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CounterPunch
February
14, 2003
A Global Holy War
Whose Side is
George Bush On?
By IAN GURNEY
It now seems clear that whatever is decided at
the United Nations in the next few days, George W Bush will launch
a pre-emptive strike on Iraq sooner rather than later. Despite
a majority of the public here in Britain being against war, Tony
Blair will no doubt commit United Kingdom troops to join what
both Bush and Blair deem to be a war "with God on our side."
Perhaps it would be better if they asked the question "Are
we on God's side?"
That too, however, begs a question that
nobody has dared to ask of these two illustrious leaders to date.
It is a question that reveals a great deal about the stupidity
and ignorance that seems to pervade the White House and 10 Downing
Street in their rush to war.
But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's
go back to September 11 and the initial reaction of the Bush
administration to those terrible events. The war, he declared
would be a "War on Terrorism". The target, the most
wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden (remember him?) Al Qeada
and the Taliban. And so Afghanistan was attacked. And Osama,
Mullah Omhar, Al Qaeda and the majority of the Taliban, who Bush
said he would capture "dead or alive?"
They escaped.
Then came the "Axis of Evil"
speech and the attention moved from Osama, Al Qaeda and the Taliban
to Saddam Hussein and Iraq. It is a credit to the Bush administration's
propaganda machine, or perhaps to the gullibility of the American
public, that a majority of Americans now believe Saddam was behind
9/11.
But let's get back to Osama. What was
his thinking behind the attacks of September 11? What were his
motives for attacking the most powerful country on the planet?
To understand that all you have to do is look around the internet
to get a flavour of Osama's avowed ambition, his purpose in life.
He wants to start a Holy War, a Jihad, against Israel and the
Christian West. That has always been his prime directive, his
"raison d'etre."
So what happens when America launches
its "Shock and Awe" pre-emptive strike against Iraq.
Well, word is it will be quick, clinical and over in couple of
days. Really? This war is going to be about more than a two day
barrage of cruise missiles and smart bombs. It's about controlling
oil and regime change and that means going into Baghdad and capturing
Saddam "dead or alive." (Now where have you heard that
phrase before?) That means American troops entering Baghdad,
and that will be a bloody affair. UN estimates put civilian casualties
at between five hundred thousand and one million, and fifty percent
of Iraqis are children under fifteen. And what if Saddam, in
a last ditch effort to save himself or a final act of madness
uses weapons of mass destruction? Well, George W Bush has made
it very clear what will happen next. A nuclear strike and the
consequent huge loss of civilian life. More important, though,
is what the reaction of the Islamic world would be ! to the deaths
of so many fellow moslems? Catch my drift?
It matters not to the faithful of Islam
whether his brother in religion is a sunni, a shi-ite or a sufi.
In the end they are all moslems, united by Allah, the compassionate,
the merciful. If they perceive such an act of aggression by the
West is nothing more than an attack on the whole of Islam, which
is very likely, the Koran tells them they must defend themselves
and their fellow moslems to the death. So, Bush nukes Baghdad
and kills maybe three million moslems, Islam gathers itself and
starts a Jihad. Exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted, a Holy War
between Isalm and the Judeo/Christian West.
And that brings us neatly back to the
question that no-one so far has dared to ask. Whose side IS George
W Bush on? Osama bin Laden's?
Copyright: Ian Gurney February 2002.
Ian Gurney
is a writer, broadcaster and the author of the book "The
Cassandra Prophecy-Armageddon Approaches." www.caspro.com
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