Wednesday November 19, 2008
In order to protect the world from terrorists, Bush administration chalked out an elaborate war plan after 9/11 that has literally engulfed whole of world in an unending war that has brought the humanity to the brink. Immediately after the 9/11 carnage, Afghanistan was invaded because it harboured Osama bin-Laden who was Bush`s hero in the proxy war against Russia that brought the downfall of the USSR in the late 1980s. It was against all the norms of fair-play and justice that whole of Afghanistan was carpeted with the heaviest bombardment in the modern day history.
Thousands of innocent Afghans, men, women and children were massacred for one man, who has not been captured even after the lapse of seven years and is still untraced. It was a predetermined invasion and all the efforts of the then Taliban rulers failed to negotiate bin-Laden`s surrender to any country other than America. Nobody knows whether Osama is alive or dead, but the occupation of Afghanistan continues because Washington wanted a foothold to exploit the central Asian resources and stunt the growth of Chinese influence in the region.
Next in line, was Iraq that was invaded in early 2003 on fabricated charges that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be used to invade Europe and America. Till today, no trace of these so-called WMD was found, but the war in Iraq continues not because of the WMD, but Iraq had the World`s second biggest oil reserve. So far, more than 1.2 million Iraqis have been massacred against Washington`s claims that normalcy is returning to the wretched country that had been a long time ally of Washington. Like Afghanistan, Iraq is paying the price of Bush`s war on terror to bring peace to the Middle East. Despite the ignominious military debacle in Iraq, Bush had the cheeks to declare that his mighty forces had won the war in Iraq and he would be shifting them to Afghanistan to bring Iraq-like peace there.
Since 2004, the US military high-command has been using a broad secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks on al-Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. These military raids, carried by `special operations forces`, were authorised by a `classified order` signed by Rumsfeld in the 2004 spring with the tacit approval of Bush. This secret order gave the army new authority to attack the al-Qaeda networks anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the US.
The Sept. 3, 2006, Navy Seal attack on a suspected militant compound in Pakistan`s tribal belt was CIA directed that resulted in the death of many innocents and caused uproar all over the country. Many a time such CIA operations on half-cooked intelligence had backfired, because the agency believes more in purchasing and relying on insufficient information, rather than gathering it scientifically by dint of hard work. In a similar attack by the special operation forces on Syria on October 26, 2008, the military commandos acted in support of the CIA directed operations. The decision authorising these operations, named as "Al Qaeda Network Exord" (for executive order), represented a practical corollary to the so-called `Bush Doctrine` that arrogated the right to Washington to wage war anywhere in the world in the name of global struggle against terrorism.
In enunciating this doctrine in June 2002 speech at the US Military Academy at West Point, Bush spoke of the need for US troops to be ready to strike at a moment`s notice in any dark corner of the world. The 2004 order was a step in the evolution of how the US administration sought to kill or capture al-Qaeda terrorists around the world. It was issued after the administration had already granted US intelligence agencies sweeping powers to secretly detain and interrogate suspects in overseas gulags and to conduct illegal eavesdropping on telephones and electronic communications.
According to a report published in New York Times on Monday, the Bush administration has secretly authorised military raids against as many as 20 countries without any declaration of war or even any explicit Congressional authorisation on armed action. Surprisingly, along with Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and some other Persian Gulf states, name of Saudi Arabia was also included. Almost all of them were Muslim States. By this silly action, Bush had transformed war on terror into a religious war; a crusade against Islam.
In fact, Bush and his neo-fascists have revived the fascist beliefs of the 1930s and 1940s that has turned the whole world into a battle-field. They have successfully been able to establish a legal claim that war on terror was justified as most of the Muslim countries in the world have been infested with terrorist combatants and it is morally binding on the US neo-conservative rulers to wage war on these enemy combatants, detain them, torture them and even vanish them. At one point after the 2004 mid-term election, the Congress was under the threat of Martial Law if the majority in the House didn`t agree with Bush`s war plans.
