Global Peace and Security | Dr Mahboob A Khwaja

WARS and societal conflicts do not end with political statements. The mankind is fraught with painful experiences of the unwanted two World Wars. The perpetrators escape the consequences pushing humanity into unthinkable disasters generations after generations. A war of words and conveniently arrived erotic hypothesis of the few sadistic warlords on complex global issues are draining out the positive energies, time and opportunities for peaceful dialogue towards conflict prevention and conflict management. If Israel and the PLO had moral and intellectual capacity to talk and reconcile, the killings and stabbing of innocents could have been averted by ending the occupation and coming to terms with the two-state solution.

While Israelis and Palestinians live in open prisons of mutual fear and hatred, their leaders compete for numbers in opinions polls and are unable to provide proactive leadership role for conflict resolution. Likewise, the sectarian conflicts in Syria and Iraq require moral and intellectual foresights and creative strategies to strike peaceful conclusion. Ironically, America, Russia and few West Europeans are competing in bombing the civilians and causing unthinkable losses of life and destruction of human infrastructures across the Arab world.

Under the UNO Charter, the member states are prohibited to intervene in the internal affairs of another member state. The hard lessons learnt from the WW-II are flagrantly ignored by the leading superpowers. None of the leading aggressors care about the UN principles and obligations to support global security and peace. Russia and the US and other hired allies are bombing Syria and Iraq and other areas of the Arabian heartland. The displacement of people and forcible expulsion of civilian population is reminiscent of the Palestinian expulsion in 1948. The continuous bombing of Syria and Iraq is destroying the environment and the productive earth forever. Do the Superpowers care about human life and sustainability of futuristic generations?

The ISIL excuse is self- deceptive and on paper only. At issue is the extension of military operations to safeguard the Bashar Al-Assad dictatorship in Syria and to further disintegrate the Arab states adjoining Syria and Iraq. What should have been alarming to the UN Security Council is not even discussed in the current sessions. Ostensibly, UNO is powerless without the participation of the five permanent members of the Security Council. Ironically, how irrational is the systematic built-in inequality whereby the UN Charter calls for equality of all the member states. Large scale forcible displacement of refugees and vulnerability of civilian population, sectarian war-mongering and daily aerial bombings of Syria and Iraq draw no challenge from the UNO leadership – the body responsible for global peace and security. Why the UN Security Council cannot intervene and stop the emerging bloodbath between Israel and Palestine?

The UN is obliged to work out two-states solution between Israel and Palestine. The call is urgent to have peacemakers on the ground to restore normalization of human affairs when animosity is inflicting inhuman policies and behaviours. What if the US and Britain come out of the political cynicism and make a genuine call to end the occupation and arrange the two states co-existence? Has the UNO been a futile experiment in modern history? Has the UNO been just a window dressing to deceive and destroy the mankind all over the world?

Across America and the EU political and economic power houses, common citizens were led to believe that America and EU as one powerful group of influential agents possessing unchallenging strength in global power and intelligence hub, are not necessarily marginalized by Russia or any other countries in the world. If Russia would dare to challenge the American-EU strategic psyche, the invincible armies would rush to challenge the Russian might and interference. Courageously, President Putin has marched into Syria and Iraq to counteract the US policies and operations. If this is not humiliating to the US and the EU military stance, what else could be defined as an insult to common sense? Could President Obama and the Europeans accept Putin as winner before losing the face in a politically sensitive global culture? If this is not shameful, how else could they lead when they are victims of their own obsession and a failure on the competing war front? It was widely held that after the collapse of the former USSR, American would not tolerate any rising challenge to its principal objective of strategic hegemony all over the globe. How much more America and its allies could lose once Russia achieves its policy aims in just few weeks comparing to what the US and coalition could not attain in five years. One obvious outcome is clear that Western strategic interests are not at risk as long as deaths and destruction are inflicted on the Arab people and their habitats.

Felicity Arbuthnot (“Syria: Russian Intervention Exposes Coalition Lies.” Global Research: 10/7/2015), is an award winning international journalist with special knowledge of Iraq. Author, with Nikki van der Gaag, of Baghdad in the Great City series for World Almanac books, and she provides a descriptive imagery of the prevalent realities: A mirror image of Basra, Iraq, exactly ten years ago, September 2005, when British Special Forces, dressed in Arab clothing, were arrested by Iraqi police in an explosive laden car. Had the car detonated, “Iraqi insurgents” would, of course, have been blamed. The British military demolished the police station in order to free the would-be bombers.

How many were not caught and “insurgency” for which Iraqis were blamed, killed, tortured, was actually “made in Britain” and the US, as Syria now?……. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov is anything but selective about the head chopping, culture erasing monsters besieging Syria – CIA trained or not – stating last week: “If it looks like a terrorist, if it acts like a terrorist, if it walks like a terrorist, if it fights like a terrorist, it’s a terrorist, right? Syria, from lies, to heartbreak, to culturaldestruction has become a microcosm of the demented, ridiculous “war on terror.” The lies and subterfuge to justify the horror have become more desperate but only the most obtuse can avoid noticing that terrorists are US.

To dispel pride and prejudice, the global community prefers a new approach to tackle the current political problems. When facts of life warrant a change, concerned intelligent leaders must find navigational change. The Arab leaders are victims of their own authoritarian obsession enhanced by militarization of the region and being puppets to the Western policy aims. Their political incapacity is joined by complacency, and the outcome is the worst combination of loss of human life, foreign aggression and destruction of the environment. This has impact on degeneration and failure to resolve the Palestine conflict with Israel. The oil-generated economic prosperity was used by the West to destroy the inner consciousness and moral and intellectual heritage of the Arab people.

Their egoistic instinct facilitated foreign interventions to undermine the societal peace and sectarian harmony. Sigmund Freud (Civilization and its Discontents, 1930) noted it correctly: “the inclination to aggression is an original self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man, and that it constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.” The aggression of wars goes on unabated across the Arab Middle East. Those claiming to be concerned with hydrocarbon emissions and greenhouse effects on the planet must realize that they are committing heinous crimes against the humanity by bombing and using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq. The need is urgent to establish a new global organization of the people, by the people and for the people. Such an effort should be a rational approach to replace the UNO debating club. This should provide hope and optimism to the present and future generations to imply means and strategies befitting to the aspirations of the global humanity. All wars have ripple effects for the mankind.

There is growing trend of “Big Thinking” in American politics and policies. Throughout its evolving history of over two centuries, the US government has been continuously engaged in more than 220 wars. What a tragedy and loss to human thinking, intellect and values! Confronting the major paradoxes of history as Arnold Toynbee (A Study of History), described warriors as dreamers devoid of moral and intellectual imagination… when they come close to stagnation they jump to irrational outbursts and conclusions about the facts of life. Wrong people, glued to wrong thinking, do the wrong things without any rational sense of time, people’s interest and history.

—The writer specializes in global security, peace and conflict resolution.

Source: http://pakobserver.net/detailnews.asp?id=277560