Back   OpEd News
Font
PageWidth
Original Content at
https://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Power-of-Nightmares-P-by-Pal-Palsimon-American-Foreign-Policy_Foreign-Policy-Failure-Afghanistan_Foreign-Policy-Failure-Asia_Foreign-Policy-Failure-Eurasia-140730-529.html
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).

July 30, 2014

The Power of Nightmares, Part 2

By Pal Palsimon

This article is important for discussion of where our foreign policy has taken us, and where we go from here. Where would you go from where we are now. Upcoming will be a summary of the 3rd part of this video. I would like these summaries to lead us to some conclusions about our present foreign policy agenda.

::::::::

The Power of Nightmares, Part II by Adam Curtis "The Phantom Victory"

"Islamic factions, rapidly falling under the more radical influence of Zawahiri and his rich Saudi acolyte Osama bin Laden, join the nNeo-conservative-influenced Reagan Administration to combat the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.... In America, the neo-conservatives' aspirations to use the United States military power for further destruction of evil are thrown off track by the ascent of George H. W. Bush to the presidency, followed by the 1992 election of Bill Clinton leaving them out of power. The neo-conservatives, with their conservative Christian allies, attempt to demonize Clinton throughout his presidency with various real and fabricated stories of corruption and immorality." Kenneth Starr could not find the evidence.

The Phantom Victory
Summary by Pal Simon

While politicians' main role for past societies had been to promise dreams, that role changed to promise, not dreams, but freedom from nightmares, and to rescue us from terrible dangers in the world... this international terrorism network (fantasy of threat created worldwide by politicians), emanating from a Russian goal of conquering the world.

This was to be the role of the Reagan administration. In 1982 Ronald Reagan dedicated the space shuttle Columbia to the cause of the people of Afghanistan, the freedom fighters. The Reagan doctrine, which purportedly came about by a "small group within Reagan administration", was that these freedom fighters would help spread democracy around the world by defeating Russia.

Richard Perle (Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1981 - 1987), saw himself as a revolutionary who was in a struggle to overcome tyranny in the world, especially the tyranny of the Soviet Union, and accordingly he was taking up the theoretical view of the need for uniting the country for a purpose, to fight evil.

Under the new head of CIA, William Casey, was increased support to the mujahideen, with many more weapons and money sent across the Pakistani border into Afghanistan. And CIA sent in agents to train the mujahideen in assassination, terror tactics and even car bombing, and even provided mujahideen with satellite images on Russian troop movement. The order of William Casey was that the goal should be "winning," no matter what the cost. Then came Arabs from all across the Middle East to go help the mujahideen Afghans free themselves from the invading Russia. (See Note 1 on Russian invasion to support the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, against opposing "multinational groups called mujahideen" composed of Peshawar Seven and Tehran Eight. The mujahideen were opposed to this government that was imposing extensive land and social reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely anticommunist population.)

Because of much propaganda about such threats, neoconservatives in countries around the world, particularly other Arabs, became united against Russia. They had come to believe Russia was the real enemy and their leaders told them to join the mujahideen. Many of these Arabs didn't know anything about the various groups fighting in Afghanistan, or even where they were fighting. But they went anyway and received training to help the fight. Among those who joined the Afghan cause in 1985 was the Saudi Islamic Osama bin Laden, at the behest of Abdullah Yusuf Azzam.

Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (see note 2) raised funds (especially from Osama bin Laden), recruited and organized the international Islamic volunteer effort of Afghan Arabs during the 1980s, and emphasized the political ascension of Islam. Azzam was a member the Muslim Brotherhood that also had a stake in having the mujahideen win against Russia. The Muslim Brotherhood organization sought revolution against all tyrannical governments of the Arab world.

But Azzam, a Palestinian, was not as extremely radical as other Islamists, like Ayman Zawahiri, who also became a great influence on Osama bin Laden and competed with Azzam for bin Laden's financial resources. Zawahiri, we recall, was influenced early in life by Qutb, who was executed under Nasser regime in 1966. Zawahiri, associated with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, believed that anyone who turned away from Islam should be killed. They, as part of and including al-Qaeda, were pushing for violent revolution everywhere. For a time Zawahiri was in prison in Egypt with many other radicals because of assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. After his release he went to Peshawar (in Pakistan bordered on Afghanistan) where he met bin Laden. During the efforts to help the mujahideen, many other extreme radicals joined the effort after being released from prisons in other parts of the Arab world.

