Opinion Editorials, June 2011

Global War Racketeering:

US Empire and Mindless Arab Rulers

By Mahboob A Khawaja

Al-Jazeerah, CCUN, June 21, 2011

“War provides an outlet for every evil element in man’s nature. It enfranchises cupidity and greed gives a charter to petty tyranny, glorifies cruelty and places in position of power the vulgar and base.”  (C.E.M Joad. Guide to Modern Wickedness) 

“Imperial states build networks which link economic, military and political activities into a coherent mutually reinforcing system.  This task is largely performed by the various institutions of the imperial state. ………the result was the total “unbalancing” of the US imperial apparatus:  military action was unhinged from economic empire building.  A highly influential upper caste of Zionist-militarists harnessed US military power to an economically marginal state (Israel), in perpetual hostility toward the 1.5 billion Muslim world.  Equally damaging, American Zionist ideologues and policymakers promoted repressive institutions and legislation and Islamophobic ideological propaganda designed to terrorize the US population.” (James Petras, “Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, 01/2011)

“The wars sustained capitalist governance and made millionaires into billionaires.    “WAR is a racket.  It always has been.  It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.  It is the only one international in scope.  It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”  (Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler. WAR IS A RACKET) 

Arnold Toynbee (A Study of History) describes the warriors as dreamers - the elite and modern pimps who specialize in driving humanity to engage in the insanity of wars in all ages. The warriors are multifaceted experts building large economies, huge industrial complex and structures, technology transfer and varied schemes of modernization one could witness all over the Arab oil exporting nations. Those who develop the plans and implement them do plan and envisage destroying them through conflict-making and war racketeering and rebuilding with the oil exporting revenues.  The warriors dream to profit from these vicious scheme of things as business as usual. During the first Gulf war in 1991, Halliburton under Dick Cheney rebuilt the Iraqi oil terminals and destroyed infrastructures and profited two billion dollars. The US encouraged Saddam Hussein to attack and occupy Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The act created huge sum opportunities for rebuilding the Arabian economic infrastructures making Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to pay approximately two hundred billion dollars to the US consortium leading the Gulf War efforts. This was a dream come true for the war racketeering pimps in Europe and America. It bankrupted Saudi Arabia and Kuwait overnight making them to borrow money from the IMF. Its ultimate consequences supported the complete militarization of the Arab oil producing nations. Toynbee points out that the “Chinese think carefully before they act” but not the one-track mindless Arab rulers. The Western leaders claim to have achieved the military success by defeating Saddam Hussein but the myth of success was done at a cost of ruthlessness and so called success leading to degeneration of the coming generations. The Obama administration has asked Saudi Arabia to buy weapons worth of $60. Billion as the oil prices are too high - a move that does not weigh on the rational strategic scale. Israel is always be the US supported superpower of the Middle East. The Arab rulers have no sense of the global political games. 

There are no objective values in the imperial philosophy of global economic development, control and domination. Power and wisdom are immeasurably separated by the gulf of greed, militarization and hegemonic control over the oil-rich Arab Middle East. The plans essentially envisage grand scheme of THINGS to build, destroy through intrigues and conflicts and rebuild the infrastructures to sustain the imperial economies - the war led economies of Western Europe and America. The defeated European colonists and the new United States Empire are not linked by common geography but share a common history of war mongering and war racketeering throughout the recorded history.  

Leaders create leaders. In recent decades, Arab-Muslim societies have not produced any visionary leaders to provide moral and political security or to serve the cause of Muslim Ummah.  Evil is deprivation of good. If the rulers are evil and known to have mindless confrontational behavior, how come the whole of the Arab society went neglectful of its primary role and duty in the world - inviting the humanity towards goodness? The individualistic absolutism is common in all of the Arab landscape. ‘All the monsters of history’ and historical blood thirsty Draculas are fully active and can be seen amongst the absolute rulers of the Arab world. Strangely enough, the Islamic civilization transformed the backward nomadic people into “Ummah of Khair - people of goodness and peace.” The Al-Quran describes the Arabs as “Ummah Wasta” – the model society of just balanced in all human affairs. The ignorant and egoistic Arab rulers replaced Islam with petro-dollars sponsored “modernity” - a planned scheme of exclusive materialism degrading the Islamic principles and values of a just balanced society (“al-mizaan”), both in material and spiritual norms. Islam focused on the human development and material advancements followed through elevating the Arabs into a progressive civilization lasting eight hundred years in Southern Europe- Al-Andalusia.  

