Brute force is going to be the weapon of mass destruction of the new fanatic and fundamentalist regime at the Capitol Hill. With nobody to question them, what lies ahead is a surge of unleashed violence in a world which looks bruised and battered by the greed and power addiction of mankind
THESE days religion, moral values and fundamentalism are in fashion. From Afghanistan and Pakistan to France and America, they have become the code of conduct and a future direction for people to follow. It may sound strange, but it is true that in an era of globalization and liberalization, where the world is supposed to concentrate on issues of equal human rights and environment, it has become obsessed with what religious decrees distinguish as being right and wrong. If we were talking about the so-called Islamists in Pakistan or Hindu hardliners in India it would be understandable. But what seems incomprehensible is this trend among the torch-bearers of open, civilized and modern populace of the developed world. Whether it is the banning of scarves and other religious headgear in France, or the “enlightened” Americans who decided to ignore George Bush’s shocking performance on foreign and domestic policy and voted for him in the 2004 elections for his “moral value” stance, it seems that fundamentalism under different brand names is going to play a crucial role in determining the future of this world.
THE MORALITY ISSUE: Morality has become a nebulous and unvirtuous term, subject to individual interpretation. Consider the fact that George Bush was re-elected for his “moral values”. One always associates this term with integrity, kindness and decency. When you think of leaders having high moral values you think of Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela — strong, noble, peaceful and courageous. These are the qualities which by no stretch of imagination can be attributed to George Bush. A president who ran an administration which continues to detain and torture innocent (until proven guilty) citizens indefinitely, invaded a sovereign nation unprovoked, has had numerous instances of questionable business dealings and is responsible for the most audacious conflicts of interest.
Jewish fundamentalism has never been more open and unrestrained than it is now. Tanks, bombs and bulldozers have been used as a mark of Jewish supremacy to crush Palestinian women, children and homes. The Australians recently decided to put their vote of confidence for John Howard, a die-hard supporter of conservative values in contrast to the younger and more open candidate, Latham. And in America, the beacon of modernism, the swing vote for Bush came through those conservatives who were against the legalization of abortion rights and gay marriages and who were ready to buy Bush’s reformed Christian image.
GAY BUT UNHAPPY: As most of the world becomes entangled in the problems of poverty and survival, many Americans decide that sexual preferences are the basis of defining morality and equity. In America the issue of gay marriage was being cited as one that many in middle America and the south may have reacted to in the privacy of the polling booth. Voters in 11 states overwhelmingly approved bans on gay marriage which became the turning point for US voters. John Kerry, who said he did not support gay marriages, nevertheless was hurt by the Massachusetts Court that ruled last year that gay marriages were constitutionally protected in that state.
According to a deeper analysis of who could have possibly wanted to give Bush another chance, it was revealed that Bush won handily among frequent church-goers, and pulled even with Kerry among people who go to church once a month or less. Bush drew 60 per cent of weekly attendees, compared to Kerry’s 39 per cent, while Kerry led Bush among non-church-goers, 64 per cent to 34 per cent.
Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptists’ Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Kerry’s arms-length relationship with his church came back to haunt him. “The secular fundamentalism of the left is as much a problem as the religious fundamentalism of the right,” he said. Kerry’s arguments about the Iraq war going awry, the possible re-introduction of draft by Bush, rising health care costs and a failing economy made little impression on the voters in the American heartland.
Bush won majority votes of whites, married women, white born-again Christians, military families, and regular church-goers. He swept every heartland state between the north-east and the west coast.
Kerry, by contrast, received strong support from single women, working women, blacks, youth, gays and lesbians and those who rarely or never attend religious services. He won the more thickly-populated, more educated, more prosperous, more liberal states of New England, the upper midwest and the west coast. Does anyone find it disturbing that a significant number of George Bush’s “majority” believe that the earth was created for Christians, that a homosexual relationship is a greater sin than the slaughter of innocent Muslims, and that it is possible to kill every single terrorist in the world without having to understand the conditions because of which they exist?
Well, unfortunately for the rest of the world that is what the majority of Americans still think and believe. Fed by an increasingly biased media and bombarded by the overwhelming Bush campaign propaganda machine, the white, older, less educated, church-going majority decided that Bush was a morally upright man of principle, and thus a better choice. Remember, for this majority the definition of morality is also the simplistic home-grown version; as John Green, an expert on religion and politics at the University of Akron, said “moral values” can mean different things to different voters. But typically, “when ordinary people think of morality, they think of traditional sexual morality. They don’t think of social justice.”
SOPHISTICATED RELIGIOUS ZEALOTS: Unfortunately it is very clear that like all other values and principles that America has preached (and breached) in the world, moderation and social justice have also become a casualty of their single-minded pursuit of self-interests. Considering that America has waged almost two wars in trying to free countries from fundamentalist regimes, and that they have issued virtually court martial orders for any fundamentalist, be it the Taliban or jihadi organizations in Pakistan, it is strange that the country itself has used biased fundamentalist philosophies to gather votes of Christian fanatics to win a second term for George Bush. The change in American priorities may be subtle, but is as potent as in any extremist society. Take this fact into account: Gallup polls in the ‘60s found that over half of Americans thought that churches should not be involved in politics. Now, over half think they can be.
The nexus between the Republicans and the evangelical was very intimate. As is the case in the more conservative Muslim countries the maulvi is used to influence public opinion, precisely the same technique was employed to get hold of evangelical votes. Heads of influential religious associations like Rev Richard Land, Jim Dobson and Ralph Reed were active members of Bush’s social value propaganda. Thus each member of the White House clan is a civilized barbarian who abused religious sentiments to distract the public from the real issues of domestic and foreign policies.