Zawahiri called himself and his organization "the real Islamic Front, against communism, Zionism and every kind of ism." And anyone rejecting the Quran must be killed, no matter who it was. In Peshawar he and his followers began to organize against American involvement in Afghanistan and to influence other Arabs to become part of his Islamic jihad. While Azzam and moderate Islamists believed change could come about by peaceful political revolutions, Al Zawahiri and his organizations, al-Qaeda, pushed for violent revolution everywhere. Al Zawahiri persuaded bin Laden to abandon Azzam and, instead, to invest in his organization of Islamic Jehadis and become emir of Islamic jihad. Many in this organization turned against Azzam, would not pray behind him. Those who stood by Azzam became angry with Osama bin-Laden. Some felt that Al Zawahiri was using him for their own means because he had the money. This was a rift among the Islamists during the campaign in Afghanistan. Later, end of 1989, Azzam was assassinated by a car bombing in Peshawar.

Moscow 1987 Mikhail Gorbachev announced he would like to pull Russian troops out of Afghanistan for economic reasons, and he asked for peace terms from Americans to resolve issues by some kind of settlement that would make Russians people feel that all the lives lost had not been in vain.

In 1988, the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the United States and Soviet Union serving as guarantors, signed an agreement settling the major differences between them known as the Geneva Accords.The Arab Jehadis bragged that it was because of them that Russia was defeated, but Americans and Afghans reminded people that the war could not have been won without them. But this "myth" that Jehadis won motivated Islamists world-wide to believe this was the best path to revolutions everywhere. Many Arabs joined organizations like al-Qaeda.

In the 90s, organizations that the assassinated Palestinian, Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, had been associated with, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood, gained great popularity throughout the Arab world. They wanted non-violent change through education and through trying to convince governments that the people needed and wanted an Islamic government. They did not want military violence to overthrow governments. They believed that if the majority of people wanted an Islamist government, the government must comply.

But Egyptian and Algerian governments had major problems with this because Islamic political framework for society would be based upon dogmatic laws of Quran, which "all politicians had to follow." This meant "political parties would be irrelevant because there could be no disagreement. The people might vote in parties that might use their power to end democracy." The problem was that democracy is non-religious and incompatible with the Quran. If an Islamist party won, they might stay in power forever, based on the Quran.

In Algeria the Islamic Salvation Front won many victories in local elections. In June 1991 the army took over in a coup d'etat and cancelled elections because they did not want the Islamic parties in power. Protesting Islamists were arrested. At the same time in Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood began to win mass support, but the government clamped down and arrested many of the Brotherhood members. Many members complained that by doing that, by preventing the moderate Islamists from political activity, the door opened for the more radical Islamists to influence the people to become violent.

In fact, Osama bin Laden and al Zawahiri increased their efforts to foment uncompromising Islamic jihad against the governments of Egypt and Algeria and around the world. According to historian Gilles Kepel, they believed they could duplicate the Afghan victory and by capturing the hearts and minds of the masses of this, "they were convinced that strength and victory were on the side of the Jehadis."

In 1991 Washington was bent on the goal of destroying tyrannical governments all over the world and to promote Democracy. Conservative theorist Michael Ladeen states the case: "We want free countries.... down with tyranny.... we think the world is better off with free countries that have to appeal to their own people for the sources of their power, and we think if the whole world were like that then we would be more secure... I think this is America's destiny because we always come under attack from tyrants."

And one of the most tyrannical governments in their view was that of Saddam Hussain of Iraq. In the 1980s he had been a close ally of America, but in 1990 he had invaded Kuwait. The Bush Senior administration had successfully helped liberate Kuwait and pushed back against Iraq, but others in the administration, including Wolfowitz in the Department of Defense, wanted to push on to Bagdad and overthrow Saddam. According to Professor Stephen Holmes, Wolfowitz and others believed the battle against Saddam and "other petty tyrants" was important to keep up the idea of preserving the uniting idea of good against evil, after the battle against the Soviet Union had been won. But President Bush ordered all fighting to cease once Kuwait was relieved.

Adam Curtis said that like Kissinger, George Bush saw questions of good and evil as irrelevant. Their main goal was to achieve stability in the Middle East. In 1996 the National Security Adviser to President Bush, Brent Scowcroft, said that Saddam Hussein was not a threat to the world, even if he was a nuisance. He said that if they had attempted to overthrow Saddam, they would have turned a "great success into defeat".... and we would be in Iraq a long time and probably not win. This angered the neoconservatives and they saw this as the corruption of liberal policies they hated, "moral relativism that was prepared to compromise with the forces of evil in the world." Curtis says the neoconservatives turned again to the theories of Leo Strauss, the belief that politicians need to reassert absolute moral values, and uncompromisingly defeat liberal relativism. The neoconservative William Kristol, Chief of Staff to Vice President from 1998 to 1992, said that Strauss considered even though liberalism could in some ways be defended, it should not be defended because it was a "dead end" and it does not produce higher values, show us how to live, how to produce noble human lives, therefore, politicians do not have to accept moral relativism of liberals.

