The Jekyll and Hyde of the
American Empire
By
Jalal Zein Uddin
Manifest Destiny of
Imperial Decline – A History of American Injustice,
by Adel S. Bishtawi, is an invitation for the millions of Arabs and
Muslims who have been blinded by Hollywood’s appraisal and
glorification of US foreign policy to open their eyes wide, stare
directly at the American version of Dr. Jekyll we have become
accustomed to, and judge whether they have in fact been looking at
Mr. Hyde all along, with all the inevitable evils that are the
natural by-products of dominant empires.
Abeer Qasim Hamza
al-Janabi did not see the face of Dr. Jekyll as she was gang-raped
by American soldiers. For this 14-year old Iraqi girl, who was
killed and her body burnt afterwards, the faces of her rapists and
assassins were those of the evil Mr. Hyde. Her parents and little
sister were dragged into an adjoining room and shot dead. They too
saw no other face but that of the evil Mr. Hyde on that horrific day
in March 2006 when animal spirits went on the rampage and sunk their
fangs into the occupied body of Iraq.
Abeer, to whom Bishtawi
dedicates his book, is but one of several hundred thousand Iraqi
victims sacrificed to the god of oil and gas, long worshipped by the
“Seven Ugly Sisters” (the seven major oil corporations of the past),
their uglier offshoots and their political servants. With millions
more Iraqis driven out of and displaced within their country, some
Iraqis have begun to wonder whether US military commanders in Iraq
have decided that the only way to control Iraq’s massive oil
reserves is simply to empty Iraq of most of its people.
The truth may be
different, but after more than 55 months of US occupation, Iraq has
been mauled beyond recognition, with deep scars gouged into its
flesh by American pacification. Former Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein was no saviour of Iraq, but neither are the Americans. The
damage done by the long and brutal rule of the Iraqi dictator is
compounded with the brutal rule of a foreign country that tends to
enamour itself as the greatest democracy in the Western world.
Iraqis will tell you that Saddam, for all his crimes, never claimed
to be democratic. He was cruel, corrupt and incompetent, but he was
neither an incorrigible liar nor a born-again fraudster.
Iraqis will tell you that
there were times of hunger in their country, times of injustice,
times of war, persecution, displacement, and imprisonment, but they
will also tell you that the only time in its history that Iraq
experienced hunger, injustice, war, persecution, displacement and
imprisonment, all on a massive scale and all simultaneously, was
during the US occupation of Iraq. Deception, spin and outright lies
to the very end, we have heard one supporter of US President Bush
after another defend the attack on Iraq. In doing so, they are
justifying the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the
total devastation of their already battered country.
Cheap war-mongering
propaganda masquerading as a bold struggle for the achievement of
noble principles in the Middle East was seen for what it was by
millions of people in London, Rome, Canberra, Madrid and other
cities in Europe: a pretext for yet another economically-motivated
war. None contemplated failure, but a disastrous failure it was. For
close to five years, Bush, Howard, Blair, Berlusconi, Aznar and
other dangerous politicians like them were insisting that their only
motive for interfering in the Arab and Muslim worlds was to fight
terrorism and disseminate democracy, but they were never convincing.
Lies are not proper
arguments no matter how detailed and well-disguised they are. Rather
than being constrained with apprehension and uncertainty of the
consequences of their actions, they were driven by their ambitious
determination to convert the world to their liking. Their actions
have backfired. One by one they are being flushed into permanent
oblivion along with their misconceived and flawed visions for the
Middle East and beyond. Every one of these politicians failed for
other unique reasons not shared by one another, but collectively
they failed due to their ignorance of the new dynamics in the
Islamic world, be it in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Gaza, or
Lebanon.
