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The GOP’s Muslim “Southern Strategy”

Posted in GOP, Islamophobia, Obama, Southern Strategy, Terrorism, tagged , , , , , , , on August 1, 2012 | 1 Comment »

When Mitt Romney stated that it was Israel’s “culture” that was responsible for the country’s superior economic development he was simply recycling an argument long used to explain black poverty in the US.  African American’s were poor, it was argued, because of a “culture of poverty” and a “pathology” which leads them to have children out of wedlock or become dependent on welfare. This framework, developed a few decades ago, became a staple part of political culture with both Republicans (Reagan’s famous “welfare queens”) and Democrats (Clinton’s ending of “welfare as we know it”) using it to further their electoral campaigns.

So it’s not surprising that Romney should chose to rehash this argument in the Palestinian context—its Arab “culture” that is responsible for the economic misery that Palestinians live under, right? Occupation has nothing to do with it. What we see at work here is not only a rehashing of old Orientalist frames, but the addition of Arabs and Muslims to the “Southern strategy.”

Cultivated in the 1960s and 70s, the GOP’s “Southern Strategy” was a means by which white voters in the South could be won over by subtle appeals to anti-black racism. African American men were coded as criminals to be locked up and a new form of racial control was born. Nixon and later Reagan exploited the fear of “lawlessness,” supposedly brought on by the civil right movements, as a way to position the GOP as “tough on crime” and to win Southern whites away from the Democratic Party. Appealing to white working class voters’ anxieties about what de-segregation would mean for them economically, the GOP also argued against welfare.

The election of Obama in 2008, and Democratic victories in Southern states like Virginia and North Carolina that year, signaled a blow to the old “Southern strategy.” Yet if Obama’s African American roots were no longer going to be as useful, his Muslim familial connections would quickly rise to prominence. Obama was “accused” during his campaign of being a “secret Muslim,” a charge that would come back again and again reaching a crescendo during the “Ground Zero mosque” controversy in 2010. 18% of the public believed that Obama was Muslim in 2010. This figure remains about the same today, but larger numbers of conservative GOP voters (34%) identify Obama as Muslim in 2012 than in 2008 (when the number was 16%).

The new GOP Southern strategy now highlights Muslims and Arabs as the key threats to national security and “law and order,” even while the old one lingers on. This strategy is not subtle in its racist appeals in the way that anti-black racism had to be in the post-civil rights era. It is much more blatant drawing upon a long history of bipartisan attacks on Arabs and Muslims.

Thus, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass) is raising money for his reelection campaign in part by praising the endorsement of a libertarian blogger who claims Obama is Muslim. Similarly Michelle Bachmann’s accusation that Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin is a Muslim Brotherhood (MB) agent is a part of this approach. It is a means of appealing to the Republican base (about 25% of the electorate) which holds far right wing values.

For this base, Romney is not a candidate they can get excited about (as was evident in the GOP presidential primaries). When Bachmann accused Abedin of infiltrating the government on behalf of the MB she was both employing McCarthyite type fear mongering tactics and positioning the Republican party, and Romney, as a “lesser evil.” That is, if Romney is not the darling of the far right, he is certainly better than a Democratic Party infiltrated by Muslim agents (be they Obama or Abedin).

Bachmann’s attack on Abedin, and its ringing endorsement by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and the far right wing media apparatus, demonstrated that she could corral this base and bring them along on a Romney-Bachmann ticket. When asked on CNN about her VP ambitions Bachmann coyly replied that it was not her decision to make. More recently, John Bolton (a key Romney foreign policy advisor) expressed disagreement at the push back Bachmann was facing and came to her defense.

None of us should be surprised if Romney does indeed make her his choice for Veep. Yet, it is worthwhile to note that it was none other than McCain who began the attack on Bachmann. Perhaps recognizing the pitfalls of his Sarah Palin adventure, McCain seems to be sounding the alarm of including politically inexperienced, verbally inept, far rightwing tea party candidates on a presidential slate. Dick Cheney similarly weighed in advising Romney not to pick Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Whatever Bachmann’s future may hold, anti-Muslim racism is going to play a part in the GOP’s strategy this election year. But don’t expect Obama and the Democrats to debunk this by taking a principled anti-racist position. Romney has been squealing that Obama has betrayed the country by leaking national security secrets. Obama outflanked Romney from the right by revealing his “kill lists” thereby demonstrating that he can be “tough on terror.” The range of debate at the top of society is going to be stiflingly narrow unless we build social movements that can challenge and speak out against Islamophobia.

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Terrorizing Muslims: A Bipartisan Project

Posted in Islamophobia, Obama, Terrorism, US Imperialism, tagged , , , , , on July 3, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

This article first appeared at the Nation website.