So neoconservatives began to appeal to leaders of the "Culture Wars" - many religious leaders against liberal ideas - even though they believed, as did Strauss, that religion was only a myth, but a necessary myth to give meaning and purpose to society. Journalist Michael Lind says "religion is what Plato called a noble lie told to the majority of society by the philosophical elite in order to insure social order." Michael Lind goes on to argue that the neocons have a covert political and philosophical vision that the majority will not understand, so they promote themselves to the masses through religious ideas of good vs evil that they do understand. He attempts in some way to compare Straussian philosophy with that of Marx and Lenin?

Republicans promoting themselves as being against abortion, multiculturalism and gay rights gained support of the religious right. They campaigned to make "liberal" a bad word. Thus the religious right gained control of the Republican Party machine. And at the Republican Convention in 1992 the traditional conservatives promoting the values of individual freedom were "booed off the stage." This conflict within the party was the reason so many main stream Americans, frightened by the ultra-conservative agenda, Americans turned to Bill Clinton.

In response to this annoyance with Clinton support, neoconservatives set an agenda to transform Bill Clinton into an image of evil so American voters would realize the truth of the corruption of America.

At the same time in early 90s, violent Jehadis were revolting in Egypt and Algeria and other Arab countries, violent organizations that were responding to the appeal of bin-Laden and al Zawahiri. Violence was everywhere in Egypt and Algeria and other Arab countries. A former general who had fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan returned to Algeria. He was Abdullah Anas, a member of the Political Council of the Islamic Salvation Front in 1993, and he stated in this video that people were being killed because if they voted for politicians or did not rise up against them, or were politically passive, they were no longer considered true Islamists. They killed anyone who was not Islamist. Thousands of civilians were killed in Algeria. And this was even encouraged by some of the Algerian governments so that they could turn to the West and show how they were facing terrorists... "using fear to stay in power."

By mid 1990s the dominating issue in the United States was the moral character of Bill Clinton. Many of these stories orchestrated by neoconservatives were untrue, i.e. that Bill and Hillary were involved in Whitewater (corrupt property deal); that they murdered their friend, Vince Foster; and that Clinton was involved in drug smuggling from a small airstrip in Arkansas; as well as stories of sexual harassment. David Brock of the American Spectator was the journalist that was doing investigations and accusing the Clintons. Brock later admitted that there was no criminal wrong-doing in Whitewater, and that Vince Foster was not murdered, but killed himself; and that the Clintons absolutely did not smuggle drugs. In an interview he admitted that those who were reporting those stories did not care whether they were true or not; they just appreciated the devastating effect the stories were having. He admitted that he had been an agent of "political terrorism."

But the right-wing Federalist Society investigator, Kenneth Starr, continued pressing an investigation to try to find evidence that the stories were true. Judge Robert Bork, a senior member of the right-wing Federalist Society, claimed Clinton was a sociopath who had no true feelings for the people he charmed, but only sought his own gratification.... that we had a dysfunctional man as president of the U.S. As hard as they tried, they could find no evidence of any of these accusations, not even of sexual harassment... until finally they learned of his affair with Monica Lewinsky. And as to that, Clinton lied. This satisfied the neoconservatives to show that Clinton was not fit to be President of the country and should be impeached. But the impeachment failed to unseat him and showed that voters did not really care about these moral issues. Joe Conason, who wrote The Hunting of the President, said that in the leadership of the administration "there was an element of corruption, the willingness to do anything to achieve the goal of bringing Clinton down, and those that were trying to prove Clinton was immoral were behaving immorally themselves."

By 1997, the extreme Islamist Revolution was losing the support of a majority of their people who were fed up with the killings, and yet some of the violent groups continued. But many radical Islamists began to disagree among themselves and began killing each other. One chicken farmer, Mr. Zouabri (see note 3 below), led the GIA (Armed Islamic Group), the main Islamist group in Algeria, and he killed almost anybody, claiming that those who followed him were the only true Islamists and all the rest must be killed.... in fact, all society except themselves should be killed.

Osama bin Laden and Al Zawahiri returned to Afghanistan around 1997. People had turned against their ideas and they had failed to overturn the governments in those countries. They then turned their wrath directly upon the United States, announcing they were at war with America itself. They believe that Americans were responsible for introducing liberalism to the Arab countries and America was to blame for their inability to save the people for Islam.

