AN OPINION WELL WORTH INTROSPECTION


By Dr. Oswald B. Firth OMI

It has often been said that the world will never be the same after the
suspected Bin Laden/Al-Qaeda attack on New York's Twin Trade Centre Towers
on that eventful day of 11th September 2001. The immediate question that
boggles the mind is: Why and when did these little known Davids turn out
to be the enemies of mighty Goliath? For since then it marked the
beginning of virtually another era that is pregnant with far-reaching
possibilities the consequences of which could change the geo-political map
of the earth in a manner that could install the US as the unchallenged and
unchallengeable supremist unipolar power. Hopefully, that would not be so
if a countervailing force generated through people's power from below
becomes a bulwark against its menacing intrusion. For, if the US has its
way there would be an usurpation of the status, authority and power of the
UN as the main arbiter of the world's problem - a regression of monumental
proportions.


The award winning writer, Arundhati Roy expressed it more succinctly.


Americans, she said, are asked to make two leaps in faith: First, to
assume that 'The Enemy' is who the US government says it is, even though
substantial evidence to support such a claim is rather fragmentary.
Second, to assume that 'The Enemy's motives are what the US government
pronounces them to be, the destruction of the freedom and democracy of the
American way of life. A very unlikely motive when one considers the
targets of the terrorist attack on the Trade Centre Towers and the
Pentagon, the two symbols of US's attempt at economic hegemony and
military overlordship of the entire world!


America's old ideological adversaries, Soviet Russia and its satellite
states, which had kept at bay the ever-burgeoning power of the US as


characterised by its imperialist designs and economic bigandry, had
crumbled and receded into oblivion with the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
However, America's crypto imperialism, which drew its strength from its
own brand of neo-liberal capitalism, which later transformed itself into
economic globalization, had spread its marauding tentacles throughout the
entire world draining countries of their fast-depleting resources to
sustain its extravagant way of life. The ensuing result: a string of
nations that even today are reeking in abject poverty and living under
conditions that are outrageously miserable.


To the simple American who basks in the glory of his country's great
statesmen, renowned scientists, erudite writers, talented musicians and
actors of character, it is beyond his comprehension that anyone in the
world would want to hate America. Unless one were equipped and is adept in
the use of the tools of political analysis, attempting to identify the
type of enemies America has created around the world would be an exercise
that is both futile and elusive.


History tells its tale
Perusing through the annals of recent history, one would be loathe to
labour the point that the American brand of imperialism always reared its
head whenever other forces posed a threat to its economic hegemony and its
overarching concentration of almost limitless power. Soon after the Second
World War, the US maneuvered and controlled with its veto power every move
of the United Nations even though its voting strength was equal to that of
any other nation however small that nation may have been. The less
powerful nations of the world and their eminent leaders of the calibre of
Nehru, Tito and Nasser, who refused to be crushed under the bootleg of
America created the Non-aligned Movement comprising 77 nations. The US
felt threatened.


As a counter offensive measure it turned its attention to the World Bank
and the International Monetary Fund where in a most unethical manner it
claimed the greatest number of votes for one single country (17 per cent)
against a 3 per cent vote for a whole list of Third World nations. Even to
this day, America holds sway over the WB whose President is always an
American, thereby guaranteeing its economic hegemony and political
stranglehold over the rest of the world's economies, particularly those
that are poor.


Scuttling the Asian giants
Similarly, when Communism began to spread its influence over certain Asian
countries, the US promptly pumped in loads of dollars to divide these
countries and created the Asian Tigers, while it destabilised some of them
through the CIA and installed puppet regimes instead, as a counter force
to China's influence over these countries. Thanks to the intervention of
the American dollar and the introduction of post-war Japanese electronic
technology, these countries grew to become Asia's economic giants, until
George Soros virtually brought them to their knees.


However, no sooner their products began to invade the US and European
markets on a massive scale and threaten American products, WB and IMF
loans were suspended coupled with the flight of speculative capital that
reached dizzy proportions to the tune of $ 3 trillion a day. Hot on the
heels of this debacle came the vulture-like TNCs with the blessings of the
IMF and the WB to pick on the carcass left behind. It was no surprise that
eventually the Asian Tiger economies collapsed, and collapsed
disastrously.


Both President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided
that the time had come to abandon state led capitalism and grant free
reign to American and European multi-nationals to set up their enterprises
in those countries using cheaply available labour. American hegemony was
once again in business and neo-colonial plunder was back operating on a
much wider scale.