The New York Times story on Obama’s “kill list,” showing the president poring over lists of biographies and selecting the names of people to be assassinated in drone strikes, sparked a controversy. The content of that controversy was not over this extraordinary revelation about Obama’s use of power, but rather over the leaking of state secrets, which Republicans accused him of doing to bolster his reelection campaign. Some liberal commentators (at Salon, the Nation etc.) were rightfully horrified and condemned such activity. But the Democrats—and much of the liberal establishment—remained silent.

Deep in the Times article, another shocking revelation that hasn’t received as much attention as the “kill list” is the Obama administration’s effort to erase the deaths of some innocent victims by categorizing “all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants.” This excludes them from the civilian casualties count, allowing the administration to claim that civilian casualties have been minimal. What we see at work here is that Muslim men in “combat zones” have been operationalized as guilty, and therefore worthy of death, simply for being of “military age.”

How did we get to a place where innocent Muslim men can be killed with impunity around the world with little public outcry? The short answer is that Muslims have been thoroughly terrorized. That is, Muslim men have been effectively constructed as “terrorists” upon whom righteous terror can be rained. The image of the Muslim enemy in the US is not new. While Hollywood and television play a key role in conveying that image to the public, they did not create it. The “Islamic terrorist” threat is inextricably tied to a long history of US imperialism.

The US and the Middle East

After World War Two, the United States began to take control of the Middle East from France and Britain. In so doing, all forces that stood in the way of US hegemony were cast as enemies using the language of Orientalism developed in Europe. (I discuss this in greater detail in my book, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire.)

Through much of the 1950s and 60s, secular Arab nationalists and leftists who failed to cooperate with this US agenda were seen either as stooges of the USSR or as “terrorists.” The latter image intensified with the birth of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) and its use of armed struggle. The PLO was coded “terrorist” due in no small part to the close relationship between the US and Israel.

Following the infamous incident at the 1972 Munich Olympics, in which a group of Palestinians took Israeli athletes hostage and murdered them, the Nixon administration launched “Operation Boulder,” giving law enforcement agencies carte blanche authority to question Arabs (including US citizens) to determine if they were involved in “terrorist” activities related to the Arab-Israeli conflict. Israeli intelligence forces helped shape this operation.[i] Thus, a violent act committed in Munich by a handful of Palestinians became the basis on which all Arabs were designated as “suspicious;” the process of racial profiling had begun in earnest.

The “Arab terrorist” morphed into the “Islamic terrorist” after the 1979 Iranian revolution. When US embassy personnel were taken hostage in Iran for 444 days, the crisis generated daily front page and headline news that effectively associated Islam with terror. Ayatollah Khomeini became the personification of all things evil, and all things Muslim. The Middle East henceforth would be seen through the lens of “Islam,” a distorted construction of the religion and the people who practiced it.

Under President Jimmy Carter Iranians were targeted, but it was for Reagan to take this much further though his counter-terrorism policy. He issued a secret National Security Directive designed to create a network of agencies that would prevent “terrorists” from entering or staying in the US. One program by the Alien Border Control Committee called for mass arrests of immigrants from Iran and from Arab nations. During the first Gulf War, in 1991, the elder Bush launched a surveillance program against Arab Americans, which Bill Clinton would take to an entirely new level, with the passage of the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), a precursor to the PATRIOT Act, and which, among other things, made it legal to deport immigrants based on secret evidence.

Up until the late 1990s, the demonization of Muslims through the legal apparatus was largely a domestic response to overseas events. Within the foreign policy established, however, there wasn’t a consensus that the “Islamic terrorist” would be the new post-Cold War enemy on the global stage.

Post-Cold War Politics

The 1990s witnessed a debate between what professor and Middle East expert Fawaz Gerghes refers to as the “confrontationists” and the “accomodationists” in the American foreign policy establishment. The confrontationists argued that Islamism was the new post–Cold War “Other” and that the US needed to confront and challenge this adversary in the “clash of civilizations” that was to follow.

The key ideologue leading this charge was Bernard Lewis (a close associate of the neocons), who penned his views in 1990 in a now-famous essay titled “The Roots of Muslim Rage,” in which he raised the alarm about an impending “clash of civilizations.” Samuel Huntington then popularized this concept in an essay titled “The Clash of Civilizations?” in Foreign Affairs, followed by a book with the same title (minus the question mark). Huntington put forward the thesis that in the new post–Cold War era, conflict would be characterized by cultural differences between various civilizations. He named about seven or eight such civilizations, arguing that the Islamic civilization was among the more dangerous threats to the West.