Once upon a time the Arab leaders used to claim “moral superiority” in wars and peacemaking when they were Muslims and practiced Islam as a code and value of life, and helped develop the progressive Muslim “Ummah” - Nation.  Today with flourishing petro-dollar sponsored “modernity” Arabs ruler are at loss and considerable disgrace at home and abroad. Their minds and actions are deprived of reason and reality. Their armed forces are trained to maintain the security of the palaces not the interests of the masses. Arab armies are killing their own people who strive for change and freedom from political oppression of the few in Bahrain, Kuwait, Yemen, Libya, Syria, Egypt and other parts of the Arabian Peninsula.

Professor Fouad Ajami, John Hopkins University (Arab Predicament) makes the point: “the problems of the Arab world are the result of self-inflicted wounds.”  With massive foreign security apparatus operating across the oil-producing Arab states, the neo-colonial rulers live under obsessive illusion of power and glory. They had no sense of time and history how to plan and pursue the nation-building for change and development. Corruption turns people stupid - a culture of nuisance, all come out to see the invisible costume of the naked King.  The internal power strife and street bloodsheds by the rulers have weakened the Arab stance on Palestine. While the global consensus is favorable to the establishment of an independent State of Palestine, the Arab world lacks political unity, proactive leadership, coherent policy stance and commitment to help the Palestinians to negotiate a peaceful resolution with Israelis. Logic seeks truth and the truth is that Arab people do not have morally and intellectually competent and responsible leaders to represent their interests and priorities for peace and conflict resolution. It is an historic occasion for change lost by the corrupt rulers. The new generations are up in arms looking for change, where there is no glimpse of hope for change in the absolute oppressive governance supported by the Western masters for their own economic and political interests. Arab masses have become victims of their own rulers as their destiny seems to have coincided with the destiny of the monarch and self made nobles.  After the 9/11 tragedies, the US led “War on Terrorism” became the focal point of strategic THINKING to launch the “Terrorism of Wars” against the Arab-Muslim world. This is viewed as blessing in disguise for the US corporate establishments to explore new markets for the obsolete weaponry and equip the bewildered Arab rulers with sense of insecurity for their own survival. Paranoid, vengeful and full of hatred for Islam, George W. Bush and his overwhelmingly neo-conservative and pro-Israeli administration behaved like sadistic maniacs as explains Ron Suskind (The One Percent Doctrine-Deep inside America’s Pursuit of its Enemies since 9/11).  John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hitman, 2006) outlines how the economic and industrial development scenarios were linked to a ‘Saudi Arabian money laundering affairs’ to modernize the Kingdom by an unusual coercive and secretive agreement worked out by Henry Kissinger. Under the coercive scheme of things: 

“Saudi Arabia would use its petrodollars to purchase US Government securities; in turn the interest earned by these securities would be spent by the US Department of the Treasury in ways that enabled Saudi Arabia to emerge from a medieval society into a modern, industrialized world….Our own US Department of the Treasury would hire us at Saudi expense to build infrastructure projects and even entire cities throughout the Arabian Peninsula.” Perkins adds that “Washington used its advantage to impose one other critical condition…. and I sometime find it difficult to understand how Saudi Arabia could have accepted this condition.”  

John Perkins views the grand scheme of economic development in the Arab Middle East as a blueprint for the US ambitions of empire building across the globe. He points out that “ it was part of a sinister system aimed not at outfoxing an unsuspecting customer, but rather at promoting the most subtle and effective form of imperialism the world has ever known…….most puzzling was that final entry under the list of my clients: US Treasury Department, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.” Perkins refers to a phrase commonly referring to the Kingdom and used by the US economic hitmen as “the cow we can milk until the sun sets on our retirement.”

The European imperialism knew its geography and limitations but the US Empire in its early stages of infancy has conspired to cross-over the limits of geography and history and most importantly, the limits of the Laws of God to invade other parts of the globe to assert its hegemonic control over the natural resources, people and politics. Romans were destroyed in their struggle to dominate the world. Mussolini, Hitler and Nazism met the same destiny. British, French and USSR Empires were defeated and dismantled when they invaded other nations. US Empire is in waiting to meet its ambitions. Every beginning has its end as nobody can change the course of history.  The neo-colonial Arab dictators are living on borrowed time and resources. Empire building is a comprehensive network ushered after the 2nd World War and accelerated in the last few decades, more so under the oil merchant Bush dynasty. James Petras (“Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, January 3, 2011), explains how the Imperial Networks plan broad scheme of subjugation of the Arab authoritarian rulers to impose its dictates:

“Empire-building is essentially a process of penetrating a country or region, establishing a privileged position and retaining control in order to secure (1) lucrative resources, markets and cheap labor (2) establish a military platform to expand into adjoining countries and regions (3) military bases to establish a chock-hold over strategic road or waterways to deny or limit access of competitors or adversaries (4) intelligence and clandestine operations against adversaries and competitors.

