-Caveat Lector- --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], ulrich stuart <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
copied from http://freedom.orlingrabbe.com/lfetimes/roots_americas_jihad.htm The Roots of America's JihadInterplay of Three Civilizationsby Kevin Ellul Bonici It is a harsh predicament for a nation to be at war, especially if it is surrounded by embittered foes. And a worse predicament is when that nation is left with just one ally to lean on for vital support! True, the US government is a significant ally for Israel to own. But no alliance lasts forever. When (not if!) that sole, remaining ally retracts its support, then the warring nation's troubles would have only just begun. Israel's electorate needs to understand that no matter how powerful its ally is, numerically speaking it remains just one. And one ally minus one, of course, leaves zero allies! The question is, for how long is America expected to support Israel and, therefore, at what cost? In other words, to what extent is America willing to further compromise its security and its relations with the Arab world — and with Europe! The historical twists have long been coming. The Christian-Muslim schism has been an indelible fixture since the dawn of this civilization. Concurrently, as if by some fatalistic, predetermined force ingrained in the human psyche, the Judaic destiny, intertwined as it is with both Christianity and Islam, has emerged as a self- fulfilling prophecy with a self-defeating strategy. I will not be tackling the psychological attributes of nations to eventually become what they firmly believe they are predestined to become (in nations as in individuals). Nor will I tackle the inherent, politico-religious issues relating to the "promised land" for a diasporic "God's chosen people," or the vision of martyrdom as a means towards universal religious conquest, or the merits of missionary quests to convert pagans worldwide (as in today's 'missionary' quest to convert 'anti-democratic' nations to Western values). Instead, I'll be more mundane — and ambiguous: not for the sake of political correctness as much as for unleashing a loose form of reflection on this scourge — this ancient clash of three civilizations intertwined under one God who is deemed to have predetermined whatever He's perceived to have predetermined. What follows, therefore, is a snapshot reflection on past and present events as they relate to the Christian-Muslim schism, the Israeli- Palestinian conflict and the wider implications as sustained by the American pro-Israel mindset, which has brought America ever closer to its own version of Jihad against the Arab-Muslim world. The Crescent and the Cross 'Will there be an all-out conflict between America and the Arab World? Is this WWIII?' — asks Bill O'Reilly, the Fox News Super- Spinner. And by the looks of things he and his ilk dearly yearn for such a conflict to materialize. They interpret any Arab move as a possible act of aggression against the U.S. They cannot tolerate 'non- compliant' Arab States — such as Saudi Arabia, for example, which, according to the Super-Spinner, 'used to be a friendly country but is now funding terrorism by donating money to the families of terrorist suicide bombers . . .!' What is this fixation on the Arab-Muslim world? What is the reason behind this emerging fallacious American Jihad? Why are so many Americans so eager to fight Israel's war? Is it just retribution for 9/11? Perhaps historical root-influences have more bearing on a people's collective psyche than otherwise assumed. Perhaps Christian Europe has fought Muslims for so long it has grown politically and culturally weary (and wary) of such conflicts over time. And it's as if America — ever so naïve as a young offshoot culture — is now yearning for Europe's past headaches; a sort of cultural inheritance that's 'genetically' passed onto pioneering migrants and their descendants, to separately evolve in similar patterns as in the mother culture and repeat its past mistakes. The roots of this modern American Jihad lie deep in the abysses of history. So deep, all of America's European ancestors were still in Europe at the time — and totally oblivious of the existence of their descendants' future homeland, North America, inhabited then solely by indigenous Americans, themselves oblivious of future developments that would underline the fact that the land they inhabited had not been promised to them by any god. Over a millennium ago, during Europe's Dark Ages — a few centuries after the phasing out of the Roman Empire — today's European civilization was still superstitiously pre-dawning. But if these ages were dark for Europe, they were not as dark for the Islamic World, which was by then emerging as a civilization in its own right. Originating in Arabia just after the turn of the Seventh Century, Islam glorified martyrdom as a means to