This view was reflected in a slew of other articles. Journalist Judith Miller argued in a Foreign Affairs article that US policymakers should not try to distinguish between “good” and “bad” Islamists because there was a consensus among all Islamists to defeat the West. Confrontation, rather than co-optation or dialogue, was the only way to thwart this new enemy. Daniel Pipes, Martin Indyk (who served on Bill Clinton’s National Security Council); Jeane Kirkpatrick (a one-time Democrat turned dogged Cold Warrior Republican), and others added their voice to this chorus. The “clash” thesis was not a partisan position; confrontationists belong to both political parties. The difference between the accommodationists and confrontationists was not over the goal of US hegemony, it was about strategy and rhetoric. During the 1990s, the accommodationist line dominated in Washington. The Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations sought to win over Muslim-majority countries by appealing to universal values and, under Clinton, neoliberal policies.

Domestically, however, the hysteria against Muslims mounted during this period. The fear generated by the attempted bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 ensured that in 1995, when white right-wing Christian terrorist Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people, Arabs and Muslims were immediately blamed. Congress then passed AEDPA in 1996. In short, even before the events of 9/11, the groundwork had been laid for the legalized targeting of Muslims and Arabs.

The “War on Terror” Decade

The events of 9/11 brought the legal apparatus into conjunction with the foreign policy establishment. Barely had the ashes settled from the Twin Towers when loud proclamations that “Islamic terrorists” represented existential threats to the United States began to echo in the public sphere. From then on, US policy was geared towards “keeping Americans safe” from Muslim “evildoers.” The “clash of civilizations” rhetoric became the ideological basis for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well domestic attacks on Muslims and Arabs.

The war on Iraq, however, did not go the way the neocons wanted it to. Instead of greeting US forces as liberators, the Iraqi people resisted and rejected US hegemony. During his second term, Bush moved away from “hard” power and toward winning “hearts and mind.” But by the end of his second term, the failing occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq—as well as an economic crisis of proportions not seen since the Great Depression—meant that it was time for a changing of the guards. Obama was voted into power by an electorate disgusted by the hubris and arrogance of the Bush regime. The ruling elite also gave him their blessing, hoping to put a friendlier face on US imperialism. The Democrats were ready and prepared to take on this role.

In January 2007, a leadership group on US-Muslim relations headed by Madeleine Albright, Richard Armitage (former deputy secretary of state under George W. Bush), and a number of academics, produced a document titled “Changing Course: A New Direction for US Relations with the Muslim World.” The document, which received high praise, argued that distrust of the United States in Muslim-majority countries was the product of “policies and actions—not a clash of civilizations.” It went on to argue that to defeat “violent extremists,” military force was necessary but not sufficient, and that the United States needed to forge “diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural initiatives.” The report urged the US leadership to improve “mutual respect and understanding between Americans and Muslims,” and promote better “governance and improve civic participation,” in Muslim majority countries. The report’s call to action stated that it would be vital for the next president to reflect these ideas in his/her inaugural speech and to reaffirm the US’s image as a just and democratic nation.

Barack Obama has proven brilliantly effective at embodying such a posture. In one of his first speeches, in Cairo, Obama rejected the “clash of civilizations” argument, emphasizing the shared common history and aspirations of the East and West. Whereas the “clash” discourse sees the West and the world of Islam as mutually exclusive and as polar opposites, Obama emphasized “common principles.” He spoke of “civilization’s debt to Islam,” which “pav[ed] the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment,” and acknowledged Muslims’ contributions to the development of science, medicine, navigation, architecture, calligraphy, and music. This was no doubt a remarkable admission for an American president, but one that Obama clearly saw as vital to bolstering the US’s badly damaged image in the “Muslim world.”  Indeed, this speech marked a significant rhetorical shift from the Bush era; a shift to the language of liberal imperialism and liberal Islamophobia.

The key characteristics of liberal Islamophobia are the rejection of the “clash of civilizations” thesis, the recognition that there are “good Muslims” with whom diplomatic relations can be forged, and a concomitant willingness to work with moderate Islamists. Liberal Islamophobia may be rhetorically gentler but it reserves the right of the US to wage war against “Islamic terrorism” around the world, with no respect for the right of self-determination by people in the countries it targets. It is the “white man’s burden” in sheep’s clothing.

“The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush’s father, of John F. Kennedy, and in some ways of Ronald Reagan,” Obama once said.[ii] Since taking office, he has embraced and expanded Bush’s second term policies. He has deployed 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan, expanded the war into Pakistan, tried to bully Iraq into granting an extension of the US occupation (which failed), extended drone attacks and “black ops” in Yemen and Somalia, and participated in the NATO-led war in Libya.

