A cure for terrorism

BY ED FELIEN

There is no cure for terrorism, just like there’s no cure for cancer.
By the time cancer has started, those cells are gone. They won’t come back. You can cut them out, blast them out with chemotherapy, burn them out with radiation, but cells that have become cancerous cannot once again become healthy cells.
The only real cure for cancer is to treat the causes of cancer. Cancer is caused by the body’s reaction to something in the air, something in the food, something in the water. The body takes in a substance that is harmful. It damages the DNA and reproduces and attacks a vital organ. In the case of cigarette smoke it’s the lungs. With drinking water it’s generally the kidneys or liver. With pesticides in food it could start with the stomach. The body takes in air, water and food every day and makes new cells out of the raw material it is fed. If the raw materials are contaminated, then the body may develop cancer as a reaction to that contamination.

Does this analogy hold true for terrorism?
From the point of view of U.S. foreign policy there are just a few terrorist cells operating independently, and the Bush administration believes these terrorist cells can be cut out, or blasted out, or burned out. They are treating terrorists the same way doctors have traditionally treated cancer. But these operations are clearly not working. We’re creating more terrorists with each new military action.
It might be useful to think for a moment how we are seen by the Arab world. The Iraqis do not want us in Iraq. The Afghanis prefer the Taliban to the U.S. sponsored regime of Hamid Karzai. The Palestinians believe we do not treat them fairly. They believe we always support the Israelis. In Lebanon we have been able to do what we could not do in Iraq: we have united the Sunni and Shiite factions, but they are united in opposition to the U.S.-supported Christian Falangist (fascist) government. Syria and Jordan have large anti-American constituencies. We’ve been able to buy the silent acquiescence of Egypt ever since the Camp David agreement when Sadat sold out his allegiance to the Arab cause. The treaty was poorly understood by the American public, but everyone in the Middle East knew what had happened. That’s why no one over there was surprised when Sadat was assassinated by religious fanatics or, when Mubarak continued taking (what many Egyptians consider) bribe money or when Mubarak had to engineer crooked elections to stay in power. Most Egyptians know it is the U.S. that is pulling the strings of their puppet government. The people of Iran are still angry with the U.S. for overthrowing the democratically elected government of Mossedegh after World War II and installing the Shah’s brutal dictatorship. The Saudis are our best friends in the area because we have made them rich by buying their oil, and we protect their feudal monarchy with the largest military base in the region. But there have been some protests in even this tightly controlled society, and religious militants have assassinated some American personnel. Some of the bases have had to be moved to neighboring Kuwait, which has always been unashamed of being a U.S. puppet.

So, what is the picture that emerges from this mosaic?
It would be reasonable to conclude that most people in the Middle East consider the U.S. a military terrorist state that supports dictatorships, steals natural resources and abuses their cultural and religious traditions.

The shelling of Fallujah will no doubt be remembered by Middle Eastern scholars in the same way we remember the bombing of civilian populations in Lidice and Guernica by the Nazis or the firebombing of Dresden or the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These were horrible crimes against unarmed civilians. The Iraqis must certainly see the occupation of their country as a terrorist campaign. The midnight raids, the roadblocks, the cruel acts of murder, rape and torture must seem the actions of a terrorist state.

They must see us as the cancer that is trying to destroy them.
What do the Arab terrorists want? They want the same things that most people in the Middle East want. They want the U.S. to withdraw its bases from Saudi Arabia. To have military bases around the holy sites of Mecca and Medina is like having Muslim warriors standing guard around the Vatican and Lourdes. That military presence would, no doubt, be offensive to Catholics. In the same way, our actions are offensive to Muslims.

They want an end to the U.S. corruption of governments in the Middle East. Almost every country in the region has been overthrown by the CIA (Lebanon, Iran and Iraq—Saddam Hussein was encouraged by the CIA to murder the President and take power), or bribed or intimidated by the U.S.

And they want a just settlement of the Israel/Palestine problem. Israel must return to the 1967 borders and recognize the nation of Palestine. As long as Israel occupies Arab land, violates their territorial integrity and entombs them in a walled ghetto, then the Palestinians will continue suicide bombings inside Israel, and the rest of the Arab states will support the Palestinian resistance.
Historical comparisons of the treatment of the Palestinians by the Israelis are not flattering and probably not useful. But certainly the taking of the land and racial hatred of the Palestinians by the Ashkenazi Jews reminds one of the settling of the West in America, and the high wall and checkpoints around Gaza cannot help but remind one of the Warsaw Ghetto.

The situation is much more complex than that, however. Sephardic Jews lived in Palestine for over 1,200 years without much trouble. These were the Jews that had lived in the Middle East and North Africa for thousands of years. When the European, or Ashkenazi, Jews moved to Israel in the 20th century, they brought with them Western notions of property and Western cultural prejudices. They bought land from Arabs who had no idea they were giving up the land forever. They created a European-style nation state with strong links to Europe and the U.S.
They also quickly adopted U.S. military tactics and weaponry. Today, they have probably the strongest military in the Middle East—the most disciplined and the best equipped. Their recent incursions into Lebanon and Gaza, though, show the limitations of advanced weaponry. Ostensibly, the reason for the invasions was to rescue captured Israeli soldiers. Hundreds of deaths later a spent invasion force had to retreat on both fronts. The Israelis were forced to terminate the invasions without achieving their primary objectives. Before ending the hostilities, however, they dropped anti-personnel bombs on civilian populations in Lebanon. This action shocked a world that thought it could no longer be shocked by the brutalities and horrors of violence in the Middle East. Certainly, state-sponsored terrorism, dropping bombs from 10,000 feet or firing artillery shells from 20 miles away that are designed to maim and kill unarmed men, women and children is as terrifying and as cruel as a misguided religious zealot blowing himself up in the middle of a crowd. But, once a state institutes terrorism as an instrument of policy, it indicts the entire nation as accomplices, whereas, the actions of individual terrorists, though they might be the policy of a group or religious sect, cannot be used to indict a people or a nation.

