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Our World: The Third Global War |
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Sunday, 22 April 2007 20:01 |
Iraq is in trouble, a very serious mess, the general situation is deteriorating with no end in sight to the agony and suffering of its people. The bush administration is itself in an equally dire situation, with the unending troubles it is facing in its efforts to control the mess its occupation has created. Equally serious problems it facing at home with an extremely hostile Congress and a very vocal and active antiwar movement. How have we arrived at this quagmire? And how and when is it going to end? These questions have been haunting me for a very long time with their answers constantly defying me, because like many other scholars I have been dealing with our war as an isolated conflict between two third world countries the kind of thing we used to have during the days of the cold war. This situation is different, it is a very important part of a much larger conflict, a truly global one with theaters of operations in many countries, in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq and in others. This is a very complex conflict, it is not a simple clash of civilizations because of some fault lines at the borders of competing civilizations, it has historical, cultural, religious and economic roots in its genesis. It has its origins in the major wars which were fought during the last hundred years, the second world war was followed by the US and Soviet Union confrontation which is often referred to as the cold war. A measure of its ambiguity and divisive nature is the fact that 6 years into it we do not even have a name for it, some call it the US-al-Qaeda war, others the US-Islamist war and many others call it the US-Jihadist war. The third global war is still raging with no end in sight; it is still very early to tell who is winning.
On the morning of 11th of September 2001. Al-Qaeda struck, three of America's most important symbols of prestige and power, the White House the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were simultaneously attacked. Using high jacked civilian airplanes piloted by highly tainted operatives who were able to evade detection by American intelligence, the attack on the White House failed, that part of the terrorists mission failed the aircraft assigned to that role crashed in Pennsylvania as a result of the incredible courage of the crew and passengers, the Pentagon was partially damaged, and some recent improvements in its structure helped contain the attack, but the two World Trade Center's towers in New York were in total ruin with three thousand American lives lost in the brutal attack which resulted in a closure of the financial markets for several days causing a very serious disruption of the US economy. America's role in the world's affairs after the end of the cold war with the Soviet Empire as the only super power was very seriously challenged which plunged it suddenly and without much preparing or training into world war number three. A good measure of this unpreparedness is the American government's immediate response to the atrocity which was pathetic and inadequate at best, but more on this very shortly.
Al-Qaeda was established by Usama Bin Laden in the late 1980s to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Al-Qaeda helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Afghan resistance. Its declared goal is to establish a pan-Islamic Caliphate throughout the world by allying itself with similarly minded Islamic groups to overthrow regimes it deems “non-Islamic” and expelling Westerners and non-Muslims from Muslim countries and it started with some shocking attacks for a starter. In 2002, it carried out bombing on 28 November of a hotel in Mombassa, Kenya, killing 15 and injuring 40. Responsible for an attack on US military personnel in Kuwait, on 8 October, that killed one US soldier and injured another. Directed a suicide attack on the MV Limburg off the coast of Yemen, on 6 October that killed one and injured four. Carried out a firebombing of a Synagogue in Tunisia on 11 April that killed 19 and injured 22. Directed the 12 October 2000 attack on the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 US Navy members, and injuring another 39. Conducted the bombings in August 1998 of the US Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar as-Salaam, Tanzania, that killed at least 301 individuals and injured more than 5,000 others. Shooting down two US helicopters in Somalia which resulted in the death of 19 servicemen in 1993 and to have conducted three bombings that targeted US troops in Aden, Yemen, in December 1992. These are examples of the activities of al-Qaeda prior to 9/11, they are more like the skirmishes which proceed the major battles of a dreadful war, its most devastating atrocity was the one it perpetrated on the 11th of September 2001, against the United States when 19 al-Qaeda suicide operatives hijacked and crashed two commercial jets into the World Trade Center in New York City. One into the Pentagon near Washington, DC, and a fourth in Shanks Ville, Pennsylvania, the atrocity left hundreds of Americans dead or missing, a stunning blow to the American people which left their government almost totally paralyzed.
For a very long time the United States has enjoyed total safety and very high levels of prosperity, but suddenly America and its people were faced very forcibly with the stark realities of our world. The 9/11 attack by the al-Qaeda was actually the official declaration of war against the United States the previous attacks were like the early skirmishes before the major battles start. Al-Qaeda has concluded that the United States was the country that mattered most and forcing the Americans to engage was extremely important in its calculations because in the immediate aftermath of the attack the American government's response was inadequate and reflexive to say the least, they whisked the vice president to an undisclosed location and the president was placed in a highly secure office in the White House. But within few hours, the Bush administration has regained their composure and decided that they should strike and strike hard and as quickly as possible and they actually responded in Iraq in Afghanistan and other places in the same area.
Well, having reached here I would like to emphasize that this was not a pedagogic discussion of the al Qaeda or the third war because this most recent madness is still going on and the limited space allowed for this update makes that impossible and because for the last six weeks I have been staying in Amman/Jordan joining my family and living our ongoing nightmare which makes me less than the expert I used to be regarding the situation at home. I have always insisted that there is something very peculiar in the Iraqi situation, which is impossible to appreciate by those who are talking about it from outside the country. I'm afraid that the situation has been deteriorating, the security situation is even worse than it was during the days before launching in mid February the greatly publicized security operation, the thousands of additional American military does not seem to be affecting the course of the war. Finally, I think if what I have been talking about in this posting, makes enough sense, I suppose one is driven to make the following conclusions:
First: The third war is still raging with no signs of abating in the near future, the two sides are playing a very high stakes game and in spite of the serious bloodying each of them has received both are still holding very strong cards. Neither side is winning or has been defeated, it is a very fluid situation and neither can quit.
Second: Whoever is going to follow George Bush in the White House will be following the same policies, the Bush administration has been executing a long term strategic plan with no less than the future of the United States in the balance. The new president who is likely to be a Democrat will only make some changes in the tactics, the strategy will never change.
Third: As far as Iraq and its citizens are concerned, it looks increasingly likely that our own part of the war will also go on and in spite of the tremendous loss of life and destruction. We are not going to see the light at the end of the tunnel any time soon. And those who are talking about one side succeeding and the other is failing are actually talking a lot of nonsense, the war is still ongoing, the slugging is non-abating and the end is nowhere in sight.
Najeeb Hanoudi
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Amman/Jordan
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