attain universal domination. During its early decades, Muslim conquests — the prototype of Holy War (Jihad) — expanded to the whole of the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Turkey, Armenia, Persia, as well as the North African coast. Eventually, from around the Ninth to the early Eleventh Centuries, regular Muslim incursions became the scourge of early Europeans. Most of Spain, half of the Italian peninsula and much of the rest of the southern European coast were occupied by the Arabs for centuries at a time, until finally being liberated by the Normans and other north Europeans by around the turn of the First Millennium. The millennium that followed — the one we've just bid farewell — was to witness great battles and wars between these two civilizations. The legendary age of 'the Crescent and the Cross' had only just begun. Europe's intra-feuding Christian powers had one major common enemy: the 'infidel Muslim'. And these early Christian-Muslim feuds played a major role in forging the path towards the 'Crusades against the infidels' — Christianity's own version of Jihad. The real thing started in 1095 when Pope Urban, supported by Peter the Hermit, preached the need to regain the Holy Land from the infidel Muslims after receiving an appeal from the Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus for aid against the invading Seljuk Turks (originally from Turkmenistan). This is the gist of Pope Urban's speech as reduced by Dr E. L. Skip Knox: "The noble race of Franks must come to the aid of their fellow Christians in the East. The infidel Turks are advancing into the heart of Eastern Christendom; Christians are being oppressed and attacked; churches and holy places are being defiled. Jerusalem is groaning under the Saracen yoke. The Holy Sepulchre is in Moslem hands and has been turned into a mosque. Pilgrims are harassed and even prevented from access to the Holy Land "The West must march to the defense of the East. All should go, rich and poor alike. The Franks must stop their internal wars and squabbles. Let them go instead against the infidel and fight a righteous war. "God himself would lead them, for they would be doing His work. There will be absolution and remission of sins for all who die in the service of Christ. Here they are poor and miserable sinners; there they will be rich and happy. Let none hesitate; they must march next summer. God wills it!" http://crusades.boisestate.edu/1st/02.htm (Note the similarity between the Islamic concept of martyrdom and the Christian "absolution and remission of sins for all who die in the service of Christ.") Eventually, in 1096, 30,000 men converged at Constantinople, the Byzantine capital of Eastern Christendom, and by 1099 Jerusalem was captured and the First Crusade came to a successful end. For the next 300 years or so there were to be seven or eight Crusades (depending on when one stops counting). But just to get in the mood of the medieval mindset, consider this excerpt from a letter dated 1229, written after a recent re-conquest of the Holy Land. The letter is addressed to King Henry III of England and is written by an elated Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor and "King of Jerusalem" (and Frederick III of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies): "And whilst the treaty was in progress between the parties on either side of the restoration of the Holy Land, at length Jesus Christ, the Son of God, beholding from on high our devoted endurance and patient devotion to His cause, in His merciful compassion of us, at length brought it about that the sultan of Babylon restored to us the holy city, the place where the feet of Christ trod, and where the true worshippers adore the Father in spirit and in truth. But that we may inform you of the particulars of this surrender each as they happened, be it known to you that not only is the body of the aforesaid city restored to us, but also the whole of the country extending from thence to the seacoast near the castle of Joppa, so that for the future pilgrims will have free passage and a safe return to and from the sepulchre; provided, however, that the Saracens of that part of the country, since they hold the temple in great veneration, may come there as often as they choose in the character of pilgrims, to worship according to their custom, and that we shall henceforth permit them to come, however, only as many as we may choose to allow, and without arms, nor are they to dwell in the city, but outside, and as soon as they have paid their devotions they are to depart. "Moreover, the city of Bethlehem is restored to us, and all the country between Jerusalem and that city; as also the city of Nazareth, and all the country between Acre and that city; the whole of the district of Turon, which is very extensive, and very advantageous to the Christians; the city of Sidon, too, is given up to us with the