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State
Terrorism/Terrorism, USA/Iraq, Israel/Palestine Right
Now
By
Johan
Galtung
Director and Founder,
TRANSCEND
TFF
associate
May 18, 2004
[1] When somebody declares "War on
Terrorism" any counter-war should come as no
surprise. War is a two-way street as
Anglo-Americans and Israelis with their punishment
expeditions and military intervention against peoples
unable to hit back are now learning. Today they hit back,
military and civilians against military and civilians;
USA-UK killing by far most. Terrorists possess less
destructive force than the state terrorists, but their
societies are more vulnerable. Thus, a nonviolent
Muslim strike in some of them will have a major
impact.
[2] This also applies to members of the
"US-led coalition" with military deployment in
Afghanistan and Iraq like Spain. The 11-M Madrid-Atocha
atrocity is in this category although other issues
handled badly by Spain like Ceuta-Melilla may play a
role. US stupidity has generalized a simple 9/11
attack to a real clash, including with Australian sex,
also pedophile, tourism in Bali.
[3] Spain is now making history, defying
the US Empire by withdrawing troops (1,300), with
Honduras (1,200). Thailand, Portugal, Ukraine and
Kazakhstan will not replace troops. South Korea, Poland,
El Salvador, Bulgaria and Singapore have doubts. A
coalition bought by spoils and fed with lies is
unravelling, and more quickly so the more obvious the
imminent defeat. They will negotiate withdrawal
against promise not to attack.
[4] To correct a grave mistake, like
joining the US Empire fight for oil control,
geo-political goals of the Mackinder type (Eastern
Europe, Central Asia, Eurasia. then the world) , and
missionary activity, under pretexts like links to Al
Qaeda and WMD (watch for US plants though), against 92%
of Spain, in the name of Democracy, is not giving in to
terrorism, nor a sign of being weak. The weak
person is incapable of rectifying mistakes and gives in
to pressure. The strong person changes his
course.
[5] USA and Israel live in a virtual
reality, pretending they are only up against some special
groups in Iraq and Palestine. Look at the map, look at
history. There has been in-fighting among Arabs and
Muslims, but almost all borders between the 22 Arab and
the 56 Muslim countries are established by Christian and
one Jewish colonizer. US/Israel state terrorism
reinforces the old idea of one Arab nation of more than
300 million, and one Islamic nation of more than 1,300
million from Casablanca to Mindanao. The divisions
in Islam are in time rather than space, between
khalifats, dynasties. The Crusades, with the
Mongols, killed the Abassid dynasty in the Baghdad 1258
massacre. The khalifat movement is now growing again
thanks to Bush & Co.
[6] The present Crusade, with
missionaries and bibles, even unifies Sunnis and Shia,
Arab and non-Arab Muslims. But Western unitary
nation-states overestimate the cohesion inside countries
like Iraq and Afghanistan, and underestimates the
cohesion with other Arab/Islamic countries. For
both federations along Swiss, not US lines, with
linguistic/religious borders, are meaningful; so are
confederations with Arab and Muslim neighbor countries.
What Christians do in the EU Arabs/Muslims might also
like to do [7] Iraqis and Palestinians with
other Arabs and Muslims fight Anglo-American geo-fascism
alone on behalf of the many dozens of countries
intervened militarily by the US Empire. With the US
Empire causing that much killing and exploitation all
over the world they are fighting on behalf of all of us,
with major rise in the conversion to Islam in Africa and
Asia, Europe and USA.
[8] The peace movement, mainly in
Christian countries, is long on critique, numbers,
ritualistic marches and demos that impress no
geo-fascist, and short on constructive alternatives and
real struggle against the US Empire. Hopefully
civil society boycott of US consumer products (like
colas, burgers and gasoline), capital goods (like Boeing
aircraft for travel when there are alternatives; Boeing
being a major death factory) and financial goods
(dollars, stocks, bonds) is on the way. The average
profit of a US company abroad is about 6% so not much
boycott is needed. Always to be combined with
dialogue. We are fighting two fundamentalisms like we
once fought two superpowers.
[9] Many cling to the hope that US
atrocities depends on Bush. But interventions, killing
and exploitation is bipartisan, slightly higher under the
Democrats as Republicans have been more
"isolationist". The participation of John F. Kerry,
the Democratic presidential candidate, in "rebuking"
Spain shows both lack of judgment and sharing of the
imperial pursuit when he could have built a bridge to the
nucleus of Europe. Of course this is Bush' Vietnam as
Edward Kennedy has pointed out. But it would have
been even better if he had voted against the war
and not left that essentially to the wonderful icon
Barbara Lee.
[10] Condi Rice
complained that the intelligence contained no when, where
and how of a 9/11 attack. Ask what the USA has done
in 240 interventions, and the ask why. There is
more to come.
[11] The US
project in Iraq is still-born in spite of a US deployment
of 110,000 public and 18,000 privatized soldiers
("security civilians") and the UK 8,700 UK; none of the
others are reliable as defeat looms more clearly on the
horizon. Of course there may be lulls in the
violence. There is no Iraq to receive sovereignty,
only a puppet regime, and what cannot be handed over
because it can only come from the struggle of the Iraqis
themselves will not be handed over anyhow, with the USA
keeping an "embassy" with 5,000 employees in the "Green
Zone", 14 bases, and no plan to withdraw. The war
will continue. 30 June/1 July may become quite
something. These people fought centuries against
the Ottomans and 40 years against UK regime.
[12] The Israeli
project in Palestine is also still-born. State terrorism,
even targeted on religious leaders by the Israeli
militarocracy, is a formula for collective Israeli
suicide.
[13] The TRANSCEND
list of alternatives includes:
- Conference for Security
and Cooperation in the Middle East, CSCME
- Iraq possibly as a
federation, with a capital outside Baghdad
- UN-led
reconstruction/development
- UN-led peacekeeping; all
coalition troops out
- A major role for the
Organization of the Islamic Conference, OIC
- Confederated Kurdish
autonomies in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria
- A 6-country Middle East
Community, MEC: Syria, Lebanon,
Palestine (242 and 338), Israel,
Jordan and Egypt, with the EC as a model.
©
TFF & the author 2004
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