Even the democratic majority, instead of fighting back gave in to avert any threat of ML. Perhaps they didn`t realise that if they yield to the first threat, they would face more serious repercussions. The ultimate measure of a Congress rep. is not where he stands in moments of expediency, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. What Bush was trying to do in the new millennium, Mussolini did in 1920 to his parliament and lost the war.
"War has never brought peace to the world," a lesson that Bush didn`t learn from past history. He was a president who would be leaving world in utter chaos on January 20, 2009. How is Obama going to repair the colossal damage that his sadistic and deceitful predecessor has perpetrated on his own people and the world at large? John F Kennedy once said that the US, as the world knew, would never start a war. But, after Bush`s war-mongering and a mushroom of concentration camps at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram in Afghanistan, Guantanamo in Cuba and secret gulags around the world, how would Obama pedal his country back to Camelot (King Arthur`s legendry sixth-century English court and a peaceful idealistic state envisioned by President Kennedy in the early 1960s)? Bush does have many more surprises in his Pandora`s Box that would unveil before January 20, 2009. Obama must banish Guantanamo and other concentration camps and secret gulags. There are more than 600 prisoners at Begram without being charged; some have been in legal limbo for over five years.
Since Washington calls Afghanistan a battleground in the war on terror, it contests that prisoners held there have no right to challenge their detention for strategic reasons. Bush administration must account for the thousands of people who simply disappeared while in US custody abroad, or with the American help, from the prisons of ruthless American allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be traced now? Or, are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from Bush, then he would need to punish Bush administration and its despotic allies around the world who were Washington`s equal partners in worlds worst crimes committed against the human race. There is already a whispering campaign going on in America and around the world that Bush and his partners in this mass killing game should be tried for war crimes.
In order to protect the world from terrorists, Bush administration chalked out an elaborate war plan after 9/11 that has literally engulfed whole of world in an unending war that has brought the humanity to the brink. Immediately after the 9/11 carnage, Afghanistan was invaded because it harboured Osama bin-Laden who was Bush`s hero in the proxy war against Russia that brought the downfall of the USSR in the late 1980s. It was against all the norms of fair-play and justice that whole of Afghanistan was carpeted with the heaviest bombardment in the modern day history.
Thousands of innocent Afghans, men, women and children were massacred for one man, who has not been captured even after the lapse of seven years and is still untraced. It was a predetermined invasion and all the efforts of the then Taliban rulers failed to negotiate bin-Laden`s surrender to any country other than America. Nobody knows whether Osama is alive or dead, but the occupation of Afghanistan continues because Washington wanted a foothold to exploit the central Asian resources and stunt the growth of Chinese influence in the region.
Next in line, was Iraq that was invaded in early 2003 on fabricated charges that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that could be used to invade Europe and America. Till today, no trace of these so-called WMD was found, but the war in Iraq continues not because of the WMD, but Iraq had the World`s second biggest oil reserve. So far, more than 1.2 million Iraqis have been massacred against Washington`s claims that normalcy is returning to the wretched country that had been a long time ally of Washington. Like Afghanistan, Iraq is paying the price of Bush`s war on terror to bring peace to the Middle East. Despite the ignominious military debacle in Iraq, Bush had the cheeks to declare that his mighty forces had won the war in Iraq and he would be shifting them to Afghanistan to bring Iraq-like peace there.
Since 2004, the US military high-command has been using a broad secret authority to carry out nearly a dozen previously undisclosed attacks on al-Qaeda and other militants in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere. These military raids, carried by `special operations forces`, were authorised by a `classified order` signed by Rumsfeld in the 2004 spring with the tacit approval of Bush. This secret order gave the army new authority to attack the al-Qaeda networks anywhere in the world, and a more sweeping mandate to conduct operations in countries not at war with the US.
