The Emperor's New Clothes
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BUSH & THE MEDIA COVER UP THE JIHAD SCHOOLBOOK SCANDAL
By Jared Israel
[Posted 9 April 2002]
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Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?
Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad
schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"
Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US
government shipped - and continues to ship - millions of Islamist (that's
short for Islamic fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan.
Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated
this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd. (A)
According to Washington Post investigators, over the past twenty years
the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which
were then distributed in Afghanistan.
"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured
drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then [i.e.,
since the violent destruction of the Afghan secular government in the early
1990s] as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used
the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (A)
According to the Post, these violent Islamist schoolbooks, which
"served...as the Afghan school system's core curriculum" produced
"unintended consequences."
Core curriculum? Unintended consequences?
Yes, reports the Washington Post, according to unnamed officials the
schoolbooks "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence."
How could this result be unintended? Did they expect that having
fundamentalist schoolbooks in the core curriculum would produce moderate
Muslims?
LET'S BE REASONABLE
Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of
violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards
violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials
who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must
previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.
But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit,
print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into
Afghanistan without somebody in high places (in the US government) approving
those primers.
So if the books weren't supposed to be Islamist, that is, if their
fanatical content contradicted US policy in Afghanistan, shouldn't the mass
media and top politicians, such as President George Bush, now be calling for
an investigation? Shouldn't they be demanding to know the identity of the
official or officials who subverted the *intended* US policy by flooding
Afghanistan with jihad primers?
Indeed, considering the disastrous consequences, shouldn't US
officials and the media be questioning the very practice of violating the
sovereignty of other countries by distributing millions of Islamic
fundamentalist schoolbooks?
Yet after a thorough Internet search we could find no evidence that
any mainstream Western newspaper, with the exception of the Washington Post,
or any TV station or government leader has questioned - let alone
denounced - sending fundamentalist schoolbooks to Afghanistan.
Quite the contrary.
For example, here's what the Boston Globe (owned by the NY Times)
wrote about the old textbooks:
"Those schoolbooks that still exist are pro-Taliban screeds and
deemed unusable."
-- Boston Globe, March 17, 2002 (B)
This is implicitly misleading. How could Elizabeth Neuffer, who wrote
this article, and who is the Globe's UN Bureau Chief, not know that these
schoolbooks were made in USA? Was the UN also involved in distributing the
Islamist books? Perhaps instead of hiding US complicity, she should do some
investigative reporting!
Other newspapers went further, lying more elaborately about US
involvement. Here is the Daily Telegraph from Sydney, Australia:
[START DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT]
"AFGHAN children ran, skipped and dawdled to their classrooms like
pupils everywhere yesterday for the start of a new school year -- with girls
and women teachers back in class and subjects like math replacing the
Islamic dogma of the Taliban.
"In a symbolic break from a war-scarred past, children opened new
textbooks written by Afghan scholars based at universities in the US.
"There are even pictures of people -- images banned by the
fundamentalist Taliban."
- The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002 (C)
[END DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT]
By beginning the article with the irrelevant but cheery image, "Afghan
children ran, skipped and dawdled, etc.," the Telegraph prepares us for an
upbeat news experience. We are not disappointed. In the new schoolbooks, we
are told:
"There are even pictures of people -- images banned by the
fundamentalist Taliban."
This creates the impression that the Taliban were responsible for the
bad old texts. Good thing we invaded Afghanistan and brought US influence to
bear!
Unfortunately, as the Washington Post investigators reported:
"Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the
radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict
fundamentalist code." -- Washington Post, March 23, 2002
Other than their objections to the human face, the Taliban were
perfectly happy with the US-produced primers.
Next, as if presenting evidence of a sea change, the Telegraph tells
us great news: Afghan children now have new schoolbooks "written by Afghan
scholars based at universities in the US."
Similarly, an article five weeks earlier in the Omaha World-Herald
declares that, "Afghanistan stands at least a chance of hauling a modern,
healthy society up out of the ashes of war and oppression," partly because
University of Nebraska at Omaha "officials and staffers" will be "cranking
up their presses in neighboring Pakistan" to churn out schoolbooks, all
funded by "a $ 6.5 million grant from the U.S. Agency for International
Development [AID]." (D)
Neither newspaper mentions the fact that the bad *old* schoolbooks
"were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of
Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies." -- Washington Post,
March 23, 2002)
What about the US government? Have any US congressmen demanded an
investigation to find out who in the US government was involved in the
production of jihad primers that "steeped a generation in [Islamist]
violence"?