Domestically, Obama has continued Bush’s policies of torture, extraordinary rendition, and preemptive prosecution. American Muslims continue to be harassed and persecuted by the state. Obama has even gone further than Bush in several ways not only by securing the power to execute US citizens suspected of ties to terrorism without so much as a trial, but also by signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which, among other things, allows the military to detain “terror suspects” who are US citizens indefinitely without charge. His 2011 “counter-radicalization” strategy document elicits the help of Muslim American teachers, coaches, and community members, who are to be turned into a McCarthy-type informant system.

Liberal Islamophobia does not target all Muslims. It acknowledges that there are “good Muslims.” The report heaps praise on Muslim Americans who have cooperated with the state arguing that “we must counter al-Qa’ida’s propaganda that the United States is somehow at war with Islam” and instead affirm that “Islam is part of America, a country that cherishes the active participation of all its citizens, regardless of background and belief. We live what al-Qa’ida violently rejects—religious freedom and pluralism.” Obama added that “our rich diversity of backgrounds and faiths makes us stronger.” This is the modus operandi of liberal Islamophobia: to roundly reject Islam-bashing—and then proceed to institute proposals that target Muslims.

When representative Peter King held his McCarthy-style hearings in March 2011 to determine the extent of “Muslim radicalization” in the United States, he was rightly criticized by liberals. However, that August, when Obama institutionalized this process through his “counter-radicalization” strategy, there was nary a peep.

At the end of the day, the fear of “Islamic terrorism” is manufactured to grease the wheels of empire. Statistics show that Americans are more likely to die from lightning strikes and dog bites than an act of terrorism. In the ten years since 9/11, a comprehensive study shows that of the 150,000 murders in the US, 11 Muslim Americans, who were designated as “terrorists,” were responsible for the deaths of 33 others. Yet, this did not stop King from starting yet another hearing on Muslim American “radicalization” in June, 2012.

Complaining that his earlier work had been “vilified by the politically correct media, pandering politicians and radical groups” he squawked that his efforts were intended to “protect America from a terrorist attack.” While his anti-Muslim racism is thoroughly disagreeable, he is not incorrect when he states that this is a “non-partisan” issue and “of serious concern to national security and counterterrorism officials in the Obama administration.” Indeed. King is simply continuing what is a bipartisan policy with a long history. The mistake that progressives make is to focus on the most rabid Islamophobes, while giving liberal Islamophobia a pass. Whatever form it takes, racism should be called out for it is.

[i] Elaine Hagopian, “Minority Rights in a Nation-State: The Nixon Administration’s Campaign Against Arab Americans,” Journal of Palestine Studies, vol. 5, no. 1 / 2, Autumn 1975, 97–114, quote on pp. 100–101.

[ii] Ryan Lizza, “The Consequentialist,” The New Yorker, May 2, 2011.

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Obama’s Cairo Speech: A Rhetorical Shift in US Imperialism

Posted in Islamophobia, Obama, Orientalism, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

This piece appeared on the same day on MRZine and swoline

PREDICTABLY, BARACK Obama’s speech in Cairo came under hysterical criticism from the right. Sean Hannity screamed that Obama gave “sympathizers of 9/11” a voice on the world stage, Charles Krauthammer derided the apologetic tone, and Sen. James Inhofe called it “un-American.” At the same time, Bill O’Reilly called the speech a “big success,” and David Horowitz wrote that conservatives should support Obama on this.

What explains this strange schizophrenia among conservatives?

At root, Obama’s Cairo speech heralds a decisive shift in the rhetoric of U.S. imperialism. It marks a recognition that the virulent Islamophobic rhetoric of the Bush regime has failed, and that it is necessary to begin a process of rebuilding the U.S.’s image in Muslim-majority countries.

But if the speech marked a rhetorical shift, it did not chart new ground in terms of U.S. foreign policy. Instead, it signals the reemergence of liberal imperialism, packaged deftly and skillfully through the person of Barack Hussein Obama.

Sections of the conservative bloc recognize the need for this shift. 9/11 presented the neoconservatives with an alibi to unleash their vision of U.S. foreign policy. They seized this unprecedented opportunity to launch a program that would reshape the Middle East and establish a new Pax Americana. Ideas that were considered off the wall by the Bush Sr. and Clinton administrations, such as the “clash of civilizations” thesis, became dominant.

So all-encompassing were these ideas that even sections of the left accepted the notion that Muslim-majority nations were mired in backwardness, and that these nations, as well as domestic Muslim communities, needed to be modernized by an enlightened West (note, for instance, the arguments about bringing democracy to Iraq, banning the hijab under the guise of secularism, etc.). The lack of a principled anti-racist position within the mainstream antiwar movement then had serious consequences for Arabs and Muslims.

