[A-List] Why West is losing

[Bill Totten]

by Eric Margolis

Toronto Sun (September 12 2004)

Three years after the September 11 2001, attacks, America's politicians
and media continue to gravely deceive the public about the so-called war
on terrorism.

Now the definitive book on terrorism has appeared that should be
mandatory reading for every thinking person. It's called Imperial
Hubris: Why The West is Losing the War on Terror (Brassey's Inc, 
July 15 2004).

The cover simply identifies the author as "Anonymous", but he's 
already been widely identified in the American media as Michael 
Scheuer, a senior terrorism analyst for the CIA.

It is unprecedented that a serving CIA officer was allowed to publish 
a book, one that is clearly a dramatic rebuke to the neoconservatives
who drove the US into two wars.

Scheuer's work is a goldmine of information and brilliant analysis. 
It breaks taboos and sweeps away the clouds of lies about al-Qaida, 
Iraq and Afghanistan. He says US leaders refuse to accept the obvious - 
"we are fighting a worldwide Islamic insurgency - not criminality 
or terrorism".

The US has made only "a modest dent in enemy forces".

None of bin Laden's reasons for waging war on the US, writes Scheuer,
"have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and democracy (as
President George Bush claims), but everything to do with US policies 
and actions in the Muslim world", notably unlimited support for 
Israel's repression of the Palestinians and the destruction of Iraq.

"For cheap, easily accessible oil, Washington and the West have
supported Muslim tyrannies (Osama) bin Laden and other Islamists 
seek to destroy", Scheuer writes. "The war has the potential to last
beyond our children's lifetimes and be fought mostly on US soil".

A coup for bin Laden

Bin Laden, argues Scheuer, is widely viewed by much of the Muslim world,
infuriated by American actions in the Mideast, as neither a terrorist or
madman but as a skilled warrior, the sole Muslim leader standing up to
predatory western powers.

Ironically US and British military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq
"are completing the radicalization of the Islamic world", a prime bin
Laden goal.

Bush's misbegotten invasion of Iraq was "icing on bin Laden's cake".

The threat today facing America "is the defensive jihad (holy struggle),
an Islamic military reaction triggered by an attack by non-Muslims on
the Islamic faith, on Muslims, on Muslim territory".  Muslims are
increasingly fighting back.

The Muslim world believes it is under total attack led by Bush - a
massive effort to crush all who oppose US domination, destroy Islam's
inherent political role, eliminate Muslim charities, impose western
values on the Islamic world and maintain puppet rulers - "spreading
democracy" in Bush's lexicon. Terrorism is merely the tactics of the
poor fighting the rich.

The ultimate taboo

"US military operations in the Muslim world", he adds, "validate bin
Laden's contention the US is attacking Islam and supports any country
willing to kill or persecute Muslims".

Scheuer, breaking the ultimate taboo, observes of Washington's "one-way
alliance" with Israel that "Israelis have succeeded in lacing tight the
ropes binding the American Gulliver to the ... Jewish state and its
policies".

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are lost causes, Scheuer concludes. 
The US is totally unable to create legitimate governments in either
chaotic nation, only puppet regimes, supported by American bayonets.

If the US stays, it will bleed endlessly; if it retreats, it faces
political disaster.

Washington, he charges, has no strategy and is merely "winging it".

In one of his most acute insights, Scheuer explains the US cannot, 
for all of its riches, buy its way to victory in Afghanistan or Iraq.

"Honour is still the currency of value in the Middle East, 
more so than goods and services".

Blood-links trump all other affiliations or loyalties.

Honour is why the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden to the US, a
man they regarded as their guest and a war hero, and why he has still
not been betrayed in spite of a $25-million US reward in a nation where
the annual income is $147.

At least there is one person in Washington who understands the violence
surrounding us - and has the courage and patriotism to tell Americans
the truth: Their own arrogance and ignorance are driving them into a
no-win war against 1.3 billion Muslims.

http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Eric_Margolis/2004/09/12/pf-626001.html


Bill Totten     http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/