Seven Years of the War on Terror
Mostafa Zein Al-Hayat - 09/09/08//
A global war on terror. Waged all over the world. A war that transcends military action. It is a decisive ideological struggle. If the enemy wins, the Middle East will be controlled by terrorist states. Nuclear-armed dictatorships. If the enemy loses, a new Middle East and world order will arise.
These are some of the leading items in American discourse under George Bush; it is a rhetoric that has revived myths we thought were part of the history books. It launched religiously armed ideologies, reviving the wars from Europe's Middle Ages, and earlier. It gave the upper hand to the mentality of the cowboy in its glory days (wanted dead or alive, Bush yelled), justifying crimes in the name of democracy, freedom and justice.
Over the last seven years, lying and holy visions have prevailed (the sacred conjures up ghosts and permits lying if in its interest). In the name of freedom, the rights of peoples and individuals have been violated. "Flying prisons." "Ghost detainees." The most awful types of torture and other violations have been carried out. The Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prisons are mere symbols of many such detention camps scattered around the world, especially in the Middle East. Intelligence agencies arrested whoever they suspected, in any country. All of this in the name of fighting terror; under this slogan, fear has filled the world, including the United States.
We should remember that the Iraq war began with a lie. The White House announced, after September 11 and the invasion of Afghanistan, that the Iraqi regime was involved in making weapons of mass destruction. Then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell stood up before the Security Council of the United Nations, holding an example of these weapons. He said that they could kill millions. He showed pictures of rocket launchers. He affirmed that they could reach Israel (he later apologized saying that he was mistaken). International weapons inspectors discovered the lie. The next one was ready: linking Saddam Hussein's regime to al-Qaeda and the destruction of the two towers in New York. The lie was too big to be believed. The third one was ready: liberating Iraq from dictatorship and turning it into an oasis of democracy. From there, democracy would spread throughout the Middle East.
In fact, al-Qaeda entered Iraq with the invasion, which was a golden opportunity for the group. It turned Iraq, with militias coming from Iran, into a center of religious and sectarian struggle, spreading this model throughout the region (what is happening in Lebanon is the best example).
After seven years of the war on terror, Bush is preparing to leave the White House, leaving behind some big accomplishments: al-Qaeda has expanded its activities, from Pakistan to the Arab Gulf. It is even regaining its strength in Afghanistan. Iraq is still drowning in the chaos of warring sects and religions. Freedoms in the Middle East have declined. The US-Israeli war against Lebanon two years ago did away with a democracy that was the dream of Arabs. The chances for peace seem more distant than any time before. Repressive regimes are getting stronger on the backdrop of religious conflicts.
These achievements exacted a heavy price: Thousands of people killed in Iraq (there being no counting of their numbers) along with more than 4,000 US soldiers. Mesopotamia has been taken back into the pre-Middle Ages. There is a new threat, to hit the Iranian regime and drag the Gulf into sectarian conflicts that would last for decades, sectarian conflicts that will neither spare oil nor oil wells.
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