One head of an Israeli Defense Force rocket unit admitted his group fired over 1.2 million anti-personnel bombs and white phosphorous shells into Lebanon: “What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.” (Information Clearing House) The U.N. estimates Israel fired over 4 million cluster bombs into Lebanon. Many of them did not explode. These duds now act as landmines. They will explode randomly or when some small child picks them up. In a feeble attempt to match the Israeli terror campaign, Hezbollah fired 131 cluster bombs into Israel.

Most retaliation by the Palestinians or Hezbollah is done by suicide bombers who strap explosives to their body, walk into a group of Israelis and blow themselves up. We don’t get a clear picture of what these suicide bombers think. They generally make a statement or give a video interview before they undertake their mission, but the Western press does not present this side of the story. An exception to this rule happened last week when a 64-year-old grandmother blew herself up and wounded two Israeli soldiers. According to Sarah El Deeb’s account in the Associated Press: “At the compound where her extended family lives near the Jebaliya refugee camp, her oldest daughter, Fatheya, explained the bomber’s motives: ‘They [Israelis] destroyed her house, they killed her grandson—my son. Another grandson is in a wheelchair with an amputated leg,’ she said.”

So, why did this 64-year-old grandmother become a terrorist suicide bomber? Was she talked into it by religious fanatics? Or, was she sick to death from a cancerous diet of Israeli state terrorism, depressed at the loss of her grandchildren and frustrated to the point of desperate action? Once Israel destroyed her home, killed her one grandson and maimed the other, they had created a terrorist.

But, she was not a very good terrorist. The picture of her shows her holding the rifle with the fragile care you would hold a flower. There is a sad look of vulnerability in her eyes. When she went out on her mission she telegraphed her intent to an Israeli patrol and they threw a stun grenade at her. She detonated way too early and only wounded two soldiers. In the end, she didn’t have the determination to grab the rifle like she was going to use it. She didn’t look into the camera with fanatical ferocity. She was probably more motivated by love than by hatred, and, in her last moments, she probably saw the young Israelis as not that different from her own grandchildren.

Israel depends on the U.S. for its existence. It receives $4 billion a year in military and economic assistance from the U.S. In return it is a loyal client state and a safe instrument of U.S. policy in the region. But this is a doomed relationship. There is ultimately no hope for the future of Israel as a minor partner in U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. The only hope for Israel is to make peace with her neighbors and recognize that her interests lie in a strong Middle East independent of U.S. influence.

Of course, the continuation of the current policies for the U.S. in the Middle East are doomed as well. Most people in the world are not fooled by U.S. propaganda. They know the wars, the violence, the bribes, the CIA plots, all of that is for one reason: to get control of the oil. It’s only a matter of time before the U.S. public figures it out as well.

George W. Bush is a perfect President for that moment of discovery by an awakened public. His great grandfather was chair of the War Industries Board during World War I. He made valuable contacts with other war profiteers like Dupont and Remington. His grandfather made huge profits re-arming Germany before World War II and managing Silesian mines using concentration camp labor. He purchased Dresser Company and managed it. His father, George H. W. Bush, helped engineer the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, headed up the CIA, made great friends with the Saudi royal family, became Vice President, helped organize the Contra war against the government of Nicaragua, became President, and merged Dresser with Halliburton when his old pal Dick Cheney was CEO.

George W. Bush is not only President of the United States and Commander In Chief of the Armed Services, but, more importantly, as head of the Bush family, he is responsible for insuring the profitability of Halliburton, the family business. He’s had the good fortune during the Iraq war to be able to award multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts to Halliburton to provide support staff to the military and to give Halliburton exclusive rights to oil exploration and development.
Mussolini, the founder of fascism, defined fascism as the perfect union of corporate power and government. Three other elements are also generally present in a perfect fascist regime: permanent war, the use of terror as an instrument of state policy and the suppression of civil liberties. George W. Bush has managed to score 100 percent on all counts and has exceeded Mussolini’s wildest aspirations.

The Iraq Study Group has just made 79 recommendations to President Bush. They acknowledge that the war is a failure and that “staying the course” is not an option. So, what do they recommend? They recommend staying the course for another year or so, until the Iraqis are ready to take over. The presentation by the group just after the midterm elections has to be seen for what it is: a cheap public relations stunt to make it seem Bush is listening to the American people’s cry for peace. He will no doubt say this is a good report. We’re going to study it carefully. And we’re going to do those things we can.

One recommendation that Bush would certainly like to follow would be the privatization of Iraqi oil, opening the ownership up to foreign investors. It is no accident that James Baker, the head of the group, is a lawyer from a firm that represents Halliburton.

So, a new comic opera will begin in a few weeks. Congress and the American people will be demanding that George W. Bush adopt the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Bush will stall and finally agree to work on achieving some of those objectives, and he will push for Halliburton to take over the Iraqi oil fields, and he will justify this naked theft by saying he is following the wishes of the American people.