KILLING FIELD,THE MIDDLE EAST(updated)

 

BY K. P. PASWAN.

Killing Field is also the name of a Hollywood movie related to Vietnam war. But Vietnam was not a killing field, but a battle field in which mighty USA, fought with a simple and bushy bearded Ho Chi Minh, who was a nonviolent political head of an impoverished Buddhist country.

 GENUINE KILLING FIELD. This blog is related to a real and genuine Killing Field, which consists of entire Middle East, rich in oil but lack in other mineral resources. Here the autocratic rulers are seriously engaged in killing rivals with sophisticated killing machines imported from the USA, Russia and Western Europe., This real killing field came into existence nearly eight hundred years years ago, when the Caliphate was destroyed by a Mongol warrior, who was notorious for killing and executing the vanquished without hesitation. Later on the Caliphate was revived by the Ottoman empire of Turkey.

 The large swathe extending from west Africa to the border of Europe is witnessing sectarian conflict, and for some autocrats, this killing field is nothing, but a battle for survival even, if it means annihilation of Muslims by Muslims.  Jihadist in the Middle East after 1950, was fueled by corruption and injustice, but new facts carry the message that killing field is a western attempt to conquer Islamic nations. This movement keeps growing, than threat to interest to people, belonging to other faiths.

 Shiites are always at war with the Sunnis although they are devout Muslims, but the Sunnis majority states of the Middle East refused to consider them even Muslims. Iraq, Syria and a few Emirates are Shiite majority states, but being ruled by the Sunnis autocrats. The Shias were always at the receiving end, but with emergence of Iran as an important economic and military power, the Shias in the middle east are more assertive and are in revolt everywhere in and around the Killing Field. 

 Iran is the only super economic and military power in Central Asia, with Shias in majority and is more progressive in their outlook than the Sunnis. Iran is on the threshold of acquiring nuclear arsenals and would like to fight its traditional rival, Saudi Arabia. Iran does not have Salafi and Wahhabi system of religious philosophy to export and spread fanaticism in different countries of the world. Iran is capable in manufacturing activities and by exporting manufactured products like Cars, Tractors and Garments to Sunni majority states in Africa, has earned much goodwill  in these countries.

THE KURD CONUNDRUM. Population wise the, Kurds constitute most ambitious communities in the middle east.  They are the largest minority group, even though the Kurds are Muslims. In Iraq they are the backbone of  national economy. Under Saddam Hussein, the Kurds were frozen of only industry, the oil, while thousands of families were forcibly removed from their land round the oil rich city of Kirkuk, with the result they launched guerrilla type of war against the Baathists and succeeded in creating a semi sovereign state in northern Iraq. In Turkey, the Kurds, in the past, inflicted severe damage to the Ottoman empire, which was notorious for killing those, who refused to submit to Caliphate. With the end of Ottoman empire, the Kurds and the Turkish Muslims excel in killing each other. The same story is being rewritten in Syria, a country of prosperous people now lying in ruin.

 Only solution is to create a separate home land for the Kurds, but Turkey would not agree for fear of losing large swath of land. In Iraq the Kurds are in the occupation of northern part of Iraq, and they  always maintained cordial relations with the Shias. The Sunnis fear the division of Iraq into three parts North for the Kurds, South for the Shia would mean nothing for the Sunnis, as most of oil field are in North and South of Iraq, 

 

Interestingly the division of Iraq was suggested by the current president, Joe Biden of the USA, when he was a Senator. In Syria, the Kurds always fought their nemesis Turkey, a country without natural resources and no oil at all. Oil exploration in the ocean, near Greece has unearthed oil and natural Gas, but not enough for total requirement of Turkey. 

Turkey, under Recep Tayyip Erdogan always controlled many pockets of Syria, where plenty of natural gases is found. But the rise of ISIS changed the economic equation of the middle east. The US needed the support of the Kurds to drive out the ISIS from entire Middle East and the strategy succeeded to a great extent. The rise of ISIS was a serious attempt to establish the supremacy of the Sunnis in the middle east, and it received help from all the Sunnis majority states including Turkey. Erdogan murky deal with ISIS just to get Iraqi oil, created a fertile ground for the violent ISIS, who unleashed terrorist activities against fellow Muslims.