It is therefore important that we begin our assessment of Obama’s speech by acknowledging the shift away from Islamophobic rhetoric.

Rejecting the “clash of civilizations” argument, Obama emphasized the shared common history and common aspirations of the East and West. Whereas the “clash” discourse sees the West and the world of Islam as mutually exclusive and polar opposites, Obama emphasized “common principles.” He spoke of “civilization’s debt to Islam” because it “pav[ed] the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment,” and acknowledged the contributions made by Muslims to the development of science, medicine, navigation, architecture, calligraphy and music.

Obama then took on many of the myths that became commonplace after 9/11. Breaking with the notion that Islam is inherently violent, Obama emphasized, several times, Islam’s history of tolerance. He quoted from the Koran to show that Islam does not accept violence against innocent people, and pointed to the tolerance shown by Muslims in Spain during the violent period of the Christian Inquisition.

He observed that Indonesia, Bangladesh, Turkey and Pakistan—all Muslim-majority states—had elected women to leadership roles and added that “the struggle for women’s equality continues in many aspects of American life.” He thus cast aside the notion that the enlightened West inherently recognizes women’s rights.

He rejected the widely held view that women who wear the veil are “less equal,” stating that this should be a woman’s choice. And he argued against actions taken by Western nations to dictate what Muslim women should wear, stating: “We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.”

Obama subtly acknowledged the U.S.’s double standards. He admitted that the U.S. had acted contrary to its “ideals” by instituting torture. He also noted that one nation should not pick and choose who should have nuclear weapons, a reference to the U.S.’s opposition to Iranian nuclear ambitions and its lack of criticism of Israel’s nuclear arsenal.

He further admitted to the U.S. role in the overthrow of Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953, and to the ways that colonialism and the Cold War thwarted aspirations in other parts of the world. Marking a shift from the traditional one-sided emphasis on Israel’s problems, he described the Palestinians as a dispossessed people.

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YET AS significant as these comments are in challenging the racist and Islamophobic rhetoric under the Bush regime, Obama’s policy in the Middle East and South Asia does not signal a break with the policies of previous administrations. While there are minor points of difference with the Bush administration, Obama’s foreign policy stays within the broader framework of US imperial aims in the region.

Consistent with previous Democratic and Republican presidents going back to 1979, Obama views Iran’s independence from, and resistance to, U.S. dominance in the region as a problem. While he has called for a halt to further settlements in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, he champions a toothless two-state solution that emerged in policy circles in the U.S. in the early 1990s—and he says nothing about dismantling existing Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

In Iraq, he proposes to withdraw U.S. combat troops while leaving about 50,000 troops still in the country to maintain U.S. control. And in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Obama “Af-Pak” strategy has only increased U.S. troops and involvement in Afghanistan and created a massive refugee crisis in Pakistan, all to further its oil/natural gas interests and geopolitical aims in the region.

What Obama’s speech represents is a repackaging of U.S. imperial aims in liberal terms. It heralds a new rhetorical approach built on the ashes of the now widely discredited cowboy diplomacy of the Bush era.

This is why the speech earned praise from even right-wing hacks like David Horowitz. In an article titled, “Fellow conservatives, admit it: Obama gave a great speech,” Horowitz argues that Obama deserves support because he defended U.S. policy in relation to Israel and the Iraq and Afghan wars. Republican Sen. Richard Lugar similarly dismissed criticisms from Republicans, calling the speech a “signal achievement.” Speaking about the Middle East peace process Lugar stated that the speech tried to “strike some of the right notes rhetorically,” while it would have little impact materially.

Indeed, Horowitz and Luger are not alone in seeing the usefulness of such a rhetorical shift. Over the last few years, in response to the plummeting U.S. image around the world, and in Muslim-majority countries in particular, a section of the political elite has sought to find new approaches to bolstering America’s image.

One such effort got underway in January 2007 under the leadership of former Secretary of State Madeline Albright, former Deputy Secretary of State (under Bush) Richard Armitage, and others. The group published a document titled, “Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World,” which received high praise from political figures like Lugar, Howard Berman and Leon Panetta, and former generals like Anthony Zinni, among others.

The “Changing Course” document states in its opening pages that distrust of the U.S. in Muslim-majority countries is a product of “[p]olicies and actions—not a clash of civilizations.” It goes on to argue that to defeat “violent extremists,” military force is necessary but not sufficient, and that the U.S. needs to forge “diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural initiatives.” The report urges the U.S. leadership to improve “mutual respect and understanding between Americans and Muslims,” promote better “governance and improve civic participation,” and help “catalyze job creating growth” in Muslim countries.

