Wolfowitz's reality

Wolfowitz's reality

The address to the Asia Security Conference by U.S. Deputy
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, published in The Jakarta
Post on June 5 and June 6, was, I assume, intended as a morale
booster and, therefore, one should not be surprised by its lack
of intellectual rigor.

However, Wolfowitz comes across as having watched one too many
of Hollywood's Batman, Superman or Spider-Man films, and he seems
obsessed with a Green Goblin in the form of Muslim terrorists.
The speech is full of unsubstantiated and rather incredible
generalizations and overstatements including, "the scourge of
terrorism" is a "global threat", "Muslims in East Asia are among
the principal targets of the terrorists", the U.S. is defending
"freedom, justice and peace", terrorists (though never defined)
are out to impose a "medieval, intolerant and tyrannical way of
life" and the Afghans "met their liberation with such joy".

Strangely, Wolfowitz holds up Turkey as a model of "freedom
and justice" in the Muslim world and patronizingly declares the
obvious: "The Islam of Muhammad is not the religion of bin Laden
and suicide bombers".

As U.S. and British arms manufacturers descend on an India
readying itself for war, Wolfowitz declares "our relationship
with India has entered a new era". He claims "support from close
to 70 nations" for America's "war against terrorism". But, just
as after the Gulf War, it remains to be seen how many of these
were coerced into participation by the threat of economic
sanctions, World Bank or IMF noncooperation, or military attack.

Wolfowitz even has the audacity to quote Churchill to give the
impression that the current campaign of the U.S. is aimed at
preventing war. In reality, of course, tensions in the highly
combustible Middle East have worsened and arms manufacturers
around the world are having a field day.

Oddly, in that great land of illusions, which accounts for 40
percent of what the entire world spends on arms, terrorists are
perceived to represent a military threat greater than that which
even the paranoid in the U.S. deemed the former Soviet Union to
be. Maxima bella ex levissima causis?

FRANK RICHARDSON

Tangerang, Banten