America to Rethink of its Role in Global Affairs

America to Rethink of its Role in Global Affairs

Mahboob A Khawaja, Ph.D.

America under President Trump continues to foster an agenda of extreme perplexity, triviality and confusion in dealing with urgent global affairs. If the administration were to learn from the history, it must be candid, focused and redirect its strengths and weaknesses from the past and usher a new strategic direction of change and adaptability to the present and futuristic challenges of collaborative understanding with all the global powers. This should include the conflict in Syria, Iran nuclear deal, agreement on climate change and pursuing a balanced approach to Israel-Palestine issues.

How to Comprehend the Contradictions of the US Policy Behavior?

Lacking the visionary leadership, President Obama lost precious time and opportunities to deliver “Yes, We Can.” Now, President Trump is making headlines with inherent stagnation of inner look on the current global affairs. Every day is becoming a strange new media theater of absurdity, not distinguishing between the problems and solutions. American politics endured wide range of human, intellectual, political and material losses because of the wrong thinking, wrong actions and dubious performance of the former Obama and Bush administrations. The war agenda destroyed America’s capacity and credibility as an influential global power. The perpetrators of prolonged war agenda floating above the normal mindset must be abnormal – insane – irresponsible, utterly individualistic paranoid to make such move on behalf of the people who elected them for change and peacemaking.

World affairs are a complex discipline and often require serious and impartial mindset to see the issues objectively, rationally and dispassionately. The US Trump administration is uncertain and lacks imagination and repeating the blunders of the Bush era – acting like immature kids who get mad while playing with toys – behaving like the sadistic Razor King we read in European history who broiled his enemies and enjoyed witnessing the live killings.  Strangely, Obama lied about prospective change and opening up a dialogue with the Muslim world. This was a fiction, not a fact of policy shift to get elected. Often change bring hopes and optimism for something different – an escape from the cruel obsession of the few to something more conducive to the human nature. But you can only expect this from rational beings having fullest sense of moral, intellectual and professional accountability to the society that bestows legitimacy to their role and official standing, certainly not from those who appear to have lost all basic norms of morality and civilization.  Julia Dalton (“Is Obama the Trojan Horse, A Psychopath, A Bad Boyfriend or all Three?” OpenEdNews: 1/07/2012), a strong former supporter of Obama notes that President Obama was more of a psychopath and a Trojan horse than being an author of Audacity of Hope, and imaginative manipulator  of “Yes We Can” to win the elections.

Leaders or War Criminals to be Held Accountable

After the atrocities of the 2nd World War, the allied forces captured and tried many Nazis for crimes against humanity. Now, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Tony Blair and many others have been identified by the Kualalumpur International Commission on Crimes against Humanity as involved in the crimes against humanity for the killing of millions of innocent civilians men, women and children in Iraq. On June 28, 2005 at the Berlin Strategic Seminar (“America’s Indispensable Role in Securing the Future of Civilization” Executive Intelligence Review: 7/8/2005), American intellectual Lyndon LaRouche offered the following observations about President Bush and Cheney’s insanity to make them unfit for the policy making and leadership office:

 

“Now, the United States Constitution provides for impeachment. The intrinsic basis for impeachment, is not conviction for some crime. That is not sufficient basis for impeachment, because the question of the Presidency of the United States is the question of an institution, not of a person. But, if the person who occupies that institution is clinically insane, or is otherwise incompetent to serve, that is sufficient grounds for a charge of impeachment and for his removal from office. On the other hand, we have a Vice President, who is not necessarily a psychopath, but is a sociopath. The man must be removed from office. What we have now, as a result of the actions and continuing actions in the Senate, we have a bloc, being exerted by the U.S. Senate, against the dangers intrinsic in the incumbency of these two creatures, and the people who control them. And therefore, if the world is to be saved, these two creatures must be kept under control and removed from office—not four years or three years from now, but in the immediate future.”