It is this ignorance that
has inspired them to market illusions as brave visions. There were
elections in Iraq, but elections do not make a democracy. Democracy
in sectarian Iraq is an illusion. All of Iraq’s US-appointees are
serving their own sectarian and tribal interests. Many are
well-known thugs in command of ruthless militias. Corruption is
endemic. Therefore, the claim that US troops are in Iraq to
establish democracy should be treated with contempt. Oil was the
motivation for imperial interference in the Middle East in the
1950s, it is now, and it will continue to be for the foreseeable
future. The killing in order to control Iraqi oil will go on for a
very long time. The author explains:
“The most
challenging problem facing the US as it plunges head on in its first
oil and petrodollar war is not Islam as a faith, but the presence of
Muslims determined to block its encroachment into the most important
oil region in the world… The simple truth is that the energy
interests of the US are mostly in the lands of Muslims who are not
confronting the US because they are Muslims but because they are
determined not to hand over the control of their natural resource
wealth to the Americans. At the same time, the millions of Muslims
who are aware of their distinguished Islamic civilisation do not
believe that the US is capable of adding to the immense human and
ethical qualities of Islamic civilisation. It is there and other
civilisations have to learn to live with it as it must learn to live
with them. Millions of children of this civilisation are unwilling
to deliver their destiny into the hands of a country known for its
injustice, or to find themselves in a position similar to that of
Japan where that Asian nation finds itself in a quasi state of
occupation, still home to 90 American bases and 50,000 US troops.”
(Page 50)
Bishtawi believes that
controlling oil in the land of Islam will prove impossible even for
a US military twenty times its present size. He notes that most
Islamic countries are either oil producers, countries that have
shared borders with the oil producers, countries in the process of
developing newly discovered oil deposits, or countries straddling
major oil shipping routes. The only Muslim country that may be
excluded from these criteria out of a total of 57 states are the
tiny Comoros Islands. The question of oil, however, is not that
simple. Most oil analysts speak of oil in general terms and very few
differentiate between what is known as “easy” and “tough” oil. Of
the 14 countries that have abundant “easy” oil, characterised by
cheaper extraction costs, large reservoirs, and easy access to
markets, 9 are Arab producers. Outside this group, the percentage of
“easy” oil left in the world is about 9%. This can only stiffen
resistance to the American attempt at controlling Islamic oil, as
opponents of American interests are now aware exactly why they are
targeted.
In Chapter 3:
Terrorism and Communism, Bishtawi provides an interesting
analysis of the American approaches to dealing with Communism and
Islam. The propaganda strategy devised by the US to deal with
Muslims blocking the way to invaluable oil fields is identical to
that devised by previous administrations to deal with Communists who
believed that Capitalism was not the most ideal economic system. No
system that favours profit over humanity is. By branding its
perceived Muslim opponents collectively as ‘terrorists’, the US aims
to demonise them and deprive them of protection accorded by
established international law. It is easy and convenient to kill
people labeled as ‘terrorists’ by the powerful American media
machine. It is easy to ruin their reputation, discredit them, and
confiscate their assets. In certain instances, far more numerous
than reported by the press embedded deep within the fortified Green
Zone, innocent people are killed as well. The defence of soldiers
and mercenaries involved in these crimes is simple: they were all
‘terrorists’. Large numbers of Iraqis continue to be reported killed
by US military, all collectively described as ‘terrorists’. The
majority of news outlets repeat the claims unquestioningly, without
even mentioning that women and children are sometimes among those
killed.
If oil was foremost in
the minds of US military and political planners when it came to an
attack on Iraq, rising oil prices were not. Higher oil prices
benefit a number of important US adversaries and critics such as
Russia, Iran, Syria and Venezuela. It is true that international oil
conglomerates are comfortable with high oil prices, but they are
more comfortable with stable prices so that they can plan better for
the future. A few months before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003,
oil dealers had more oil at their disposal than they could handle.
The daily excess oil production worldwide was estimated then at
about six million barrels. Fears that most of Iraq’s oil facilities
would be destroyed to deprive the invading Americans of Iraqi oil
did not materialise, and the price of oil had stabilised within the
$22-$28 price band for the OPEC basket of crude.
By June 2003, shipments
of Iraqi oil had all but ceased due to sabotage by the resistance.
Soon afterwards, OPEC’s daily excess capacity dropped to about 2
million barrels and was further reduced to about one million in
2005. The tension created in the Middle East by the presence of US
troops in Iraq spiked oil prices further. By October 2007 the price
of oil had increased 300% since March 2003. Russia, weakened since
the end of the Cold War following its defeat in Afghanistan and its
subsequent default on loans, began to prosper. So did Iran and
Venezuela, two major oil producers that have rejected American
imposition. The US, which should have benefited more than any other
country had its troops managed to pacify Iraq, became in 2007 one of
the most adversely affected by its failure to control Iraq’s
oilfields. Even the US-sponsored Iraqi Oil and Gas law was not
ratified by Parliament, even though its members live and work in the
same Green Zone in Baghdad next to US military commanders and
diplomats.
