2002: A year of attack on Islam

http://www.irna.com/en/head/021231155438.ehe.shtml

Brussels, Dec 31, IRNA -- You ask any Muslim on the streets from the Atlantic shores of Morocco to the archipelago of Indonesia what or who is the main target of America's war on terror and he will not think twice before answering, "Islam and Muslims."

Just a few days after the 11 September terror attacks in New York and ashington, US President George W. Bush warned Americans that "this crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take awhile."

President Bush's pronouncement that he would wage a crusade against terrorism outraged the Muslim World which had strongly condemned the 11/9 attacks.

In the Muslim mind, crusades are associated with imperialist military operations launched by Christian knights to capture al-Qods in the Middle Ages in the course of hundreds of years.

As one Muslim commentator wrote,

"how different, Muslims wonder, is Bush's call for a global crusade from Bin Laden's call for a global jihad"

Early in year 2002, Bush announced his infamous "axis of evil" that included two Muslim countries, Iran and Iraq, besides North-Korea. Even Europeans were shocked at this evil designation given the fact that not one of the 11/9 attackers came from these countries.

After the 11/9 attacks, Islam and Muslims have become the object of a campaign of vilification unparalleled in history.

In the US, Christian preachers are outdoing each other on insulting the Prophet and Islam.

Muslims and Arabs are being humiliated, insulted and arrested at whim. Also in Europe, raids against mosques and homes of Muslims are regular news in the media.

The sheer geographical extent of the assault on Islam, spanning from the US to Europe and to the East in China, is astounding.

America's "war on terror" has heightened conflict, tension, and instability all over the globe.

Even those Muslim leaders considered by the West as "moderates" like prime minister of Malaysia Dr Mahathir Mohammad said that in the aftermath of September 11 all Muslims had been regarded by the West as potential terrorists and abused, penalised and humiliated .

Mahathir has warned that the United States and its allies are locked in a clash of civilisations with the Islamic world that will lead to increased global terrorism.

The decade-old prediction of Harvard scholar Samuel Huntington, that the "fault lines between civilisations" would become the battle lines of the future, was now a reality.

"Typically, the Western solution is to physically fight against the enemy, the Islamic civilisation, the Muslims... They have made no effort to win the hearts and minds of Muslims, but have done everything to alienate them, anger and frustrate them," said Mahathir.

Under the pretext of the "war against terror" the US is expanding its military presence in the Muslim world.

The United States has now extended its base in Kuwait and other Persian Gulf Arab states. The Afghanistan intervention has left

American bases in that country, and in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Parallel with its military crusade, the US has decided to spend millions of dollars to launch a cultural crusade to teach Muslims the values of "western democracy".

In other words, Muslims fear, the cultural crusade is aimed at alienating them from their Islamic roots and civilization.

According to opinion polls conducted in the West, dislike of the USA has risen in the last year, especially in Muslim countries where pro-US regimes are in power , such as Pakistan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

In Palestine, US support to the Zionist regime's military repression and oppression of the Palestinians has crossed all limits of rationale behaviour.

As an Egyptian writer, Kareem M. Kamel, wrote: In the Middle East, Arabs and Muslims are subjected to unparalleled subordination and marginalization in the global system.

"In the event of war, all considerations of Arab or Islamic national security would be compromised , yet, strangely enough, Arab regimes are cooperating with, rather than resisting, US plans. "

Unfortunately, the primary victim of the proposed war would be the average Arab or Muslim citizen, who would face a destructured and demoralized world where his/her position is determined by a foreign intruder.

"Washington is envisioning a long military occupation of Iraq. The frontiers of the Islamic World are under siege," warned Kamel.