Why did Obama not take action to bring all these culprits to justice?  Did Obama have similar characteristics and features of insanity like Bush, Blair and Cheney?  If so, should the Norwegian Nobel Committee have revoked the Peace Prize given to Obama without performance and accountability?  Julia Dalton finds it a fact of life that Obama is a wrong guy to occupy the post of president of the US:

“I know it’s hard to admit you made a mistake.  I get it.  You really believed this guy was “the one” and he is the one for the 1%: Wall Street, the too big to fail banks, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex, big oil, big pharma, i.e. the corporate fascist state he’s so gingerly locking into place…………And, therefore, I feel it’s my duty to do an intervention.  For those of you still deluding yourselves, who still can’t face reality I suggest therapy or better yet maybe pick up a copy of “He’s just Not That into You.”

Nothing is going to last unto eternity for sure; Obama faced many limitations and overburden too, the pinch of self-exalted individualistic opportunism, so common amongst all the political contenders of public goodness, civility and humanity. They all pretend like the puppets do, politicians are no different a specie but the same kind. Julia Dalton thinks so:

“The Obama brand is collapsing just as the Bush brand before him became so craven even the most deluded had to recognize the fraud that had been perpetrated upon the American people”

Could America Make a Navigational Change for a Peaceful Future?

Paul Craig Roberts (“the Next War on Washington’s Agenda.” OpenEdnews: 01/12/2012), spells out the ingrained political cynicism governing the Washington’s based military-industrial complex of which Mr. Obama was the latest willing participatory leader.

You wonder, what is this all fuss about?  President Trump as of October 14, 2017 is revisiting the traditional belligerent strategy against Iran by refusal to testify the Iranian compliance on the international nuclear agreement. It opens up new suspicious weakness in US policy behavior who could trust the American behavior even in situation of solid global agreement?  Paul Craig Roberts (“the Next War on Washington’s Agenda.”), noted three major reasons for the US policy pursuit against Iran:

“One is the neoconservative ideology, adopted by the US government that calls for the US to use its superior military and economic position to achieve world hegemony. This goal appeals to American hubris and to the power and profit that it serves….A second factor is Israel’s desire to eliminate all support for the Palestinians and for Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. Israel’s goal is to seize all of Palestine and the water resources of southern Lebanon. Eliminating Iran removes all obstacles to Israel’s expansion…..

It is unthinkable and irrational stance that if Iran develops the nuclear know-how and capacity and that it could threaten anyone in the region or beyond. We live in an age of actions-reactions and nuclear reprisals – no one would like to be candidate for the first strike to ensure self-destruction, and those who possess the nuclear capability know it well, understand its disastrous consequences to use the nuclear weapons. The North Korean nuclear crisis is a current example in global affairs. American leadership knows it well too. Imagine, if the Shah Reza Pahlavi, the absolute king of Iran was alive and buying the weapons from the US, would America move to strangle Iran? No, certainly NO. Isn’t this another myth of the continued bogus War on Terrorism raged on the false pretext of the WMD in Iraq?

Mankind looks for Hope for peace and co-existence amongst the divergent cultures and nations of the world. Global politics is not a system of moral principles or intellectual and political values but often a game – a cruel drama – a puppet show often staged to appease the few Dracula – a psychopath puzzle of few insane people who had nothing useful to contribute to the mankind except drudgery, deceit, lies and inborn deceptions – the previous net outcome of this thinking was the continuing bogus War on Terrorism.   Wars are planned, conspired and are the outcome of few cruel monsters – egomaniac mindsets, not of the electoral consensus of the rational beings dreaming of life as a gift from God, progressive in civility and nobility of thoughts and behaviors and being accountable to the rest of the humanity. The Europeans have come to realize these harsh facts after centuries of wide-ranging insanity and Two World Wars and killing of millions and millions of fellow Europeans just to maintain racial superiority, national borders, rule of the few obsessed with individualistic power. Should the Americans not learn from the annals of the darkest chapters of the modern European history?  Paul Craig Roberts attempts to reflect on this much needed historical Essence of Learning and the Urgent need for a Navigational Change:

“We, as Americans, need to ask ourselves what all this is about? Why is our government so provocative toward Islam, Russia, China, Iran?  What purpose, whose purpose is being served?  Certainly not ours…………Where do we go from here?    If not to nuclear destruction, Americans must wake up. Football games, porn, and shopping malls are one thing. Survival of human life is another. Washington, that is, “representative government,” consists only of a few powerful vested interests. These private interests, not the American people, control the US government. That is why nothing that the US government does benefits the American people.”

