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Date: 3 Sep 2002 13:15:18 -0000
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From: "The Wisdom Fund" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: ISLAM AND THE WEST: A CLASH OF JUSTICE VERSUS GREED
<>
Released September 2, 2002
The Wisdom Fund, P. O. Box 2723, Arlington, VA 22202
Website: <>http://www.twf.org -- Press Contact: <mailto:•••@••.•••>Enver
Masud
Islam and the West: A Clash of Justice Versus Greed
The September 11, 2001 attack on America may have been avoided
by <>Enver Masud
[Enver Masud is the founder of The Wisdom Fund, author
of The War on Islam, and the recipient ofthe 2002
<>Gold Award of the Human Rights Foundation.]
WASHINGTON, DC--The clash between Islam and the West is
not a clash between Islam and Christianity worthy of
war. The clash between Islam and the West is not a
clash between Islam and Judaism worthy of war. The
clash between Islam and the West is not a clash a clash
of civilizations worthy of war.
The clash between Islam and the West may be summed up
in three words: justice versus greed.
Muslims, Christians, Jews
The Quranthe Word of God for Muslimsstates: "O mankind!
We created you from a single soul, male and female, and
made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come
to know one another. Truly, the most honored of you in
God's sight is the greatest of you in piety."
Thus, Islam, perhaps like no other religion, declares
to Muslims the sanctity of all "nations and tribes."
What may surprise Christians and Jews, and even many
Muslims, the Quran refers to them all as "muslims."
Muhammad Asad, born Leopold Weiss in Poland in 1900, in
his interpretation of the Quran wrote: "When his
contemporaries heard the words islam and muslim, they
understood them as denoting man's 'self-surrender to
God' and 'one who surrenders himself to God,' without
limiting himself to any specific community or
denominatione.g., in 3:67, where Abraham is spoken of
as having 'surrendered himself unto God' (kana
musliman), or in 3:52 where the disciples of Jesus say,
'Bear thou witness that we have surrendered ourselves
unto God (bianna musliman).' In Arabic, this original
meaning has remained unimpaired, and no Arab scholar
has ever become oblivious of the wide connotation of
these terms. "
The three faiths share the Abrahamic heritage, the same
values, and revere many of the same prophets.
Muslims, Christians, Jews once lived in peace in
Palestineall three refered to God as Allah. The three
faiths thrived in Muslim Spain until its fall to
Christian armies. Maimonides, highly revered among
Jews, studied and practiced in Muslim Spain. Muslims
respect the prophets of Judaism and Christianity.
Islam teaches that "the most excellent jihad is for the
conquest of self." It teaches Muslims to speak out
against oppression, and to fight if necessary for
justice. This is jihad.
Mainly Muslim Turkey has been a member of NATO since
1952. Virtually every Muslim country supported the U.S.
"war on terror" until it degenerated into an excuse for
a crackdown on Muslims by governments across the world.
Now while the hawks in U.S. government push for war on
Iraq, predominantly Christian Europe is opposed to war.
Many non-Muslim organizations in the U.S. are opposed
to war. According to the Guardian (U.K.), "Church
leaders including the new Archbishop of Canterbury,
Rowan Williams, have questioned the legality and
morality of an American-led assault on Iraq in a
strongly worded declaration handed to Downing Street."
Many Jews support statehood for the Christians and
Muslims in Palestine. "Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathon
Sacks, head of the Jewish community in the U.K. and the
Commonwealth for 11 years, warns that Israel's stance
towards Palestinians is incompatible with Judaism,"
according to the BBC.
Clash between peoples, nations, and within
civilizations
But, there have been, and perhaps there always will be,
clashes both among and between peoples and nations, and
within civilizations.
The clash between the Dalits, the lowest caste in
India, and the upper castes is a clash that has
persisted for centuries. Europe, in centuries past, was
ravaged by clashes within Christianity. Muslims have
fought wars with Muslims.
For the most part, the underlying reason for these
clashes, was economic. Greed, is the primary reason for
the clash between Islam and theWest.
Some in the U.S. wish to control the world's resources
and markets, regardless of the cost to Americans and
others, and if dissenting voices are excluded from the
national dialogueas they often arethe U.S. is very
likely to go to war.
They will be going to a war which will benefit a few,
at the expense ofmanythat's evident from world history.
The clash over the control of resourcesand markets is
not new.
Control of the world's resources and markets
Following the fall of Muslim Spain in 1492, Europeans
spread out over the worldto the Americas, Africa, Asia,
Australia. Millions of natives in those continents were
brutalized, enslaved, killed. Their resources made
Europe wealthy. Eventually the British, the Dutch, the
French, the Portugese, and others ruled much of the
world.
