How to justify a war

Bismillahirahmanirahim.

So what was I saying? In his recent lecture, Prof. Michael Oren argued that the Middle-East(yeah, right I will get to that in a bit.) played a significant role in the transformation of the 13 colonies to a united, federal State with a constitution. It is quite remarkable that someone would take such a revisionist approach. In his own words, Prof. Oren's sole motivation for this research was bridging the worlds that he lives in and belongs to. Knowing that he is a veteran for Israeli paratroopers in Lebanon War(meaning that he first-handedly took part in the genocide of around 2000 Muslims and forced migration of thousands more), I somehow doubt this peaceful purpose. A person who can kill innocent civilians in cold blood sure can lie in front of a crowd of around 100 people with a straight-face.

Before I begin analyzing his whole argument, I want to point out that even writing a blog on such non-sense is an insult to all things Middle-eastern, my apologies. The locations of the Barbary pirate states (Morocco, Tunis, Algeria and Tripoli which is sort of equal to Modern Libya) that Mr. Oren talked about in his whole lecture are NOT in the Middle-East. Not by any stretch of imagination. Obviously having that many degrees (both undergraduate and graduate) Prof. Oren is not stupid, so this is quite an intentional "mistake". This whole rationality adds whole another degree(no pun intended) to his already suspicious argument.

In the beginning of his lecture, Mr. Oren pointed out that in the wake of 9/11 (I am getting the picture by now) the study of Middle-East transformed from a matter of academic curiousity to a matter of national survival. At this same point, his mention of Iran's recent nuclear program added so much more to his stance. By that time, my guess that this lecture was going to circle around the ever dreaded T-word was confirmed. The War-on-Terror rhetoric gets tiring fast, but hey at least Mr. Oren is bringing us a whole new approach. Let's look through the history, find out how evil Muslims are, prove that they have always been terrorists to justify the wars, the killing of innocent people, stealing of their country's natural resources to fill Cheney & co.'s pockets, wiping their countries off the map in the name of regime change.

So according to Mr. Oren these pirates were all Muslims and were considering themselves Mujahedeen and they were out on a mission to kill and enslave Americans (who they saw as Christians). Which makes them equals to the "terrorists" of today in Mr. Oren's eyes. The rationality is quite shaky. These people are pirates to begin with, to think that religion actually was taking a very important part of their daily life is quite to ridicilous to even consider. Most of these pirates were also renegades who were raised as Christians, but for several reasons escaped their country and recently converted to Islam under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. But yeah, their Christian upbringing and unlawful past in their home countries are of course not to blame for their actions. It is a recent phenomenon in US politics. When in doubt, blame Islam. This confused individual takes the easy path, too. Oren's direct comparison of the events doesn't stop here.

Mr. Oren argues, while the European powers(mainly Britain and France in this case) were paying tribute and avoiding any confrontation, United States took a "revolutionary" step to fight the Barbary pirates. This is after spending up to 1 million dollars in tribute to Algiers for 15 years and after these payments in ransom and tribute reached 20% of the States's annual revenue of course. I would call this more like desperate rather than revolutionary. Mr. Oren added that even though US tried to gather an international coalition, no country from Europe was into the idea and France rejected outright(Oren's sarcastic tone on France inspired quite a few laughs in the room. Apparently being anti-French always wins you several political points in the US, it is the cool thing to do!). Back then surprisingly the US Congress had some sense, so they rejected the idea of unilateral action for "regime change" in Algeria, because it was against the non-interventionist principle which was deeply rooted in the country's political tradition at that point. This is around 1786. Apparently Thomas Jefferson (slave-owner) was really active for the interventionist cause at that time. I guess he couldn't stomach Africans(yeah Mr. Oren, NOT Middle-Easterners) enslaving white people. Can you imagine the poor guy's frustration?

Of course Mr. Oren's story ends up with American victory in the early 1800s with the Barbary Wars, which were "economically not worth it, but very important for American pride". If there is one parallel to be drawn to modern day, I guess this is really it. The amount of money that the Bush administration has spent in Iraq(217 billion dollars and still rising) could have been spent on various other fields including education, welfare and health care. Not to mention other ways the country could have benefited from the 2000+ young Americans who lost their lives serving on a mission to fill certain pockets with money. Unfortunately Mr. Oren, the people living in the Black and Latino ghettos today can't eat your self-imposed "American Pride". "American Pride" doesn't pay for their college education. You can't qualify governmental contracts to Cheney's Halliburton as "re-building effort" or "humanitarian relief" anymore. You can't qualify missionary activities as "free education". Mr. Oren and his fellow neo-cons are spending the money and resources that belong to the American, Iraqi and Afghani people to fill their own pockets. Mr. Oren is on a mission to justify the wars and legitimize them by providing a false historical context. How long will it take for the people of America to realize what is happening and stand against it?


Assalamu-alaikum wa rahmatuAllah wa barakatu

V.