NEW YORK, 10 February — President Bush’s State of the Union assertion that America has a duty to “lead the world toward the values that will bring lasting peace” is betrayed by the total bankruptcy of values in US relations with other nations. From the Cherokee to the Palestinians, South Africa to Israel, our government has shown throughout history that it will support any regime or policy, no matter how illegal or corrupt, bloody or brutal, so long as it furthers the vested interests of wealth and power.
The dark side to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness began when our government started selecting those who could pursue it and those who became the pursued to provide it. When America no longer needed Native Americans to fight the British and the French, the only good Indian was a dead Indian. President Jackson violated a Supreme Court decision that upheld the land rights of the Cherokee Nation when gold was found in Georgia in 1838, resulting in the infamous Trail of Tears. Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were probably considered the terrorists of their times; the government’s policy of genocide carried out against indigenous Americans is politely called ‘Manifest Destiny’.
During the 1930s Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler railed against America’s military campaigns around the world, calling them racketeering not much different from those of another contemporary, Al Capone. He wrote how the Marines helped in the rape of Central America for Wall Street interests and worked to make Mexico, Tampico and China safe for American oil companies. No armchair general, Butler had served over 33 years in the Marine Corps and was decorated twenty times, being one of the few Americans awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice.
During the 1980s, President Reagan backed South Africa’s apartheid and their campaigns against Mandela’s ANC and others that killed over a million people. Reagan’s mercenary insurgents in Nicaragua attacked ‘soft targets’ that left thousands dead.
Nicaragua fared no better than the Cherokee when the World Court decided against United States actions. The UN also proved powerless to halt the slaughter in Nicaragua when America and Israel were the sole holdouts to a resolution calling on all nations to observe international law. In 1998 Latin America led the world in anti-US attacks with 87, compared with 5 in the Middle East and 3 in Africa.
After World War II oil became the gold of Georgia and Palestinians replaced the Cherokee as victims of land grabbing and genocide. Israel was allowed to inflict their own version of Manifest Destiny on the Middle East against the backdrop of Cold War politics and the horrors of the Holocaust. Neither hail of bombs on the USS Liberty, sleet of state secrets sold to the Soviets, nor rain of billions draining our economy and increasing our security risk deters America’s unflinching backing for yet another apartheid state.
Ami Ayalon, Smedley Butler’s Israeli counterpart, is the former head of Israel’s internal security service Shin Beth. Ayalon decries the daily humiliation and human rights violations against Palestinians and sees no hope for peace until Israel withdraws from illegally occupied territories, allowing a viable, continuous Palestinian state. International law, UN resolutions, and Ami Ayalon be damned, America’s support for Israel’s iron rule continues unabated.
The rich oil and gas reserves in Afghanistan and neighboring states have long been the dream of global energy giants. President Bush’s recently appointed special envoy to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, was an aide to Unocal, an American oil company that sought to build a pipeline across western Afghanistan through the formation of the Centgas consortium. A few years ago Zalmay lobbied for better US relations with the Taleban. On Jan. 8 allegations arose on CNN that, prior to 9/11, the present Bush administration stalled investigations of Al-Qaida in Afghanistan to negotiate building an oil pipeline with the Taleban.
Sept. 11 happens and America begins another racket under the guise of declaring war on terrorism. Osama Bin Laden, once Reagan’s poster boy “freedom fighter” against the Soviet Union, becomes America’s Most Wanted. As we pursue this child of a failed foreign policy, a Marine is killed in an ambush in reaction to the wholesale destruction caused by American carpet-bombing. Prof. Marc Herold estimates that close to 4,000 Afghani civilians have been killed in US air raids, more than our losses on Sept. 11. When will it end?
Terrorism will continue until we value all life as sacred, American or Afghani, investment banker or peasant farmer. The Qu’ran teaches that the killing of one innocent is the same as slaying all of humanity and that oppression is worse than slaughter. When innocent lives are lost and people are denied basic human rights, hatred and rage inevitably follow.
Prophet Muhammad taught there should be “no harming, nor harm done for harm.” Noam Chomsky stated that the one way to reduce terrorism, which is never discussed, is to simply stop participating in it. We must, then, find the will and courage to speak against our country’s foreign policies that promote tyranny and violence against innocents, no matter where.
Notwithstanding Attorney General Ashcroft’s edicts, this nation’s greatness was built on dissent, not blind obedience. Bush’s war on terrorism needs to begin with the face in the mirror. Questioning his saber-rattling rhetoric may make us uncomfortable, but the lives we save may be our own.
— Kevin James is director of government relations at the Council on American-Islamic Relations, New York Chapter (CAIR-NY)