The Sept. 3, 2006, Navy Seal attack on a suspected militant compound in Pakistan`s tribal belt was CIA directed that resulted in the death of many innocents and caused uproar all over the country. Many a time such CIA operations on half-cooked intelligence had backfired, because the agency believes more in purchasing and relying on insufficient information, rather than gathering it scientifically by dint of hard work. In a similar attack by the special operation forces on Syria on October 26, 2008, the military commandos acted in support of the CIA directed operations. The decision authorising these operations, named as "Al Qaeda Network Exord" (for executive order), represented a practical corollary to the so-called `Bush Doctrine` that arrogated the right to Washington to wage war anywhere in the world in the name of global struggle against terrorism.
In enunciating this doctrine in June 2002 speech at the US Military Academy at West Point, Bush spoke of the need for US troops to be ready to strike at a moment`s notice in any dark corner of the world. The 2004 order was a step in the evolution of how the US administration sought to kill or capture al-Qaeda terrorists around the world. It was issued after the administration had already granted US intelligence agencies sweeping powers to secretly detain and interrogate suspects in overseas gulags and to conduct illegal eavesdropping on telephones and electronic communications.
According to a report published in New York Times on Monday, the Bush administration has secretly authorised military raids against as many as 20 countries without any declaration of war or even any explicit Congressional authorisation on armed action. Surprisingly, along with Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan and some other Persian Gulf states, name of Saudi Arabia was also included. Almost all of them were Muslim States. By this silly action, Bush had transformed war on terror into a religious war; a crusade against Islam.
In fact, Bush and his neo-fascists have revived the fascist beliefs of the 1930s and 1940s that has turned the whole world into a battle-field. They have successfully been able to establish a legal claim that war on terror was justified as most of the Muslim countries in the world have been infested with terrorist combatants and it is morally binding on the US neo-conservative rulers to wage war on these enemy combatants, detain them, torture them and even vanish them. At one point after the 2004 mid-term election, the Congress was under the threat of Martial Law if the majority in the House didn`t agree with Bush`s war plans.
Even the democratic majority, instead of fighting back gave in to avert any threat of ML. Perhaps they didn`t realise that if they yield to the first threat, they would face more serious repercussions. The ultimate measure of a Congress rep. is not where he stands in moments of expediency, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. What Bush was trying to do in the new millennium, Mussolini did in 1920 to his parliament and lost the war.
"War has never brought peace to the world," a lesson that Bush didn`t learn from past history. He was a president who would be leaving world in utter chaos on January 20, 2009. How is Obama going to repair the colossal damage that his sadistic and deceitful predecessor has perpetrated on his own people and the world at large? John F Kennedy once said that the US, as the world knew, would never start a war. But, after Bush`s war-mongering and a mushroom of concentration camps at Abu Ghraib in Iraq, Bagram in Afghanistan, Guantanamo in Cuba and secret gulags around the world, how would Obama pedal his country back to Camelot (King Arthur`s legendry sixth-century English court and a peaceful idealistic state envisioned by President Kennedy in the early 1960s)? Bush does have many more surprises in his Pandora`s Box that would unveil before January 20, 2009. Obama must banish Guantanamo and other concentration camps and secret gulags. There are more than 600 prisoners at Begram without being charged; some have been in legal limbo for over five years.
Since Washington calls Afghanistan a battleground in the war on terror, it contests that prisoners held there have no right to challenge their detention for strategic reasons. Bush administration must account for the thousands of people who simply disappeared while in US custody abroad, or with the American help, from the prisons of ruthless American allies. Some reports speak of 20,000 missing men, all of them Muslims. Where are they? Can they be traced now? Or, are they dead? If Obama finds that he is inheriting mass graves from Bush, then he would need to punish Bush administration and its despotic allies around the world who were Washington`s equal partners in worlds worst crimes committed against the human race. There is already a whispering campaign going on in America and around the world that Bush and his partners in this mass killing game should be tried for war crimes.
