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