“The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer”.

- U.S. President Barack Obama, Cairo, June 04, 2009.

According to US leaders and their Zionist handlers, the term “extremist” is any nation or movement resisting US-Israel domination. They are accused of murderous ideology, defamed, and deemed extremist. Whether in Afghanistan, in Iraq, or in Pakistan, the extremists are part of the US strategy to justify war of aggression.

Let’s be very clear. The Muslim world is not at war with the West, it is the West that is at war with Muslim nations. Neither Afghanistan nor Iraq attacked the US and its allies. And despite the widespread of the virus of Islamophobia, particularly in Europe and America, Muslims are avoiding violence. Today, it is easier to invade Muslim nations, murder their women and children, and destroy them beyond belief. George W. Bush and Tony Blair (the main culprits) were re-elected while their armies were committing horrendous war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. When will Westerners start protesting against the daily massacre of Muslim children by US-NATO forces?

In 2001, Afghanistan was invaded and occupied because the U.S. accused the former Afghani government (known in the West as the “Taliban”) of harbouring “al-Qaeda” extremists even when al-Qaeda never took responsibility for the 9/11 attack on the U.S. When the Afghani government offered to apprehend those extremists on behalf of the US if the Bush regime provided the evidence against them, the US refused the offer and embarked on a murderous and illegal war of aggression.

It should be acknowledged that, “al-Qaeda” was a US proxy used against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan following the 1979 invasion. Indeed, in the 1990s, the US supported Osama bin Laden, while at the same time placing him on its so-called “most wanted list of terrorists”. Today, al-Qaeda is a card played when it serves Western imperialist interests.

The entire country is decimated and thousands of innocent Afghan civilians, mostly women and children have been killed since the 2001 invasion. Recently, the United Nations reveals that in 2007 there were over 1,500 civilian deaths in Afghanistan. In 2008, the number has increased 40 per cent. Although Western media often credit the US-installed Ahmed Karzai “Afghan Army” of conducting military operations, the majority of civilians were killed by US/NATO indiscriminate bombings. The motive is the geostrategic importance of Afghanistan relative to the energy-producing region in Central Asia.

According to Ken Fireman of Bloomberg.com, Secretary of Defence Robert Gates told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 27, 2009:

"US goals in Afghanistan must be 'modest, realistic,' and 'above all, there must be an Afghan face on this war,' Gates said: ‘The Afghan people must believe this is their war and we are there to help them. If they think we are there for our own purposes, then we will go the way of every other foreign army that has been in Afghanistan.'"

Just replace Afghanistan with Iraq or Pakistan and you get a clearer picture of the real motives behind the US pursuit of war and violence against Muslim nations.

Furthermore, the war on Afghanistan is a test for a new NATO strategy as a global military intervention force and the future of NATO wars depend on this strategy being successful. Dominated by the US, NATO is an imperialist expeditionary force always on the look for a fight. Perpetual violence is its most essential tool to impose its worldwide imperialist ideology. Hence, the US war on Afghanistan has been labelled in the media as the “good war”. The war on Iraq is described as a “bad war” or a “strategic blunder”, not a war crime.

Iraq was invaded and occupied because the US regime accused the Iraqi government of the late president Saddam Hussein of possessing ‘Weapons of Mass Destructions’ (WMD) and having links with extremists. Of course, the pretexts were a pack of lies. The real motives behind US violent aggression were: 1) to conquer Iraq’s oil resources; and 2) to enhance Israel’s Zionfascist expansion and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

In order to expand the war further, Pakistan is accused of harbouring “extremists”. The CIA alleges, without a shred of evidence, that Osama bin Laden, who according to reliable sources died in 2002, is “hiding” in Pakistan. Western Zionist media, led by the anti-Muslim propaganda organs like the BBC, CNN, and their variants, have obviously abandoned the truth and instead continue the warmongering agenda, inventing news and adopting the role of cheerleader. Pakistan is crucified and depicted as the “front of terrorism”. Of course, there is no hard evidence and the aim is to manipulate public opinion and prepare the world for another war. The truth is that the Pakistani people are against the murderous US war on Afghanistan.