whole plain and its appurtenances, which will be the more acceptable to the Christians the more advantageous it has till now appeared to be to the Saracens, especially as there is a good harbor there, and from there great quantities of arms and necessaries might be carried to the city of Damascus and often from Damascus to Babylon." http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/fred2cdelets.html By the 14th Century this medieval mindset changed: the Renaissance was slowly emerging and the Crusades faded into history. But the end of the Crusades only ushered a new era in the legend of 'the crescent and the cross'. Paul Halsall puts it succinctly: "The fall of Acre closed an era. No effective Crusade was raised to recapture the Holy Land after Acre's fall, though talk of further Crusades was common enough. By 1291 other ideals had captured the interest and enthusiasm of the monarchs and nobility of Europe and even strenuous papal efforts to raise expeditions to liberate the Holy Land met with little response. The ideal of the Crusade was irretrievably tarnished. [...] The fourteenth century saw some other so-called Crusades organized, but these enterprises differed in many ways from the eleventh and twelfth century expeditions which are properly called Crusades. The "Crusades" of the fourteenth century aimed not at the recapture of Jerusalem and the Christian shrines of the Holy Land, but rather at checking the advance of the Ottoman Turks into Europe. While many of the "Crusaders" in these fourteenth century undertakings looked upon the defeat of the Ottomans as a preliminary to the ultimate recapture of the Holy Land, none of the later crusades attempted any direct attack upon Palestine or Syria." http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1291acre.html The Ottoman Empire was the scourge of European Kingdoms, Principalities and City States at the time, which had to contend with heavy losses — other than enjoy the spoils of conquest whenever Muslim galleys were seized, or Muslim land plundered and slaves captured. Eventually, the Christians lost not only the Holy Land, but by 1453 they also lost Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, never to be regained (now Istanbul). So serious was the 'threat of Islam' that by 1529, at the height of the Ottoman Empire, Europe's common Muslim enemy stood at the gates of Vienna only to be pushed back with considerable effort. By 1566, the year Suleyman the Magnificent died, the Ottoman Empire extended from Hungary through the whole of the Balkans, including Greece and Moldavia, and from Asia Minor (Turkey in Asia), inward as far as today's Iraq up till the Persian Gulf, as well as the whole Palestinian coast down to Egypt and most of the north African coast as far as present- day Algeria. A significant turning point came in 1565 with the Siege of Malta, when after a six-month siege the Ottomans gave up their attempt to capture the island-fortress, which was defended by the Knights of Malta (The Sovereign Military Order of St John, of Jerusalem and of Malta) It was eventually at the Battle of Lepanto, in 1571, that a major Christian victory was registered when a huge Ottoman fleet of 240 galleys was defeated by a 'Maritime League' of "212 Spanish, Venetian, Genoese and Maltese ships under the command of Don John, losing about 5,000 oarsmen and soldiers, but capturing 130 vessels with their stores and provisions, taking 4,000 prisoners, freeing 12,000 Christian galley slaves, and killing 25,000 Turks. But the merchants of Venice were eager for peace and failed to follow up on their triumph. Constantinople ... regained full strength within a year." (The People's Chronology, James Trager) Coexistence and Cross-influences The Ottoman Empire was, of course, ruled by Turks not Arabs, but it was an assimilated empire made up of Middle Eastern and North African peoples (predominantly Arabs) who found unity in Islam. Contemporary accounts of how Christians, Jews and Muslims lived peacefully side-by-side exist in abundance. It seems that the legendary 'crescent and cross' had more to do with power assertion, than with religion, which nevertheless had a high symbolic value. Indeed, Jihad and the Crusades seem, more than anything else, to have been holy cries that motivated the faithful into raising sufficient armies aimed at conquest, plunder and the assertion of power. Otherwise, the Middle East under the Ottoman Empire has been characterized by what Avigdor Levy describes as "five centuries of interethnic peaceful coexistence [that] is impressive and merits consideration." Levy gives an interesting summation: "Ottoman success in achieving such a long record of peaceful coexistence was largely due to their pragmatic, non-ideological style of rule and the exceptionally broad autonomy that they granted the various ethnic and religious groups within their domains. The Ottoman government