US, Israel addicted to perpetual war

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Zafar Bangash

Dhu al-Hijjah 06, 1435 2014-10-01

Editorials

by Zafar Bangash (Editorials, Crescent International Vol. 43, No. 8, Dhu al-Hijjah, 1435)

Imperialist and Zionist warlords are addicted to war. Endless wars mean not only expansion but also huge profits at the expense of the world’s poor.

Wars have been a part of human experience since the dawn of history. Earlier wars, though brutal, were essentially slugging matches between opposing forces. This was the case even up to a century ago. Scientific discoveries during the last 100 years have made wars far more lethal. Fighter aircraft, drones, missiles, submarines and nuclear weapons have resulted in wars becoming mass killing processes. In the First World War, 10 million people were slaughtered; the Second World War took this total to 60 million. Humanity has become very proficient at killing.

Why do wars occur? Despite the “progress” human beings claim to have made in many fields — science, production, manufacturing, etc. — the one field in which they have remained static is in moving beyond killings or resorting to violence to settle disputes, real or imagined. After all, what is the difference between animals in the jungle and human beings living in societies where they claim to live according to rules and regulations? If human beings have become civilized, why are they still killing in such large numbers?

True, there have been no “world” wars in the last 70 years but that has not resulted in fewer killings. More people have been killed since the end of the Second World War than were killed during the First and Second World Wars combined — some progress, some civilization. So what is at the root of all the killings and who is responsible for them?

Two countries can be identified as the principal killers of humanity in the nearly seven decades since the Second World War: the US and Israel. Both are colonial settler entities in the lands they occupy. In North America, the European colonial settlers were highly successful in decimating the Native people. Only a few are left and confined to remote reservations. In Palestine, the Zionist colonial settlers have not achieved their objectives completely although it is not for lack of trying. The Palestinians have refused to disappear or die quietly.

While much has been written since Barack Obama announced his latest crusade on September 10, the US has been waging wars against other countries and peoples since before the Second World War. In 1953, the American CIA and British intelligence staged a coup against the government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadeq in Iran. In 1954, the government of Guatemala was overthrown. Then followed CIA-engineered coups in Vietnam (1963), Indonesia (1966), Chile (1973), Grenada (1983), Nicaragua (1984–1990) and Panama (1989). In-between, tiny Cuba has been subjected to repeated coup attempts as well as assassination attempts on the life of Cuban leader Fidel Castro.

Instead of relying exclusively on the CIA, the US has also in the last two decades resorted to direct military aggression. Islamic Iran was attacked through Iraq and the confederacy of Arabian regimes in 1980, a war that lasted until 1988. Then it was the turn of Iraq itself, first attacked in 1991 and re-invaded in 2003. Afghanistan was attacked in October 2001; US troops are still there. In recent weeks, the CIA carried out a coup in Ukraine bringing neo-Nazis and fascists to power. The latest US plan is to attack Iraq and Syria under the pretext of fighting the terrorist takfiri outfit that uses the inappropriate name, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) or the Islamic State (IS) for short.

The takfiris are a US creation, aided and abetted by its client regimes in the Muslim East. Since 2012, the CIA has been training the takfiris in Jordan before unleashing them against Syria. It takes gall to claim that the US wants to fight them. Direct re-occupation of the Muslim East is underway. It is also important to remember that at least 100 million people have been murdered in numerous US wars since the Second World War.

The Zionist regime has been no less aggressive. Even before its formal creation — illegally, it needs emphasizing — in 1948, Zionist terrorists had unleashed their murderous campaign against defenceless Palestinians. Pogroms were perpetrated in Palestinian villages. The aim was to drive the Palestinian population from lands coveted by the Zionists. In this, they were somewhat successful but not to the point that they could be satisfied, hence their successive wars on the armies of Arabian regimes and on the Palestinian people.

The Arabian regimes, of course, proved totally incapable of defending their lands and people. They were created to ensure survival of the illegal Zionist entity. They have served this function well as they are doing currently in the case of the takfiris. The Arabian regimes have been providing money, materiel and other support to keep the takfiri project alive.

The Zionist project was successful as long as it had to deal with the unrepresentative Arabian regimes or the secular Palestinian groups that were and are dependent on the US and Israel. Since the mid-1980s, a new reality — that of the Islamic movement — has emerged in Palestine, represented by such resistance groups as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. They have gradually changed the landscape and brought their resistance capabilities to a point where the Zionist aggressors can no longer get away with their murderous policies. The July-August Israeli assault on tiny Gaza, besieged since 2007, is a case in point. Like Hizbullah whose valiant resistance in 2006 put paid to Zionist ambitions in Lebanon, the resistance in Gaza has changed the equation radically. Zionist Israel will no longer be able to send its forces into the tiny enclave without paying a heavy price.

War, however, is a necessity for Israel as it is for its chief patron and financier, the US. They are not only addicted to war but Israel sees peace as a threat to its survival. People in the US would begin to ask why Washington should fork out billions in aid to Israel annually if there is peace. For the US, especially the military-industrial-bankers complex, war is an addiction. The cabal needs to wage wars to grab the resources of other countries as well as keep the American people frightened into going along with militaristic adventures. It is the hammer syndrome: if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail, as a general in the Pentagon had told General Wesley Clark in September 2001 soon after the 9/11 attacks.

What are American and Israeli aims for perpetual wars? Regime change in Syria followed by an attack on Islamic Iran are the US’ ultimate objectives. For Zionist Israel, complete elimination of Palestinian resistance so that it can achieve its goal of occupying all of Palestine as well as regions beyond from the Niles to the Euphrates.

Whether the twin evils of this century will achieve these objectives is debatable given the growing awareness among Muslims and indeed many fair-minded non-Muslims about US-Zionist designs. But they are unlikely to give up without facing stiff resistance.

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