Opportunists and apologists for US war crimes are on the move again spreading pro-US propaganda, without taking into consideration the consequences of their actions. In his latest fatigue in the Independent, Patrick Cockburn writes: “Pakistan is the root of the problem”. And “Pakistan was always the real base for al-Qaeda”. Of course, Cockburn has no evidence to support his usual recycled rubbish. To support this rubbish against Pakistan, Cockburn writes that the anti-Occupation Iraqi Resistance had many friends in Iran and Syria and so the Afghan Resistance has in Pakistan. Only a deranged cynic can make such a statement – that the US Occupation of Iraq is made possible only with Iran’s cooperation.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Rashid, a native Pakistani informer who is well-known for his pro-Western propaganda, wrote recently: “Pakistan is about to collapse and only unconditional aid from the US can stop this”.  Rashid provided no evidence and his so-called analysis is just Western propaganda sponsored by the US-Zionist media. Rashid regurgitated Israel’s Zionist propaganda word by word:

"[A] nuclear-armed military and an intelligence service that have sponsored Islamic extremism as an intrinsic part of their foreign policy for nearly four decades have found it extremely difficult to give up their self-destructive and double-dealing policies".

This is consistent with the anti-Pakistan propaganda spread out by pro-Israel right-wing Americans. “Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al-Qaeda sitting in two-thirds of the country which the Government does not control”, said David Kilcullen, a right-wing former Australian army officer who made a career advising the Bush administration during the murderous surge in Iraq and now a consultant to the Obama Administration.

Like in Afghanistan and Iraq, the US is sowing the seeds of violence in Pakistan by pitting one Pakistani community against the other. The arming and financing of militias like Tahrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Jundullah or “Soldier of God” by the US is designed to destabilise Pakistan and the eventual break up of the nation in a Yugoslavia-like destruction. The recent surge in attacks targeting mosques and religious congregations is a case in point. “It seems to me a calculated conspiracy to trigger sectarian violence in the country in line with Iraq so that the public attention could be diverted from real issues,” said Abdul Khalique Ali, a Karachi-based senior political analyst.

It is important to remember that, the TTP has nothing to do with the anti-occupation Resistance movement in Afghanistan, known in the West as the “Taliban”. The TTP is a Pakistani religious fundamentalist militia based in the Swat Valley. It is armed by the US and India through Afghanistan. The TTP despises the Resistance in Afghanistan. Jundullah is another anti-Iran/anti-Pakistan terrorist militia financed by the US and Israel. It is used not only in Pakistan but it is also responsible for cross-border terrorist attacks in Iran which have killed a number of innocent Iranian citizens.

The problem in Pakistan is that the army has become a US proxy army waging a war against its own people. It is used by the US as a condom whenever the US engaged in war. The Pakistan ruling clique is a Western-oriented band of corrupt landlords and businessmen serving US imperialist interests at the expense of the majority of the Pakistani population. The Government’s reliance on US funding allows the US to hold the nation hostage to US conditions, including the freezing of Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programs. The people of Pakistan consider the Pakistani Government corrupt and subordinate to US demands. Hence, the Pakistani people support any group fighting the US-NATO occupation that is the greatest threat to the in the region.                                                                                                                                  

Under US pressure the Pakistani army is attacking communities and towns in the northwestern provinces and Waziristan. The province is home to the anti-occupation Pashtun tribes, and fields more than thirty anti-occupation resistance groups. There is no marked border and the people share one common goal - the liberation of their land from foreign invaders.

Before the Pakistani army attacks, the province was under constant cross-border attacks by US-NATO forces using CIA-operated drones, helicopter gunships and F-16s bombers in violation of Pakistani sovereignty. The attacks are now extended to include Baluchistan. Thousands of innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed in indiscriminate bombardments.

In addition, the attacks have caused a humanitarian crisis of two to three million internal refugees. The situations looks more like the 1971 Britain-India sponsored partition of Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh in Eastern Pakistan that precipitated mass migrations and massacres among Muslims. The refugees are left on their own, relying on private charities and local NGOs to survive. The so-called “US aid” to Pakistan to “rebuild” its shattered economy is an empty rhetoric. In fact the US aid is fuelling the war and destroying the nation. The US is not in the business of “rebuilding”. History shows that every time the US and its allies invaded and occupied a defenceless nation, they installed a colonial dictatorship and left the country in ruins, drowning in poverty, suffering, disease, and death.

Before he left to Saudi Arabia, President Obama told the New York Times (NYT 03 June 2009) that the pro-US Arab leaders are not publicly expressing their concern about Iran developing nuclear weapons. “There are a lot of Arab countries more concerned about Iran developing a nuclear weapon than the [real] threat from Israel, but won’t admit it”, Obama told the Times. It is a US-orchestrated propaganda war against Iran designed to deflect attention away from the serious threat to world peace posed by Israel’s unchecked nuclear arsenal. We all know that Iran – with a legitimate right to nuclear technology, including uranium enrichment – doesn’t posses any nuclear arm or is even near to developing one.