intervened in the internal affairs of its minority communities to a very limited degree. [...] This broad autonomy also allowed each group to live according to its own customs and traditions and preserve its own language and culture. There was considerable cross-community acculturation, but it was not forced. While the various groups came into contact with each other, their main focus of daily life remained within their respective communities." http://www.brandeis.edu/ethics/publications_resources/publications/fac ulty_research/sec_4.pdf It seems that on a socio-community level, Christians, Muslims and Jews have been able to live in peaceful coexistence. Yet on a political level — that is, through the good endeavours of the Monarch, or the State (presumed to reflect its citizens' will) — there seems to be an eternal, yet fluid, schism between the three. There is a mystical air surrounding the cross-influences that Christianity and Islam have exerted on one another throughout the ages (not to mention the tri-cross-influences when adding Judaism). It was Islam, however, that seems to have had a major influence on Christianity rather than the other way round. The highly regarded French Professor, Jacques Ellul, comments on the Muslim influences on the Crusades, which he describes as Christianity's version of Jihad: "... let me make it clear that I have not been trying to excuse what the Europeans did. I have not been trying to shift the "blame," to say Muslims, not the Christians, were the guilty party. My purpose is to try to explain certain perversions in Christian conduct. I have found a model for them in Islam. Christians did not invent the holy war or the slave trade. Their fault was to imitate Islam. Sometimes it was imitation by following the example of Islam. Sometimes it was inverse imitation by doing the same thing in order to combat Islam, as in the Crusades. Either way, the tragedy was that the church completely forgot the truth of the gospel. It turned Christian ethics upside down in favor of what seemed to be very obviously a much more effective mode of action, for in the twelfth century and later the Muslim world offered a dazzling example of civilization. The church forgot the authenticity of the revelation in Christ in order to launch out in pursuit of the same mirage." http://answering-islam.org/History/crusades.html Jacques Ellul further reflects on the overall influences of Arab- Muslim thought over Western civilization: "Everyone knows that the problem solved by Thomas Aquinas was precisely that of confrontation between classical theology and Aristotle's philosophy. But the bridge is by way of the Arabs. We speak of Greek philosophy and Christian theology. But the Greek philosophy was faithfully transmitted by Arab interpreters. It was by way of Arab-Muslim thinking that the problem came to be addressed at this time. [...] It seems that the Muslim intellectuals and theologians were much stronger than their Christian counterparts. It seems that Islam had an influence, but not Christianity. [...] ... it does tell us beyond doubt that even between enemies who are depicted as irreconcilable there were cultural and intellectual relations. Exchanges took place and knowledge circulated. In truth, knowledge seems to have circulated in only one direction, coming from Islam and the Arab world to the West." The 'crescent and the cross' is a symbiotic polarity signifying one of the world's greatest cultural clashes of all time — a culture clash that has shaped today's socio-political world to significant extents, not least the American way of thinking, far removed as it appears to be from these Dark and Middle Ages. 1917: The seeds of modern conflict The end of World War One marked the end of the Ottoman Empire since Turkey was on the losing side. By 1919 the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist and was thereafter dismembered. The Turkish-Arab-Muslim civilization passed through its worst humiliations in history, lasting till present times. Turkey went the European way and regained immediate independence. In 1923 Mustafa Kemal Ataturk founded today's secularized Turkish Republic. The Roman alphabet replaced the Arabic script and a European system of government was imposed. Indeed, Turkey simply became 'European' overnight! And a great Western ally too! But even if more and more Turkish people started wearing European attire, the population remains predominantly Muslim ... and the end is nowhere near, of course, but that's another story to be told. The rest of the dismembered Ottoman Empire pursued a somewhat different route, but were equally humiliated. Most Arab-speaking territories formerly united under the Ottoman rule came under direct Western control, particularly the British (Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait) and the French (Syria, Lebanon). In fact all other Arab states were either colonies or