Selective morality in fighting terrorism

Mano RATWATTE

The young generation of Iraq is undergoing traumatic experience. AFP

Sri Lankans should pay attention to some of the political and national security related issues that are in play in the USA at present. They should specially pay attention when self-appointed western morality Viceroys who are just government servants whose salaries are paid by tax- paying Americans of all ethnicities pontificate and berate Sri Lanka when the US practices something entirely different when dealing with its enemies.

It is now beyond any doubt the US used torture as a tool extensively in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Obama administration is in a dilemma and caught in a political battle that will only harm them in the eyes of the American public. A vast majority of so called Evangelical Christian Americans support torture and war and even the death penalty. These supporters are vociferously against President Obama. Obama is trying to walk a tightrope balancing national security interests versus some of his far liberal campaign promises to investigate torture in the name of national security.

A different tune

During the Bush-Cheney years some of these officials would have to insist to gullible Sri Lankans in Colombo who seem to adore all things American, that “There was no torture.” or no mass arrests. Come January 20 and now the Attorney General of the US wants to investigate torture and the same officials who had to spin the Bush - Cheney years have had to sing a different tune. I be the US Ambassador would have stood before adoring Colombo’s English speaking elite and say “US does not torture” without blinking an eyelid. That is his job. He did it extremely well and he would have no choice but to spin the events in favour of the USA.

In recent weeks, investigations into abuse and excesses in Iraq, reveal that mercenaries of the infamous Blackwater (now renamed Xe) group carried out a lot of extra judicial killings. In one notorious incident On September 16, 2007, Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square, Baghdad. They covered this up for a long time and it is only coming to light because of a NYTIMES bestseller book. The excuse is that “this happened in the heat of battle” where the enemy was not clear.

Blackwater/Xe is a group led by an extremist Christian Supremacist named Erik Prince with close ties to Republicans. He has made a lot of donation to Christian organizations and radical Christians. He is open about his views about killing Moslems and the moral superiority of Christian crusades.

Blackwater continues to get massive contracts from the US Government under President Obama to provide mercenary services in Iraq and Afghanistan. Why? Because they protect American national interests and they do a good job of it even though they get paid a lot more money than an average soldier.

‘Contractors’

It helps the US image in the sense people back in the US think that soldiers are being brought home while in fact the mercenaries are doing a lot more work than before. In fact, President Obama has increased the number of contracts given to Blackwater/Xe in Afghanistan. Both in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are more civilian security mercenaries so benignly known as “contractors” carrying out extra-judicial killings.

To circumvent US laws, the Bush-Cheney administration contracted them to assassinate top Al-Qaeda leaders because the CIA is prevented by laws passed by Congress before 9/11.

Barack Obama	George Bush	Dick Cheney

US Order 12333 prohibited the act of state-sponsored killings by US forces. This Order, which was drafted in the mid-1970s in the wake of revelations of US Government involvement in plots to kill several foreign leaders during the cold war (there is no surprise there given US involvement in installing tin-pot dictators and overthrowing even democratically elected regimes such as the one in Iran in 1953), has been maintained by every administration since President Ford. However, there have been several attempts by Congress to override Executive Order 12333 in the aftermath of 9/11/2001.

If the US wants to use Blackwater/Xe to circumvent laws at the behest of the Executive branch of Government and proceed to assassinate Al-Qaeda leaders it may help them secure the US and win the war against terrorism.

In Iraq, the US army also held incommunicado over 100,000 men of combat age on mere suspicion of being linked to rebels for over six years. There was no evidence against most of them. They were only partially released in late 2008. Please take a look at the time span and compare that to Sri Lanka’s dilemma. Why were they rounded up? they were rounded up in the battle zones in Iraq and were suspected of being linked to anti-occupation forces and terrorists. They did not have access to lawyers or to their families.

Safeguarding young men

Even today, the US is holding over 20,000 people inside Iraq despite Iraqi Government protests. Why? because all patriotic Americans including Robert O Blake will value the safety of American soldiers and will do what is necessary to safeguard their young men in harm’s way, and their national security. They will do anything (and have done so) necessary to protect those interests.

The number of civilian casualties in the initial invasion by the US and British predominantly Caucasian Christian forces ran into tens of thousands. The subsequent instability and sectarian strife caused by the foolish rush to war, led to tens of thousands more dead (Lancet), two million refugees in Jordan and Syria and a million IDPs still languishing inside Iraq.

Denigrating genuine efforts

The US does not want the world to discuss these issues. International media and Sri Lanka’s western funded fundamental rights activists will never challenge them lest they lose their lucrative paycheques that enable to keep denigrating all genuine efforts by the Armed Forces and democratically elected Government of Sri Lanka to protect the majority of its citizens from future acts of terrorism and war.

Loyal American Government servants will defend and lie on behalf of the US Government and there is nothing wrong in doing that.

US troops deployed in Iraq seen on Baghdad streets. AFP

For example, a patriotic American such as former Ambassador and new Assistant Secretary of State Robert O’ Blake will have no choice but to prevaricate on behalf of the US government of the day vis-a-vis the politics of torture, invasions, and mass detentions. However, the US Government does not always represent the views of the American people.

A majority of Republicans and Christian evangelists tend to be blood thirsty and support war and torture (this was revealed in a recent poll) and they hate Arabs; the liberal left and pacifists are against those and sometimes tend to be very impractical about safeguarding national security interests.

If the Obama administration starts to investigate allegations against the CIA it will boomerang against him in the polls. Former Vice President Cheney is already accusing President Obama of lowering national security.

Now what has that got to do with Sri Lanka? Sri Lankan officials should use international forums to expose the duplicitous stance taken by the US in recent months and take it to the American people. They would not like the fact that the US tried to intervene to bail out terrorists and even wanted to send in the Marines to Sri Lanka to bail out a group that is proscribed in the US.

How would Americans like it if Sri Lanka were to tell them to negotiate with Bin Laden and offer to send him to a “neutral third party nation” ? Call their bluff. So US is a nation which has used and continues to use all and any means necessary to fight its enemies both domestic and foreign, but decides to pontificate to Sri Lanka which has only won its military battle against Tigers this year. Why aren’t more Sri Lankan intellectuals standing up to these obvious cases of moral duplicity?