….In either private or state economic and/or military led penetration, in furtherance of empire-building, the strategic purpose is to exploit the special economic and geopolitical features of the targeted country to create empire-centered networks. …..In the genocidal wars in the Middle East, anti-terrorism and anti-Islamic ideology is central…….The unity of purpose of European and US imperial regimes allowed for the peaceful joint takeover of the wealth of the new regions by private monopolies……Imperial Sequences:  From War for Exploitation to Exploitation for War….” 

The United States is a society completely militarized. Its politics is military and its military is politics - the wrong people, with wrong thinking and doing the wrong things. Its industrial-political and military complexes are governed by the one and the same kind of people who uphold common strategic-political interests and values. Eric S. Shine (“Geneva Conventions Redefined - The New US Department of War”, Dissident Voice, June 8, 2011) explains the emerging spectrum:  

“The remarkable change still underway is a complete militarization of the United States, if not also the rest of the world. Today, the most disturbing sign of this take-over of all of the civilian commons by the military, at least in the U.S., comes in the form of a new, or reinvigorated, Department of War…..in response to international terms set forth by the Geneva Convention accords. Wars of aggression and conquest were outlawed by those international agreements. Only wars to defend a nation’s borders were allowed. In 1948, with our agreeing to the terms of these accords, our Department of War was converted to a reconfigured Department of Defense and its focus changed… until now.”

“War is a racket Then and Now” (Free Thought Manifesto: 05/29/2011) describes Mark Sheffield. Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler (WAR IS A RACKET), of the US marines served 33 years but “had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until [he] retired to civil life did [he] fully realize it.”  The wars sustained capitalist governance and uplifted millionaires into billionaires.  “WAR is a racket.  It always has been.  It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious.  It is the only one international in scope.  It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.”  Butler asks many rational questions:

“How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle?  How many of them dug a trench?  How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dugout?  How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets?  How many of them parried the bayonet thrust of an enemy?  How many of them were wounded and killed in battle?” 

What are the options to wipe out the profiteering of the warmongers? General Butler points out How to Smash this Racket: 

“You can’t end it with disarmament conferences.  You can’t eliminate it by peace parlays at Geneva.  Well-meaning but impractical groups can’t wipe it out by resolutions.  It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.” 

James Petras (“Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, January 3, 2011) provides a disturbing insight to the organizational working and collaboration of the Imperial Networks in Washington and Europe:  

“The result was the total “unbalancing” of the US imperial apparatus:  military action was unhinged from economic empire building.  A highly influential upper caste of Zionist-militarists harnessed US military power to an economically marginal state (Israel), in perpetual hostility toward the 1.5 billion Muslim world.  Equally damaging, American Zionist ideologues and policymakers promoted repressive institutions and legislation and Islamophobic ideological propaganda designed to terrorize the US population.” 

Righteousness and wickedness cannot be combined in one character. Militarization is warmongering and this characteristic has been incorporated conveniently into the working of liberal democracy run governance. Despite the human advances in science and technology and other spheres of moral, political and intellectual endeavors, the global leadership remains sadistic, egomaniac and terribly naïve about its role and responsibility toward peacemaking and progress of the mankind.   

There are no Arab armies to protect the besieged masses from the authoritarian cruelty or to stand for Islam. There are solid indicators and political movements for change and reformation of the neo-colonial led political governance - outdated and obsolete for the 21st century human affairs. There are loud voices of REASON demanding change and reformation - “Islaha” and replacement of the corrupt and individualistic absolutism seen in Syria, Libya, Bahrain and Yemen and across the Arab world.  The Amir of Qatar appears to be an exception moving towards development of public institutions and service to the people. The Arab world is up in flames and the global war racketeers are sketching out schemes how best to market more weaponry and killing machines to balance the high priced oil cartel.  There is bloodshed but no political remedies to the problems. The Muslim thinkers and scholars must find ways to develop new, creative and workable alternatives for change, societal peace and harmony. The rulers will not change but change will replace the blatantly dishonest rulers as it applies to Libya under Ghaddafi, Syria under Bashar al-Assad, Khalifa of Bahrain and President Abdulla Saleh of Yemen and elsewhere but it is a bloody change built on sacrifices of the innocent masses against the rule of the few ignorant and self- actuated dictators kept in power by the Western warmongers. None seem to take notice of the fate of Saddam Hussein, Shah of Iran and now Hosni Mubarak in jail and charged with corruption and killing of the people. Absolute power corrupts the absolute. Arab people have no public institutions to THINK of peaceful alternatives to dismantle authoritarianism or to hold the rulers to political accountability. The imperial masters and collaborators worked hard to establish the environment of perpetuated fear and violence against the Muslim people.  

