less of a question for me all the time - is whether this endless war is the intended result of US actions or just an unwanted miscalculation. Why would anyone in the US government or its owners have any interest in putting an end to this sham bonanza of power and profit called "the war on terror"? ….They're preparing for more endless war; their actions are fueling that war; and they continue to reap untold benefits from its continuation. Glenn Greenwald (“The 'War on Terror' - by Design - Can Never End. The Guardian: 1/4/2013”).

The Continuing War Agenda is Meant to Destroy the Arab-Islamic world

Islamophobia is on the rise. Few reactionary instances of individual madness are used by the Western strategists to blame Muslims and Islam as the focal point of their perpetuated belligerency. The ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria are aimed at wholesale deaths and destructions of the Arab-Muslim world. Western Europe is fast becoming a center piece of the media-generated tensions and enlarged societal conflicts. Muslims are dubbed as “extremists” and “fundamentalists” – the in-house labels readily available before any rational substance could be argued. Are the Muslims and Islam misfit to be part of the European cultural thinking and norms? How strange Muslims and Islam made significant contributions to the Europeans Intellectual Renaissance and Industrial Revolution but the 21st century European idealists see them problematic and resentful.

Mankind strives for peace, not for wars and hatred. The warmongers are using media as weapon to provoke reactionary animosities and impose the scheme of catastrophic war agenda. It is incumbent upon the rational thinkers, scholars and intellectuals of the 21st century to highlight the pertinent facts of human affairs and offer critical analysis of complex problems. American war strategy is aimed at large scale deaths and destructions of the entire Arab region enabling American corporations to attain direct control over the oil reserves and its exports and governance of the region. Another vital aim of the strategy is to camouflage the freedom of Palestine and keep the Arab people divided and antagonistic. Those opposing the American intervention in Iraq-Syria know well how much America is feared and hated by the common Arabian folks. President Obama does not have a strategy to “defeat and destroy ISIL” in the Arab Middle East. If he claims to have crafted a new strategy by launching air strikes on the civilian population across Iraq-Syria and enlisting coalition of the worst than useless Arab authoritarian leaders, he is in a political quagmire of his own. America will lose more by military interventions in the complex societal conflicts overwhelmingly dominating the Arab world. One would have imagined that more knowledgeable people become, more rational world will emerge in the coming ages of rational thinking. Not so, we continued to be occupied by false images and misleading rationale of the global conflicts. Like always, few cynical and mentally retarded people plan and wage wars against others, not imagining the dreadful end results of their intrigues and conspiracies against life, human rights and dignity and futuristic possibilities for survival on the planet.

Wars are Planned, Peacemaking is Not

Those who plan and wage wars are not innocent belligerent or without knowledge. They know well what they are engaged in and its consequences. Those who go to farfetched lands to kill the innocent people, divide and massacre men, women and children, fully understand what they are doing. Perhaps, common people are misled by the warmongers enabling them to sustain their war agendas under false political perceptions and imagery as is the case in the US. The undeniable TV imagery - the massacres of innocent Afghan women and children, bombing of the civilian population and the US spy drone attacks targeting innocent civilians in north western Pakistan are fast becoming media entertainment and soap opera to the American audience and of the US scheme of militarization of the culture. In his article Professor Camillo "Mac" Bica, School of Visual Arts, New York City and an activist of Peace and Justice (“Atrocity and War”, Information Clearing House, 4/29/2010) offers a penetrating insight to the true nature of war:

“…war is not accessible through the understanding, rationally, intellectually, by watching a film or by reading a book. To "know" war, you have to experience it, live it, feel it in your gut the anxiety, fear, frustration, boredom, hopelessness, despair, anger, rage, etc. In truth, warriors exist in a world totally incomprehensible to those who have never had the misfortune of experiencing the horrors of the battlefield.”