The American Conspiracy
Theory
The Arab street is rife
with the conviction that a grand American conspiracy against Arabs
and Muslims does exist, but the conclusion Bishtawi draws is bound
to disappoint many of his Arab readers. He found no evidence of any
such policy, and seems to be surprised and even saddened by his
findings:
“If certain
readers of this book were to conclude that there is a comprehensive
US conspiracy to control the Arab and Islamic worlds, then they have
misinterpreted its content. There is no such conspiracy. Do not
exhaust yourselves searching for one. There never has been, and
there never will be. Can we accuse the CEO of a large Saudi or
Emirati company of ‘conspiring’ to enhance the performance of his
company, maximising its revenues, and tenaciously expanding its
dominance in markets further and further afield? We can’t, because
those are precisely the tasks assigned to the CEO by the board of
directors. If he fails, he swiftly will find himself out on the
street. This is precisely the task entrusted by the board of
directors of the United States to their CEO (the President). If he
fails, he too will find himself out of office. Ask yourself: if
capitalism does not serve its god, i.e. profit, who else would it
serve? Freedom? Democracy? Humanity? Independence? If people find it
unbecoming of the Americans to destroy Iraq or Vietnam, rape and
kill Abeer, torture and humiliate prisoners, abduct opponents of
American policies from the streets of Europe and elsewhere or
support brutal dictators and corrupt politicians in the Arab and
Islamic world, then those people should understand that the aim is
not to destroy, rape, torture and support dictators but to maximise
revenues and influence. This can only be achieved by ensuring
absolute control. In some cases, such as that of Iraq, total control
is impossible to achieve by peaceful means, hence the killing, the
destruction, the torture and the imprisonment. Had the Iraqis
welcomed their invaders, desisted from resistance, submitted to
American hegemony and handed over their independence to the
occupiers, as did the Japanese and the South Koreans, all, or most,
of what befell Iraq under occupation would not have taken place.”
(Page 277-278)
Given a choice between
the perceived existence and absence of such a US conspiracy to
control the Arab and Islamic worlds, Bishtawi seems to prefer the
former. A conspiracy is a temporary instrument, but systemic control
of world’s resources is a long-lasting, comprehensive strategy.
“There is no end to such a strategy because there is no known end to
money,” the author concludes.
Bush may be the President
leading this strategy, but he is also its servant. He may be a
rotten apple, but the entire contents of the US elitist crate also
are rotten. The world needs a change. The Americans need a change.
This can not go on. When somebody like
Democratic Representative Pete Stark
claims that young Americans are sent to Iraq to be killed for the
president’s amusement, he is doing nothing much more than
scapegoating his President. It shouldn’t be forgotten that the two
houses of Congress overwhelmingly authorised Bush to attack Iraq. It
also shouldn’t be forgotten that shying away from its
responsibilities to firmly apply the necessary checks and balances,
the Congress is actively aiding an administration like Bush’s to
continue with its policy of violence, intimidation, threats and
sanctions to force its will on other nations. Bush is doing a
job: no more, no less. It is tempting to blame him for all the sins
of the system but that would wrong. His qualities as a leader may be
in doubt, but his faith in the system is not. The problems created
by the policies he selected could have been contained had he been
advised that the
Middle East is a region
unlike any other in the world. For the vast majority of invaders,
from the Mongols to the Crusaders to the British, it has been a
trap. It took the Americans four years, dozens of billions of
dollars, and thousands of dead and crippled soldiers to realise that
Iraq is nothing but a trap.
Bush failed hundreds of
millions of people all over the world, but he failed his fellow
Americans first and foremost. His closest allies failed him too.
Bush is neither the first inept leader to govern a superpower, nor
will he be the last, but what is certain is that never before have
so many inept Western leaders been in power at any one time. When
the world is ruled by an astonishingly large number of incompetent
politicians, chaos and instability become the norm. People may
complain, but they can hardly be surprised. What else can be
expected from failed politicians except failing leadership, failed
wars, failed diplomacy, failed ethics, failed economies, a failed US
dollar, and countless other failures, the price of which will
continue to be paid long after those failed politicians are gone?
Translated by Samir Rabah
Word Count: 2,606
