"Dear Mr. President,

The Tyranny of Terror; the Triump of Truth

Peace be upon you.

Allow me to express our profound sadness and sorrow over the horrendous carnage that occured in New York and Washington, DC in the morning of 11 September 2001. The terrorist attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon were an utterly reprehensible act. What made it even more abhorrent was the massacre of innocent civilians--a dastardly deed condemned in all our religions.

Condemning terrorism alone is not enough. As you have rightly recognized, the international community must join forces to combat terrorism together. But how do we fight terrorism. Can we eliminate terrorism through military m ight? Organizing an international coalition to hunt down terrorirsts and to destroy their sanctuaries is not a solution. For the terrorist bases and their networks will re-emerege as long as the root causes of the phenomenon have not been addressed. Besides, employing one's military prowess to pulverize terrorism will only goad the terrorist to retaliate. And when they counter attack, the forces that want to crush them will respond. It will go on and on. The vicious cycle of violence will reduse everyone and everything to smithereens.

This is why the crying need of the hour is not cobbling together an international military alliance. It understands the causes and circumstances that facilitate the rise of terrorism. While the reasons are undoubtedly complex, it is not difficult to identify certain factors that have fuelled terrorism in recent years -- facts which may throw some light upon the September 11 catastrophe.

Mr. President, the policies of the US government in the Middle East in the last 50 odd years, and especially in the last decade, have created so much frustration and desperation among the Arab masses that it has set the stage for terrorism. Palestine more than any other conflict epitomizes this sense of hopelessness and helplessness. Because of the United States' intimate relationship with Israel, Palestinians and Arabs are convinced that they cannot expect even a modicum of justice from your government. The brutal suppression of the second Intifada in the last few months, which witnesses Israel, unleash the full fury of state terror upon a humiliated and subjugat ed people was perhaps 'the last straw that broke the camel's back'. In the eyes of the victims of Israeli aggression and occupation, their oppressor could not have embarked upon such merciless suppression without the support and solidarity of the US.

Add to this, the unending suffering of the iraqi people because of the cruel sanctions imposed by the United Nations at the behest of your government and your British partner. 10 years after the end of a war, which your father fought to protect American and Western oil interests in the Gulf, sanctions are killing scores of children everyday because of an acute shortage of essential medicines and a disintegrating healthcare system. It has been estimated that more than half a million children have died as direct or indirect consequences of US government sanctions.

It is the situation in Palestine and Iraq that has created that huge reservoir of resentment, of bitterness, of hatred towards the US in the Middle East. But there have been other monumental calamities in the region from Leb anon in the fifties to Sudan in the nineties that the Arabs hold the US responsible for. Through much of the Middle East, a region, which is of tremendous geoeconomic and goepolitical significance to the Us, ordinary women and men, rightly or wrongly, perceive the US as the primary cause of their misery and their deprivation. This perception has developed also because they know that it is the US, which helps to prop up some of the corrupt, autocratic but oil-rich regimes in the region that continue to resist demands for social justice and democratic rule.

US hegemony extends throughout the world. At a time when the good citizens of the US are so deeply concerned about the sanctity of life, it may be illuminating to remind all of us that the hegemony began on 6 August 1945 with the bombing of Hiroshima which obliterated thousands of innocent people from the face of the earth. It is estimated that 3 million people died in Vietnam and Indochina so that the US could maintain its hegemonic power. And in Panama, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, indeed the whole of Latin America, from the fifties to the early eighties, tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children had perished as a result of a supoerpower's desire to perpetuate its control and dominance through covert operations, espionage activities, assassination squads, economic strangulation and organized political subversion.

This is why, Mr. President, in many parts of the world while there is so much sympathy for the bereaving people of America there is a great deal of antipathy towards an arrogant superpower. The Christian scriptures tell us " What you sow, you shall reap." In Islam, as in Hinduism and Buddhism, there is acknowledgment of the law of requital. In the context of the terrible tragedy that has befallen the US, nothing is perhaps more apt than that wise Confucian saying, echoed in Judaism and other traditions, "Do not do to others what you do not want to do to you." It should be the golden rule of not just inter-personal ties but also inter-state relations.

Mr. President, the United States should cease to be a hegemon whose tentacles reach every nook and cranny of the planet. America's hegemonic control is one of the root causes of global injustice. When a hegemonic global sy stem centralizes power, wealth and knowledge in the hands of a minority, when there are very few avenues of actions to ensure a certain degree of accountability on the part of the sole superpower, the feeling of marginalisation and alienation among the many can sometimes lead to disastrous consequences.

Mr. President, you can begin the process of re-building a new America which neither dominates nor dictates to others, an America which is guided by the principle of justice, rather than the imperative of power, in its relations with other nations. For a start, one could undertake a sincere review of the US's Middle East policy. Work with courage and integrity towards the establishment of a sovereign, independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Show some humanity and compassion and lift the crippling sanctions against the people of Iraq. A lot of the anger and frustration in the Middle East will dissipate. Terrorism will not find succor among the people.

A good, kind and generous people are trying to make sense of a grim and grave tragedy. It is a time to cry. It is also a time to think. And a time to reflect. A time to pray.

Mr. President, you are a religious person. So are the American people. We pray that God will give you and your people the strength and the humility to discover the truth about your nation and the truth about the enormous p ower that America commands.

When you have embraced that truth, the tyranny of terror and the viciousness of violence will be vanquished.

With warm regards.

In sorrow,

Dr. Chandra Muzaffar
President
International Movement for a Just World"

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