under the influential control of Britain (Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Emirates, Oman, Aden, Sudan), France (Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco), Italy (Libya) as well as Spanish enclaves in Morocco. The situation in the Dark Ages had been completely reversed! Christians now ruled over Muslim lands — including the Holy Land. Palestine, which had been under uninterrupted Ottoman rule since 1516, was invaded by British troops before the end of WW I. Jerusalem fell to the British on December 9, 1917 and Britain was eventually given a League of Nations mandate to rule over Palestine. But before this relatively inconsequential event, there was an event of higher significance. On November 2, 1917, the British foreign secretary Arthur J. Balfour issued the so-called 'Balfour Declaration' expressing that the British government favours "the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of that object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non- Jewish communities in Palestine." (The People's Chronology, James Trager) By 1930, such was the influx of Jews pouring from all over Europe into Palestine that the British secretary of colonies presented the "Passfield Paper on Palestine", suggesting a halt to Jewish emigration to Palestine as long as unemployment persisted among the Arab-speaking community. But hundreds of thousands of Jews kept emigrating to Palestine, not least in consequence of the rise of Nazism in Germany. Beginning in 1936 there was a Palestinian nationalist uprising against British rule and eventually by 1939, in order to appease the Palestinians, the British issued a White Paper that effectively repudiated the Balfour Declaration and limited Jewish admissions to 50,000 for the following five years. The White Paper also envisioned the establishment of an independent, predominantly Arab State, with restricted Jewish immigration. But by 1945 Jewish terrorists in Palestine were dynamiting railroads in order to scuttle British efforts to control illegal Jewish immigration. The Jews resisted British rule with terrorism, resorting to assassinations and bombings, killing many British soldiers and Arab civilians, such as the blowing up of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946, killing over a hundred British officers, their wives and children, and Arab civilians. This terrorist activity was spearheaded by the Jewish terrorist groups Irgun Zvai Leumi (led by Menachem Begin, who was later to become Israel's prime minister), Stern Gang (led by Yitzhak Shamir, another later prime minister) and Haganah (led by David Ben Gurion, Israel's first prime minister). Jewish emigration to Palestine never ceased. Not since at least 1897, when Theodor Herzl founded the Zionist Movement in Switzerland in order to lobby for a Jewish State in Palestine on the basis of the Bible's cartography. The Jews had historically been expelled from practically every European country at one time or another since the Dark Ages. This phenomenon in itself would make a fascinating subject of study from an objective viewpoint, relating to interactive collective behaviourisms and self-fulfilling situation — the theological shaping of a people's destiny, seemingly predetermined in an otherwise random socio-political world... And the Palestinians have come to be embroiled in this ancient phenomenon in such a way that unless they resist they will be eliminated as a people and their land forever forfeited by global approbation. By 1948, the British mandate over Palestine expired and the British withdrew their forces under pressure of Jewish terrorism. The State of Israel was declared over an area four-fifths of Palestine. An estimated 725,000 Arabs fled or were driven out of their homeland, mostly to Trans-Jordan (as Jordan used to be called). By 1950, over one million Palestinians were living in UN-supported refugee camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Jordan, which eventually became centres of political militancy. Thereafter, there would be no peace to speak of. Just by observing land ownership figures alone, one realizes the extent of the elimination of the Palestinian people: in 1917 the Jews owned just 2.5% of the land in Palestine. This rose to 5.7% by 1948. And today, within the pre-1967 borders, the Jews own 95% while the Arabs own the remaining 5%. The 1970s pave the way: terrorism hits Europe, then America During the 1970s, rifts within the Arab World plagued Arab unity — the dream of Arab-Muslim patriots. Cold War power politics, commercial interests (such as the Saudi-US oil tandem) and the pursuit of spurious and unrealistic "peaceful settlements," seemed to undermine the Palestinian cause against Israeli occupation, not least the rapprochement between Sadat's Egypt and Begin's Israel in 1978. For the Palestine Liberation Organization the 1970s was a frustrating period. This state