Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

The War Business

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The War Business

Many years passed after the frenzy and rage on 9-11 attacks was over but till then, United States and its allies had attacked two Muslim countries in Asia. Soon after the attack on twin towers, the need for war was so heated up that no one could dare to say anything against it. Without substantial evidences and logic of war, so many countries attacked two countries and resulted in the death of hundreds and thousands of its citizens. After the ex-president and Army chief of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf was removed from the power and he was on exile in Britain, he was asked as why Pakistan decided to become an ally to the world powers as this war harmed Pakistan a lot and strengthened the basis of extremist and militant groups in the country and more than fifty thousand Pakistani civilians and security forces lost their lives in this so called ‘war on terror’. Musharraf answered that he was called from Washington either to join this war or be ready to face the consequences that might drag Pakistan back to the Stone Age. Those were the days when one had to either join the camp or you were going to be labeled as a member of the terrorist camp.

In 2004, Michael Moore came up with a documentary in which he tried to prove that the decisions taken after the incident of World Trade Center were wrong and those who were involved had their own interests that they staged this drama. The documentary ‘Fahrenheit 9-11’ was not the only of its kind, it was followed by many other documentaries that showed that attack on US by terrorists was part of a greater plan and terrorists were only playing their role in this drama. These documentaries show how extensive propagation and repetition of a lie can make the people believe in it, especially when public is sad and angry and eager to hear something that should make them feel comfortable and compensated for their loss. In these documentaries, President Bush, many other ministers, international leaders of that time like Prime Minister of Britain, President of France and chiefs of forces of these countries are shown to be repeating the same things time and again. All of them try to ensure the people of the world that Iraq has stored large number of weapons of mass destruction and if these weapons are not destroyed, Saddam Hussain may use them any time against the citizens of United States and its European allies and kill scores of them. In order to save their citizens, it was necessary that USA and its allies must attack on Iraq and throw away the government of Saddam Hussain who is a dictator and a threat to the world peace and stability.

If you make the chronological assessment of the statements of these leaders who blamed Iraq of having WMDs, you will find an interesting pattern. It followed like this, ‘Iraqi regime may have such weapons’, ‘We fear that the regime has such weapons’, ‘Our sources doubt that the regime may have such weapons’, ‘I think that Iraq has these weapons (and your baseless thinking cost in the death of thousands of innocent Iraqis)’, ‘We are sure that Iraq has these weapons (and nobody asked how this gradual change happened in your thoughts)’, ‘Our sources confirm that Iraq has these weapons (again what sources? And of course, no need was felt to look for UN to confirm all these)’, ‘Now there is no doubt that Iraq has these weapons’, ‘As we are sure that Iraq has these weapons, we are left with no option except to carry out a military intervention in Iraq’, and then the war was opened. Even today, there is no proof about the reports or evidences that made these leaders change their minds.

In the same way, it was showed that people of Iraq were under the constant dictatorial torture of regime and they wanted that world powers should come and free them of the rule of this regime so that they should live in a free environment where they should be able to bring prosperity to their country. When it was said that Iraqi people have this desire, nobody was able to ask as how they came to this conclusion and who were the representatives of Iraqi people who felt so and what were the sources of the information.

Then it was tried by facts, figures and images to prove the regime of Saddam as the most barbarous and cruel regime of history when thousands of Iraqis were murdered to prolong and sustain the rule of Saddam Hussain. He was shown to have murdered the husbands of her own daughters and his secret agencies were labeled to be the cruelest of the time that was responsible for killing, detaining and torturing thousands of Iraqis who wanted to bring an end to the power of Saddam.

More or less, same was the case in Afghanistan, but Afghanistan is a different story. The country was in war for more than two decades and some people were fed up with the Taliban regime and so they welcomed anyone who could free them of this regime. The educated and acknowledged people were of the view that such a regime can be effective for a short period of time but it was not possible for them to lead the country on the path of progress in long run. But, even with all these, having a look at the insecurity, corruption and many other difficulties of present day, there are a lot many people who want that Taliban should come back to power and free them of these difficulties. It is true that even after ten years of restoration of democracy in the country, dozens of terrorists, security forces and neutral citizens are killed every day in different corners of the country but it was even worse before democracy when large number of militant groups practiced the rule of ‘might is right’.

In Iraq, however, things got worse and even today, majority of Iraqis believe that they were more secure and happy in the regime of Saddam Hussain comparing to this democratic setup when hundreds are killed every day by bomb blasts and country has got divided into different groups based on ethnic or sectarian grounds.

Weapons of Mass Destruction were never found in Iraq and all the claims of international leaders and their informing agencies proved to be wrong. Iraqi people were happy after the rule of Saddam was finished but later on, they saw so much bloodshed and lost thousands of their loved ones that they are very uncertain about their future and future of their country. They got rid of cruelties of a dictator but it was replaced by a militant group that turned out to be more lethal than the regime.

It is another story that how many politicians and their business firms got benefitted of the contracts given away both in Iraq and Afghanistan and how much Americans suffered when their trillions of dollars were spent on wars that they thought had no direct relationship with them and they had to pay for this by their nose which in the end, ended in the pockets of few of the influential Americans.

Whenever some nations talk of waging war on others or carrying out attacks on other nations, I fear as if same war-traders are preparing to sell their weapons and fill their pockets, ignoring the deaths of thousands of people.

(Muhammad Rasool Shah works as Academic Coordinator at Barakat Int’l School. He can be reached at muhammadrasoolshah@gmail.com)

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