Is America At War With Islam?

Is America At War With Islam?

By Rahil Yasin

13 April, 2009

LAHORE: Barack Obama, making his first visit to a Muslim nation as president, declared the United States “is not and will never be at war with Islam.”

His claims are not based on any solid ground realities. Actions speak louder than words. The United States has forcibly overthrown, and attempted to overthrow, Muslim governments perceived as hostile, and replaced them with new ones.

Regime change has been attempted through direct involvement of US operatives, the funding and training of insurgency groups within these countries, anti-regime propaganda campaigns, coup d'états, and other, often illegal, activities usually conducted as operations by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The US has also accomplished regime change by direct military action instead of covert means.

In 1953, the CIA worked with the United Kingdom to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Iran led by Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh who had attempted to nationalize Iran's oil, threatening the interests of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Declassified CIA documents show that Britain was fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry and pressed the US to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister. This act proved to be the bone of contention between Iran and the US relations for many decades.

Regime change in Iraq became a stated goal of United States foreign policy when Public Law 105-338 (the "Iraq Liberation Act") was signed into law by US President Bill Clinton. The act directed that: "It should be the policy of the United States to support efforts to remove the regime headed by Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq and to promote the emergence of a democratic government to replace that regime."

This regime change has been brought about as a consequence of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Everybody knows about the crimes the United States committed against the Muslim nations through direct interventions or by using its killing machine – Israel.

In another provocative act, the US helped Israel in the occupation of Palestinian land. More than fifteen million US dollars are given by American taxpayers each day for the military use of Israel, which killed more than twelve hundred and injured almost five thousand Palestinians in the latest onslaught on Gaza Stripe. Palestinian roads were flooded with blood. Innocent children were killed on their way to schools. Harmless infants were bulldozed ‘alive’.

Unarmed Palestinians fear ‘sudden’ air raids all the time. There is no ‘actual’ count to as how many casualties have taken place since the Israelis have forcefully occupied Palestine.

The United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah group (which won the Palestinian presidential election, 2005) in order to overthrow the Hamas government elected in the Palestinian legislative election, 2006.

In Pakistan, Obama did not change policies of Bush. He continued to attack Pakistanis with CIA monitored drone attacks and killing innocent people.

At least one million people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the US and coalition attacks, based on lowest credible estimates while only 667 US soldiers have died so far in the Afghan war.

So far, in the first 2 months of the Obama presidency, non-violent Indigenous Asian excess deaths and under-5 infant deaths in the occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan territories total about 100,000 and 70,000, respectively.

War crimes committed by the United States give a short overview of allegations of serious crimes committed by the American Army's leadership, units and individual members of the American armed forces, particularly murder and rape. Neither by any international military jurisdiction nor the American Army's leadership have any of its members ever been charged with war crimes by a court of law.

Beginning in 2004, accounts of abuse, torture, sodomy and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (also known as Baghdad Correctional Facility) came to public attention. These acts were committed by personnel of the 372nd Military Police Company of the United States Army together with additional US governmental agencies.

These additional agencies have been referred to as the OGA (Other Government Agencies), which is an often-used euphemism for the Central Intelligence Agency.

US President George W. Bush claimed the acts were in no way indicative of normal or acceptable practices in the United States Army, though he also attempted to downplay the incident.

The US Military Commissions Act of 2006 is seen as an amnesty law for crimes committed in the War on Terror by retroactively rewriting the War Crimes Act and by abolishing habeas corpus, effectively making it impossible for detainees to challenge crimes committed against them.

Obama’s overture to the Muslims is coming from the sense of pragmatism. He should do the same which he said, “We will convey our deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over so many centuries to shape the world for the better, including my own country”.

If Obama wants any breakthrough with Muslim nations, he should have to do something different than previous US presidents. He has to remove the grievances of Muslims; leave their lands, apologize for all the dastardly imperial injustices heaped on them; stop stealing their resources and stop vilifying Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), and then the US will not have to fight the Afghanis, the Pakistanis, the Palestinians or other 1.5 billion Muslims.

In short, Americans have to behave like decent human beings. It is a tall order. And Western civilization is too arrogant to change. But genuine measures are needed to change the hostilities into friendship and to prove that America is not at war with Islam. This will also be helpful avoiding future nine elevens.

Rahil Yasin is a freelance columnist and independent researcher. He can be reached at rahil.yasin@gmail.com