Aby The Liberal

Aby December 3rd, 2008

According to a top Russian counter-terrorism expert, the recent terror attacks that took place in Mumbai and claimed over 130 human victims, has an indirect past American contribution to it. In the words of the former “Vympel” Afghan War veteran, Vladimir Klyukin:

The handwriting and character of the Mumbai events demonstrates that they were not ordinary terrorists. Behind this terrorist attack there are ‘Green Flag’ special operations forces, which were created by the Americans in Pakistan, just an year before the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, and in the initial period were under full US control. For such guerilla operations, at least two-three years of preparatory work with the involvement of experienced instructors is required. People from the streets, without any planning and training are simply not able to hold four big complexes in a city so long…

 

The report was made in the Indian newspaper, The Times of India via an Interfax release from Moscow on 30th November, 2008. Delving into this statement, it becomes clear why the United States and Pakistan are so eager to help Indian authorities in investigating this attack. The Cold War allies have a good reason not to want any third party close scrutiny of these terror attacks, in case something unsavoury comes up.

A short documentary on the CIA-Mujahideen nexus during the Soviet-Afghan war of 1980s. Short term ‘gains’ for long term horrors.

While the American association with radical Islamists during Cold War era is widely known and well documented, both the US government and intelligence agencies repeatedly deny their involvement with the Islamic mujahiden. Unfortunately for the CIA, the “plausible deniability” doesn’t sell well among a lot of internationalist Americans, as is evident by their criticism of the 9/11 commission report.

The rest of the general American populace is either disinterested or unable to believe that their own governments helped radicalize, motivate, arm, and deploy the various groups of ‘Mujahedin’ that now plague South Asia. Perhaps they have more faith in the claims of “intelligence failure” by the their government, which is more of an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

• Internationalism , Military , Violence , World Politics
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Aby December 1st, 2008

Lately, a popular belief among Americans is that since Obama has been elected President, all forms of ‘anti-Americanism’ around the world should disappear. They appear to hold on to the belief that anti-Americanism is a direct and isolated consquence of the Bush administration as foreigners “can’t seperate the American people from their government”. The very implication that foreigners are incapable of making such a simple judgement is one of the reflectors of American arrogance - they very thing that foreigners dispise (rather than the Bush administration).

Americans try to explain why they are hated around the world.

However, instead of trying to understand that it takes two hands to clap, Americans have taken to blaming all anti-Americanisms on the rest of the world, once they realised that Bush’s demise didn’t change the scene. They have come up with rather simplistic explanation to blanket global anti-American sentiments attributing it to jealousy, hatred, insecurity and a myriad of other ‘problems’.

Like the erstwhile Nazis or Islamists, these people have caught on an ‘victim complex’, believing that  since they are vicitimised, extreme nationalism is the only way to go. One of such groups is run by a 40-year old blogger who calls herself virgomonkey, who apparently lost her job to an offshored Indian call center worker. Her writings mostly consist of posts that show how America is better than every other nation some way or the other and how Americans are hated because they are ‘more honest, self-critical, open minded and free’ than all other peoples. A lot of her articles crosslink to her own previous posts as ‘evidence’ or on facebook satire groups to show ‘how the entire world hates America for no fault of ours”. She came to my notice after a series of insulting comments and spam emails asking me to check out her site, before starting an attention seeking ‘blog war’ claiming that we are in some sort of ‘conspiracy’ to malign her. She has her share of supporters and sympathisers - other frustrated American nationalists like her. And yet she wonders why some Europeans take unkindly towards her and her type…

While most of these people have an understandable reason to feel frustrated, what most of these people fail to realise is that there is no simplified ’cause’ for someone to dislike Americans. Anti-Americanisn is not a comprehensive or coherent belief system or ideology that people hold on to, but rather a series of criticisms and prejudices regarding America that have haphazardly been labelled ‘anti-Americanism’.

A person might dislike United States or Americans for numerous reasons - ranging from irrational phobia of American people or a dislike of American policies or even a general aversion to American behaviours (like the one mentioned above). While the former might be a discriminatory reflex of cultural stereotypes against Americans, the latter is often a consquence of the “ugly American syndrome” - a term given for unpleasant experiences with American people. (A previous article gives a few examples of such negative experiences.)

By sticking to nationalism and preaching extreme nationalist ideals amongst themselves, all they are doing is fuelling the very fire for which Americans are disliked - their blind nationalism. Rather, they could try to connect to foreign people like we all do, by being genuinely appreciating their cultures, life and all that they have achieved. If I were to tell an Angolan farmer that that eating cassava instead of bread is savage and they are too stupid to speak French, I can’t blame him to start being unkindly to me (or to my countrymen either).

• America , Internationalism , World Culture , World Politics
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