(Dr. Mahboob A. Khawaja specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution-international affairs with keen interests in Islamic-Western comparative cultures and civilizations, and author of several publications including Global Peace and Conflict Management: Man and Humanity in Search of New Thinking. Germany, May 2012. His forthcoming publications are entitled: One Humanity and the Remaking of Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution; and Global Peace, Security and Conflict Resolution: Approaches to Understand the Current Issues and Future-Making, Germany, 2017).

Controversial views about Quaid -e-Azam

ڈاکٹر منظوراعجاز
OCTOBER 04, 2017 | 12:00 AM
قائداعظم اور پاکستان کا نظریاتی ارتقا

 پاکستان کے دانشور حلقوں میں وقتاً فوقتاً یہ بحث چھڑ جاتی ہے کہ کیا پاکستان کے بانیان ایک علیحدہ مسلمان ریاست کے حامی تھے یا نہیں۔ اس سلسلے میں تاریخ دان عائشہ جلال کا نقطہ نظر ہے کہ قائد اعظم محمد علی جناح کے ذہن میں ایک علیحدہ مسلم ریاست کا تصور نہیں تھا: وہ ہندوستان کے اندر مسلمانوں کی با اختیار ریاستوں کے حق میں تھے۔ اسی طرح علامہ سر محمد اقبال کے پاکستان کے بارے میں اسی طرح کے افکار کے بارے میں متضاد آرا پائی جاتی ہیں۔ ڈاکٹر پرویز ہود بھائی عائشہ جلال کے دعوے کی نفی کرتے ہوئے قائد اعظم کے 1940کے صدارتی خطبے کا ذکر کرتے ہیں جس میں انہوں نے علیحدہ مسلمان ریاست کا مطالبہ کیا تھا۔ سوال پیدا ہوتا ہے کہ بانیان پاکستان کے بیانات اور خطبات سے پاکستان کی اساس کے بارے میں کیا اخذ کیا جا سکتا ہے اور کیا اس سے موجودہ صورت حال کو تبدیل کیا جا سکتا ہے؟
جہاں تک قائد اعظم محمد علی جناح کا تعلق ہے تو ان کے ایسے بیانات بھی ہیں جن سے یہ ظاہر ہوتا ہے کہ وہ پاکستان کو ایک علیحدہ مسلمان ریاست کے طور پر دیکھنا چاہتے تھے اور ایسے بیانات بھی ہیں جن سے یہ لگتا ہے کہ وہ ہندوستان کے اندر مسلمانوں کی خود مختار ریاستوں کے حامی تھے۔ اسی طرح ان کے پاکستان کو مذہبی ریاست بنانے کے بارے میں مختلف بیانات ہیں۔ ایک بات تو واضح ہے کہ وہ ایک سچے انسان ہوتے ہوئے دہرے معیاروں کے حامی نہیں تھے۔ ان کا اپنا طرز زندگی مغربی تہذیب کے سانچے میں ڈھلا ہوا تھا اور اس بات کے کم امکانات ہیں کہ وہ اس طرح کی مذہبی ریاست کا تصور رکھتے ہوں جو ستر کی دہائی کے بعد وجود میں آئی۔ یہ بات بھی قرین قیاس ہے کہ ان کے ذہن میں آبادی کی وسیع پیمانے پر منتقلی کا کوئی تصور نہیں تھا۔ غالباً ان کے خیال میں غیر مسلم پاکستان میں موجود رہیں گے اور شاید اسی لئے انہوں نے ایسے بیانات بھی دئیے جن کا مقصد مذہبی تفریق کو مٹانا تھا۔ یہ بات بھی روز روشن کی طرح واضح ہے کہ نہ تو مسلم لیگ ایک مذہبی پارٹی تھی اور نہ ہی اس کا بیانیہ عقیدہ پرستی پر مبنی تھا۔
