Fifty Years Before, M.J. Akbar

News, November 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Fifty Years Before

M.J. Akbar

Arab News

The news that a Chinook had been brought down by a missile, killing 16 soldiers (including two women) on their way home, was bad enough for the United States, but I submit that there was worse to follow. The really bad news was that the story of a second helicopter, a Black Hawk, being downed, this time near Tikrit, on Friday, killing six US troops, was carried on an inside page by so many newspapers. It is the inside page which should worry Washington. It shows that the world is getting inured to a rising death toll.

The Pentagon (whether with the approval of the White House, or without — but does that make a difference? — immediately ensured that the story reached the top of every page one by unleashing artillery and air attacks on Tikrit, from where the second helicopter had been targeted and hit. This was, in part, institutional anger; Chinooks have been driven from daylight skies, and there are now 25 to 30 attacks on American forces every day. In October 33 Americans were killed in Iraq, more than twice the toll of September; and November has begun ominously. In seven days of November, 35 American troops have been killed in widespread, and effective, guerrilla warfare. The American death toll is nearing 400. Artillery and F-16s are back in operation, for the first time since George Bush announced “Mission Accomplished” on May 1. Those were the days when Donald Rumsfeld’s face did a victory jig each time it found a television camera in its vicinity.

But the shelling and bombardment of the city of Tikrit is also vengeance against the people, for the sin of being in the birthplace of Saddam Hussein, the man two generations of Bush set out to destroy but who still remains elusive. Those with an ear attuned to history will already have begun to hear echoes. One is from Vietnam, where the Pentagon, consistently and sometimes barbarically, took revenge on civilians for punishment inflicted upon its military. In Iraq, the Americans face no visible army, and have thus concluded that the whole of Tikrit is their target. If their purpose is still to “shock and awe”, then they have learned nothing from their many months in Iraq. With each such whiplash, the Pentagon converts uncertain civilians into a certain enemy. It is the worst possible option, a medieval response that destroys what little goodwill an occupying force carries with it. Exchange between Nic Robertson, reporting from the spot, and Shihab Rittansi, CNN anchor: Robertson reports that there were no specific targets of American shelling. Shihab replies, tongue firmly in cheek: “So no specific targets — just to win over hearts and minds?” An American think tank, the Project on Defense Alternatives, has done extensive surveys to provide an estimate of the number of Iraqis killed since the launch of the “shock and awe” campaign and the fall of Baghdad: Between 10,800 and 15,100 troops and between 3,200 and 4,300 civilians. The army has disappeared, disbanded, thanks to a thoughtless decision when serenades were floating through the corridors of power in the Pentagon and the White House. The second count has now resumed.

There is another echo as well. The first European occupation of Iraq took place in World War I when the British defeated the Turks to reach Baghdad via Basra. The British forces were not very British, actually; it was really a victory of the Indian army, led by both British and Indian officers: Some 21,000 Indians paid the ultimate price. One of the generals in that Indian army was our present Finance Minister Jaswant Singh’s grandfather. The local Arabs had been led to believe that they were being liberated from the Turks.

When the British denied the Arabs self-rule, explaining that they had no desire to surrender control of all that oil, the whole of Iraq rose against British rule. There was no sophistication in either the arms or the organization of the rebels, but the British had to use the RAF and chemical gas before they “stabilized” the region sufficiently to hand over power to a nominated scion of the Hashemite family, Feisal, and attempt by indirect rule what they had not managed through direct rule.

Do not be too surprised if further parallels pop up. Already there are whispers that it might be a good idea to make the Hashemite Prince Hassan, who could not succeed his brother King Hussein in Jordan, a “reliable” king of Iraq. We will see what we will see.

