Were We Too Hijacked by 9/11?

If a superpower needs to do such and such to protect itself, it would , so would any other nation that has the will and the werewithal.

Why would anyone be mourning the Taliban or the Baathist butchers , expect for the reason that in their collective infinite greed and stupidity they we were willing to play along and in the tradition of small time bullies tried to get too big for their sandals.

Why would anyone not question these moronic, self-destructive tendencies of the small-time crooks such as the Baathists or Taliban - is it because of poverty or is it religiosity that causes these morons to play Punch and Judy to skilled puppetters, and why is it that some end up doing this more often than others?

Can anyone share his / her opinions?

Dostmittar:

``What justification will be there to ask India not to attack Pakistan or to ask China to not attack Taiwan or even India as it is developing nuclear weapons which can reach China?``

Pretty simple, like you said might is right. Pakistan`s relative might has and will prevent us from taking on Pakistan to a great extent. You think India would have taken the kind of c-rap from Nepal, if they did to us what the Pakistani gov`t does day in and day out.

Also, China does not attack Taiwan coz they know the Rumsfeld-Cheney combine might just open a can of whoop-ass on them.

Dr. hoodbhoy,

Your analysis on US turning into an imperial power is under-estimating. The US was always been an imperial power, it had just put on a veneer as ``protector of the free world`` after the second world war. In wake of september 11th, its shedding its more civilized skin and saddeling into the traditional role of an expansive empire, just like the one that britain or france played during the colonial era.

However, to expect a ``humane`` and ``just`` behavior from an ``empire`` is wishful thinking or may even be futile. The US has earned its place as a super power and nobody can challenge its exercising those powers to preserve or expand its interests.

If the rest of the world is raking over coals for what the US has been doing, its like begging for compassion from a predator. Only way to keep it at bay is to grow horns or what ever. The crux of the story is, if you want to live as an independent and respectable nation in this world, you have to become stronger, both militarily and economically.

However belligerent it may sound but the americans enjoy peaceful lives in their homeland only because of the might of their nation.

Wow, what an eloquent piece!
I especially liked this:
``America`s nemesis, bin Laden, is in all probability dead. But Al Qaida`s
greatest strength is patience, a belief in the eternal and the rewards of
paradise. So they are grimly content to wait in the shadows, to gain in death what could never be achieved in life. Al-Qaida`s militants and their likes are happiest with primitives like George W. Bush - he speaks their language of good versus evil, and force as the weapon of choice. They will surely gain if the US unleashes carnage upon Iraq, a country with no plausible link to Al-Qaida, because it will eventually bring to them a flood of recruits.``

This is the first time i have ever heard anyone equate Bush (rather BushBlair) with Osama. The juggernaut of american power rolls on unchallenged, strangely at the service of an imperial presidency. The team that took over american presidency in a bloodless coup is working overtime to install someone pliant in iraq so their big-oil buddies can make more money. It`s banana reincarnated as oil. At some point the game will no longer be controllable for america and that`s when the al-qaedas will move in for the kill.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Another victim piece blaming America for the physical, intellectual, and MORAL failings of the rest of the world. Freedom – both political and ECONOMIC is what makes America so much more successful (and stronger) then the rest of the world. If the rest of the world understood this, they could be just as successful and strong and then they wouldn’t blame America for their problems. But before that can happen, they need to drop the circular thinking presented in articles such as this.

Interesting article.

Dr. Hoodbhoy is an intelligent man. And since he is sitting in Pakistan, even though he could be sitting anywhere in the world, one would have to agree that he is perhaps more of a patriot than all of us expatriates.

There is one aspect of his writings that I do not agree with however. He is a critic, and critic alone. One cannot just criticize everything. That is an idealistic approach. It sounds good. But it never solves problems. It assumes a perfect world, where everything is based on morals, inhibited with people who want to achieve those morals. This is obviously not the world we live in. And solutions based on hypothetical worlds (with strong OICs and moral Taliban and a moral US foreign policy and idealistic democracy in Pakistan) are useless in solving real world problems.

In the real world, one has to, on many occassions, pick the lesser of all evils. And in many cases, accept illegitimate means as legitimate if they reach the correct moral end result. And most of all, one has to realize that people whom one completely disagrees with, will not just disappear. Instead of trying to destroy them, one needs to work with them.

That is why I have always found it strange when many people who want the Constitution and democracy etc. in Pakistan have no problem if all the religious brigade of Pakistan is locked up in an unconstitutional manner, with no due process. Infact, they even complain when many of the religious brigade, with no due process, are let out of jail. They don`t realize that this unconstitutional jailing is even worst than the Hadood and Blasphemy laws that the secular brigade (correctly) complains about. At least, in the later, the guy gets a chance to go to court.

First the Taliban were bad, and were going to take over Pakistan, according to Dr. Hoodbhoy. I agreed with the first part, but I always considered the second part an exageration. I had always stated that that the Taliban would never appeal to the majority Pakistanis, and the religious brigade would fall if challenged. This is exactly what happened.

Now the Americans are after us, and are the evil empire, and we have been duped and hijacked, according to the good Doctor. There is some truth to this, but it is another exageration, if you ask me. US foreign policy is as evil as any in the world. US has killed, directly or indirectly, due to its superpower ambitions and due to the influence of the pro-Israeli lobby, more innocent civilians, that any country in the world, in the past two decades. However, I don`t think, ``we`` have been, ``hijacked`` by the US.

