PREFACE

When I began this book in early November 2001, I did not envision the tome you are now holding. I simply intended to research and write a short biography on Osama bin Laden to serve as a sober corrective to the hatemongering and bloodlust that passed for respectable journalism in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

When Saddam Hussein supplanted bin Laden as the evil Arab du jour in the spring of 2002, I feared that my book had been superseded by events. When Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, I thought nobody would be interested in a book on bin Laden. As often happens in such circumstances this obstacle turned into an opportunity. Rather than focus narrowly on bin Laden and U.S. geopolitical machinations in Afghanistan, I realized I could place bin Laden and Hussein within the broader context of the U.S.’s servility to the pro-Israel lobby. This book, therefore, incorporates my initial research (Chapters I to VI and X to XI) as well as research into the cause and effect of the Israelization of the U.S. and the “war on terrorism.”

In the latter context, bin Laden and Hussein, despite their stark differences, exist less as people in their own right than they do as bogeymen conjured up by pro-Israeli media and governments to serve Israel’s political ends. This is what is meant by the title “Enemies by Design”—these men are enemies because U.S. servility to Israel and the domestic Israel Lobby requires them to be enemies. Bin Laden was a virtual non-entity until the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were bombed in August 1998, after which time he seemed to emerge parthenogenically from the head of President Bill Clinton as Public Enemy Number One. Saddam Hussein was America’s buddy in the Iran/Iraq War, as shown by the famous 1983 handshake between Hussein and Donald Rumsfeld. Only after the war, did Hussein become persona non grata for reasons that had nothing to do with “terrorism” or “weapons of mass destruction.”

Hence, we come to the two great acts of violence perpetrated in the name of national security—the assaults on Afghanistan and Iraq. We have been told that these attacks were waged in the name of fighting the “war on terrorism,” but this argument is impossible to take seriously, mainly because it implies a biased connotation of terrorism.

According to the American Heritage Dictionary terrorism is defined as: “the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons.” Implicit in this definition is the unique equation of terrorism with anti-state activity; that is, acts of violence committed against organized political units by people or groups, but this definition begs the existence of “state terrorism” committed by the U.S. and Israel.

Terrorism, communism, fascism, Zionism—any “ism”—cannot be the objective of a military policy. To wage war against an “ism” amounts to attacking countries and people whose only crime is that they do not share your beliefs. This attitude amounts to imperial fascism, which is the essence of Bush’s foreign policy. Over a 25-year-period, a cabal of pro-Israeli Jews, evangelical Christians, and neo-conservative ideologues took control of the government. Bush’s imperium represents the sixth and highest stage of the Israelization of the U.S. Even though the U.S. had long supported Israel, Bush has plumbed new depths of criminality that few though possible. This criminality was made possible by “the war on terrorism” and demonized images of Muslims.

To bomb Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest countries, over pipeline transit rights was politically indefensible. To invade Iraq because Israel wanted to destroy a major supporter of the Palestinians was also impossible to justify. The White House couldn’t be seen to be the tool of Big Oil or of a foreign power, but if these or other target countries could be portrayed as “terrorist states” or “terrorist-sponsoring states,” Congress and the American people could accept unilateral aggression, or at least not have the courage to challenge it. Thus we had the demonization of bin Laden and Hussein, slandering of Islam, racial profiling; and arbitrary arrests of Arabs and Muslims.

The consequences of this official bigotry have been appalling. In just two years, Bush has destroyed the U.S.’s international reputation, committed fraud and mass murder, violated the U.S. Constitution, and racked up record deficits. Domestic and international protests against U.S. militarism easily surpass those of the Vietnam era, and traditional allies like France and Germany are vilified because they challenge the divine right of the U.S. to bully the world. U.S. behavior since Sept. 11 has been so irrational that it fits historian Barbara Tuchman’s criteria of a folly:

“[a policy] must be perceived to be counter-productive in its own time, not merely by hindsight;

“a feasible alternative course of action must have been available;

“and it should be that of a group, not an individual ruler, and should persist beyond any one political lifetime.”1

One of the follies Tuchman describes is the U.S.’s entanglement in Vietnam. The war lasted until 1974 even though the failure of U.S. policy was known less than a year into President John Kennedy’s administration. On Nov. 6, 1961, Asst. Secretary of Defence John T. McNaughton summarized U.S. aims in Vietnam for Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara:

“ (a) 70 percent—To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation as a counter-subversion guarantor).