To revert the misfortunes of the common folks, the UNO or any other global organization is not actively pursuing or leading remedial actions for peacemaking. Diplomacy is ineffective tool and chaos and political disintegration are the preferred choices to maintain the status-quo. Arab leaders live in a conflicting time zone without any rational understanding of time and history.

How to Safeguard the Humanity from the Scourge of Wars?

Inadvertent aerial bombings and sectarian rifts causing daily bloodbaths do not appear to change the warmongers. Unpredictable but paranoid and vengeful political monsters have incapacitated the in-born faculties of American lifelines to be a morally and intellectually crippled and more of a redundant nation in global affairs. This was not accidental but a planned scheme of things although unknown in its short-long terms consequences over its ability to cope with the change phenomenon for a sustainable future. America became an insane – a victim of its own obsession with power and fearful of its future. All of America’s technological advanced weaponry on earth and secretive intelligence resources placed out in space are Weapons of Mass Destruction meant to be used against the people on Earth and nowhere else. Global mankind has passion for peace, not wars. Those mindless politicians claiming to have accomplished the mission in the War on Terrorism did so at the cost of ruthlessness, killings of millions of fellow mankind in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sherwood Ross (“US Sponsored Genocide against Iraq 1990-2012 killed 3.3 million including 750,000 children.” Global Research: 12/06/2012), many other investigative reports clearly blaming the US led forces to have massacred more than three millions civilians in Iraq. The US and British are responsible for much of Iraq’s planned destruction, increased sectarian violence and dismantling of the political governance. Dreadful are becoming as abnormal frequency of violent killings, internal insecurity, drug-abuses and political mismanagement, several thousands Americans killed in global bogus wars and likewise wounded and crippled for life, 18-25 war veterans daily committing suicide.

If America cannot deal with its own domestic problems of unusual violence, killings of the innocents and natural disasters, how could it be helpful to few puppet clients in the Arab world? One wonders, what went wrong with America? William Boardman (“A Country At War With An Illusion.” Information Clearing House: 8/19/2013) spells out how America looks at war with itself: “We are waging war on terrorism even as we embody terrorism. …No wonder we seem sometimes to be at war with ourselves, and have been for most of the 21st century….No American Under 12 Has Lived In A Country At Peace….America’s Main Enemy Is Nameless, Shapeless, “Associated Forces”… The American Enemies List Is Decided Anonymously and Secretly.

At the on-going US-European current military gatherings, war is a ready made magic pill to the entire ill conceived paradigm. But Ross Caputi (“Unthinkable Thoughts in the Debate About ISIS in Iraq.” Common Dreams: 6/15/2014) is a war veteran of the US Iraqi occupation and produced the documentary film Fear Not the Path of Truth, and an anti war activist, points out that:  “entirely absent is the perspective of Iraqis and the issues that are important to them: accountability, independence, and resistance. Moreover, the real complexities of this issue have been lost in a number of the Western media’s favorite binaries: terrorism vs. counterterrorism, good vs. evil, and insurgency vs. stability…..It was noted in the New York Times that ISIS had collaborated with several local militias in Mosul,…. that ISIS is just one faction in a larger popular rebellion against the government.” American masses do not favor the bombing of Iraq and fight against the ISIL. Felicia Gustin (“3 Reasons Why U.S. Strikes on Iraq (Again) Are a Terrible Idea.”  Common Dreams: 9/10/2014) is associated with War Times and is a long-time activist in international solidarity, peace, racial justice and labor movements and works at SpeakOut, offers logical reasoning against the US intervention:

It’s important to understand that the current crisis in Iraq is rooted in the destruction of Iraqi society brought on by the U.S. invasion and occupation. By exacerbating differences between Sunnis and Shiites, U.S. policies pushed Iraq away from a secular government and society. 1. Bombs will make the situation worse. You can’t help people caught in a civil war by dropping bombs on them or using drones. Sending in arms or troops will only deepen the major social, ethnic, religious and political divisions in Iraq and the wider region. A military response on the part of Washington will surely escalate the conflict, with innocent civilians caught in the crossfire…2. More war is no way to honor U.S. soldiers…. 3. Iraq needs reconciliation and reconstruction, not reintervention and the rebooting of war.

