By Khalid Amayreh
In his remarks marking the passage of nine years since the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington on 11 September, 2001, President Obama said Americans ought to remain true to their values and refuse to paint all Muslims as terrorists.
“The highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most – to stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are."
Well, I would like to comment on these claims highlighted in Obama's words. First, if true American values are expressed by America's behaviors around the world, then the US has really very little to be proud of. Indeed, since the end of the Second World War in 1945, no other country under the sun has been directly or indirectly responsible for more murderous killings.
The list of wars, including civil wars, ignited or precipitated by Washington is indeed very long. In fact, one can say with little or no exaggeration that no region on earth has been spared American efforts to sow violence, chaos and death, mostly under the dubious rubric of "freedom, liberty and democracy." Under these whoring slogans, death, violence, misery, and civil wars crippled entire countries, divided previously undivided nations, and turned brother against brother. The civil war in Lebanon which lasted for many years is a classical example of America's criminal role in igniting violence and killings around the globe. Most American statesmen, people like Henry Kissinger, saw murder, even on a genocidal scale, as a legitimate tool of American diplomacy. In the final analysis, the end justified the means.
In addition, the US routinely and consistently embraced notoriously tyrannical regimes in countries like Iran, Argentina, Chile and in regions like the Arab world, South Asia, and central America, sowing terror and dictatorship, all under the same whoring rubric of fostering freedom and democracy so much so that democracy has become a despicable word in many countries.
In some instances, like in occupied Palestine, the US has been embracing Israeli Nazism in ways defying linguistic description. This dark, evil embrace of Israeli criminality has brazenly violated every conceivable declared American value from adhering to justice and fair-play to equality under the law.
Thus, American tax money and American political weight as well as the state-of-the-art of America's technology of death have been instrumental in enabling Israel, a decidedly Nazi-like state, to murder with impunity, steal neighbor's land with impunity, practice ethnic cleansing with impunity, and brashly discriminate against non-Jews with impunity. Predictably, this was all done under the rubric of democracy and shared-values and other obscenely mendacious slogans.
I am no stranger to the United States and its culture. I lived in the States for many years. I graduated from some of its finest universities. And I would be dishonest if I claimed that the United States is completely devoid of positive values and humanity. None the less, I can safely claim that US political behavior at the international arena has been explicitly incompatible with America's declared values. For example, America prides itself on having a government of the people, by the people and for the people. However, we all know too well that America actively supports and backs tyrannical regimes that treat their masses as if they were a flock of sheep or herd of cattle. In some of these countries, the regime's ruthless gendarme is ordered to savagely beat voters who are suspected of having a certain propensity to vote for the opposition. The US also jealously and enthusiastically backs despotic dynasties that deny women (and men) basic human and political rights, including the right to elect their own governments.
In occupied Palestine, when a truly democratic election was organized a few years ago, and Hamas, a truly democratic Islamist movement, won the polls, the US abruptly turned its back to democracy and decided to impose sweeping and draconian sanctions on the occupied territories in order to thwart the newly- elected government simply because Israel and some dictatorial Arab regimes feared the consequences of a successful Islamic experiment..
So, what values is Mr. Obama is talking about? The only American values we in this part of the world have been exposed to are the values of lie, deception, dictatorship and political persecution by American-backed regimes that deny their people the most basic human rights and civil liberties.
Moreover, we know too well that while governments ought to be answerable to their own peoples, our governments are answerable to Washington, first and foremost, and the US is quite happy about it.
I am not suggesting that the peoples of the Middle East are completely vindicated of responsibility for the colossal crime of having thuggish dictators and tyrants holding them by the throat for so many years. In the final analysis, the people can and must do more to free themselves from the stranglehold of the thuggish tyrants.
However, it is crystal clear that "democratic America" is making the task of spreading democracy and political liberty in the Muslim world, especially the Middle East, nearly impossible. Eventually, the people, who spend most of their time trying to make ends meet, can hardly fight the police-state apparatus and the US combined. And should they try, they would be crushed mercilessly and accused of harboring terrorist goals and planning to establish terrorist regimes.
Another point. Mr. Obama says " and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are." Well, first of all, the American president shouldn’t think that the world is a free zone for American propaganda.
I am saying this because killing innocent people has never ever been the exclusive craft of those who "cower in caves" and seek to "distort who we are."
The real distorter of "who we are" is the horrendous crimes America has been committing and continues to commit around the worlds? Have you Mr. Obama asked yourself one morning or one evening how many innocent Afghan or Pakistani civilians your country has killed in the context of the so-called war on terror? You claim to be a Christian, but tell me how can a true follower of Christ justify or even rationalize the slaughter of one multitude after the other of mostly innocent children, women and men whose only "crime" is often existing in the wrong place at the wrong time?
This is certainly more, much more, than the euphemistic joke which you call "collateral damage." This is a slow-motion genocide, because killing knowingly is killing deliberately. This criminal discourse is affirmed and reaffirmed, asserted and reasserted hundreds of times, if only by making the same "mistake" over and over again.
I strongly believe that America's ugly crimes in the Muslim world, which are often justified in the name of Christianity, give a bad name for Christianity just as the ugly crimes committed by some nominally Muslim terrorists give a bad name for Islam. Which effectively puts the US government on a morally equal footing with the terrorists? The only difference is that in the terrorists' case, the crime is called "terror," while in America's case, the same crime is called "war."
But there is another difference: America's crimes are probably supported by a majority of hopelessly ignorant and/ or misinformed Americans, while al-Qaeda's crimes are rejected by the vast majority of Muslims. I know what I am saying because I am a Muslim who happens to be living in the heart of the Muslim world.
So, Mr. Obama, I suggest you stop this mendacious propaganda, this "holier-than-thou-attitude" about the US being "the" representative of light while its enemies being the embodiment of darkness.
America, and its ultimate controller, the tiny satanic Israel, may succeed in deceiving the peoples of the world, including their own people, but they won't deceive God.
One day, both the victims and victimizers will appear before the ultimate Judge. And both will receive their dues. Then there will be no room for lies and propaganda. On that Day every person, including you Mr. Obama, will be confronted with all the good he has done, and all the evil he has done, and will wish that there were a great distance between him and the evils he committed.,
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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