(b) 20 percent—To keep [South Vietnam] (and then adjacent territory) from Chinese hands.

(c) 10 percent—To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of life. Also—to emerge from crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used. NOT to ‘help a friend,’ although it would be hard to stay out if asked.”2

The U.S. had no strategy to deal with the Vietcong insurgents, much less South Vietnam. It was a reactive ego-driven war that generated its own self-defeating dynamic. The longer it went on, the greater became the threat to the U.S.’s leadership and ego; the greater the insult, the deeper and more indiscriminate the military retaliation; the deeper the retaliation, the greater the ego investment; the greater the ego investment, the greater the potential insult; and so on. What began an exercise in public relations degenerated into a quagmire.

The Vietnam analogy is not exact, but some parallels are unmistakable. Like the Vietcong, Islamic resistance fighters do not wear uniforms, march in formation, or fight on a battlefield. They wage a guerrilla insurgency against American overlordship and its puppet colonial governments. In our modern vernacular we call them terrorists, yet the term was not applied to the Vietcong.

On March 4, 2002, during a Washington press briefing to discuss the combat deaths of eight Americans in Afghanistan, Gen. Tommy Franks offered his prayers for the families of those killed “in [the] ongoing operations in Vietnam.” He later corrected himself: “Vietnam was a long time ago, and not at all like what we’re seeing now.”3 Despite this reflexive denial, Franks’ Freudian slip betrayed the uncomfortable truth that the U.S.’s military involvement in Afghanistan—to say nothing of Iraq—is following a similar destructive path. In fact, open comparisons with Vietnam are now commonplace.4

For all of the similarities, though, one striking difference stands out. The Vietnam War was a folly committed by the U.S. in the name of U.S. self-interest. The “war on terrorism” is a folly committed largely in the name of a foreign state’s self-interest, and this is the theme of this book.

Part I, as stated above, primarily concerns the life of Osama bin Laden because he is central to the U.S.’s image of the Muslim enemy. This part also traces the histories of Islam and jihad; U.S. and British Arab policy; and how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Gulf War and the Saudi royal family turned bin Laden into an Islamist.

Part II examines the history, theory and practice of neo-conservatism, evangelical Christianity and Jewish Zionism, and how these forces came to control the U.S. and make the demonization of Arabs and Muslims acceptable.

Part III covers the Clinton–Bush administrations’ conduct in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq; the campaign against Saddam Hussein; and the “war on terrorism.”

Part IV looks at the Project for the New American Century, and how this pressure group completed the Zionist takeover of the U.S. The final chapter offers an analysis of the effects of Bush’s militarism, and suggests two possible alternatives for the U.S.

Notes

1. Barbara W. Tuchman, The March of Folly from Troy to Vietnam, (New York: Ballantyne, 1984) p. 5.

2. The Pentagon Papers, (New York: Bantam, 1971), pp. 255, 365.

3. Cited in Jonathan Weisman, “Battle is fiercest yet, and it won’t be last,” USA Today, March 5, 2002.

4. The parallels between Vietnam and Iraq are not exact but the similarities are undeniable. Among numerous sources see for example, Robert McNamara, “It’s just wrong what we’re doing,” interviewed by Douglas Saunders in the Globe and Mail, Jan. 24, 2004; Erich Marquardt, “Parallels Between U.S. Occupation of Iraq and U.S. Involvement in Vietnam,” Power and Interest News Report, Nov. 28, 2003; Patrick Cockburn, “Iraq’s resistance: A new Vietnam for the White House?” The Independent, July 2, 2003.

To continue reading complete excerpts go to:

http://world.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/7208/

Mr. Greg Felton is a Canadian writer on the Middle East, and the author of an upcoming book on Osama bin Laden. His "Mind over Media" column appears every month in the Greater Vancouver Arabic/English newspaper al Shorouq, and every second Thursday in the Alberta Arab News. He contributed this column to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from Canada.

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