Barack Now Has Blood On His Hands

Focus Pakistan. The Obama Administration has been leaning heavily on a shaky, dollar-dependent Pakistani government to get tough on the insurgents. The result? Hundreds of thousands of internal refugees, ripe pickings for the extremists. Many people saw this coming, but apparently not Barack Obama.

Focus Afghanistan. Even casual observers saw a defining moment in Obama’s presidency on May 6. As the new president stood flanked by Afghanistan’s Karzai and Pakistan’s Zadari at a scripted photo op, the news that American bombs had killed over 100 civilians in Afghanistan scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Obama said nothing about it.

Barack’s ‘preternatural coolness’ suddenly seemed cold.

The initial reports were classic American double-speak. First, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized for the massacre. Then General David McKiernen, the top commander in Afghanistan for U.S. and NATO troops, said, "We have some other information that leads us to distinctively different conclusions about the cause of those civilian casualties."

McKiernan went on to say that Taliban forces had killed a number of civilians with hand grenades, and then paraded 25 corpses through local towns in an attempt to frame the American military.

When that didn’t work, the American military took a page from Israel’s killing book, and blamed the Taliban for using civilians as “human shields.” These transparent attempts to shift blame for the indiscriminate killing of civilians by American bombs makes America morally equivalent to the Taliban.

People old enough to remember Vietnam, especially guys who were there or had friends killed in that quagmire, are hearing disturbing echoes. Especially when Defense Secretary Robert Gates says things like: “If there's a lesson for Americans and the international community, it's that we don't dare turn our backs…this will work if we stay engaged."

“The sole remaining superpower” has been waging a “global war on terror” against a bunch of cave-dwelling fanatics who used box cutters to hijack airliners and bring down the World Trade Towers. As a direct result of these policies, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now upwards of a million people are fleeing their homes and villages in Pakistan.

The whole thing is a witch’s brew. The threat is not from ten or twenty thousand Taliban in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Combine the American media’s ratings-driven need to continually whet the fear of the American people, with the Obama Administration’s half-measures and hubris, and the real threat is of completely destabilizing nuclear-armed Pakistan.

That country has a history of coups longer than any South American dictatorship in the last century. Anything can happen as the weak democracies of Pakistan and Afghanistan bend over backwards to please and appease Washington.

The Pakistani ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said that the Taliban have “put on a show” in his country. But under pressure from the Obama Administration, it’s the Pakistani government and military that’s putting on a show for their benefactors in Washington. And huge numbers of ordinary people are paying for it with their completely uprooted lives.

Barack Obama had the chance to make a clean break with the policies of George Bush, but he did not. Indeed, he is ‘doubling down’ in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. At this point, anything America does can only make the situation worse in the region.

The Bush and now Obama strategy for dealing with Al-Qaeda terrorists, hosted by the Taliban in Afghanistan, has only managed to increase the numbers of both, and extend them into Pakistan.

The way to deal with them now is the same as after 9.11: Make a clear distinction between religious fanatics who have ideological axes to grind, and international terrorists who are bent on mass murder. Deal with both not primarily in military terms, which only increases the stature and numbers of the terrorists, but as criminals who commit crimes against humanity.

As far as the barbarous Taliban, we need to have some faith in the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. We need to stand with them, and mean what we say about self-determination. We need to face the fact that millions of Muslims are understandably deeply disaffected with American policies, and fearful of Westernization and globalization.

Ordinary Muslims don’t want to see their countries radicalized by wrongheaded policies that play right into the hands of Islamic extremists. We must cease giving them the false choice between religious fanaticism and Western domination.

As events of the past week demonstrate, there will be no fundamental change in American policies toward the Muslim world from the Obama Administration. If Muslim peoples want real change in their relationship with the West, then they will have to take the lead and change the terms of the debate.

At bottom, history and the present global crisis teach us that we must hold our beliefs and opinions lightly, and confront the evils of nationalism, religious extremism, and power. Placing our hearts and hopes in some new person of power, however fine a figure he cuts, is futile.

We are witnessing the death throes of a world order based on the nation-state. America cannot lead the world, because America acts in its own self-interest, as all nations do.

It’s often said in the West that ‘Muslims of good faith have to step in and reject extremism and violence.’

It would be ironic indeed if people in Muslim countries, who have suffered so much under the yoke of Western domination, took the whole and long view now.

Can people in Muslim countries seize the opportunity? Can they step into the moral and leadership vacuum in the global society that the West has created, and forge a true world order?

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net. The author welcomes comments.

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