Rev Mervin Stoddart

Yes, thank God for Osama bin Laden. Whatever else might be said about him, he has provided the world with numerous important points of departure for debate, some of which will be examined here.

On April 23 Al-Jazeera TV quoted bin Laden as saying that Western nations were waging a "crusader war against Islam". That highlighted a valid point that must be examined by all concerned citizens of our planet. Before bin Laden, many informed writers in the Observer and elsewhere suggested that US President George W Bush had launched a stealth crusade (mediaeval-style holy war) against Islam in his invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as in other US policies implemented against Arabs and Muslims in the USA and worldwide. This suggestion gained credibility when the lunatic fringes of right-wing Christian fundamentalists began calling for the annihilation of Islam and for Muslim countries to be bombed into oblivion. Those USA radio loudmouths and others calling for the destruction of Islam might be forgiven on the basis that they were whipped into frenzy by the events of 9/11 and the subsequent spin propagated by the Bush Administration. Religious people can sometimes fall into fanaticism and do and say crazy things. Such people are epitomised in US televangelist Pat Robertson and Muslim extremists who call for the annihilation of Israel. The Christian call to eradicate Islam after 9/11 was overt but the so-called war on terror launched by Bush was a covert crusade against Islam. Billed as countering phantom terrorists, it served to topple powerful Islamic governments globally, especially in the so-called Middle East, which is really North East Africa. Why a 21st century crusade against Muslims?

There are ulterior motives and hidden agendas behind this Euro-American terror war and stealth anti-Muslims crusade.
Bin Laden brought that to the fore in his various Al-Jazeera messages. He explained that the stealth Euro-American crusade against Muslims serves to protect the seemingly fake state of Israel carved out by Britain and the USA after World War II. Christians were duped into believing that this development helped to fulfil Scripture and find God's people a home. We now know that Israel is nothing more than an entity established to promote and protect Euro-American interests in that rich, important part of God's globe. Once more in history, as in the Hitler-Mussolini era, the Bush-Sharon axis has contributed to the massacre of a group of people, this time Muslims/Arabs. The concentration camps in Guantanamo Bay and the virtual incarceration of Palestinians in their own lands eerily pattern Hitler's Holocaust. The Muslim/Arab death toll under Bush and Sharon alone seemingly runs into the millions, just counting Iraqis, Afghans and Palestinians. More Muslims are being butchered elsewhere under various guises, directly and indirectly related to this Euro-American terror war. British cops killed an innocent man who just happened to look like a Muslim from behind. Other countries are forced to abuse their Muslim/Arab populations.

The genocidal situation in Darfur, Sudan, is related to this stealth crusade. It is rooted in the Euro-American slave trade and colonisation of Africa. The current conflict between the Arab Janjaweed militia and their non-Arab Muslim neighbours was sparked by Cold War era activities of Euro-Americans. Now, these same Euro-Americans say they cannot intervene to stop the genocidal, ethnic cleansing in Darfur because they are too busy guarding the Iraqi oil that they are pilfering, among other things. Meanwhile, the Arab Baggara (especially the Rizeigat) tribes and their non-Arab Muslim brethren, Fur, Masalit and Zahawa, have fallen for the Euro-American trick of "divide and conquer" and are now annihilating each other, just as they did in the old days when Darfur was the centre of the slave trade.

Why are Euro-Americans staging a stealth crusade? Osama bin Laden gives some insights. He has called for all foreign (infidel) troops to vacate Muslim lands. That forces us to ask how Euro-Americans could have got Arab/Muslim countries like Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others to join them in murdering Iraqis, Afghans, and other Muslims worldwide. They did so simply by disguising their crusade in the garbs of this nebulous terror war. Leaders of Libya, Syria and Iran were wise to this Euro-American ruse and were threatened rather than bribed. Euro-Americans have used monetary bribes, coercion, threats, and every means necessary to con Arab/Muslim countries into waging war against their own brothers and sisters. Their use of Iraqis to slaughter each other, while they creep in to grab Iraqi land and oil is a microcosm of the global picture of Euro-American racist imperialism.

Osama bin Laden, whether or not he was responsible for 9/11, has become the Quixotic windmill for the stealth crusaders to poke at, thus giving their suspicious terror war some semblance of legitimacy. Are the global bombings and other apparent acts of terror really being executed by bin Laden and this creature called Al Qaeda or does the CIA and other Euro-American operatives stage terror to protract their terror war? In more ways than one, these racist Euro-American, Muslim-killers must say, "Thank God for Osama bin Laden".

Rev Mervin Stoddart is a freelance writer out of Florida. INMerv@hotmail.com

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