The call to action stated that it would be vital for the next president to talk about improving relations with Muslim majority countries in his or her inaugural speech, and to reaffirm the U.S. “commitment to prohibit all forms of torture.” Obama has carried out these and other suggestions, and the Cairo speech reflects many of the themes raised in this report.

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YET BEHIND this liberal veneer of promoting “better understanding” and “mutual respect” is a report that in no way, shape or form attempts to “change course” on U.S. foreign policy objectives. Instead, it simply urges the use of more subtle and diplomatic means to achieve these aims.

It states that the U.S. should engage Iran while insisting that it conform to non-proliferation standards; create a path for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine; promote political reconciliation in Iraq and specify the U.S.’s long term goal; and renew an international commitment to stem the resurgence of extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In short, it promotes the goals of U.S. imperialism, but through means that mark a shift from the arrogant and unilateralist ways of the Bush regime.

It is no wonder then that Obama’s speech received a lukewarm reception in Muslim-majority countries. While some have understandably welcomed Obama’s gesture of goodwill and respect, many have expressed skepticism, asking Obama to match his words with deeds. The sentiment expressed in many newspaper editorials, and by ordinary people, is one that challenges Obama to change course in terms of foreign policy.

This should come as no surprise given the history of U.S. propaganda in Muslim-majority countries and the healthy skepticism that has been built up against it. To counter the influence of the Soviet Union and present the U.S. in a positive light, the U.S. developed an intensive propaganda strategy that included the use of posters, radio programs, books, pamphlets, intervening in school curricula, etc.

For instance, one short story distributed in Iran was about two boys, one who studied hard and was industrious, and the other who chose communism. Unsurprisingly, the latter met with an untimely death in a street demonstration, while the former prospered. Some of the more comical efforts include the USIS office in Iraq distributing posters of the Soviet Union depicted as a “greedy red pig,” complete with a hammer and sickle for a tail!

U.S. Cold War propaganda emphasized the Christian and religious roots of the U.S., in contrast to the godless atheism of the USSR. Concretely, this meant, for instance, the use by the U.S. embassy in Iraq of posters that featured photographs of Washington D.C.’s Islamic center, meant to depict the U.S. as an inclusive and tolerant nation. When Obama talks of a mosque in every state of the U.S., he is simply using already tried strategies.

Some of the key themes of Cold War propaganda in the Middle East involved portraying the U.S. as a beacon of freedom and democracy for the world, as a peace-loving nation, and as a friend of Islam in the “common moral front” against the USSR. Yet this propaganda could only be so effective, since the U.S.’s actions in toppling democratically elected regimes and supporting Islamists told a different story.

We in the U.S. need to develop a similar skepticism of imperial rhetoric. Liberal imperialism has a long history in the U.S. Starting with the Spanish-American War, political elites have argued that U.S. interventions in various countries were for humanitarian goals.

The U.S. claimed to be liberating the Cubans from Spain, yet they simply took over the reigns of power from the latter. Woodrow Wilson championed the right of nations to self-determination, but conveniently applied it only to the break-up of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian empires in his “fourteen points” program.

FDR claimed to be championing democracy during the Second World War, yet African Americans did not have the right to vote under Jim Crow laws. JFK claimed to want to “help” Third World countries to develop economically and to foster democracy, and created the Peace Corps for this purpose. Yet he sent more troops into Vietnam, and attempted to overthrow Castro through the “Bay of Pigs” invasion.

In short, the U.S., like all empires, has always sought to disguise its real aims behind fine-sounding phrases and goals. While Obama’s speech is a step forward in that it eschews the hate-filled Islamophobic rhetoric of the Bush regime, it does little for the real Muslims and Arabs who continue to face discrimination, harassment, rendition, torture, war and occupation.

To address these problems, a reinvigorated antiwar movement should use Obama’s rhetoric to build a struggle that can champion the rights of Arabs and Muslims around the world, and hold Obama accountable to his own words.

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Interview with Malalai Joya (MP-Afghanistan)

Posted in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, Islamic Fundamentalism, Malalai Joya, Obama, Taliban, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 10, 2009 | Leave a Comment »

This interview first appeared in Socialist Worker

WHAT HAS been the impact of the U.S. occupation and its puppet government on women in Afghanistan? Has the U.S. liberated Afghan women as it claimed it would?

FIRST, LET me say that after September 11, the U.S. government threw us from the frying pan into the fire. Over the last eight years, the U.S., under the banner of women’s rights and human rights, has occupied my country, and millions of men and women have suffered from injustice, insecurity, corruption, joblessness, poverty, etc.

But women have suffered more–for them, it is almost as if the Taliban was still in power. After the war, the U.S. brought to power these misogynist warlords called the Northern Alliance, who are just like the Taliban. These were the same people who ruled between 1992 and 1996, and they attacked women’s rights and human rights.

