Summary
Since the horror committed on September 11th in
America, frenzied efforts have been made by the Americans and their Western
allies to rally a coalition of Muslim countries that would not only provide
bases and intelligence to facilitate the American counter-attack against
terrorism, but would also lend legitimacy for attacks against the Muslim
perpetrators of that horror, and the Muslim countries that shelter them.
However, courting Muslim partners has proved problematic,
for the US has had in the process to compromise its own ideals, by supporting
autocratic regimes that have no legitimacy, thus further arousing the hatred of
the Muslim people that are oppressed by the “moderate friends” of America, and
subscribing to a double standard which denies other democratic countries that
fight terrorism, such as India over Kashmir and Israel over the West Bank, the
very same prerogatives that America ascribes to herself such as : targeting the
terrorists, destroying their bases of support, drying up their funds, using
military tactics and hardware etc.
If America had
made itself aware of the horrendous barrages of hatred of the West in the
Islamic world, and the eruptions of jubilation throughout the Arab and Islamic
countries over America’s misfortune on September 11th, on the one
hand, and had devised a war against terrorism that took those realities into
consideration, then the very focus, goal, means and partners resorted to in that
war, and in consequence the efficacy and the results thereof, would have been
vastly different, and for the better.
For the complete text of this article, click
here.