It is worth remembering that the same misleading falsehood was propagated prior to the US illegal invasion and murderous Occupation of Iraq. It was Dick Cheney, the US best-known (unindicted) war criminal, who went to see pro-US Arab leaders. At the time, no one bought into US-Israel propaganda. Most countries neighbouring Iraq have acknowledged that Iraq was not a threat. Indeed, Iraq posed no threat to any nation. The US and its few allies are guilty of an illegal war of aggression, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Iraq.

For decades, Iran has been demonised in the West and subjected to ongoing anti-Muslim racist propaganda campaign (Iranophobia) on behalf of Israel’s Zionfascist regime. The US and Britain continue meddling in Iran’s internal affairs, including fomenting unrest and inciting violence in order to sabotage Iran’s stability. At the time of this writing, Iran is being persecuted and condemned. Western media – backed by some Western governments – are questioning the legitimacy of Iran’s recent free and fair elections in order to discredit Iran’s legitimate government and destabilise the nation (See Esam Al-Amin, Counterpunch, 22 June 2009). Democracy is not the reason behind Western meddling. Western ruling elites despise democracy. When did the British people have their chance to elect Gordon Brown? In 1953, the US and Britain undermined and overthrew the democratically-elected Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and replaced it with one of the most vicious dictators. (See Ghali Hassan, Global Research, 26 June 2005). Now, imagine anyone questioning the legitimacy of the US-staged fraudulent and violent elections in Iraq and Afghanistan?

In his interview with the Times, Obama revealed that: “We have a joke around the White House. … We’re just going to keep on telling the truth until it stops working — and nowhere is truth-telling more important than the Middle East”. In American parlance, the term “truth” means fabricated lie. What the President really meant is telling the lie, not “the truth”, until people start believing it. That is what George W. Bush said, after all.

Meanwhile, Obama’s speech in Cairo (04 June 2009) – loaded with deceit, obfuscation, contradiction, hypocrisy, double-standards, and empty of substance – was designed to manipulate public opinion, isolate the Islamic Republic of Iran, and absolve Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. Instead of ranting from a country ruled by the US-financed longest-serving tyrant in the Middle East, Obama should have travelled to Gaza (the largest Concentration Camp ever to exist) to witness firsthand the countless Israeli war crimes, including mass graves of Palestinian children. Sadly, Obama failed to acknowledge and condemned Israel’s violence and Israel’s role in Palestinian suffering and dispossession from their land. Obama remains silent on the recent massacre of Palestinian children and the US-Israel sponsored murderous military siege of the Gaza.

And who told Obama that Iraqis are better off under US murderous Occupation than under a sovereign indigenous government? Since 2003, nearly 1.5 million innocent Iraqi civilians – mostly women and children – have been killed and more than 5 million Iraqis are refugees and displaced Iraqis. In addition to the destruction of Iraq’s health services and the education system, the US brought into Iraq a culture of corruption and violence unheard of in Iraq’s history. Before the 2003 US invasion, Iraq was an envy of the region. Today’s Iraq is an example of a society that has been deliberately terrorised and reduced to a state of abject destitution, its progressive Constitution was replaced by a US-drafted sectarian and backwards constitution.

So far, Obama has proved to be the creation of the US wealthy ruling class. The President is “a global celebrity modelled easily into a brand” to all people, writes author Chris Hedges. But, what the new brand stands for remains a mystery to most ordinary people inside and outside the US. Obama seems comfortable following in the footsteps of his predecessors.

It is unfortunate that many of the so-called “progressive” and “leftist” commentators and pundits are deliberately ignoring the power of the US ruling class and instead focusing on Obama, the President. The President is used to deflect public attention away from those who exert real power in the US. It is not difficult to see that Obama is surrounded by a band of anti-Muslim/anti-Arab Judeo-Christian white ruling class. It is a collection of wealthy Zionists who exert total control on US foreign policy, US finance, the mainstream-corporate media, and the US education system. The US Congress is their territory, devoted entirely to the defence of Israel and its Zionfascist policies in Palestine. Indeed, the Obama Administration is the most Zionist administration in America’s history.

It is naïve to suggest that Obama has “inherited difficult challenges”. These are US policies and Obama is in no position to change them. In fact, Obama is continuing and extending Bush’s policies. Just after he took office, Obama said that: “It will be a seamless transition”. In other words, “change” without change. As usual, the US Senate has just approved $106 billion dollar war funding bill to fund the US war on Afghanistan, Iraq and now Pakistan.

The US war on Islamic nations has no end in sight, democratically elected nations are defamed and labelled “extremist”, while brutal dictatorship and religious fundamentalist regimes are welcomed with open arms and labelled “moderate”. Both terms have nothing to do with the character of the groups.

In his Cairo’s speech President Barack Obama told the Muslim world: “You are either with us or against us”. Picking and choosing America’s war on Muslim nations is not the right way to improve relations with the Muslim world.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.