Through the looking glass!
Khalid Saleem
There was the time when the diplomats of the Land of the Pure, who had
the right connections to be posted to such coveted stations as
Washington, New York and London, used to pray that the country got a
column or two of mention in the lordly press of the area/ Not any more.
Now, with all the headlines we are cadging day after day, they must be
praying for the day when the mention of the country would disappear from
the front pages. So many earthshaking leading articles have appeared in
the Western media that one does not know where to begin. When Barack
Obama got elected, there was a general feeling of elation in this
country. It was felt that the new president was a good and honorable man
and like all good men he could be counted upon to right all the wrongs
that had been done to this country and this region. As it turned out,
this was a simplistic view which did not stand the test of time. Policy
making in the sole superpower is a complicated and convoluted business
and mere change of leadership at the top does not necessitate a change
in priorities, especially in the field of foreign affairs.
The people in this country are not asking for the moon. The one question
that came to their simplistic mind was: why can’t they leave our country
alone? We have more than enough troubles as it is. The man in the street
does not know whether he is coming or going. The world as we know it is
in a state of utter chaos. When the Cold War ended, there were fond
hopes that this would mark the beginning of the end of the madness
inherent in armed conflict; and that thenceforth at least a virtual
peace would reign. But no such luck. The sole superpower that emerged
out of the ashes - phoenix-like - took it upon itself to devise a brand
new conflict. The shaken world was not allowed even the proverbial
respite that comes to all those that have gone through the virtual hell
that is the war of this era. The peoples of the world had set great
store by the dawn of the new millennium but regrettably that too turned
out to be a damp squib.
The conflagration that has been lit all around thanks to the New World
Order ordained by the neo-cons has left an already shaken world
staggering. One is at a loss to describe the manner in which the Western
visual media have been choreographing the carnage in Afghanistan and
Iraq. Precious little is presented by way of actual visual coverage of
the destruction wrought by the awesome juggernaut thundering across
these two hapless countries. Instead what has been shown, ad nauseam,
are no more than repetitious images of the mighty and murderous war
machines out to ‘liberate’ these two lands from the clutches of the ‘bad
guys’. The images have been interspersed with running commentaries by
anchor- persons and war correspondents.
The commentaries have added little to one’s knowledge of the situation
and merely regurgitate the well-choreographed screenplay penned down by
spin-doctors of the psy-war genre. One can hardly blame these networks.
They can hardly be totally objective so long as they have an agenda to
push. The Western news media made no secret of their glee when the post
nine/eleven wars were let loose. The good guys had at long last been
given the green light and all that remained was their reception,
complete with trumpets and bouquets from the people they were sent out
to ‘liberate’. The Western spin-doctors, though, in their abundant
enthusiasm, seem to have conveniently forgotten that there is a chasm
between reality and fiction. Nature has the nagging propensity of
respecting neither man nor machine. The best-laid plans of men (and
mice) are apt to go awry in the transition between virtual reality and
ground reality. The one outstanding casualty of what may be termed as
America’s ‘friendly fire’ has been the generally accepted concept of
human rights. The Geneva Conventions have emerged out of the current
conflicts in a tattered state. Let us look at the facts. When it suits
the interests of the ‘liberators’, they conveniently reject the Geneva
Conventions as ‘irrelevant’. But when they are at the receiving end, the
least innocuous breach causes them such anguish as to justify several
prime time hours on television. The valiant efforts of the American
television networks to justify the unjustifiable notwithstanding, the
horrible cruelty of the bombing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq has
become all too evident. When the American/British war machine marched
into Baghdad, it was difficult to surmise whether the fall of that
ancient city was the beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.
Either way, the world could hardly afford to heave a sigh of relief.
The American and British visual media, while exhibiting obvious signs of
rejoicing at the ‘great victory’, appeared to be at a loss as to what to
make of the chaos that followed in its wake. Things have continued to
get worse and worse with every passing day. The anarchy and chaos that
has so obviously erupted in Iraq as a consequence of the invaders’
destructive march into Baghdad and beyond is something that appears way
beyond the capacity of the Anglo-American combine to control. These wars
have brought in their wake a humanitarian tragedy of immense
proportions. Now that the deed is done and the invaders have ridden
roughshod over all that is good and fair, there is little fun in whining
about the Geneva Conventions and the responsibilities of occupying
armies written therein vis-à-vis pillage and hazards to civilians, their
property and institutions. These are matters that are now of little or
no import. The then United States’ Secretary of Defense, Donald
Rumsfeld, had put it in his usual brash and brazen manner: “It’s untidy.
And freedom’s untidy. And free people are free to make mistakes and
commit crimes and do bad things”. What could be more crass than that?
Nonetheless, right-thinking people are holding on to the hope that
lessons will be learnt from these horrible experiences even though this
appears doubtful to say the least. On a wider canvas, the signs appear
to be even more ominous. The George W. Bush philosophy of ‘pre-emption’
appears to have aroused unhealthy parallel cravings among ambitious
little Tsars in other regions with petty agendas of their own.
The sooner the powers-that-be come down with a heavy hand on all such
adventurers the better it will be for the prospects of future world
peace. It just would not do to leave the door ajar to those hegemons who
continue to have ideas above their stations. As for the situation in the
war-torn countries of Afghanistan and Iraq, people will hope and pray
that the long-suffering people of these unfortunate lands will some time
be enabled to enjoy an independent existence with total control over
their own resources.
Talking of resources brings to mind what Mr. Alan Greenspan had
reportedly come up with in his new memoir. The Bush administration was
outraged by Mr. Greenspan’s allegation that “the Iraq war is largely
about oil”. Therein lay the rub. The current war in Iraq, it would
appear, is no different from the wars in the past waged by those who
coveted what is not theirs by right. This pretext is founded in the
philosophy that a mighty power has the right to hunt down and destroy
any minion that it decides could one day be a threat to its own
interests. It all appears woolly, but then who can dare challenge the
prerogative of the powers-that-be? |
