Saturday, April 07, 2007
One War on Terrorism?
A nefarious offshoot of the War on Terrorism as it has been pursued by the Bush II administration is the ill-conceived application of the terrorist label. The cases where this is occurring and causing blowback are numerous. The one troubling the Clarion at the moment is in the southern part of the archipelago that is the Philippines.
This historically Muslim area, which is geographically closer to Malaysia than Manila has been trying to establish autonomy for 500 years. Twice in the recent past, once in 1990 and once in 1996, it appeared that the central government was moving in that direction. Both attempts have been thwarted by corruption, co-option and infighting over the spoils of power. These problems haunt the Philippines, in general. In a pattern typical across the globe, the lack of economic opportunity in Mindanao has exacerbated other grievances. Grouping this fight as part of global War on Terror is ludicrously inappropriate. It is insensitive to the subtleties required to mediate a solution.
Following the lead and the rubric of the Bush II team, mainstream, ostensibly neutral news sources lost their way. Their mislabeling of the participants has contributed to on-going mistakes in the War on Terror. “The Economist” in its 3/17/07 issue (“Latin upbeat”, p.43) referred to Abu Sayyaf as “the al-Qaeda-linked separatist group with a nasty sideline in abductions and banditry...”
To put it this way is to buy into propaganda. Propaganda sponsored by the same propaganda machine that made leap from the September 11th attacks to invading Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The methodology is the same: apply a label, make a prima facie decision, ignore, disregard, minimalize what doesn’t fit. Proceed. If it sounds Orwellian, it is because it is.
This undoubtedly vicious, awful group, Abu-Sayyaf had long a incarnation before it had any al-Qaeda connections. Abu-Sayyaf's forebears were at various times separatists, leftists, bandits, political thugs, and extortionists. They were primarily involved in small time, local, criminal activity and political power plays in their portion of the Philippines, Mindanao. Abu-Sayyaf's primogeniture, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) had nothing to do with fomenting international Islamic terrorism or supporting a worldwide caliphate. The MNLF was concerned with its sphere of influence. It fought for power where local Muslims have been fighting for independence from the rest of the Christian Philippines for five centuries.
This is a struggle which locals believe has included phases of fighting against, Spain, China, Japan and the United States, as well as the Philippines central government. Locals refer to their region as Bangsamoro, meaning homeland of the Moro. Moro is a derogatory term, related to Moor, originally applied by the Spanish to the Muslim inhabitants of this area. Following the Spanish-American war of 1898, an American-Philippine war between the American government and the First Philippine Republic ostensibly ended in 1902. However, despite that, conflict and United States suppression efforts continued in Bangsamoro until 1913. This on-going conflict was sometimes referred to as the Moro Rebellion. Rather than facing any united front with a supra-cause, American forces fought very local battles against individual Datus. (Datu is ancient tribal chieftain title of the pre-Hispanic Philippines.) If it is Chomskyian to ask questions about Empire and neo-neo-post-post colonialism the Clarion is guilty as charged.
It is unquestionable that Abu-Sayyaf is an awful group. Proud of its beheadings of ten hostages in August 2001. Abu-Sayyaf interests differed greatly from al-Qaeda then, in that, they were firstly pecuniary. Other Western hostages were ransomed, including some paid for by secularist al-Qaeda nemesis, Muammar Khaddafi, in an attempt to curry favor with the West.
The month before the attacks of September 11th, 2001, “The Economist” (08/09/01, “South Sea Trouble”) described Abu-Sayyaf as, “former guerrillas who have turned to kidnapping for ransom.” Less than six years polluted by Bush-Cheney unthink, “The Economist” is referring to Abu-Sayyaf's raison d'etre as a "sideline."
This is to once again follow the group think of the same administration that took an attack on New York and America by a bunch of ruthlessly evil, largely Saudi Arabian, private citizens and told the public that these folks were affiliated somehow with Iraq. Cheney repeated the line over and over again in the face of all sorts of dissenting evidence, as if repetition would make it true. This is the same administration that said weapons of mass destruction were a “slam dunk.” And subsequently awarded the fellow who said so America’s highest civilian commendation. Following their lead on Iraq has killed more than 3,000 Americans, more than 50,000 Iraqis and has left both countries with thousands of other wounded; hundreds of thousand of lives racked to their very foundation.
To continue to buy into the Bush II administrations false characterizations of situations and conflicts risks completely losing perspective. The Bush team’s rhetoric assists in creating alliances where none existed, pushing the Abu-Sayyaf’s of the world into the arms of Jemaat-e-Islami and al-Qaeda. By creating these false linkages, American narrative helps beget a sense in the Islamic community, mainstream and radical, that these conflicts so obviously uber-local to one part of the Philippines less than a century ago in 1913, are inter-related to a worldwide struggle. This gives these conflicts foreign financing legs they would otherwise not merit. In Mindanao an American backed regional gubernatorial candidate is running against an MNLF candidate charged with crimes related to fighting the central government for his people’s independence. (This same MNLF candidate was dismissed by his own people for incompetence and corruption post the 1996 autonomy accords with the Philippine central government, but is now back because some believe anything is better than the American candidate.)