Arab Leaders to Develop Capacity for Unity, Rethinking and Peacemaking
Arab rulers are constantly viewed as the new “yes men” of the 21st century. Their supreme interest rests in protecting the authoritarianism and continued military collaboration with the Master- The USA. John Perkins ( Confessions of an Economic Hitman, 2005), views the grand scheme of economic development in the Arab Middle East as a blueprint for the US ambitions of empire building across the globe. He points out that “ it was part of a sinister system aimed not at outfoxing an unsuspecting customer, but rather at promoting the most subtle and effective form of imperialism the world has ever known…….most puzzling was that final entry under the list of my clients: US Treasury Department, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” By extending vast range of economic and military support to the House of Saud, the United States Empire will ensure the security of its modern protectorate. John Perkins uses a phrase commonly referring to the Kingdom and implied by the US economic hitmen as “the cow we can milk until the sun sets on our retirement.”

The political need is urgent for reconciliation and rethinking of the Arab role and responsibilities in making a negotiated peaceful conflict resolution. Unless the Arab leaders focus on rebuilding their inward moral and intellectual capacity for political change and to embrace the new educated and intelligent generation to assume political leadership, the Arab world is heading towards ultimate annihilation. The active agenda should be to change the confrontational direction and facilitate societal peace, and stop the wars and street bloodbaths. The Islamic scholars, Muslim academia in peace and conflict management and the Arab political activists should be encouraged to envisage change and to provide comprehensive new ideas for crisis management and conflict resolution. Arab leaders are operating from a position of extreme weakness, their strength lies in receiving the collective inputs and advisory from the educated classes. This priority must be felt, instinctively recognized and intellectually realized to stop the daily political bloodsheds outpouring across the Arab Middle East. People are fast becoming statistic of the causalities, but palaces are protected by foreign mercenaries. The real issues are subsided and superficial are rekindled to deceive the masses.

Do the American or the Arab leaders know what is the end-game? Aftermath of the American-led bombing campaign, what kind of political landscape and geography be in-waiting for the Arab Middle East? Time is critical for self-reflection to both the US and the Arab coalition to find peaceful negotiated means of conflict management. The US leaders and the neo-colonial Arab monarchs defy logic and reason. The Arab coalition leaders breathe oxygen in a complete disconnect to the interests of the Arab masses. The bombing campaign could strengthen ISIL and other Iranian sponsored militia groups in their reactionary pursuits to gain public legitimacy. They are fighting against themselves and against all. What is the cure to raging indifference and cruelty to the interests of the people of Iraq, United States, Syria and Europe and for that matter to the whole of the mankind? The 21st century new-age complex political, economic, social and strategic challenges and the encompassing opportunities warrant new thinking, new leaders and new visions for change, conflict management and participatory peaceful future-making. But change and conflict resolution and new visions will not grow out of the obsolete, redundant and failed authoritarianism of the few insane and egoistic leaders. The contemporary warmongers have no clue of peaceful co-existence in a God-given splendid and living Universe.

One wonders, if there is a cure to a cruel mindset? But absolute political power cannot be justified as simple favorable perversion to torture, kill the innocent mankind and destroy the universal harmony and natural habitats on Earth. Ross Caputi (“Unthinkable Thoughts in the Debate About ISIS in Iraq
.” Common Dreams: 6/15/2014) offers a rational foresight to the US-European sponsored belligerency and re-enacting of the bogus wars in the Arab Middle East:

“These fractured communities within Iraq must decide their own future, without the interference of Washington or Tehran. Most importantly for us, as Americans, we must make an effort to analyze this issue outside of the paradigm of US political thought and try to see this issue through the eyes of those most affected by it. We must respect their ideas and values, their politics and culture, and their right to determine their own future, unimpeded by foreign interference.”

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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 Academic Publishing Germany, May 2012)