Our critics need to stop going from one idealistic end to another, and stop assuming that everything is bad or a conspiracy. And even more than that, assuming that everything can be made to disappear, if it is bad. The Army has some bad aspects, but it is not, ``bad,`` as a whole. Religion has some followers who are bad, but it is not, ``bad`` as a whole. And America has some (actually many) bad aspects in its foreign policy, however it is not ``hijacking us.`` (by us I mean Pakistanis and Muslims in general).

I supported the toppling of the Taliban because they were human rights violators, but I did not support the tactics used by the US to topple them. Dr. Hoodbhoy seemed to have supported the toppling, as well as the tactics when he states,

``Al-Qaida had to be bombed, to let the Taliban be was not an option. When fanatics, inspired by Osama bin Laden, flew airliners packed with people into two of America`s tallest buildings, it was unreasonable to expect otherwise. So, yes, I agree with Anthony Barnett that a ``focused military response was essential``.``

After this, I think he loses the moral ground of complaining about the tactics used to topple others like Saddam Hussein, and complaining about, ``hijacking.`` I, once again, support the toppling of Saddam Hussien, and once again oppose the tactics being used.

What we need are realisitic critics and realistic activists.....

Mr. Hoodbhoy wrote:

``A global, democratic, secular, humanistic identity must soon replace the twin evils of imperial domination and religion. Else we perish``

Now, before he starts singing ``Imagine``, perhaps Mr. Hoodbhoy could tell us precisely how we will establish a ``global, democratic, secular, humanistic identity``, (emphasis on GLOBAL), without some sort of imperialism or pseudo-religious movement.

Having said that, then one could well argue that the establishment of such an identity is exactly what this new American ``imperialism`` has as one of it`s primary goals. And this is where Mr. Hoodbhoy`s concerns of an American imperialism seem somewhat feigned...for it`s not clear if he would support the application of American might if it resulted in a world order he would approve of.

I also find it ironic, if not revealing, that Mr. Hoodboy would on the one hand describe Al-Qaida and G. Bush as being `primitive` for their invocation of `good` and evil`, then only a few sentences later would apply the word `evil` to religion in general.

Dr. Hoodbhoy says:
``A global, democratic, secular, humanistic identity must soon replace the twin evils of imperial domination and religion. Else we perish.``
It`s no secret that the US has long been the `empire of influence`. . .the spineless and brain-dead Blair sings a different tune once he listens to the piper also known as G.W. Of course it`s all about power! I`m beginning to wonder whether there is such a thing as a `global, democratic, secular, humanistic identity.` And religions are only as evil as selfish, power-hungry, glory-seeking `humans` make them to be.

dost-mittar # 6

``In the new disposition, it would appear that might is not only right, it`s the only right.``

That has been the universal truth from the time immemorial.So what`s new.

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

Please see (and hear) Shanti - a song for peace on September 11th by a good friend Malay Kundu at http://www.shantisong.org/

Ferozk,
Methinks you got that backwards. The Taliban were ``installed`` because they would open up a new route outside of the Persian Gulf and also would be a counter to Iran. Remember how many days it took the ragtag bunch of ``students`` to sweep into Kabul? How was that coordinated? Not with Pakistani satellites! The Taliban had to be taken out because they got too big for their britches and also couldn`t control the ``foreigners`` operating from their soil. America`s hatred for Iran is such that it dithered till it couldn`t any more.

Great column Hoodbhoy!

so much power in the hands of a village idiot -- there are indications that the American voting public is getting alarmed by this unthinking ventriloquist dummy son of a Bush -- he has turned into a shameless warmonger – never in the recent history of the US -- a US President has talked of invading another non combatant country so shamelessly -- in such a crude nonchalant manner – day and night.

I don`t think the stupido will invade Iraq – but his bellicosity is scaring the hell out of the sober American voters – his chances in the next presidential election may not be better than his father`s -- hopefully.

Dr. Saahib

Anyone can be wise after the fact - the real challenge always is to foresee into the future. You should have listened to your student more intently; but at that time, in your rabid hate against the human beings who call themselves Muslims, you chose to facilitate the work of what you now call ``imperial power``. And now when Paksitan has been turned into just another colonial outpost, your ilk shed crocodile tears.

Shame.

Re: Hoodbhoy

This article was more a crie d` coeur than it was an attempt to reason the acts behind the 9-11 tragedies and their aftermath.

The Taliban had to be destroyed, because they were denying the American oil giant Unocal the right to transport Caspian Sea oil via Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is about money and it is about economics, which are the logical extensions of political and military power in the present international lexicon. The Taliban were more of an econmic problem for the United States than a political headache and had to be removed.

Afghanistan is about controlling the access to the enegry resources of Central Asia, keeping the oil regions of the Middle East unsettled and thus, vunerable to American influence and as a means for the Americans to have an excuse to maintain their physical presense there and to secure American interests in the emerging markets of South Asia (specifically India); to keep China from continuing with its economic reforms by posing a threat to the China`s interests and to keep ``pincers`` of pressure on China from the west (Afghanistan) and from Taiwan in the south. To deny Russia the ability to exploit the resources of Central Asian Republics instead, to offer the Americans the opportunity to exploit those resources for their own ends.

American political power and its military projection are tied with its economy and America cannot afford to ignore its economy and it needs to keep its economy at ``full steam`` to maintain its present levels of political and military powers, which are allowing the United States its freedom to engage in a unilateral diplomacy and which allows it to ignore the policies of multilateralism - thus, the American cold shoulder to the United Nations and all that United Nations hopes to represent in the diplomatic sense.

Dr. Hoodbhoy, this is economic realism at its finest and this realpolitik is about power to deny; to intimidate; to control; and the ability to determine the balance of international power based on the monopolizations of economic resources of the world!

Ciao