No they have not.
SPEAKING OF FORKED TONGUES...
What about George Walker Bush?
You may recall that George and Laura Bush have made passionate
speeches denouncing Islamic fundamentalism. At first Mr. Bush told us we
needed to attack Afghanistan in order to stop Mr. bin Laden. But later on he
(and Laura Bush) told us we were fighting to crush the vicious
fundamentalists.
Has George Bush said anything about the textbooks?
Yes, Mr. Bush talked about the jihad primers in a March 16th radio
broadcast. He held nothing back:
"And before the end of the year, we'll have sent almost 10 million
of them [that is, new textbooks] to the children of Afghanistan. These
textbooks will teach tolerance and respect for human dignity *instead of
indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry*." -- My emphasis -
Radio Broadcast, March 16, 2002 (E)
Note the phrase, "instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism
and bigotry."
So according to Bush, Afghan school children won't have to contend
with bad schoolbooks anymore because finally the US has taken charge,
replacing those other guys, those evil educators who published textbooks
"indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."
The amazing thing is not only that he tells such total lies but that
he delivers them with such righteous indignation.
What about the new textbooks? Will they "teach tolerance and respect
for human dignity" as Honest George promises?
To be precise (which may be an unwise move in the New World Order) how
will the new textbooks that George Bush Junior is shipping into Afghanistan
differ from the old ones?
You know, those old books that were also designed at the University of
Nebraska at Omaha and also paid for by US AID? You know, those old,
un-American books that George Bush Junior attacked for "indoctrinating
students with fanaticism and bigotry"? You know, those terrible old books
that were shipped into Afghanistan by US AID when George Bush Senior was
President?
Here's the Washington Post again:
"On Feb. 4, [Chris Brown, head of book revision for AID's Central
Asia Task Force] arrived in Peshawar, the Pakistani border town in which the
textbooks were to be printed, to oversee hasty revisions to the printing
plates. Ten Afghan educators labored night and day, scrambling to replace
rough drawings of weapons with sketches of pomegranates and oranges, Brown
said."] - My emphasis, Washington Post, March 23, 2002
So it appears that the only change is that some violent pictures have
been removed from the printing plates and some fruit has been added. There
is no indication that the texts have been changed.
What does a non-fundamentalist Afghan educator think about the new
schoolbooks?
"'The pictures [in the old schoolbooks] are horrendous to school
students, *but the texts are even much worse,'* said Ahmad Fahim Hakim, an
Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for Cooperation for Peace and
Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.'"
-- (My emphasis, Washington Post, March 23, 2002)
So the Untied States government is right now shipping into Afghanistan
millions of Islamic Fundamentalist schoolbooks whose texts, according to a
non-Fundamentalist Afghan educator, are not just "horrendous," they are
"much worse."
Is it possible that this is all a terrible mistake? That Mr. Bush and
US AID just don't know what's in the new schoolbooks?
Apparently not.
According to the Washington Post, the "White House defends the
religious content" of the schoolbooks. And as for US AID, the Agency for
International Development, which pays for the books:
'It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction,' Stratos
said. 'But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . .
is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.'"
(-- Washington Post, March 23, 2002)
So because education is predominantly secular it's OK for the
schoolbooks to be fundamentalist. Likewise, since marriage is predominatly
monogamous it's OK to cheat on your wife. And since banks are after all
mainly places where people deposit money to keep it safe, it's fine to go
rob a bank.
Got it?
Mr. Bush describes the texts of the old books as "indoctrinating
students with fanaticism and bigotry." But note, having been republished in
the new books, these exact same texts have undergone a transformation. They
have been reborn as "religious instruction" (says US AID) or "religious
content" (says the White House). It's a modern miracle.
Reading these news reports and statements one might feel a certain
sympathy for citizens of the US and allied countries, required to hold in
their minds at one time a) the conviction that Mr. Bush is sincerely
fighting Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and b) the knowledge that the
US is spending millions of dollars to indoctrinate Afghan school children
with Islamic fundamentalism.
Not to worry. This problem has been solved by the US and allied mass
media, which, with the exception of the Washington Post, have never told
their readers and viewers who it was that produced the old books or what it
is that's in the new ones.