of affairs motivated PLO efforts to further their cause for freedom. The PLO's wrath was initially turned on their recent Christian colonizers. The resultant reaction squirted right in Europe's face with frightening regularity, releasing European anti- Muslim sentiments in the process. PLO terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s involved mainly the hijacking of aircraft to bring the Palestinian cause to the world's attention. But by the end of the 1980s Yasser Arafat was actively pursuing a political solution to the Palestinian problem. Finally, with the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords, Yasser Arafat and the PLO were rehabilitated, as Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shook hands with Arafat, and the West finally recognized Arafat as the leader of the Palestinian people. With the 'terrorist' label having been removed and a Palestinian Authority recognized by the West, Palestinian terrorist activity in Europe ceased. But by the time this major development had occurred, the advent in Iran of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 had already unleashed a religious- based type of anti-Western terrorism that embraced the expansion of Islam and a rebuttal of Western civilization in nearly all socio- political forms. State-sponsored terrorism, having emerged throughout the 1970s, rapidly evolved during the `80s and `90s and turned its focus from Europe to America and American forces worldwide. America, seen as the main perpetrator of Christian imperialist evil, necessarily got the brunt. Moreover, the terrorist PLO banner was taken over by resistance groups, such as Hamas and Hizbollah, which consolidated Arafat as a moderate leader as much as Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. Arafat does not form part of the "fundamentalist Islamic" group. Neither do Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddhafi for that matter! In fact most Arab State leaders today feel threatened by fundamentalist organizations in their countries. Indeed by the 1990s a wider context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had emerged and evolved. Islamic extremism, not related to the Palestinian cause per se, and yet so very much embroiled within it, keeps rising and rising. And America and its little allied friend symbolize the very essence that justifies their cause and motivates them into action. Theirs is a war against Western imposition, against the American Jihad! The suicide bomber, a modern version of earlier Muslim martyrs, has increasingly become an effective weapon against this modern archetype of the old Christian foe. In consequence, the Americans have come to encounter the same form of suicidal martyrdom that had earlier been encountered by the Europeans during the Dark Ages and the Crusades. And very few Americans so far seem to understand the serious implications their despotic government has been getting them into! A Post-Cold War Nightmare During the Cold War's twilight, Gorbachev years, I had this nagging itch in my mind — a conscious nightmare of some sort. What if the current Islamic resurgence continues to rise, I thought, and Islamic fundamentalists succeed in instigating great Islamic revolutions that would spread throughout the Middle East and the North African Arab States? What if the moderate (Western-compliant) Arab heads of State should be toppled with a domino effect and replaced by Khomeini-like figures that would between them forge a huge nuclear-capacitated Islamic Alliance? And what if European integration evolved ever more towards a political, rather than just an economic, union? How could a fundamentalist Islamic Alliance and a federated European Union find peaceful coexistence? 'We could be revisiting the legend of The Crescent and the Cross,' I wrote at the time. 'The same old play in a modern theatre.' My nightmare had other branched scenarios: what if the predominantly Muslim ex-Soviet Republics in Central Asia formed part of this Islamic Alliance? What if an Islamic revolution partitioned Turkey into a secular republic on the European mainland (where Constantinople lies), and an Islamic republic on Asia Minor? What if European xenophobia towards Muslim immigrants (which had become manifest by the 1980s) further increases and anti-immigration laws extend to coercive strategies for the removal of 'illegal' Arab immigrants? And what if the United States happens to relax into one of its historical isolationist moods? My mental preoccupation presented a particularly personal nightmare, inhabiting as I am the tiny island-state of Malta, sandwiched in the centre of the Mediterranean between Europe and North Africa. If history repeats itself, then Malta has received quite a fair share of foreign invasions and bombardments to have to repeat, not least by the Arabs, the Turks and the Germans. I did not relish Malta becoming a "Member