یہ بات بھی واضح ہے کہ بانیان پاکستان نے ریاست کے بارے میں کوئی جامع نظریہ پیش نہیں کیا تھا۔ یہی وجہ ہے کہ پاکستان کے معرض وجود میں آنے کے بعد نہ صرف انتظامی اور سیاسی خلا تھا بلکہ نظریاتی خلا بھی موجودتھا جس کو قرارداد مقاصد کے ذریعے پر کرنے کی کوشش کی گئی۔ اس کے الٹ پنڈت جواہر لال نہرو کی سربراہی میں کانگریس کا سیکولرازم کا واضح نظریہ موجود تھا جسے فوری طور پر زیر عمل لایا گیا۔ کانگریس کے ایجنڈے پر زرعی اصلاحات پر بھی زور دیا گیا تھا جس کے بارے میں مسلم لیگ میں خاموشی تھی۔ لیکن اگر واپس مڑ کر دیکھیں تو یہ پتہ چلتا ہے کہ نہ تو پاکستان قائد اعظم کی شخصیت کا عکاس بن سکا اورنہ ہی ہندوستان بی جے پی کے عروج کے بعد سیکولرازم کے نقش قدم پر چل رہا ہے۔ لہٰذا قائد اعظم یا پنڈت جواہر لال نہرو کے جو بھی خیالات تھے وہ آج کے برصغیر کی نظریاتی صورت حال سے باالکل مختلف تھے۔ اس لئے ماضی کے رہنماؤں کے ستر سال پرانے بیانات کی بجائے اس امر کو دیکھنے کی ضرورت ہے برصغیر کی ریاستوں بالخصوص پاکستان کا ارتقا کس انداز سے ہوا۔
مسلم لیگ میں قائد اعظم کے علاوہ زیادہ تر لیڈرشپ جاگیردار طبقے پر مشتمل تھی جس کا کوئی واضح نظریہ نہیں تھا۔ ہندوستان کی جن ریاستوں میں پاکستان بنا ان میں مسلمان اکثریت میں تو تھے لیکن وہ زیادہ تر زرعی شعبے سے منسلک، کسان یا جاگیردار تھے۔ان مذکورہ علاقوں کے شہری آبادی میں مسلمان محض دستکار اور مزدور تھے۔ تاریخی طور پر ان طبقات میں جدید سیکولر خیالات کی نمو ناممکن رہی ہے۔ مزید برآں شہری علاقوں میں بورزواژی اور درمیانے طبقات غیر مسلموں بالخصوص ہندوئوں پر مشتمل تھے: مسلمانوں کا نہ کوئی تاجریا صنعتی طبقہ تھا اور نہ ہی پیشہ ور تنظیمیں تھیں۔ اس سیاق و سباق میں دیکھیں تو پاکستان کی طبقاتی ترتیب ایسی تھی کہ اس میں جدید سیکولر نظریات پنپ نہیں سکتے تھے۔ غرضیکہ پاکستان میں جاگیرداری دور کے مذہبی نظریے کا غالب آنا فطری عمل تھا۔ یہی وجہ ہے کہ باوجود پاکستان کی مخالفت کے مذہبی جماعتوں (یا نظریات) نے نظریاتی خلا کو پر کرنا شروع کردیا۔ جماعت اسلامی، جمعیت علمائے پاکستان اورمجلس احرار جیسی مذہبی تنظیموں نے پاکستان بننے کے بعد ریاست کے بیانیے کے تعین کے عمل پر غلبہ حاصل کرنا شروع کر دیا۔ عالمی سامراجی طاقتیں بھی روس کے سوشلزم کا مقابلہ کرنے کے لئے پاکستان کو ایک پسماندہ جاگیرداری ریاست کے طور پر قائم رکھنا چاہتی تھیں۔ غرضیکہ پاکستان کی طبقاتی ترتیب اور عالمی طاقتوں کا ایجنڈہ ایسا تھا کہ پاکستان کو آخر کار مذہبی ریاست میں ہی ڈھلنا تھا قائداعظم کے خیالات جو بھی ہوں وہ پاکستان میں نظریاتی ارتقاپر حاوی نہیں ہو سکتے تھے۔
انگریز کی تربیت یافتہ فوج اور نوکر شاہی میں جزوی طور پر سیکولر دھڑے موجود تھے جن کی وجہ سے ستر کی دہائی تک ریاست کے مذہبی بیانیے کے خلاف مزاحمت موجود تھی۔ لیکن ستر کی دہائی کے آغاز سے ہی مذہبی بیانیوں نے اپنی جڑیں مضبوط کر لی تھیں جس کااظہار ذوالفقار علی بھٹو کے اسلامائزیشن کے فیصلوں سے واضح ہوجاتا ہے۔ مذہبی بیانیہ کا 1977کی قومی اتحاد کی تحریک میں غلبہ مکمل ہو چکا تھا جس کو جنرل ضیاء الحق نے آگے بڑھایا۔
دلچسپ حقیقت یہ ہے کہ اب جبکہ پاکستان میں ریاستی بیانیہ مکمل طور پر مذہبی ہو چکا ہے، ملک میں ایسے طبقات پیدا ہو چکے ہیں جن میں جدید افکار پنپ سکتے ہیں: اب پاکستان میں وہ تمام تر طبقات پیدا ہو چکے ہیں جو 1947سے پہلے ہندوئوں اور دیگر غیر مسلموں پر مشتمل تھے۔ اب ریاست کے مذہبی بیانیہ کے خلاف ٹھوس عوامل معرض وجود میں آچکے ہیں۔ پاکستان مسلم لیگ (ن) کی مذہبی بنیاد پرستی سے دوری اور جماعت اسلامی کا زوال مستقبل میں روشن خیالی کے آثار ہیں۔