Even the Washington Post has pulled its punches. For example, consider
the headline of the March 23rd article, the only one that deals critically
with the jihad primers.
Here's the headline:
"From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad; Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks
Complicate Afghan Education Efforts."
"Violent Soviet-Era textbooks." This phrase doesn't even make it clear
that the books were shipped in by theUSA! They could have been hateful
*Russian* books.
And the phrase, "Complicate Afghan Education Efforts" sounds like the
books are hindering current US attempts at effecting progressive change.
Nobody would guess from this headline that US AID has been forcing Islamic
fundamentalist texts on Afghan kids for 20 years. And that they're still
importing the same fundamentalist texts today.
(This is important because studies show that with any given article,
most people only read the headline.)
In the body of the article itself the Post asserts without offering
any evidence that steeping "a generation in [Islamist] violence" was an
"unintended consequence" of giving these kids violent Islamist schoolbooks.
"Unintended consequence" is fast becoming the US Establishment's
favorite excuse for the many disasters of its foreign policy. "We didn't
know. We weren't prepared. We used old maps. We didn't see the train. We
thought there were tanks in the refugee column. Who could have expected this
to happen?" and on and on.
But does the case of the Islamist textbooks seem like "unintended
consequences?" Or, quite the contrary, doesn't it show every indication of
being "deliberate policy!"
In a forthcoming article we will examine other "unintended
consequences" of US policy in Afghanistan.
-- Jared Israel
Emperor's Clothes is Under Attack!
(See note at end)
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FURTHER READING:
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Here's a thought.
The mass media and top US officials made a very big deal about John
Walker Lindh, the American youth seized for working with the Taliban.
Mr. Lindh couldn't have had a very big effect on Afghanistan. But the
US officials who approved the production and distribution of millions of
fanatical schoolbooks did have a big effect. They "steeped a generation in
[Islamist] violence." Could it be that politicians are focusing on Mr. Lindh
to create a demagogic smokescreen in order to hide US government
involvement, or their own involvement, or perhaps their father's involvement
in pushing violent Islamic fundamentalism on the innocent children of
Central Asia?
1) 'Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered' This
account of how the US covertly supported the Taliban can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohr.htm
2) 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy'
Article from "Washington Post' with introductory note from 'Emperor's
Clothes'. Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm
3) 'Taliban Camps U.S. bombed in Afghanistan Were Built by NATO'
Documentation from the 'N.Y. Times'. U.S. and Saudi aid to
Afghan-based terrorism totaled $6 billion or more. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/camps.htm
4) 'CIA worked with Pakistan to create Taliban'
From 'Times of India.' Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/pak.htm
5) 'Osama bin Laden: Made In USA'
Excerpt from article on U.S. bombing of a pill factory in Sudan in
August 1998. Argues that bin Laden was and still may be a CIA asset. Can be
read at http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/madein.htm
6) 'Excerpts from News Reports - Bin Laden in the Balkans' evidence
that bin Laden aided or is aiding the U.S.-sponsored forces in Bosnia,
Kosovo and Macedonia. Can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/binl.htm
7) 'The Creation Called Osama,' by Shamsul Islam can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/creat.htm
8) 'Gaping Holes in the 'CIA vs. bin Laden' Story' by Jared Israel can
be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm
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FOOTNOTES
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A) Washington Post, March 23, 2002, "From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad;
Violent Soviet Education Efforts."
-Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/abc.htm
B) The Boston Globe March 17, 2002, Sunday, THIRD EDITION FOCUS; Pg.
E1 "THE TASK: EDUCATING A GENERATION OF WOMEN, AND QUICKLY WITH A FEMALE
LITERACY RATE OF LESS THAN 4 PERCENT, TEACHERS FACE OBSTACLES EVEN WITH THE
TALIBAN GONE" By Elizabeth Neuffer (the Globe's United Nations Bureau chief)
c) The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002, Monday * WORLD; Pg.
19, "Girls' return spells out school changes - WAR ON TERROR: A NATION'S
HOPE"
By ALEXANDRE PEYRILLE and MEHRDAD BALALI in Kabul
D) Omaha World-Herald, February 8, 2002 Friday SUNRISE EDITION
EDITORIAL; Pg. 6B
E) March 16, 2002 Saturday, FDCH Political Transcripts, "GEORGE W.
BUSH DELIVERS WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS"
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