State" of the European Union and ending up as a frontier rock — a military outpost at the very edge of a xenophobic European Union facing a hostile Islamic Alliance. I certainly felt the shivers down my spine whenever I pictured how easy a naval invasion would be. Imagine: fervently Roman Catholic Malta, with a European culture and a Latinized-Arabic tongue, facing a fundamentalist Islamic enemy — there, on the other side of the channel, just across my sun bed and my headphones playing happy Steely Dan tunes: "... what a beautiful world this will be, what a glorious time to be free ..." The 'War on Terror': An American Jihad Ah, those West Coast tunes! To me they symbolize the brighter, freer side of America. Tunes, of course, are not a product of the US government. But it's thanks to the US government that my nightmare is now abated — at least temporarily. As it were, American isolationism was something I had badly short- timed by at least three decades. I had truly under-estimated the US government's resolve in supporting Israel, as well as the American lack of 'knowing the enemy' — America's remarkable ineptitude in understanding the Arab- Muslim mind ... the latent consequences of US military presence in the Holy Land of Arabia, 'hijacked' by the Saud family. America now attracts terrorism like a magnet, and this has helped deflect terrorism away from Europe's shores. Indeed, relations between the Arab World and (Western) Europe haven't been so good for quite some time — shaky, mind you, especially with Britain's US-Anglo- Saxon-EU Tony Blair and Italy's 'Muslim-hating' merchant-turned- politician, Silvio Berlusconi! But "The Great Satan", it seems, is willing to act its label through perhaps even till the very end. While Britain's Tony Blair seems to be having a bit of fun threading on two platforms that get wider by the week. With Operation Desert Storm in 1991 the US government found its new role as world policeman to be both satisfying and justifying, by whichever measure of justification. Desert Storm rekindled American patriotism, which is but an emotional prelude to thoughts of Empire. The 'New World Order' ushered in by George I eventually turned out to be George II's 'War on Terror', alternatively 'War on Non-compliant States', or simply 'Pax Americana' and, eventually, 9/11 triggered a potential 'Jihad on Arab-Muslims'. Moderate Arab States, with dignified yet vibrant Muslim populations, are not amused by the American threats of a wider pursuit of terrorists and their "Islamic" funding, or by their eagerness to bomb Iraq and other dissenting States. Neither are the Europeans, barring the grand Blairish exception. Today, even Kuwait and Saudi Arabia have patched up their relations with Saddam's Iraq, while Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden have become irrelevant (unless the US government deems otherwise). But there are no doves in the Bush administration, only hawks and vultures, sapping the good American taxpaying people out of their much-deserved happiness, security and prosperity! An American Jihad seems to be their final solution to any Arab-Muslim retaliation, without reflecting much on the causes of such retaliation, creating a vicious circle that can only play in the hands of extremists on both sides of the divide. But what does the mainstream American media have to say about this state of affairs? Blind dogma I watched on Fox News the other night a backslapping conversation between Super-Spinner Bill O'Reilly and ex-Drugs Czar, William Bennett. 'Why is it they don't like us and why do they hate Israel so much!' O'Reilly was lamenting. He was not referring to Muslim extremists, mind you. He was referring to Europeans! 'Yes, Bill,' Bennett puts in, 'and we've done so much for them! Twice we've saved them from Barbarism ... and now this is how they pay us back ...' 'But why do they hate Israel, why do they hate us ...? O'Reilly again asks, almost rhetorically, now. 'Anti-Semitism, Bill. Europeans have always been anti-Semitic,' the ex- Drug Czar acknowledges with a sigh, delving into aspects pertaining to Hitler's actions and relating to "European decadence." 'But not Britain ...!' O'Reilly retorts. 'Oh! No not Britain ...' Bennett agrees, as they further word-pat and congratulate one another for mutually recognizing the passion with which Blair's Britain — yes, most prominently good ol' Tone — pursues America's and Israel's crusade against 'evildoing' terrorists (they're not reading the British papers, it seems!). 'Perhaps they're envious of American and Israeli successes,' adds O'Reilly, still referring to the Europeans, to which Bennett strongly agrees, then sadly sighs: 'But why the Europeans are so friendly with these Palestinians, Bill, I don't know ...' (Other than the anti- Semitic factor, one presumes). Well, with this level of current affairs analysis, no wonder most Americans seem to be living elsewhere in the universe! And if they can't even understand the Europeans, how in hell will they ever understand the Arabs? Even the Taliban leaders had a better understanding of European politics! Then, a couple of days later O'Reilly had ex-Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his show. 