This time, wearing suits and ties, they have again have come into power with the help of the U.S. That’s why today’s situation for women is worse, especially in many of the provinces. It is true that in some big cities like Kabul, Mazari Sharif or Herat, you will see that some women have been able to get jobs and an education. But in most of the provinces, women do not even have basic human rights–the situation is like hell.

Today, killing a woman is like killing a bird. Even in big cities, women do not feel secure, and so most of them wear the burqa. I believe that the burqa is a symbol of oppression. Yet women have to wear them just to be safe. So the disgusting burqa today gives life.

Over the last eight years, women in my country have not even regained the limited rights that they enjoyed in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. During that time, women could wear any kind of clothes they wanted to, and they had jobs, they could walk freely on the streets, and they didn’t have to worry about being kidnapped or raped.

Then, the warlords attacked women’s rights, and the Taliban continued this. The U.S. brought the same misogynist warlords back, and the only difference between the Taliban period and now is that all of these crimes are happening in the name of democracy. The warlord misogynists who are in power cover up, in the name of democracy, countless cases of rape, violence against women, domestic violence, suicide, etc. And these sorts of attacks are increasing rapidly.

Let me give you a few examples of the situation for women. I think it will help people in the U.S. to understand the situation better.

For example, recently in Jowzjan province, a 25-year-old girl burned herself in a hospital. These sorts of suicides are becoming common. We recently got a report that there have been 600 such suicides. Also, a 5-year-old girl was killed by a 40-year-old man in Sar-e Pol province as she resisted his attempt to rape her. A 14-year-old girl was brutally gang-raped by three men, one of them the son of a member of the parliament. And this member of parliament, his name is Haji Payinda Mohammad, changed the age of his son in documents to show him to be less than 18, so he won’t be punished.

There are many examples like this. This is a crime against women. It’s fashionable for the media to say that it’s the Taliban, but these are not all the crimes of the Taliban–there are warlords as well who are continuing their fascism.

Today, Sharia law is guiding the laws that parliament has made. This is quite similar to the Taliban, and that’s because the warlords are mentally like the Taliban.

WHAT DO you think of the recent elections and of the government of President Hamid Karzai? And what about the man who was runner-up to Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah? If they formed a coalition government, what do you think would happen?

FIRST, LET me tell you, the election was just a showcase for the U.S. government. International observers have talked about widespread fraud. The so-called independent commission for the election says that around 1.3 million ballots were fixed. The actual number is higher.

There is no question that an election is the main sign of democracy in a country, but in Afghanistan, they have been betraying democracy for the eight years of the U.S. occupation.

Abdullah is the main candidate of the warlords, and he is seen as a war criminal in Afghanistan because of his activities between 1992 and 1996. Abdullah has been a part of Hamid Karzai’s parliamentary system. Karzai has compromised with people like Abdullah and many other warlords who now have key posts in Afghanistan. Neither will bring positive changes to the lives of men and women of my country.

Let me say to the people of the U.S.: an election held in the shadow of Afghan warlordism, drug-lordism, awful corruption and occupation forces has no legitimacy at all. People in my country say that the result of this election will bring back the same donkey, but with a new saddle. As the old saying goes, “It’s not important who’s voting, it’s important who’s counting.” That’s our problem.

RIGHT NOW, the Obama administration is trying to decide whether to go with a Pentagon recommendation to send tens of thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan. What would you like to say to Obama, and what do you think will happen if more troops are sent to Afghanistan?

MORE TROOPS will bring more conflict and more war. Obama’s foreign policy regarding Afghanistan is quite similar to that of the Bush administration. Bush is a war criminal, and now Obama wants to approach the moderate Taliban to join the government as well. There are no moderate Taliban–they are putting a soft name on these terrorists in order to bring them into power.

I think that the people of the U.S. would agree with us–democracy never comes from the barrel of a gun or through war. Also, Obama is really not being honest with the Afghan people.

First of all, Obama should apologize to my people and put Bush on trial in the international criminal court. Obama should stop arming the warlords, and he shouldn’t negotiate with the Taliban. We have many democrats and democratic-minded people in my country, and Obama should support them instead. If Obama were really to be honest with the Afghan people, he, together with the UN, would stop working with countries like Iran, Pakistan and Russia, who support the Taliban and these warlords.

Let me give my condolences to those families here who have lost their sons in Afghanistan. I would like to send condolences on behalf of my people, but I also ask them to please raise their voice against the wrong policies of the U.S. government. The troops are the victims of the policy of their government. The U.S. is spending taxpayer money and shedding the blood of its soldiers in support of an undemocratic corrupt mafia system.

