Re: [iwar] Clash of interests

From: e.r. (fastflyer28@yahoo.com)
Date: 2001-10-14 23:38:44
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From: "e.r." <fastflyer28@yahoo.com>
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Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2001 23:38:44 -0700 (PDT)
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Subject: Re: [iwar] Clash of interests
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I understand what you say, but US Presidents are constrained my several
factors.  I do feel that we could do ourselves a great deal of good by
moderating our relationshup with Isreal-no, not dump them over the
side-just take the position of the "honest broker"    and develope
better relations thru a better understanding of the arab world.
--- Ozair Rasheed <ozair_rasheed@geocities.com> wrote:
> http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/dmag1.htm
> 
> 
> Clash of interests 
> 
> 
> By S.A. ABIDI 
> 
>  American interest has always remained poles apart from world 
> interest. It is high time
> Washington took a cue from history. 
> 
> How many times the presidents of the United States of America have 
> vowed to protect
> American interests the world over with the resolve of 'whatever it 
> might take'? Was it
> not in 1853 when Japan, living peacefully and wishing to be left 
> alone, was forced by the
> American gun-boats to open up its trade to satisfy American 
> interests? When they obeyed,
> and bought the new technology and developed it for a century, it 
> turned out to be too
> much for American comfort! 
> 
> The same American interest required the destruction of two industrial
> 
> cities of this
> defeated nation, killing a large number of innocent civilians, as 
> America tested a newly
> developed weapon of mass destruction. 
> 
> As soon as America mass-produced Automobile, the entire oil reserve 
> of the Middle East
> turned into an American interest and still remains so, with the 
> addition of Central Asian
> reserves and the access route to them through Afghanistan. 
> Manipulating oil purchases for
> a pittance, America grew filthy rich and contrived a proxy state to 
> terrorize the people
> of the oil-yielding area to keep the oil prices low. 
> 
> When the excessive use of cheap oil threatened life on earth and the 
> mankind screamed,
> the incumbent president of the largest polluter nation found in his 
> great wisdom that it
> would not be in the American interest to spend money on reducing the 
> undesirable
> emissions. 
> 
> It proposed an International Criminal Court, but wanted to be 
> excluded from its
> jurisdiction ostensibly for being a super-power assuming the policing
> 
> role, but actually
> claiming license to use all devices outside the pale of law in self-
> interest. It is the
> political and democratic norm for every presidential candidate to 
> promise greater riches
> to the already prosperous American citizens endlessly, with no 
> concern for the rest of
> the world. 
> 
> It may be satisfying to feast over the resources of the world in the 
> short term, but
> over-consumption by itself is not a sustainable activity. In the 
> scheme of nature, the
> Law of Natural Selection does not favour overgrown organizms. When 
> the crunch came on
> food supplies, the dinosaur was the first to become extinct while the
> 
> smaller animals
> lived on. 
> 
> In the realm of human society also, we find that the State is a self-
> limiting system in
> terms of its size and magnitude of power. Super- power may be a new 
> name but an old
> phenomenon. History has witnessed such unchallenged powers as the 
> Roman Empire and the
> Arab Empire collapsing under their own weight, not being able to keep
> 
> the state apparatus
> integrated and operational due to their enormous sizes and complex 
> needs. 
> 
> The USSR was the latest causality, which has left behind the rival 
> USA on the anvil of
> history, to be hammered and reshaped into a more acceptable member 
> for the world
> community. Call it natural justice or the process of cause and 
> effect, strange things
> happen to super-powers. The leadership become complacent and 
> arrogant, losing touch with
> the pains of those who suffer at their hands. 
> 
> The citizens getting used to secure and easy living tend to become 
> indolent,
> pleasure-loving and negligent towards serious aspects of life. The 
> individual, who is the
> brick that build the edifice of society, thus deteriorates in 
> quality. No wonder the
> half-wild soldiers fighting for Hannibal found the well-drilled 
> Romans soft and
> frightened in the battlefield, and Changez Khan's barbarians saw the 
> famous Persian and
> Chinese armies run away along with their emperors after giving a 
> brief fight. 
> 
> The contemporary scene seems to be not too different, and shows the 
> quality of individual
> in poor light. The myth of the great Russian Army and its state-of-
> the-art weapons
> exploded in Afghanistan as did the mighty American forces in Vietnam.
> 
> 
> The incidents of American helicopters hitting against their own troop
> 
> carrier in the
> desert of Iran; their planes shooting at their own forces and the 
> Navy destroying a
> civilian passenger plane during the Gulf War; the greatest 
> intelligence and surveillance
> network in the world not knowing what was happening under its own 
> nose a few weeks ago,
> are all indications, if not the proof, of the malaise their society 
> suffers from. 