In the mid-twentieth century as the colonial powers
were pulling out, they drew up national boundaries for
their continuing benefit, and the U.S. Empire began to
take shape.
The U.S. had fought for control of the world's
resources and markets while keeping the true reasons
for war from Americans.
Major General Smedley D. Butler, recipient of two
Congressional Medals of Honor described his experience
in the U.S. Marine Corp:
"War is just a racket. . . I helped make Mexico,
especiallyTampico, safe for American oil interests in
1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba adecent place for
the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I
helped inthe raping of half a dozen Central American
republics for the benefits of WallStreet. The record of
racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for
theinternational banking house of Brown Brothers in
1909. . . I brought light tothe Dominican Republic for
American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helpedto
see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested."
The primary goal of U.S. foreign policy, defined after
World War II, assured a continuing clash between the
strong and the weak.
George Kennan, recipient of the Albert Einstein Peace
Prize, chairman of the Policy Planning Staff at the
State Department, wrote in the top secret Policy
Planning Study No. 23:
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3%
of itspopulation. . . . Our real task in the coming
period is to devise a pattern ofrelationships which
will permit us to maintain this position of disparity .
. ."To do so, we will have to dispense with all
sentimentality. . . . We shouldcease to talk about
vague and . . . unreal objectives such as human rights,
theraising of living standards, and democratization."
While they may differ on the specific timing and means,
this militant foreign policyoften backed up by
assassination of opponents (aka "regime change"),
military coups, terrorismhas powerful proponents.
Former National Security Advisor to President Carter,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, writes in The Grand Chessboard
(1997):
"A power that dominates Eurasia [the territory east of
Germanyand Poland, stretching all the way through
Russia and China to the PacificOceanincluding the
Middle East and most of the Indian subcontinent]
wouldcontrol two of the world's three most advanced and
economically productiveregions. A mere glance at the
map also suggests that control over Eurasia wouldalmost
automatically entail Africa's subordination, rendering
the WesternHemisphere and Oceania geopolitically
peripheral to the world's centralcontinent. About 75
per cent of the world's people live in Eurasia, and
most ofthe world's physical wealth is there as well,
both in its enterprises andunderneath its soil. Eurasia
accounts for 60 per cent of the world's GNP andabout
three-fourths of the world's known energy resources."
The key to controlling Eurasia is controlling the
Central Asian Republics. "The three grand imperatives
of imperial geostrategy are to prevent collusion and
maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep
tributaries pliant and protected, and to keep the
barbarians from coming together," says Brzezinski.
According to the Los Angeles Times,
"Behind a veil of secret agreements, the United States
iscreating a ring of new and expanded military bases
that encircle Afghanistan andenhance the armed forces'
ability to strike targets throughout much of theMuslim
world."
"Since Sept. 11, according to Pentagon sources,
military tent cities havesprung up at 13 locations in
nine countries neighboring Afghanistan, . . .theymay
also increase prospects for renewed terrorist attacks
on Americans. . . . Onany given day before Sept. 11,
according to the Defense Department, more than60,000
military personnel were conducting temporary operations
and exercises inabout 100 countries."
Uncritical support of the apartheid state of Israel
The unresolved issue of Israel helps keep the
"barbarians"presumably, the Muslim nations of the
Middle East and Central Asia, and/or the Africansfrom
coming together. The USwhich displayed exceptional zeal
in implementing UN Security Council resolutions against
Iraqhas displayed the same zeal in blocking
implementation of UN resolutions against Israel.
Thus while the U.S. pushes for war on Iraq, and
maintains no-fly zones in Northern and Southern Iraq,
under its interpretation of UN Security Council
Resolution 687 (with which most others disagree), the
U.S. ignores Article 14 of the same resolution which
has "the goal of establishing in the Middle East a zone
free from weapons of mass destruction and all missiles
for their delivery and the objective of a global ban on
chemical weapons" for all the nations in the
regionincluding Israel which is known to possess
chemical and biological weapons, and 200 to 400 nuclear
weapons and the missiles to deliver them.
The United States, which claims to promote secular
democracy around the world, continues its uncritical
support of the theocratic, apartheid state of Israel.
Fortunately, for now the "barbarians" and most of the
"civilized" world appear to be standing on the side of
justice in the Middle East.
