RE: [iwar] Clash of interests

From: Leo, Ross (Ross.Leo@csoconline.com)
Date: 2001-10-15 07:26:56


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From: "Leo, Ross" <Ross.Leo@csoconline.com>
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Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 09:26:56 -0500
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Subject: RE: [iwar] Clash of interests
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More proof that the perfect vision granted by hindsight is a marvellous
thing.  No government that ever existed kept the majority of its promises,
and the governments of the Middle East are no exception.   Every one of them
has always claimed that it operated in the best interests of its people,
when in fact it had to balance such needs with other interests.  Theocracies
have just as bad a record as any other form with the exception of the Soviet
Government that followed the 1917 Russian Civil War.  It is because they
have all been run by humans that are run by their passions and fears.
Theocracies are worse only in that they use the "divine inspiration" or
"divine edict" as their excuse, claiming to know the mind and desires of
God, and using that as cover for whatever acts, no matter how atrocious,
they might commit.  The pagan Romans did it, the new world Indians did it,
the ancient Egyptians did it, the Christians have done it, the Muslims have
done it.  Some still do it today.  There is no end of examples, and all are
guilty.

"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".  This kind of hypocrisy
only serves he who proffers it.  So when does the finger pointing end?

Ross Leo

"An eye-for-an-eye only leads to more blindness" - Margaret Atwood


-----Original Message-----
From: Ozair Rasheed [mailto:ozair_rasheed@geocities.com]
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2001 21:18
To: iwar@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [iwar] Clash of interests


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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