Frank Scott (“The No Brain Zone”, MediaMonitors Network, March 15, 2011) offers the real perspective:  

“Failing empires, nations and institutions are often run by people whose intellectual capacity reflects deteriorating material conditions. The greater the crisis, the more likely that the morally crippled, psychologically damaged or mentally challenged may assert command. But when the crisis is systemic and transcends borders, the weapons handled by the incompetents are so lethal, and the area blanketed with ignorance extends from nation to state to municipality, more than a local population is under assault.”

To James Petras (“Networks of Empire and Realignments of World Power”, Dissident Voice, January 3, 2011),

“Imperial states build networks which link economic, military and political activities into a coherent mutually reinforcing system.  This task is largely performed by the various institutions of the imperial state.  Thus imperial action is not always directly economic, as military action in one country or region is necessary to open or protect economic zones.  Nor are all military actions decided by economic interests if the leading sector of the imperial state is decidedly militarist.”

The warriors - the war racketeering predators of the Western industrialized complexes preach peace, equality and democracy to the developing world but transform and equip the recipient nations with militarization, fear of insecurity and weapons of mass destruction. The flourishing trade is not intended for strategic equilibrium amongst the warring parties or regions except to safeguard the strategic interests of the New Empire and its global hegemony over the oil producing Middle Eastern Arab nations.  Frank Scott (“The No Brain Zone”) adds: “The Arab world is hardly alone in experiencing demands from a newly radicalized public, though it has taken the global lead. European Union movements are finally being emulated by American workers who are rising up against the social inequities which grow more apparent with each new public loss to assure more private profit. As never before, humanity seems to be moving toward political democracy in simultaneously occurring national struggles, spurred on by common experience of inequality, disrespect and exploitation.” 

War is a crime, the new 21st century human civilization has come to realize but crimes and criminals are dealt by legal courts and there are none to apprehend the global criminals enjoying the most political powerhouses and making global policies and decisions. Contrary to the values of the American history of freedom, liberty and justice, President George Bush invented the “War on Terrorism” and made America a place of fear and crippled human society.  There is no balancing act between the petrodollars generated revenues, overwhelming corruption and money laundering schemes of economic development and the aspirations of the people of the Arab landscape for change, democracy and new leadership in a people-oriented system of political governance. There are no known cures to ignorance and cruelty except to challenge the vices with voices of REASON. Indifference and insanity rules while the petrodollars generated material wealth and transitory economic progress, the Arab rulers remained unimaginative and authoritarian to realize that once killing of the innocent civilians is justified on grounds of modernity and political expediency, it has become a vicious act of oppression and a cancerous disease that continues to engross the whole of the Middle East. European collaborative and American led scheme of modernization is a prelude to warmongering, warriors dream coming true to build the infrastructures, destroy them by wars and rebuild the devastated economies of the Arab Middle East. This is how the US economy with a history of over 220 wars flourishes over the ages- the prevalent reality that egomaniac rulers are unable to comprehend. Their armies are killing their own people. Under the foreign economic development scams, the Arab people find themselves in living hell.

The economically fast-track Arab societies need to see the mirror and so do their Razor King rulers. There are no shifting metaphor in foreign policy stance and change in confrontational behaviors causing civilian bloodbaths. The naked rulers should get super-ego psycho analysis done urgently. After sixty years of oil pumped economy, what kind of societal role model have they produced?  What are their failures and achievements? Should they be reminded - who they were, where they are and where are they heading to?  Buying obsolete weapons from the US war rackets is not their need but learning from history is urgent for a navigational change. What are some of the major accomplishments of the petrodollars-based 21st century new Arab economies claiming “modernity” over the Islamic system of governance?  Militarization of the Arab states, secret police apparatus as killing machines, erecting sky-hi buildings, putting up splendid palaces, unbeatable malls, highways, and air terminals - all exhaustible Western thoughts for economic pursuits- exclusive material progress by denying moral and spiritual dimensions of human emancipation. The bulk of issues concern incompetent leadership, freedom of communication, and missing public institutions to advance societal development and harmony and people-oriented accountable and democratic system of political governance. The contemporary Arab world has none of this as part of the civic governance complementing the Islamic principles and injunctions. The Arab world is heading towards self-manufactured disasters and ultimate annihilation. What pertinent plans for action are required to make a navigational change?