Shared by Dr. S. Akhtar Ehtisham

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Why Won’t Anyone Call the Las Vegas Shooter a Terrorist? By Michelle Ruiz

At least 58 people were killed and more than 500 others were injured last night during Jason Aldean’s performance at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival in Las Vegas, after a lone gunman, Stephen Paddock, opened fire on the crowd through the windows of his 32nd-floor room at the Mandalay Bay hotel. Las Vegas now replaces last year’s horror at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub as the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. But like the recent white supremacist violence in Charlottesville that claimed the life of counter-protester Heather Heyer, there has been a certain hesitation to define the incident as “terrorism.”

In a live address from the White House, President Trump called the Vegas massacre an “act of pure evil,” but stopped short of describing it as an act of domestic terror. So did almost every news report I’ve seen or heard, repeating that Paddock possesses no connection to any foreign terrorist group. (ISIS has reportedly claimed responsibility, though Nevada authorities and the FBI say there is no evidence—yet—that Paddock had ties to the organization, nor does he fit the profile.) Local police, too, say they aren’t treating the incident as terrorism. But perhaps we, the people, should be.

Many people point to the semantics: Terrorism is defined as some variation of “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” This last piece is key: According to the dictionary, violence must be politically motivated to truly constitute terrorism. Paddock’s motives are not yet known, which is how some would explain not calling him a terrorist. But whether or not Paddock ever meets the technical definition of terrorist, we know without question that he “created and maintained a state of extreme fear and distress” among the innocent crowd in Vegas. By definition, he terrorized them. But nobody is saying that word, either. When words fail, it seems platitudes prevail.

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Were liberal ideas responsible for Modern State?

(A worth reading article by Mark Koyama stating that Medieval States lacked resources and infrastructure to fund wars and state’s expenses, and hence depended on Church’s infrastructure to supply funds which in return exerted political influence on State. As the state’s expenses increased due to more wars, it developed its own infrastructure and institutions to collect funds and rely less on Church. State also instituted freedom of religion to bring minority religions, which Church persecuted, into tax base, improve economy and at the same time make revenue collection uniform and efficient. This necessity led to separation of state and church and freedom of religion, rather liberal ideas of Locke, Spinoza and Voltaire which may have followed the trend, and not initiated it. f.sheikh)

One of the concluding paragraph in the article;

What implications does our argument have for the modern world? Most important perhaps is the need to recognise that liberal ideas were not necessarily responsible for the emergence of liberal societies. Instead, the rise of a new type of political organisation, the modern state, led, for its own reasons, to rulers enforcing general rules of behaviour – rules incompatible with religious discrimination.

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