'It's Netanyahu vs. O'Reilly next!' the Super-Spinner announced. Again, the question crops up: 'Why do Europeans hate you, Mr. Netanyahu?' 'Europe has a lot to answer,' begins Netanyahu ominously, as he ventures into Europe's past sins in regard to the Jews. 'But why, why do they hate you so much?' O'Reilly presses on. 'I don't know ... Oil? Political gains ...?' he shrugs, meaning to indicate he had no idea, before venturing on to his pet subject: 'we've been living there for thousands of years ... Judea is ours ... it bears our name ...' Well, if Judea is the problem, they certainly have seized more than their fare share of land. Whereas many other nations, such as Lithuania and Armenia, have quietly settled for far less than their historical territorial potential, Israel wants more! And in the name of security it commits genocide against the Palestinian people — witnessed by the recent massacre at Jenin. The whole world seems to be realizing it, yet America stands by Sharon, scolding him only rhetorically, blinded by the pro-Israel dogma propagated by a monopolized media. Europeans don't hate Americans, of course! Many Europeans tremendously despise the U.S. government, to be sure, for unlike the American mainstream most Europeans have more or less learnt to differentiate between the U.S. government and the American people! So tyrannical is the US government perceived, that some 'progressive' and 'libertarian' Europeans see American world influence and aggression as the major justification for European integration. 'With all its ills, Europe is the beacon of democracy today,' my libertarian friends tell me. 'Europe must unite into a strong power in order to counterbalance American tyranny.' Little do they realize that a strong and powerful Europe essentially means a future Empire-State that could become even more tyrannical than the United States today! European perspectives would certainly change then — and I hope this will not turn out to be a prophecy. Are they sacrificing their national freedom (or what's left of it) to counterbalance American tyranny? Towards a divided America? Perhaps it would be best for Europe to help America see the light by withdrawing support for any irrational American Jihad. Roughly, I take a possible meandering scenario to work out according to the following inter-related causes and effects: The longer the U.S. sticks to Israel's guns, the more Israeli aggression will there be, which in turn will lead to an escalation of Palestinian and Islamic reactions. This would also lead to less European support for America's war on terror and would further alienate moderate Arab leaders, and play in the hands of Muslim extremists. This would also increase the possibility for a rift to materialize between the U.S. and Europe. And should this rift widen, more Americans would feel isolated in their government's Israeli stand and its anti-Muslim Jihad. This should pave the way for more Americans to recognize the fallacies in their government's policies, thereby generating the possibility for a less cohesive America to develop and a sharp schism in public opinion to emerge — a less 'patriotic' America. The sharper this American schism becomes, the quicker would this American Jihad end. Somewhere down the line of the above there must be a strange twist, for it starts with: "the longer the U.S. sticks to Israel's guns ..." and ends off with: "the quicker would this American Jihad end." A contradiction? Not really. The sharpening of the American political schism is what should quicken the demise of the present Republican-Democratic regime and hence cause the end of the American Jihad — and only after an unspecified period of time during which, what would have been done could not be undone. But then this American Jihad, we are told by the U.S. government, is near-permanent and may quite likely outlive us all! Or perhaps a mainstream American schism would one day be brought to a point where it puts an end to this tyranny through a truly democratic revolution! With half the electorate not voting, some political fluidity must exist, even if so far it lies dormant. Perhaps it is Islam that will ultimately awaken this dormant sector while opening the eyes of the current mainstream mindset. Good things can come out of evil, it seems! --------------------------------- Kevin Ellul Bonici is co-editor of European MONITOR in Malta. Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Health - Feel better, live better --- End forwarded message --- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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