Need to justify U.S. military spending
And new military bases, such as those established in
Central Asia during the Afghan war, help the defense
establishment's need to justify military spending
According to Lawrence J. Korb, assistant secretary in
the Defense Department during the Reagan
administration:
"In 1985, at the height of the Reagan build-up, the
United Statesand the Soviet Union spent equal amounts
on defense; now Russia spends onlyone-sixth of what the
United States spends. . . . Our NATO allies spend
threetimes more on defense than Russia. Israel spends
as much as Iraq and Irancombined. South Korea spends
nine times more on defense than North Korea. AndJapan
spends more on defense than China."
Our covert operations budget alone is more than double
the total defense budget of the "rogue states"Cuba,
Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria.
"For 45 years of the Cold War we were in an arms race
with the Soviet Union. Now it appears we're in an arms
race with ourselves," says Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr.,
U.S. Navy (Ret.), Deputy Director, Center for Defense
Information.
Former Defense Secretary McNamara, in his 1989
testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, said U.S.
defense spending could safely be cut in half.
The real rogue and international outlaw
George Soros, financier and multi-billionaire, writes:
"The United States has become the greatest obstacle to
establishing the rule of law in international affairs."
The U.S. stands virtually alone against the world in
efforts to build a safer, better world. For example:
- UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (1982) was
supported by 130 governments but never ratified by the
U.S.
- International Covenant on Economic, Social, and
Cultural Rights (1966) was unanimously approved by the
UN General Assembly but not ratified by the U.S.
- Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination
Against Women (1979) was ratified by more than 150
governments but not the U.S.
- Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) was
ratified by 187 governments but not the U.S.
- Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (1996) was signed by
President Clinton, ratified by all NATO allies and
Russia, voted down by the U.S. Senate, and is opposed
by President Bush.
- Kyoto Protocol (1997) sets targets for emissions
which cause global warming awaits ratification by the
U.S.
- Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (1972) was signed and
ratified by the U.S. and USSR, but overturned by
President Bush.
- Chemical Weapons Convention (1998) was crippled by
the U.S. by limiting what may be inspected in the U.S.
- Biological Weapns Convention (2001) was signed by 144
countries, but U.S. refused to sign the "verification
protocol."
- Nonproliferation and Test Ban Treaties (2002) have
been jeopardized by the U.S. by its announcement to
build and use small, tactical, nuclear weapons.
- International Criminial Court (July 1, 2002) was
backed by 74 countries, signed by President Clinton,
but was fiercely opposed by the U.S. unless American
citizens were given immunity from war crimes
prosecutions.
The opposition by a signatory to the treaty undermines
the entire system of international law. According to
the Guardian: "The U.S. threatened to assert it is no
longer bound by the Vienna Convention on the Law of
Treaties, a 1969 pact detailing the obligations of
nations to obey other international treaties. Under the
convention, a country that has signed a treaty cannot
act to defeat the purpose of that treaty, even if does
not intend to ratify it."
Meanwhile, according to the New York Times, the U.S.
continues to develop microbes to wipe out entire
cities, genetically engineered fungus, and genetically
engineered materials-eating bacteria, and to test
warheads containing live microbes.
At Fort Benning, Georgia, the U.S. operates what may be
the best terroristtraining academy in the world. "Put
simply, the School of the Americas hastrained some of
the most brutal assassins, some of the cruelest
dictators, andsome of the worst abusers of human rights
the western hemisphere has ever seen,"said Rep. Joe
Moakely (D-MA)--a statement reported by the Washington
Post.
The need for dialogue
Civilized nationsnations that respect the rule of
lawsolve economicclashes with dialogue, not war.
But the voracious U.S. appetite for resources and
markets, and/or to thedesire to control them, the
uncritical U.S. support of Israel, and the U.S. needto
justify military spending, are driving the U.S. to war.
This is bound to create more resentment, and perhaps
retaliation.
Those who stand to benefit by war, have characterized
oppositionto U.S. domination as a "clash of
civilizations." They are not interested in just
agreements freely negotiated. They understand only the
language of realpolitika euphemism for state-sponsored
terrorism.
But thanks to an increasingly multi-cultural society,
and the Internet, the world is waking up. Many see the
clash between Islam and the West for what it is: a
clash of justice versus greed.
The September 11, 2001 attack on America may have been
avoided, had there been an honest exchange of
dissenting views presented to Americans. President John
F. Kennedy said: "Those who make peaceful revolution
impossible will make violent revolution inevitable."
Only through dialogue is "peaceful revolution"
possible.
Copyright © 2002 The Wisdom Fund - Provided that it is
not edited, andauthor name, organization, and web
address (www.twf.org) are included, thisarticle may be
printed in newspapers and magazines, and displayed on
theInternet. <../News2002.html>
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