> 
> The great American industrial juggernaut also finds its own human 
> product deficient and
> unable to run without the contribution of the vibrant intellect 
> imported from the
> so-called backward countries. 
> 
> Terrorism, like super-power, is also a new name for an old 
> phenomenon. The Vikings, the
> Vandals, the Huns and the Mongol herds terrorized the civilized world
> 
> for excluding them
> from the march of progress. The fact that they dissolved themselves 
> in the vanquished
> societies after breaking through the closed doors, is proof that 
> their aim was not to
> impose their beliefs on others or to hate the way of life of the 
> rest, but to join them
> as equals. 
> 
> Terrorism, therefore, is not a disease, but a symptom, although 
> painful and undesirable
> for the victim as well as the perpetrator. Centuries ago, when 
> leaders of terrorist clans
> could not be bought and compatible weapons were available to all, it 
> took pitched battles
> to settle the issue. In the modern context, however, the covert acts 
> of the super-powers
> to deprive others, and to overwhelm them by their superior power, 
> leave no option for
> their humiliated victims, but to sneak and strike at their oppressor 
> to make them think,
> if not to obey. 
> 
> Let us think and conjure up a scenario that the US fears most, to 
> find how bad it could
> be: it has withdrawn its arms supplies, diplomatic and financial 
> support from Israel. The
> under-developed world is helped to develop without any covert 
> intervention in pursuit of
> American interest. People have been able to establish democracy in 
> Saudi Arabia and other
> Arab states following the withdrawal of US forces and the removal of 
> threat from Israel. 
> 
> If the above does happen, the fallout of the transformation may no 
> doubt be colossal the
> world over, but will it be universally disastrous or intrinsically 
> benign for humanity?
> If the American ideals are as good for the rest of the world as they 
> are for themselves,
> it should be latter rather than the former. 
> 
> Among other things, Israel will start listening to the UN and the 
> world opinion. Millions
> of Arabs and Jews will live in peace and dignity by compromising on 
> their respective
> claims. The Arabs and Latin Americans will decide to raise the oil 
> prices by curtailing
> production, and other producers will join in. The lot of the poor in 
> oil-producing
> countries will improve, and they will not be forced to cut down 
> forests to make a living.
> Their proud youth will be occupied with nation-building instead of 
> taking out heat on
> others.On the other side, the American economy will get a jolt the 
> like of which it has
> never experienced before. There will be huge job losses, enormous 
> fall in the family
> income, and sharp drop in federal revenues. The American and, indeed,
> 
> world stock markets
> will plummet down to rock bottom. But will it be an unmitigated 
> disaster as we are
> conditioned to think of ways to re-adjust economies and re-structure 
> societies? 
> 
> Life will still be possible, if some families have one car, one TV, 
> one stereo and one PC
> instead of two or three of each. The chimneys of some of the 
> factories manufacturing
> luxury goods will go smokeless and there will be fewer cars on the 
> road, but it will give
> an impetus to the development of Renewable Energy, and, thus, Carbon 
> dioxide emissions
> will reduce, saving the world from the disastrous global warming. 
> 
> And, if all this happens, one of the parents will stay at home and 
> the other will have
> less time and money to flaunt looking for new partners. The 
> endangered nuclear family
> will, thus, be rescued with reduced divorce rate. The children will 
> get the much-needed
> warmth of parental attention, which nourishes valuable human capital 
> instead of the
> delinquent hordes of drug addicts and criminals roaming the streets 
> of America now. 
> 
> Savings from the reduced demand of drugs and law-enforcement 
> expenditure will make up for
> other losses not counting the benefits of raising happier and more 
> productive citizens.
> The consumer, who is encouraged to purchase more and be wasteful in 
> order to boost the
> economy, will have less to spend and the industry will no doubt 
> suffer temporarily. But
> it will result in conserv- 
> 
> ing the natural resources of the world which are depleting at a 
> dangerous rate to meet
> the exploding market demand of luxury goods. Protecting nature will 
> pay greater dividends
> to the Americans and the rest of the world in the longer term as 
> compared to the
> year-ending bottom line of its monstrous corporations. 
> 
> The hypothetical scenario may not offer a complete recipe for 
> success, but hopefully some
> food for thought for America which finds virtue in maximization of 
> wealth and pleasures
> within its closed system. It is time America recalled the simple 
> values and higher
> thinking of the Pilgrim Fathers, and considers opting for a paradigm 
> shift by including
> the world in application of its own value system. 
> 
> The world has further shrunken from a village to a family, making it 
> impossible for one
> member of the family to prosper at the expense of the other. America 
> still has the
> potential to lead the world on a nobler path with the moral strength 
> of finding the world
> interest in the American interest.
> 
> 
> 


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