A similar line of thinking, and misclassification, is persistently undermining America’s policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan where internecine tribal conflicts over the spoils, extrapolated by globalization, are being fought under the singular, unifying and utterly false rubric of the War on Terrorism.
Afghanistan is a mosaic of ethno-tribal and linguistic groups including but not limited to, Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmen and Balochis. Pakistan is much the same, a unified territory only in some British mapmaker’s mind, so ethno-tribally diverse that English!! is the official language.
By classifying conflicts this local, rooted in resource competition, economics, tribalism, nationalism, and regionalism under the singular rubric of the War on Terrorism inherently makes America ineffective in dealing with them. It is analogous to the massive rhetorical misclassification of the Vietnam War as about world communism. This misclassification led directly to misunderstanding and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. There were no communist dominoes lined up to fall after Vietnam. America was fighting a non-existent cause. Wasting its citizen lives fighting an inherently nationalist conflict.
Parallel to the discussion of Mindanao and Afghanistan, the Vietnamese saw this war as part of a continuing conflict for autonomy they had fought against the Chinese, Japanese, French and finally Americans. Contrary to the conclusions of the neo-con sages of that era, Vietnam, circa 2007, is not a communist state heading back toward the Stone Age. It is rather a totalitarian-capitalist state. It has less in common with North Korea than it does with Singapore, Hong Kong and the larger People’s Republic of China. Vietnam was never going to capitulate to American war efforts to fight communism no matter how many tons of bombs were dropped, no matter how long American troops fought. The Vietnamese were not fighting for or over communism. The Vietnamese were NEVER going to surrender anymore than Americans would surrender Ohio to a foreign invader.
American leadership’s misclassification of the conflict obscured that reality from the American people for a long time. The use of the word leadership is deliberate. In both the Vietnam era and today, there were members of the American government who knew these classifications were false and specious. They were ruthlessly suppressed. Their lives destroyed for daring to disagree. In the Vietnam era, these dissenters were largely centered in the State Department, in this era, they were CIA analysts.
In the Vietnam era, the media played a substantial role in uncovering these roots, as did stories from American soldiers on the ground. In the War on Terrorism is the media willing and able to play a similar role? Or will it kowtow to the rubric of the Bush II-Cheney administration? The soldiers on the ground in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq see the situation for what it is. Will the media help the American people see the same?
This historically Muslim area, which is geographically closer to Malaysia than Manila has been trying to establish autonomy for 500 years. Twice in the recent past, once in 1990 and once in 1996, it appeared that the central government was moving in that direction. Both attempts have been thwarted by corruption, co-option and infighting over the spoils of power. These problems haunt the Philippines, in general. In a pattern typical across the globe, the lack of economic opportunity in Mindanao has exacerbated other grievances. Grouping this fight as part of global War on Terror is ludicrously inappropriate. It is insensitive to the subtleties required to mediate a solution.
Following the lead and the rubric of the Bush II team, mainstream, ostensibly neutral news sources lost their way. Their mislabeling of the participants has contributed to on-going mistakes in the War on Terror. “The Economist” in its 3/17/07 issue (“Latin upbeat”, p.43) referred to Abu Sayyaf as “the al-Qaeda-linked separatist group with a nasty sideline in abductions and banditry...”
To put it this way is to buy into propaganda. Propaganda sponsored by the same propaganda machine that made leap from the September 11th attacks to invading Iraq over non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The methodology is the same: apply a label, make a prima facie decision, ignore, disregard, minimalize what doesn’t fit. Proceed. If it sounds Orwellian, it is because it is.
This undoubtedly vicious, awful group, Abu-Sayyaf had long a incarnation before it had any al-Qaeda connections. Abu-Sayyaf's forebears were at various times separatists, leftists, bandits, political thugs, and extortionists. They were primarily involved in small time, local, criminal activity and political power plays in their portion of the Philippines, Mindanao. Abu-Sayyaf's primogeniture, the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) had nothing to do with fomenting international Islamic terrorism or supporting a worldwide caliphate. The MNLF was concerned with its sphere of influence. It fought for power where local Muslims have been fighting for independence from the rest of the Christian Philippines for five centuries.
This is a struggle which locals believe has included phases of fighting against, Spain, China, Japan and the United States, as well as the Philippines central government. Locals refer to their region as Bangsamoro, meaning homeland of the Moro. Moro is a derogatory term, related to Moor, originally applied by the Spanish to the Muslim inhabitants of this area. Following the Spanish-American war of 1898, an American-Philippine war between the American government and the First Philippine Republic ostensibly ended in 1902. However, despite that, conflict and United States suppression efforts continued in Bangsamoro until 1913. This on-going conflict was sometimes referred to as the Moro Rebellion. Rather than facing any united front with a supra-cause, American forces fought very local battles against individual Datus. (Datu is ancient tribal chieftain title of the pre-Hispanic Philippines.) If it is Chomskyian to ask questions about Empire and neo-neo-post-post colonialism the Clarion is guilty as charged.
