MGG Pillai Commentary View

<< Previous || Next >>

More battles will take place worldwide in this war on terror

THE RIOTS IN FRANCE, of which there is much in television these days, has paralysed not just France and the Western world. I have yet to hear the argument that Muslim youths rioted as digits of the global war on terror against Islam. It may not be, and it could be just the reasons the French have so far given. But one cannot escape from the reason that is not stated. France did send troops to Iraq after the American invasion, as did many other countries, including Germany, to help the coalition forces. The Muslims score a victory in France. It tells the world that any country which helps the coalition forces and have a Muslim population can expect a retaliation. The Muslim youths throughout France had committed havoc in two weeks of rioting. The French government, like the British, have taken harsh measures against them. But will it stop the rioting? When the Muslim youths find it convenient to add the anti-Islam attitude to their list of grievances? The rest of Europe had better watch out. The European Union's rejection of Turkey is a hot potato but wrong for two reasons. One it should not have considered Turkey for membership. The European Union is a Christian grouping. It should have remained so. Turkey has applied for membership of the EU for domestic reasons. It should not have.

But the European Union members cannot live without cheap labour from Turkey. It needs Turkey and other Muslim nations to provide that. The most European of the Muslim states in the Middle East is Turkey, and so taking it as a member will solve all its problems. So it thinks. There is much opposition to it in Turkey as there is in Europe. The more historical members of the European Union remember that Turkey came into Europe by conquest, and its entry into the European by invitation would be by peaceful means. But the US wants Turkey in the European Union and the civil code requires Turkey be equally treated as all other European nations. Now that Turkey is rejected, the Turks who have settled in Europe, or those who had gone there in search of jobs, would be the next boiling point. Just as the United States take on the world as its oyster, so does Islam. More trouble is in store. It is already difficult for a citizen of a Muslim country. The United States will end the global war of terror soon for it hurts their institutions which survive on the Muslims. The war on terror is one thing, their institutions another. But having started the war, it cannot end it unilaterally. It has to sign a peace treaty where he must state the reasons for ending it. Islam will then have won again.

Islam has become the opponent in the American crusade on terror. We saw a glimpse of that in the bombings of the three American hotels in Amman last week. Those killed were Arabs, but the news networks failed to mention that they had more in common with the West than their compatriots. There was hardly any reaction to the already suffering Muslims in Jordan. When the Americans and later King Abdullah of Jordan blamed the bombing on a dead man, and went into detail of how an Iraqi couple was involved, the point was missed. Al Qaeda or Muslims would attack American and European institutions anywhere in the world at will, just as American does now. "Al Qaeda in Iraq" has subsequently taken responsibility for the attack, erasing any doubts who was responsible. And the West has taken that as proof. But a bomb which exploded was in the celing. These Al Qaeda fellows are so smart that they put the bomb there, we are told. The intelligence agencies are on the ball. They found that out. They are guarding the hotel round the clock, as is common in the Middle East for decades. How come they did not catch them? The 57 Arabs who died and 300 wounded in the bombings will only be relevant if the United States can treat the 100,000 it killed, often at weddings, during and after its invasion of Iraq.

But in this information war, the enemy is stupid, reacts to what the Americans do, and cannot think or act on their own. But they are not. The Americans thought Ho Chi Minh stupid. But and his advisers, one of whose books on guerilla warfare is taught in military schools in France and the United States. They blame them for not fighting set piece battles. But they will not. In guerila warfare, they fight when the enemy is not looking. Any damage it causes is victory for them. Ho Chi Minh wrote poetry in his free time while he was leading the guerilla warfare or as President of North Vietnam or as President of Vietnam. Osama bin Laden was a Saudi Arabian son of privilege who exchange a cave for a big house, and riches for poverty. He is obviously a strategist. The Americans recruited him to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, and gave him weapons and everything needed. But Osama had a different aim. And that aim he is perfecting. The more the West particularly the Americans blame him for their difficulty in Iraq or in the Middle East, the more his support grows. He remains intractibly opposed to the West, has touched base with the poor Muslims around the world in which the Muslim leaders are supportive of American global war on terrorism. Malaysia's rather harsh words on the bombing of Amman is a case in point.

The West pulversises its enemy in words. Its people believe it. But not the enemy's. The enemy reacts often answering many of the questions raised. But that is not given any in credence in the West but lapped up by its supporters. I have been criticised by many people, including ambassadors from the West, over my articles about the Amman hotel attacks. They have already accepted the perceived wisdom that Al Qaeda was responsible, but they believed it well before Al Qaeda itself acknowledged its role. But can it not be the Western agencies which wanted Al Qaeda blamed, and did the bombings? Al Qaeda could have admitted it to boost its profitle among its supporters. I have heard many intelligence agencies involved in the bombings. When I say this, I am accused of being a conspiracy theorist. I was accused of being a conspiracy theorist in Vietnam in the 1960s, but I met chaps in the 1970s, including several American diplomats, who did things in Vietnam so that the Vietcong could be blamed. The media can never be independent. They are usually part of the corporate world, campaigning on behalf of their masters, and reporting so that their masters are not. What they report, we are told, is the truth. But people go for alternate sources of information to find out just that. Are the conspiracy theorists then in the mainstream? It is easy to label one a conspiracy theorist, especially when he does not read later literature on the subject.

But conspiracy theories are hurled at one if one's arguments cannot be challenged. People are expected to accept the perceived wisdon. Accepting the contrary is not allowed. To prevent that, anyone who does that is immediately labelled a conspiracy theorist. There are many perceptions of truth in real life, and one truth is more truthful, we are told, than other truths. Blaming the enemy is just that. The riots in France, the bombings in Amman, the invasion of Iraq all proves it. But it is the enemy who benefits in the short and long term even if they are blamed for it. But in a war, the ordinary people in both sides get hurt. That is what is happening on this global war on terror. The battlefield is not limited, as in South Vietnam. That is why the deaths outside Iraq should be the work of enemy not terrorists. And more will come.

M.G.G. Pillai
pillai@streamyx.com