By Meraj Abedin
Reflective and rational people must be careful when talking of "terrorism." We must remember that the Nazis called partisan resistance fighters "terrorists." The British Empire used to call unruly and rebellious tribesmen "terrorists." The African National Congress and Nelson Mandela were also labelled "terrorists" by the Apartheid regime in South Africa.
Contrary to popular fantasy, there is no war on terror being waged. The atrocities of September 11 are being used by America and various other states to wage a political war upon their rebellious Muslim opponents. Some of the countries that have enthusiastically enlisted themselves in this "war on terror" are themselves the biggest perpetrators of state terror and repression. Israel, India, Russia and China have all labelled their campaigns to crush their separatist Muslim regions as a fight against terrorism.
The reality of a "war on terror" widening is even more obvious after King George’s recent messianic diatribes on the "axis of evil." It was unclear whether Emperor Bush’s speech was about the plot of the upcoming Star Wars Episode II or the real world of dirty politics and dirty wars.
In his State of War address, Bush blasted "rogue states" like Iran for supporting resistance groups such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Hezbollah is a south Lebanese guerrilla group that successfully defeated and pushed out the Israeli army after it had invaded their country. For America to accuse Iran for sponsoring terrorism is hypocrisy on a grand scale. Considering the fact that America has sponsored terror groups in the past, like the Contras in Nicaragua.
Massacres of villagers, gunning down dissident Catholic priests, assassinating political opponents, extra judicial arrests, torture and killing. These were the common features of America’s proxy terrorists in Nicaragua. The Contras’ acts of terror would make the Hezbollah look pretty mellow.
But that’s apparently a non-issue-only Muslim insurgents and guerrillas who oppose American interests are evil-doing terrorists. For the Muslim world, Bush’s message and theme are simple: resistance is futile.
When armies ravage cities, when soldiers torture, terrorize and massacre civilians, when resistance to military occupation is violently crushedit is not always considered terrorism by the elites of West. The current portrayal of America as an innocent and persecuted nation fighting the forces of evil is a perverted and sick exercise in self-victimization. It would require intense substance abuse and thorough historical revisionism to truly believe that the most powerful nations are somehow the innocent victims of a grand Islamic conspiracy for world domination.
Never mind the fact that more than one million Iraqis have died from U.S.-backed sanctions, or that America has consistently supported some of the most brutal regimes in the Middle East, or that Israeli state terror against Palestinian civilians all happens on America’s payroll. The logic is crystal clear, only America and its friends have the right to vengeance. As for Muslims, they’re all terrorists.
Let me be clear. My intentions are not to legitimize the "poor man’s" terrorism. The al-Qaeda and Taliban are not freedom fighting mujahedeen. Bin Laden used the language of resistance, liberation and holy struggle to propagate his cause. No one should be fooled. He used righteous language to further his own political war and his sick and twisted vision of a holy tyranny.
However, Bush is also using Crusader imagery and all this talk of "evil" to further his grandiose plans of conquest and empire. He is using the atrocities of September 11 to advance and to justify the "rich man’s" terrorism.
There is no war on terror and there never will be. There is only a clash of terrors and a clash of fundamentalisms. And the rich man will win-for now.
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