And so, for the neoconservatives, these radicals would be the next phantom enemies to combat....to unite Americans against evil. To be continued in Part III.

Notes

Note 1 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1979) -- Encyclopedia Britannica Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, invasion of Afghanistan in late December 1979 by troops from the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union intervened in support of the Afghan communist government in its conflict with anticommunist Muslim guerrillas during the Afghan War (1978-92) and remained in Afghanistan until mid-February 1989.

In April 1978 Afghanistan's centrist government, headed by Pres. Mohammad Daud Khan, was overthrown by left-wing military officers led by Nur Mohammad Taraki. Power was thereafter shared by two Marxist-Leninist political groups, the People's (Khalq) Party and the Banner (Parcham) Party--which had earlier emerged from a single organization, the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan--and had reunited in an uneasy coalition shortly before the coup. The new government, which had little popular support, forged close ties with the Soviet Union, launched ruthless purges of all domestic opposition, and began extensive land and social reforms that were bitterly resented by the devoutly Muslim and largely anticommunist population. Insurgencies arose against the government among both tribal and urban groups, and all of these--known collectively as the mujahideen (Arabic mujāhidūn, "those who engage in jihad")--were Islamic in orientation.

These uprisings, along with internal fighting and coups within the government between the People's and Banner factions, prompted the Soviets to invade the country on the night of Dec. 24, 1979, sending in some 30,000 troops and toppling the short-lived presidency of People's leader Hafizullah Amin. The aim of the Soviet operation was to prop up their new but faltering client state, now headed by Banner leader Babrak Karmal, but Karmal was unable to attain significant popular support. Backed by the United States, the mujahideen rebellion grew,

The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979, under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.[27] The final troop withdrawal started on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989, under the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. Due to the interminable nature of the war, the conflict in Afghanistan has sometimes been referred to as the "Soviet Union's Vietnam War" or the "Bear Trap".[28][29][30]

Part of the Cold War, it was fought between Soviet-led Afghan forces against multi-national insurgent groups called the Mujahideen, mostly composed of two alliances -- the Peshawar Seven and the Tehran Eight. The Peshawar Seven insurgents received military training in neighboring Pakistan and China,[9] as well as weapons and billions of dollars from the United States, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and other countries.[3][4][5][9][26] The Shia groups of the Tehran Eight alliance received support from the Islamic Republic of Iran. Early in the rule of the PDPA government, the Maoist Afghanistan Liberation Organization also played a significant role in opposition, but its major force was defeated by late 1979, prior to the Soviet intervention.

The decade-long war resulted in millions of Afghans fleeing their country, mostly to Pakistan and Iran. Hundreds of thousands of Afghan civilians were killed in addition to the rebels in the war.

Note 2 - Abdullah Yusuf Azzam (Arabic: عبد الله يوسف عزا...", 'Abdu'llāh Yūsuf 'Azzām; 1941 -- 24 November 1989) a.k.a. Father of Global Jihad[1][2] was a highly influential Palestinian Sunni Islamic scholar and theologian, who preached in favour of both defensive jihad and offensive jihad by Muslims to help the Afghan mujahideen against the Soviet invaders.[3] He raised funds, recruited and organised the international Islamic volunteer effort of Afghan Arabs through the 1980s, and emphasised the political ascension of Islam.

He was also known as a teacher and mentor of Osama bin Laden, and the one who persuaded bin Laden to come to Afghanistan and help the jihad.[4] Together, they both established al-Qaeda.[3] though the two differed as to where the next front in global jihad should be after the withdrawal of the Soviets from Afghanistan.[5][6] He was also a co-founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba.[7][8][9] He was killed by a car bomb blast on November 24, 1989.[1

Note 3 Antar Zouabri - The Armed Islamic Group, known by its French acronym, GIA, waged a violent war against Algeria's secular military regime during the 1990s. One of the GIA's leaders, Antar Zouabri, has proclaimed: "in our war, there is no neutrality. Except for those who are with us, all others are renegades." International press during the 1990s focused on the large number of journalists and intellectuals who were beheaded or whose throats were slit during Algeria's civil war. GIA leaders were quoted as saying, "those who fight against us by the pen will die. Algerians who wrote in French. Algerian and Western counterterrorism officials say that many members may have defected in recent years and joinedal-Qaedaor its sister organizational-Qaeda in the by the sword." Journalists were considered to be supporters of the military regime and a secular society. The GIA had enormous animosity toward the media, and particularly Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).



Authors Website: http://palsimonsintelligentsia.org

Authors Bio:

Palsimon, formally educated in journalism & law, is an independent progressive activist & writer, focusing on guarding integrity of media & government. (.)



Back