At the reception desk of the War-Against-Terror Coalition, there lies an application formfor new partners. After stating his name, country and function (king / president / emir /dictator / tyrant), the applicant is invited to answer the question: “Do you have localopponents that you wish to have branded as terrorists and dealt with accordingly?”
Nearly all the applicants so far have answered this question with great enthusiasm. VladimirPutin designated the Chechnyian rebels, Spain mentioned the Basque ETA, Turkey the Kurds,India the Kashmiris, just to mention a few of a long list. In short, every potentate, big andsmall, pointed a finger at the people he oppresses, hoping that the United States will help himget rid of their war of liberation. “Send in the big bombers,” they beg, “and blow thesemiserable terrorist bandits sky-high!”
All this might remind students of history of events nearly 200 years ago. After the downfall ofNapoleon, the tyrant who promoted liberty throughout Europe, the rulers of the continentdecided to set up an insurmountable wall to any further aspirations of national and socialliberation. “All this nonsense about democracy, freedom, equality and constitutions has tostop once and for all,” they told each other.
And so in 1815 the Czar of all the Russians, the Emperor of Austria and the King of Prussia signedan agreement, which they called the Holy Alliance, to institute the rule of God in Europe.Abusing the name of the mild and vaguely socialist rabbi from Nazareth, they created inreality a international mafia of the Iron Fist. Wherever an oppressed people dared to raiseits head in rebellion, all the rulers of Europe would band together, one for all and all for one,to help their threatened colleague. The Russians, for example, sent troops to squash theHungarian and Italian rebellions against Austria; the secret services of all cooperatedagainst the socialists and anarchists.
Almost all the rulers of the continent joined the Alliance, as did England in practice,without doing so formally. The Pope, vicar of Christ, did not, and neither did the OttomanSultan, who, not being a devout Christian, had to oppress his many peoples without outsidehelp.
Henry Kissinger, one of the modern admirers of the alliance and its major statesman, theAustrian Prince Metternich, credits it with maintaining order in Europe for many decades.Less morally-handicapped historians might point out that this unholy coming-together ofreactionary princes held up the progress of Europe throughout the 19th century, denyingliberty to many peoples and allowing narrow-minded kings and aristocrats to hold on to theirprivileges against far more productive and forward looking social forces. Nothing very holyabout that.
Under the umbrella of the War Against Terror, a new Holy Alliance is in the making. George W.Bush is now the supreme judge who decides who is a terrorist and who is not, as once a mayor ofVienna decided who is a Jew. (Karl Lueger, who was elected in 1897 on an anti-Semitic platform,once cheered a Viennese team at a football match against Hungarians. Told that the Vienneseteam is Jewish, he answered: “What the hell, it’s I who decides who is a Jew!”)
The inherent danger of this development is that the new alliance will hold up the most neededreform of the 21st century: the narrowing of the gap between North and South, the rich and thepoor nations. The abominable outrages of Osama bin Laden and his ilk may be seen, in times tocome, as the first manifestation of the coming fight of the teeming billions of deprived andoppressed members of mankind against the privileged few, who almost literally drown in theirown fat. The timely recognition of this problem and a determined efforts to deal with it, whilethere still is time, may prevent an imminent world-wide disaster. Fighting for the unlimitedWestern hegemony and monopoly of the world’s riches, camouflaged as anti-terrorism, willlead to a world-wide catastrophe in the future.
In the meantime, George W. and his advisors, female and male, will have to decide whetherArafat is a terrorist or an ally in the new equation. Ariel Sharon, an unofficial (“Don’t callme, I’ll call you”) member of the coalition, insists that he, like Putin, has the right to callhis enemies terrorists, so that he can bomb the Palestinians back to the stone-age and lockthem up in some disconnected Bantustans.
The Pentagon and Condoleeza Rice agree, the State Department doesn’t. The nationalinterests of the United States clearly point to the recognition of Palestine as acorner-stone of peace and stability in the Middle East. Domestic politics points in theopposite direction.
It remains to be seen whether Kissinger’s dictum that “Israel has no foreign policy, only adomestic one” applies to the United States, too.