10 myths about the war on terror

James Heartfield Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk
Sun Nov 11 11:31:53 PST 2001


Ten myths of the War Against Terror

1 Western domination of the Middle East provoked the attack on September 11

The perpetrators of the World Trade Center and Pentagon were not oppressed victims of Western domination, but mostly wealthy or middle class Arabs from the Gulf States. Not the grinding poverty of the Gaza Strip, but the conspicuous consumption of Saudi Arabia proved the seedbed for Al-Qaeda. September 11 was roundly denounced throughout the Middle East.

2 The United States has rallied to the War on Terror, binding the country together

Criticism of the War Against Terror is muted, but popular support is skin-deep. Despite President Bush's appeals, America has been paralysed by its own fears, in reaction to what appears to be a homegrown anthrax attack. Hysteria and introversion are more characteristic of the US response than resolution.

3 The War Against Terror is a defence of civilised values

But what are they? So far nobody has been able to clearly state what the values are that the allies are defending. The allies denounced Italian president Berlusconi's argument that this is a war for Western civilisation. But unable to champion their own culture, the allies cannot distinguish themselves from Al-Qaeda's methods: indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

4 The attack on Afghanistan is a response to September 11

Plans for a military assault on Afghanistan were drafted long before September 11, and the West's campaign against the Taleban was already well progressed. The war on Afghanistan is not based on justice, or strategic influence or economics. Instead the West needs the war to compensate for their own absence of moral purpose.

5 The Taliban destroyed Afghanistan, leading to authoritarian rule and the enslavement of women

The Taliban took power as late as 1996, a group of Muslim clerics supported by Pakistan (acting as a proxy for the US and Britain). Afghanistan has never been wealthy, but the US and British sponsorship of an 'Islamic resistance' to the Soviet backed regime plunged the country into civil war. Backward attitudes to women were a component of the Islamists opposition to the Soviets, and hence sponsored by the West.

6 Islamic terrorism has its roots in the culture of the Middle East

Throughout the Cold War, the West sponsored the Muslim Brotherhood as an alternative to radical nationalism in the Middle East, first in Egypt, to undermine Nasser; the West also sponsored Islamic opposition movements in the Soviet-controlled, central Asian republics; the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood local to Palestine was sponsored by Israel as an alternative to the PLO, before it became know as Hamas; as late as the nineties, the West continued to back Muslim secessionist groups to destabilise Yugoslavia and the Russian led Confederation of Independent States - many of whom were founder members of Al-Qaeda. The West also backed conservative regimes in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia that used Islamic fundamentalism to justify repression.

7 The attacks on Afghanistan are provoking a revolt throughout the Islamic world

Demonstrations in Pakistan and Indonesia have been widely reported, but tend to overstate the case that the Islamic world is a tinderbox. For the most part, the reaction has come from conservative Muslims who are former US allies, now betrayed by their former sponsors, as in Indonesia. Far from being a challenge to Pakistan's elite, popular opposition is the sine qua non of the military rulers there, who depend upon the threat of instability to justify Western sponsorship. The perception of extensive Islamic opposition is symptomatic of the West's own anxiety about its mission.

8 'Osama bin Laden has hi-jacked the Palestinian cause'

It is true that Osama bin Laden's interest in the Palestinian cause is entirely opportunistic, but not half as much as that of British Prime Minister Tony Blair who made the accusation, nor of George Bush who belatedly hurried out a statement that the Palestinians should have their own state. Despite promising much to the Palestinians during the Gulf War of 1991, the West simply raised expectations without ever restraining Israel's stranglehold on the still-born Palestinian state. The West's dithering over a resolution proved the worst of all possible worlds, as both sides sought to seize ground before negotiations. While eight hundred Palestinians were slaughtered in daily attacks before September 11, neither Blair nor Bush raised an eyebrow.

9 The peace movement has restrained the allied offensive

Sadly, the peace movement in Europe and America is more an expression of the West's own anxieties about its mission in Afghanistan than an independent opposition to the war. The movement shares the underlying assumptions about Afghanistan and the Middle East, that it is a threat to the West, but wants to see it handled more sensitively. At the opening aid agencies openly criticised the handling of the war, but their concern to feed the starving Afghans has quickly been assimilated into the West's war aims. Leading peace campaigner Clare Short's presence in the British war cabinet sums up the coalescence of peace and war movements.

10 'The resistance of the Afghan freedom fighters is an example to all the world of the invincibility of the ideals we in this country hold most dear, the ideals of freedom and independence.'

The speaker is the president of the United States, Ronald Reagan, on 21 March 1983, a day he proclaimed, with all the authority of his office, 'Afghanistan Day'.

-- James Heartfield



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