WHAT DO you think about people in the antiwar movement in this country who now say that we shouldn’t speak out for U.S. immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan? They say that the U.S. should stay longer, because if it pulls out, the situation for women will get worse. What’s your message to them?

I THINK the people who are saying that should know that the people of Afghanistan do not want more troops in Afghanistan.

First of all, it is the right of my people to say that. Secondly, we believe that no nation can bring liberation to another nation. Today’s situation, this eight-year disaster, is a good example of what war and occupation does.

People also say that if the U.S. withdrew, there would be a civil war. My message to people who say that is that there already is a civil war, and as long as these troops are in Afghanistan, the worse the civil war will be.

The occupation forces are even bombing wedding parties. In Nuristan, 47 people, including the groom and bride, were killed. In a bombing in May in Farah province, 150 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. In Kunduz province, 200 civilians were killed, most of them women and children. After all of these war crimes, why haven’t they apologized?

We want occupation forces out of Afghanistan as soon as possible. They must end this tragedy of the so-called war on terror, which is war on innocent civilians. In the last eight years, fewer than 2,000 Taliban have been killed, and more than 8,000 civilians by U.S. forces. The occupation forces are not protecting my people or women–they are doing more harm.

They say they are bringing democracy to Afghanistan. In reality they have brought warlords and drug lords to power. They have allowed my country to become the center of drugs today. Even the White House says that the Taliban have become more powerful since the 2001 war. These medieval-minded men of the Taliban are destroying the country.

Today, we have two enemies in Afghanistan–the occupation forces, and the Taliban and warlords. If one of them is gone, it makes our task easier. Then we will have only one enemy to fight.

WHAT DOES the resistance or resistances to occupation look like in Afghanistan?

THERE ARE two kinds of resistances in Afghanistan. One is of ordinary, democratic-minded people, and the other is of the Taliban. Most ordinary people hate the Taliban, and so their resistance is not the resistance of the people.

Ordinary people have resisted in many provinces. They are demonstrating both against the occupation and against the Karzai government. For instance, I mentioned that in May in Farah province 150 people were killed by occupation forces, most of them women and children. In response to this, thousands of students in various provinces came out onto the streets to express their solidarity with the victims and to protest their killing. There are many such examples of students and others are resisting the occupation. This is happening in big cities–people are coming out onto the streets in Kabul and also in other provinces.

So there is resistance, but it isn’t that big. Why? Because people are tired from war, and they hate the warlords and the Taliban. But today, there is more resistance than there was eight years ago. People are starting to stand up against war crimes, and with the passage of time, I think they will stand up and resist more.

CAN YOU describe some of the secular and democratic groups and forces of the resistance in Afghanistan?

THERE ARE a lot of parties and democratic intellectuals who are risking their lives and struggling to challenge the corrupt warlord government.

RAWA [the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan] is one such group. I met a member of RAWA, Zoya, who told me about the problems and risks they take, and how they have to be underground. There are many such groups and people, but I would not reveal their names because of a lack of security. There have been many attempts on my life, and I don’t want to risk the life of anyone else. But it is these people who are the hope for the future.

WHAT HAS been your experience here in the U.S. as your speaking tour gets underway?

THERE IS a lot of support among people who have come to the meetings. People in the U.S. haven’t been told the correct story through the media. They’re told that Iraq was the bad war, and that Afghanistan is the good war. When they hear about the suffering of my people, some people cry–some have come up and hugged me and shown their support.

This isn’t my first trip to the U.S. When I was here earlier, I met a group of mothers who lost their sons in Afghanistan. They, too, hugged me and cried. Sometimes, people apologize for what their government is doing to my people. And I reply to them that they should not apologize, because it is their government that is responsible for this, and the government should apologize to them for its war crimes.

I have also come across rich Afghans–people who are enjoying their lives here in the U.S. They support the occupation and claim that the U.S. is bringing democracy and freedom to Afghanistan. They are wrong, and they don’t know what is really happening in Afghanistan. There are also some corrupt NGOs that support the occupation because they don’t want to lose their contracts and their projects. But most of the people at the meetings support the cause of my people.

My main message to the democratic people of the U.S. is that you are not the same as your government. You can support the Afghan people and ask Obama to do four things. First, end the occupation immediately–this is not a war on terror, this is a war on innocent civilians. Second, Obama must apologize to my people and deliver Bush to the International Criminal Court. Third, he should stop arming the warlords, and not negotiate with Taliban. Fourth, he should tell Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Uzbekistan and other countries that support Taliban and the warlords to stop.

My message to people in the U.S. is to put pressure on their government to support democratic-minded people in Afghanistan.

Transcription by Rebecca Anshell and Meredith Reese

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