What we have already seen was never envisaged, and it is likely that the improbable will continue to become the evolving reality of Iraq. One reason why it was not foreseen was because the “neo-cons” who shaped Iraq policy for Bush had barely concealed contempt for the Arabs, both the people and their governments. Comparisons to Vietnam are inappropriate, but there is at least one thing in common: America did not understand its enemy in Vietnam, and it does not understand who or what it is fighting in Iraq. It thought it was fighting the “Red” sweep in Vietnam. No one in Washington was told that if the Vietnamese had one nation that they distrusted utterly, it was China. The Americans realized this only after they got out. Today’s American wars are fought against an enemy called, in shorthand, Al-Qaeda. Everything is attributed to Al-Qaeda. As I write a warning is issued in America that Al-Qaeda “might be planning” to hijack cargo planes. The American Embassy in Saudi Arabia is being closed down, at least temporarily, because of Al-Qaeda. Every US mission in the world is a modern fortress. Freedoms in the land of freedom are being curtailed. Even the Congress is being denied proper information for fear of Al-Qaeda. The culture of secrecy is turning into paranoia.

But what is the Al-Qaeda? It is beyond belief that an organization led by a man hiding in the mountains of either Afghanistan or Pakistan, who cannot be discovered by the most sophisticated technology devised by the most powerful nation in history, can become such a functioning international network that can threaten America both across continents, and in the heart of America itself. How does Osama Bin Laden communicate with such a huge, sprawling shadow army, when any contact with a technical device could be picked by American technology and reveal his presence? How can Osama mastermind the hijacking of cargo planes in the United States today? Absurd. Osama is not even instrumental in the low-level but continuing conflict against American forces in Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda no longer represents a fact, but it does represent an idea. It has become a code for a reality that should worry America far more than Osama ever did. Just as the Russian invasion of Afghanistan energized disparate, unconnected Muslim groups, or Muslim individuals, into choosing Afghanistan as their battleground, the American occupation of Iraq has confirmed for an equally large number of Muslims that the threat to the independence of Islamic countries now comes from America. At a mass level this translates to resentment, evident in either conversation or journalism. But it takes only one man in a hundred to believe in violence for a shadow army to form, a network of independent cells that are part of the same ideological hive. And so in a thousand different places, a thousand different groups work toward the same end. There is no mastermind. But there develops a master-objective.

One of the most astonishing revelations of this year has been that George Bush was stunned to learn on his last foreign tour that Muslims were angry with him. He must be sanitized from information. He cannot possibly be reading any newspaper. News must be fed to him in clippings, and courtiers always take care to hide uncomfortable analysis.

The secret service now has orders to keep even demonstrators away from Bush, so that they may not disturb his serenity. But there is anger, and nowhere is the anger greater than in Iraq. Television becomes startling when the image is uncooked. The celebrations that greet a direct hit on an American military vehicle tell their story.

Change the direction from which you look at facts, and the facts become different. You are told, for instance, that “reconstruction” is proceeding well in Iraq, and this is a sign that things are “improving” for America. Look at this from the Iraqis’ viewpoint. Why was the reconstruction required in the first place? Because of the destruction caused by America’s war. You are told that $87 billion has finally been allocated for Iraq. How much of it will actually reach Iraq after the armed forces have been paid for? And how much of the money allotted to civil works will get stuck in the palms of sweaty American corporations? Bush cronies have been awarded huge contracts. But what happens after that? Most of them simply keep a fat percentage and then sub-contract the work to others. Why give the contracts to the American fatcats in that case?

The most illuminating story I have read on this subject concerns an American multinational given the contract to build classrooms. On the original contract, each classroom is meant to have an airconditioner. By the time it is sub-contracted, it becomes an air cooler, as another percentage-eater bites into the budget. By the time the second sub-contractor actually builds the classroom that air conditioner has become a “$11 ceiling fan”.

The one relevant comment made by George Bush is that the real consequences of the Iraq war will only be known in 50 years’ time. True. And those consequences might be less than welcome to the man, or woman, in the White House then. Bush should consider himself lucky that there is no democracy in the 22 Arab nations. If these nations had genuinely democratic governments who represented the will of the people, there would be 22 Arab governments deeply hostile to the Bush White House.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank, like a Python (Alquds, 1/25/03.

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