- It now seems clear that whatever is decided at the United
Nations in the next few days, George W Bush will launch a pre-emptive strike
on Iraq sooner rather than later. Despite a majority of the public here
in Britain being against war, Tony Blair will no doubt commit United Kingdom
troops to join what both Bush and Blair deem to be a war "with God
on our side." Perhaps it would be better if they asked the question
"Are we on God's side?"
-
- That too, however, begs a question that nobody has dared
to ask of these two illustrious leaders to date. It is a question that
reveals a great deal about the stupidity and ignorance that seems to pervade
the White House and 10 Downing Street in their rush to war.
-
- But I am getting ahead of myself. Let's go back to September
11 and the initial reaction of the Bush administration to those terrible
events. The war, he declared would be a "War on Terrorism". The
target, the most wanted man in the world, Osama bin Laden (remember him?)
Al Qeada and the Taliban. And so Afghanistan was attacked. And Osama, Mullah
Omhar, Al Qaeda and the majority of the Taliban, who Bush said he would
capture "dead or alive?"
-
- They escaped.
-
- Then came the "Axis of Evil" speech and the
attention moved from Osama, Al Qaeda and the Taliban to Saddam Hussein
and Iraq. It is a credit to the Bush administration's propaganda machine,
or perhaps to the gullibility of the American public, that a majority of
Americans now believe Saddam was behind 9/11.
-
- But let's get back to Osama. What was his thinking behind
the attacks of September 11? What were his motives for attacking the most
powerful country on the planet? To understand that all you have to do is
look around the internet to get a flavour of Osama's avowed ambition, his
purpose in life. He wants to start a Holy War, a Jihad, against Israel
and the Christian West. That has always been his prime directive, his "raison
d'etre."
-
- So what happens when America launches its "Shock
and Awe" pre-emptive strike against Iraq. Well, word is it will be
quick, clinical and over in couple of days. Really? This war is going to
be about more than a two day barrage of cruise missiles and smart bombs.
It's about controlling oil and regime change and that means going into
Baghdad and capturing Saddam "dead or alive." (Now where have
you heard that phrase before?) That means American troops entering Baghdad,
and that will be a bloody affair. UN estimates put civilian casualties
at between five hundred thousand and one million, and fifty percent of
Iraqis are children under fifteen. And what if Saddam, in a last ditch
effort to save himself or a final act of madness uses weapons of mass destruction?
Well, George W Bush has made it very clear what will happen next. A nuclear
strike and the consequent huge loss of civilian life. More important, though,
is what the reaction of the Islamic world would be to the deaths of so
many fellow mos
-
- It matters not to the faithful of Islam whether his brother
in religion is a sunny, a shi-ite or a sufi. In the end they are all moslems,
united by Allah, the compassionate, the merciful. If they perceive such
an act of aggression by the West is nothing more than an attack on the
whole of Islam, which is very likely, the Koran tells them they must defend
themselves and their fellow moslems to the death. So, Bush nukes Baghdad
and kills maybe three million moslems, Islam gathers itself and starts
a Jihad. Exactly what Osama bin Laden wanted, a Holy War between Isalm
and the Judeo/Christian West.
-
- And that brings us neatly back to the question that no-one
so far has dared to ask. Whose side IS George W Bush on? Osama bin Laden's?
-
- Copyright: Ian Gurney February 2002.
-
- Ian Gurney is a writer, broadcaster and the author of
the book "The Cassandra Prophecy-Armageddon Approaches." www.caspro.com
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