What, then, is the difference between the so-called fundamentalist religious groups in Pakistan and those in the US as they also come in the same demographic profile of being lesser educated and who believe morality is the name of religious beliefs? In fact, in our country, these groups are neither in majority nor have they succeeded in choosing a fundamentalist hardline government for Pakistan. This, sadly, is the case with the new leadership in America. The European media, which is much less biased and more vocal, has been very open about this Republican “religious farce”. Britain’s Daily Mirror asked “How can 59,054,087 people be so DUMB?” Pravda, a famous Russian daily bluntly stated “the Christian fundamentalists of America are the mirror image of the Taliban, both of whom insult and deny their gods”.
WANTED — HARDLINE FUNDAMENTALISTS: Those who rule America, unfortunately, also rule the world. Thus the selection of a new team at the White House augurs ill for the rest of the world. For the selection of his new management team Bush has given very clear job specifications and job descriptions to qualify for these posts, ie, people who have the same vision and values as himself and who want America to be the global supra-power “at all costs”. Thus, people with the following qualifications, skill and experience will be selected:
• Ability of envisioning and targeting small and poor countries that are rich in natural resources (preferably oil)
• Experience of making billions in the energy sector in the corporate world
• Capability to plan preemptive and post-war resistance annihilation massacres
• Creative in inventing innovative torture techniques for all suspects
• Preferably re-born Christians and avowed enemies of the Muslims
• Having an inbred skill of lying unabashedly, shamelessly and arrogantly.
Fortunately for Bush, his first-term cabinet contained many such stalwarts at the top level to form the nucleus of the TT (Think Tanks or Terminator Team).
Those not fitting in with these specifications automatically resigned, like Colin Powell and Richard Armitage.
Let us look at the new promotions and see how they qualify for their titles.
Dr Condoleezza Rice was an agent for the Chevron Corp, with a specialty in Russian affairs and an emphasis on Belarus and Kazakhstan where the world’s largest known natural gas reserves are located. She speaks Russian fluently and also several dialects of Russian, as well as five other languages. She was honoured by having a tanker named after her whose picture is available online. She is not in any manner qualified for the post of national security adviser, as was clearly evident in the last four years, but still managed to clinch the most sought after job of secretary of state. This title has been bestowed on her because she has the distinction of being the first member to propose pre-emptive strikes on Iraq, has tried to fill up the yawning gap of President Bush’s knowledge about the world outside America, has lied consistently and professionally on not taking heed of the warnings on the WTC disaster, and, of course, has always been a very “close family” friend of the Bushes.
Dick Cheney is the mouthpiece for energy companies like Halliburton, his former employer, which paid him $36 million in his last year of brief service as its CEO, in a field he previously knew nothing about. But the company, which prospers when new power plants are built, got its money’s worth when President Bush added “energy policy czar” to Cheney’s extensive White House portfolio, leaving the president ample time to greet little league teams.
Ever grateful to the oil bigwigs who made him financially sound while lavishly supporting the GOP ticket, Cheney barely took up his new civic responsibility before launching a war on energy conservation. In his words, the commitment to conservation, endorsed by a long line of presidents of both parties, was valuable primarily as therapy for tree-huggers: “Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy.” His greed at the sight of Iraqi oil fields is thus understandable.
Rumsfeld is perhaps the ideal candidate for this team. He has time and again proven his ability to initiate attacks on small hapless countries; he is the torture wizard of the world as proven by the Guantanamo Bay detention cell atrocities and the Abu Ghraib jail horror tragedies; and aside from Bush, he perhaps has the most audacious habit of lying with arrogance and nonchalance.
Powell had to go as he was always the odd one out. He repeatedly clashed with Cheney and Rumsfeld, the principal advocates of a more hardline policy, not only towards Iraq, but in relations to Iran and North Korea. There were reported clashes over US policy towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with Powell resisting the White House’s inclination to give a blank cheque to Ariel Sharon.
Thus anybody in disagreement with the hardliners was obviously going to end up as a sideliner. The CIA has been given the same screening criteria. Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin resigned to be followed by Deputy Director Operations Stephen Kappes and his top deputy Michael Slusick. The reason is the same — disagreement with the Bush mafia cult philosophy and you have no place to reside in the White House.
CONCLUSION: These changes are frightening for the future of not only the world, but for American citizens as well. Force, and brutal force, is going to be the weapon of mass destruction of the new fanatic, fundamentalist regime at the Capitol Hill. With nobody to check and question them, either in their own country or in the international community, what lies ahead is a surge of unleashed violence, terrorism and hedonism in a world, which as it is, looks bruised and battered by the insensitivity, greed and power addiction of mankind.
So what does this hold for the future of this torn-apart world? A Palestine, already weakened by the death of Arafat, will now be subject even more to the murderous desires of Ariel Sharon; an Afghanistan with the confirmation of Hamid Karzai will now totally be at the mercy of American whims of bombing the Taliban out whenever and wherever possible; an Iraq which has not, and will never be totally contained, till every Iraqi is exterminated; and as for Pakistan — the Bush team must be itching for a go at our country on the pretext of finding Osama bin Laden in the Northern Areas, or with the scheming desire to convert it into another Kuwait or Qatar, with its only raison d’etre being to serve the interest of America.
Brute force is going to be the weapon of mass destruction of the new fanatic and fundamentalist regime at the Capitol Hill. With nobody to question them, what lies ahead is a surge of unleashed violence in a world which looks bruised and battered by the greed and power addiction of mankind