The real roots of terrorism
The most recent threat to American domination has come from oil producing
countries in the Middle East. The US is well aware that its sway over the
world economy is doomed without oil. The most nefarious villain in the
eyes of America is Iraq's Saddam Hussein who can wreak havoc on the oil
pipelines. Saddam, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda's Bin Laden have two
interlinked enemies in common: America and her oppressive client state in
the region, Israel. Oil and Israel bind America deeply to the region.


America will be ready to use its military might against any force that
threatens its access to oil and Israel. The virtual subjugation of
Afghanistan that followed 11 September with no less than 20,000 Afghans
killed ensured that the vast reservoir of oil that lies embedded in the
bowels of Central Asia would soon be gushing through the pipeline that
would be laid across that beleaguered country with its ultimate
destination in the US.


What binds America's enemies closely together and determines their action
against their enemies is radical Islam. Dr. Kumar David who teaches at the
Hong Kong Polytechnic University sums up the mood that pervades the Middle
East: "At this particular moment of writing (Sept 2001) radical Islam
stands as the only force that has the gall, the ideology, the
determination and the ability to stand and fight American global economic,
political and military hegemony on a world scale". When Americans the
world over asked "Why do they hate us?", the answer has to be, not the
American people but their government's leaders and their aggressive
policies of world dominance that are the real causes of hatred that
eventually found expression in the attack on the twin towers.


Soon after the event, America claimed the moral high ground. It identified
its enemies in the Middle East as the "Axis of evil" focusing the world's
attention on the massacre of innocents. Prayer sessions were organized in
Churches with the American President himself in the forefront, while the
CIA engineered coups, invasions, uprisings, bombings, assassinations,
massacres in the Middle East and nearly 50 other countries have been swept
under the carpet. Americans had long forgotten that in 1979 the CIA had
funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic
countries as soldiers to fight America's proxy war in Afghanistan against
Russia.


Americans little realized that in the long term their country was
financing a war against themselves.


In 1996, US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright was asked how she felt
about 500,000 Iraqi children dying as a result of US economic sanctions.
Her candid reply was, "We think the price is worth it". Where lies the
difference between civilization and savagery? It is inevitable then that
these incendiary crucibles should give rise to radical Anti-American mass
movements and an assortment of terrorist entities with Islam as their
ideological core. America bombed Afghanistan more to keep the Caspian oil
route out of the hands of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda so that US Americans
who consume 194 million litres of gasoline a day could continue to
dominate the world, than to wipe out terrorism. Americans should learn
that the real roots of terrorism lie within their own country and not
necessarily what President Bush termed the "Axis of evil".


In search of new allies
America's role in the Middle East will be more and more seriously
contested and we may live to see its role diminished in the coming years.
America is now in search of new allies to maintain its global economic and
military hegemony. The emerging new powers are no more in Latin America or
Africa, but in Asia where India and China are emerging as super powers
that can pose threats to America's global economic control and military
supremacy. Both countries have either controlled or resisted the dictates
of the WB, IMF and WTO having strong internal markets and established
external trade alliances independent of these agents of global capitalism.
Pakistani military rulers live in fear of being overthrown by mass
opposition if they are seen as stooges of an anti-Islamic America. Hence,
any attempt to set up American bases in Pakistan would be thwarted by
Islamic radicals and lead to even greater political destabilization.


But why not Sri Lanka? With the Voice of America already in place,
Trincomalee would be strategically ideal to keep the Indian Ocean under
constant American surveillance against its potential enemies. Sri Lanka
would be pleased that the LTTE is kept on leash by an American presence in
the North-East, and the green bucks would flow in to keep government
ministers in the South starved of funds to develop their constituencies as
well as make provision for their own gratuitous future. How else would one
interpret the enthusiastic welcome extended to Richard Armitage, Deputy


Secretary of State, and Christina Rocca, Assistant Secretary of State, and
their visits to the North and East?


Prostitution, ecological rape and plunder, moral degradation and a
bastardised culture were what the neo-imperialist forces left behind when
they left the Philippines.


What could be worse is that under the guise of fighting terrorism in Sri
Lanka, US Marines who have found their way to Mindanao in the Philippines
could eventually find their way to Sri Lankan shores too purportedly to
fight the LTTE brand of terrorism, if the Thai peace talks go the way of
the Thimpu talks.


What fate will befall Sri Lanka, even if she were to remain in one piece
is the million dollar question.


(The writer is Director, Centre for Society and Religion and the Editor of
Social Justice, the monthly journal published by the Centre for Society
and Religion).