War Criminals and Muslims

By Dr. Aslam Abdullah, Muslim Media News Service (MMNS)

Despite the fact that Congress is controlled by Democrats, the country is still run by those who can easily be termed as war criminals who during the last seven years have used every trick in the trade to deceive people and kill innocents.

During the last seven years, the Bush Administration has engineered, planned and executed strategies that have resulted in the killing of thousands of innocent people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Latin America and Pakistan. The irony is that no one among the civilized world leadership has challenged the leadership of its criminal involvement in the murder and mayhem.

The Bush Administration is still hailed by the Afghani, Pakistani, and Iraqi governments as well as those in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf as the most humane administration. Even though the leaders of these countries have acknowledged that their people have suffered due to US intervention or military action, yet they call Bush Administration as the most caring and God-fearing administration.

In Afghanistan some 40,000 people are reported to have been killed. In Iraq, some three quarters of a million people have been killed. In Pakistan, during the last 7 years, some 15,000 people have been killed in the violence resulting from the instability in the region and in Latin America scores of people have been murdered. In the words of Administration, they are collateral damages and their killing was necessary for humanity as it would teach the terrorists a big lesson. The Bush Administration has failed to take out any big terrorist targets. Its policies have only hurt the civilians and ordinary people.

It is time we start calling the spade a spade. Saddam’s exit was necessary but the way the Bush administration has engineered the military campaign in Iraq must be condemned.

Muslim leaders have failed to highlight this apparent violation of human rights by the Bush Administration.

During the last seven years, scores of Muslim leaders in the US and abroad have supported the Bush administration, welcomed Cheney and others with open arms, and endorsed the policies that the Pentagon has pursued in Afghanistan and Iraq. During the last seven years, many Muslim leaders have given more importance to expediency than to principles.

It seems that that many Muslims are afraid of being branded as Bin Laden sympathizers or supporters if they oppose the US presence in Afghanistan or Iraq or its military presence in several countries. In fact, opposition to war-making applies equally to present US war-policy and also to past travesties by Bin Laden.

Muslims ought to speak up the way the supporters of war criminals are speaking up. For the last seven years, the Muslims–especially those in the US–have lived in perpetual fear.

They are being hushed up by those who argue that any opposition to the Bush Administration would stigmatize Muslims and make us seem to be fifth columnists.

It is time that we Muslims piped up and opposed this war openly and vocally challenged the Administration on its policies in Iraq and Afghanistan and the entire Muslim world.

Our silence is an endorsement of the present bellicose administration policies.

Many of our Muslim organizations either supported Bush in the last two elections or preferred to remain neutral. This is an administration that does not deserve silence or support. We must peacefully but vocally oppose this administration, whose hands are wet with blood.

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