a view from Pakistan worth reading

[Doug Millison]

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/ayaz/ayaz.htm

"[...] If the US is so concerned about 'radical Islam' and 'illiberal'
governments then it should be calling for democracy throughout the Muslim
world. But that is none of its concerns. The kings and sheikhs of the
region suit it fine because its primary interests in the Middle East, as it
takes no clairvoyant to see, are oil and the Israeli connection. Everything
else, including the wishes of the House of Saud, is subordinate to these
twin considerations.
Nor should any illusions be on offer about the future direction of American
policy. September 11 has led to no passion for introspection on America's
part. If anything, it has triggered a militant mood accompanied with cries
of retribution for the attacks. The devastating effect of American
firepower, leading to the collapse of the Taliban, has merely reinforced
the belief in American omnipotence, that nothing is beyond the reach of
American power.
It's not that some of us overestimated the courage and fortitude of the
Taliban. When the enemy was visible they fought bravely. Many of us got the
new face of war wrong--a war as radical in its impact on the future as the
invention of gunpowder, the rifle or the tank-- in the words of the London
Observer, "... a war where men--or women--seated thousands of miles away
can track the enemy's every move and then destroy them with a few strokes
of a keyboard.
It is a war where a whole country can be put under intense surveillance
without being occupied..." The meaning of guerrilla war has changed in this
conflict. The Tora Bora mountains and caves were said to be unreachable and
therefore impregnable. After the American air strikes on them, who will say
the same again?
This is no setting for humility. After savouring the fruits of revenge in
Afghanistan, the US wants to extend this same hi-tech war to other places.
Iraq promises to be the next target. After that, who knows?
But this triumphalism is no endorsement of justice. As the West adopts a
patronizing attitude to the Muslim world and preaches the virtues of
secularism, let us remember that over the past 60 years the greatest threat
to secularism in the Muslim world has come from the West. Of course we
should not have accepted this state of affairs. But that's a different
story.  "