Unity in diversity - the unity of THINKING PEOPLE for planned actions to make the voices of Reason to be heard and organization of peaceful public rallies and movement for change, a focus MIND is more powerful than disperse herd; the armed forces should refuse to obey the commands of the authoritarian rulers, and the bogus non-representative public assembles (parliaments) be abolished. This could happen if the junior ranking officials will rise against the mindless rulers. The People of REASON and influence should demand and persuade the authoritarian rulers to set-up non-partisan civilian governance under the new generation of educated and intelligent people. The major GOAL and TASK should be to change the confrontational direction and behavior and facilitate societal peace, and stop the wars and street bloodbaths. The Islamic scholars, Muslim policy experts in peace and conflict management if any, and the Arab political activists would NEED coherent THINKING complemented by an INWARD EYE, not merely to economic development and business propositions but to utmost PURPOSE of human life and plans for rebuilding the public institutions of thinking and action for change and reformation of the neo-colonial system of governance. This NEED must be felt, instinctively recognized and intellectually realized to stop the daily political bloodsheds common across the Arab Middle East. The Islamic scholars seem to shy away from an active role in societal change and reformation - “Islaha.” This should be the major agenda item for consideration and urgent action to avert the cruelty of authoritarianism, foreign interventions and occupation, be it in Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. The Arab-Muslim world must crave for their own THINKING-based solutions, not rely on imported diagnostic formulas foreign to their intellect and culture. Imperial networks operate for sustainable control over the natural resources and military domination, not the economic development- a mere planned scam. Once Plato remarked: “thinking is man’s natural instrument for problem solving - any problem could be solved by thought.”

The imperial networks and war rackets are encouraging more conflicts to invest in rebuilding the destroyed globe. The real issues of the Arab world have been living in denials. Palestine and its freedom from Israeli occupation is no longer a first agenda item. Wars and death and destruction are the top notch agenda items in relations between the West and the Arab world.  Perhaps the discovery of “oil” was a conspiracy (“Fitna”) to forfeit the Arab culture and Islamic civilization. The Arab people long for change, peace and new leadership. The people’s freedom movements are making bold headways throughout the Middle East. The ruthless rulers are using the armed forces to crush the innocent people. The bloodbaths being witnessed in the streets of Yemen, Libya, Syria, Cairo, Bahrain and elsewhere provide a staunch reminder that there is something terribly wrong with human thinking, the rulers and military actions. The war machines being used by the psychopath Arab rulers were meant to defend the Arab masses and their culture, not to destroy them. What do such crimes indicate about the nature of the society in which daily bloodbaths are taking place under the aegis of economic development and militarization? Do the paranoid and crime-riddled Arab rulers envisage an advanced culture of “modernity?” Wars are killing the people, destroying the planet and those who posses power exhibit no wisdom, and with overwhelming naïve egoism and embittered insanity, rulers and imperial warriors are driving the people to reactionary wars to dream of triumph and glory over human mind and soul. With global wars overshadowing the ordinary citizens of the world, feel incapacitated and share a terrible sense of helplessness and wonder how to save the humanity from the scourge of imperial led war racketeering and the consequences of man’s treachery, triviality and viciousness.

Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including: "Muslims and the West: Quest for Change and Conflict Resolution", University Press of America; How America Lost the War in Iraq and Afghanistan and Mujahideen Won; To America and Canada with Reason, VDM Publishers, 2009; “President Obama – War is War, Not Peace”, 2009; “Global Peace and Conflict Management- how wrong thinking and wickedness duped the humanity” “ President Obama and the Remaking of America.” “Egypt Wins Freedom.”  “Arab People Win Freedom.” “How the Western Colonial Powers Terrorized the Muslim People?”  “American Intransigence, Pakistani Complacency and Killing of Osama bin Laden” “Images - US Empire Plans More Wars.” Comments are welcome at: [email protected]

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