 ARAB SPRING. Contrary to popular belief, that advent of Arab Spring heralded a new spring in the Central Asia, it virtually fortified the killing field. Arab Spring led to murder and mayhem not only in Egypt and Tunisia, but created fear psychosis in the mind of nasty authoritarian regimes in the middle East.  However, there is no denying the fact, that these autocrats also undertook welfare measures to ward off the Arab Spring. The most powerful fighters were Islamist, including the conservative Al Qaeda, but none were more power full or more distinctive, than the fighters of ISIS, and they received logistic support from autocratic rulers, who were afraid of losing their throne. ISIS carried out public executions,  and displaying severed heads. Those who shouted’ I swear to Caliphate’ were spared but those who uttered ‘We swear by God’ were butchered.

YEZIDIS. There is no place of dissidents and those, who do not subscribe to your ideology in the area in and around the Killing Field. The Yezidis constitute a small community, who do not believe in Islam and are maintaining separate identity in Iraq. There is no evidence to show that they ever posed security threat to state. but they were the worst victims of the religious fanatics and surprisingly the US’s intervention saved the  Yezidis from total extinction.

USA’s ROLE. It is not the oil, but to counter the Russian and Chinese  influence in the middle east, which led the USA to jump in to the Killing Field. In fact, several autocrats including Saudi Arabia, cannot survive without the support of US.  Before the advent of European powers in Central Asia, nobody knew that entire central Asia contained oil, enough to cater to the needs of entire world. Oil was known to local people since the beginning of the 19^th century, but its potential was realized only, when colonial powers like Great Britain and France made their presence known to local people. These Colonial powers had technology to explore the Gold Rush, that is oil. So exploration of oil created enough scope for employment and security threat to the power-hungry Autocrats and above all led to the formation of Killing Field. So it is wrong to say that the Western powers created the Killing Field. These Powers including Russia took undue advantage of fanaticism and tribal conflicts and sold their deadly weapons to those autocrats, who were threatened by their own people. The ISIS flourished because of support from the same autocrats who helped the US and Russia to defeat them.

Ramsfield. Ramsfield, the former Secretary of State during the presidency of George Bush was a much-hated man whose actions created strong anti-American feeling in the Middle East. Rumsfeld invented the theory of Chemical weapons in Iraq, when one of brothers of Saddam Hussein was nicknamed as Chemical Ali. There was no Chemical weapons in Iraq, but in the name of destroying the manufacturing center of Chemical weapons, Iraq was devastated beyond repair.

 In fact CIA failed badly both in Iraq and Vietnam and this failure led to humiliating retreat of Americans. The dictator Saddam Hussein was himself to be blamed when he invaded Kuwait and declared war against a Shiite Iran, where Saddam Hussein as a Sunni was a hated political figure.Iran inflicted heavy damaged to Iraq. An assault on the ISIS, offers rest of the world a simplistic narrative good against evil, it is not hard to rally international opposition to Jihadists, who rape women, behead dissidents and plunder the properties of the rich and poor.

 FINAL WORDS His Holiness-Pope, from the Holy See,  paid a visit to Iraq in search of peace, there are no more than one hundred thousand Christians left in war torn Iraq.  Vatican found ruins of a great civilization destroyed by the fanatics, for whom human life did not matter much. Pope also met much respected Ayatollah Sistani, who preached peace even when ISIS was threatening his own place of learning.The progressive and modern educated Muslims against the radicals can really win in the Middle East, if they move beyond defeating ISIS to some lasting form of security and stability, otherwise the Killing Fields created by power hungry and greedy autocrats is not going to disappear.

   AND LAST FEW WORDS

Outside of the shadow of the Killing Field, none of  us must be under any doubt ,who are they (Radicals) and what they represent.