It is unquestionable that Abu-Sayyaf is an awful group. Proud of its beheadings of ten hostages in August 2001. Abu-Sayyaf interests differed greatly from al-Qaeda then, in that, they were firstly pecuniary. Other Western hostages were ransomed, including some paid for by secularist al-Qaeda nemesis, Muammar Khaddafi, in an attempt to curry favor with the West.
The month before the attacks of September 11th, 2001, “The Economist” (08/09/01, “South Sea Trouble”) described Abu-Sayyaf as, “former guerrillas who have turned to kidnapping for ransom.” Less than six years polluted by Bush-Cheney unthink, “The Economist” is referring to Abu-Sayyaf's raison d'etre as a "sideline."
This is to once again follow the group think of the same administration that took an attack on New York and America by a bunch of ruthlessly evil, largely Saudi Arabian, private citizens and told the public that these folks were affiliated somehow with Iraq. Cheney repeated the line over and over again in the face of all sorts of dissenting evidence, as if repetition would make it true. This is the same administration that said weapons of mass destruction were a “slam dunk.” And subsequently awarded the fellow who said so America’s highest civilian commendation. Following their lead on Iraq has killed more than 3,000 Americans, more than 50,000 Iraqis and has left both countries with thousands of other wounded; hundreds of thousand of lives racked to their very foundation.
To continue to buy into the Bush II administrations false characterizations of situations and conflicts risks completely losing perspective. The Bush team’s rhetoric assists in creating alliances where none existed, pushing the Abu-Sayyaf’s of the world into the arms of Jemaat-e-Islami and al-Qaeda. By creating these false linkages, American narrative helps beget a sense in the Islamic community, mainstream and radical, that these conflicts so obviously uber-local to one part of the Philippines less than a century ago in 1913, are inter-related to a worldwide struggle. This gives these conflicts foreign financing legs they would otherwise not merit. In Mindanao an American backed regional gubernatorial candidate is running against an MNLF candidate charged with crimes related to fighting the central government for his people’s independence. (This same MNLF candidate was dismissed by his own people for incompetence and corruption post the 1996 autonomy accords with the Philippine central government, but is now back because some believe anything is better than the American candidate.)
A similar line of thinking, and misclassification, is persistently undermining America’s policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan where internecine tribal conflicts over the spoils, extrapolated by globalization, are being fought under the singular, unifying and utterly false rubric of the War on Terrorism.
Afghanistan is a mosaic of ethno-tribal and linguistic groups including but not limited to, Pushtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras, Turkmen and Balochis. Pakistan is much the same, a unified territory only in some British mapmaker’s mind, so ethno-tribally diverse that English!! is the official language.
By classifying conflicts this local, rooted in resource competition, economics, tribalism, nationalism, and regionalism under the singular rubric of the War on Terrorism inherently makes America ineffective in dealing with them. It is analogous to the massive rhetorical misclassification of the Vietnam War as about world communism. This misclassification led directly to misunderstanding and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides. There were no communist dominoes lined up to fall after Vietnam. America was fighting a non-existent cause. Wasting its citizen lives fighting an inherently nationalist conflict.
Parallel to the discussion of Mindanao and Afghanistan, the Vietnamese saw this war as part of a continuing conflict for autonomy they had fought against the Chinese, Japanese, French and finally Americans. Contrary to the conclusions of the neo-con sages of that era, Vietnam, circa 2007, is not a communist state heading back toward the Stone Age. It is rather a totalitarian-capitalist state. It has less in common with North Korea than it does with Singapore, Hong Kong and the larger People’s Republic of China. Vietnam was never going to capitulate to American war efforts to fight communism no matter how many tons of bombs were dropped, no matter how long American troops fought. The Vietnamese were not fighting for or over communism. The Vietnamese were NEVER going to surrender anymore than Americans would surrender Ohio to a foreign invader.
American leadership’s misclassification of the conflict obscured that reality from the American people for a long time. The use of the word leadership is deliberate. In both the Vietnam era and today, there were members of the American government who knew these classifications were false and specious. They were ruthlessly suppressed. Their lives destroyed for daring to disagree. In the Vietnam era, these dissenters were largely centered in the State Department, in this era, they were CIA analysts.
In the Vietnam era, the media played a substantial role in uncovering these roots, as did stories from American soldiers on the ground. In the War on Terrorism is the media willing and able to play a similar role? Or will it kowtow to the rubric of the Bush II-Cheney administration? The soldiers on the ground in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq see the situation for what it is. Will the media help the American people see the same?
Labels: Politics
Comments:
Post a Comment
