Global

Islamophobia has become a significant factor driving politics in many western countries.

Islamophobia – fear of Muslims – is now highly visible among European populations concerned about terrorist responses from Islamic groups claiming Jihadi links. However, it is also evident among those same populations in relation to the refugee flow from the Middle East. In addition, Islamophobia is highly evident among sectors of the US population during the presidential race. It is a significant issue in Australia. Outside the West, even the (Muslim) Rohingya in Burma are feared by Buddhist monks and others.

Given that this widespread western fear of Muslims was not the case prior to the US-instigated 'War on Terror', do Muslims around the world now pose a greater threat to western interests than previously? Or is something else going on here?

In short, why are so many westerners (and others) now frightened of Muslims? Let me start at the beginning.

Donald Trump has now won the delegates needed to give him the Republican presidential nomination. The Bernie Sanders surge continues — he may even win California — but Hillary Clinton apparently has the superdelegate support needed to give her the nomination. We’re headed to a presidential race with two candidates burdened with record levels of disfavor.

This leads to the widespread expectation of a spitball brawl for a campaign. Trump has already begun branding Clinton. The Clinton campaign has begun attacking Trump as reckless and unqualified. A negative campaign of branded insults will drive down turnout. It would be a disservice to this country and its people.

President Obama went to Hiroshima, did not apologize, did not state the facts of the matter (that there was no justification for the bombings there and in Nagasaki), and did not announce any steps to reverse his pro-nuke policies (building more nukes, putting more nukes in Europe, defying the nonproliferation treaty, opposing a ban treaty, upholding a first-strike policy, spreading nuclear energy far and wide, demonizing Iran and North Korea, antagonizing Russia, etc.).

Where Obama is usually credited -- and the reason he's usually given a pass on his actual actions -- is in the area of rhetoric. But in Hiroshima, as in Prague, his rhetoric did more harm than good. He claimed to want to eliminate nukes, but he declared that such a thing could not happen for decades (probably not in his lifetime) and he announced that humanity has always waged war (before later quietly claiming that this need not continue).

“Look, nuclear should be off the table. But would there be a time when it could be used? Possibly, possibly . . .”

This is — who else? — Donald Trump, flexing, you might say, his nuclear trigger finger in an interview with Chris Matthews, who responds in alarm:

“OK. The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in ’45, heard it. They’re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.”

“Then why,” Trump shoots back in all his politically incorrect, rattle-the-establishment naïveté, “are we making them? Why do we make them?”

Uh . . .

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Free speech and pro-democracy activists, Thai
journalists and others are encrypting their telephone and message
conversations, shrinking their Facebook presence and finding other
ways to avoid the coup-installed military junta's Internet war against
political discussions, satire and demands for regime change.
   Two years after seizing power on May 22, 2014, the junta says it
must monitor and censor Internet to stop illegal online activity --
not just politics -- including thieves, counterfeiters, human
smugglers and black-marketeers dealing in weapons and drugs.
   National security and keeping peace in the streets are also
priorities for blocking online content, the junta says, pointing to
political clashes in Bangkok during 2010 and 2014 which left more than
120 people dead.
   China muzzles pro-democracy Internet activity with a so-called
Great Firewall, which is much more efficient than Thailand's blocks
against online news, opinions and other data.
   The U.S.-trained Thai military does not appear skilled enough to

One of the many heroes of the peace movement that came out of the Vietnam War experience was Vietnam veteran S. Brian Willson. Just like millions of other draft-age Americans, law student Willson had been drafted into that illegal and genocidal war - against his will - and came back disturbed and angry. For reasons discussed below, he joined the anti-war movement after witnessing the Reagan/Bush Central American war after he traveled to Nicaragua and saw peasants being murdered by US-backed Contras (aka “freedom fighters”). Willson joined the antiwar movement in 1986 and has protested vigorously against America’s aggressive war policies ever since.

But his real life change came on September 1, 1987 in Concord, California,where Willson was part ofa gathering of antiwar protestors that were symbolically trying to stop the transport of weapons from a U.S. Navy munitions base. The weapons were destined for Nicaragua and El Salvador as part of the US-backed war in Central America.

Consider this a friendly reminder to President Obama on his way to Hiroshima.

No matter how many years one writes books, does interviews, publishes columns, and speaks at events, it remains virtually impossible to make it out the door of an event in the United States at which you've advocated abolishing war without somebody hitting you with the what-about-the-good-war question.

Of course this belief that there was a good war 75 years ago is what moves the U.S. public to tolerate dumping a trillion dollars a year into preparing in case there's a good war next year, even in the face of so many dozens of wars during the past 70 years on which there's general consensus that they were not good. Without rich, well-established myths about World War II, current propaganda about Russia or Syria or Iraq would sound as crazy to most people as it sounds to me.

And of course the funding generated by the Good War legend leads to more bad wars, rather than preventing them.

I've come around in favor of backing all moderates. The question appeared to me for a long time as a difficult one. Should one give anti-aircraft weaponry, for example, to al Qaeda fighters in Syria in order to better combat ISIS (which could some day develop the airplane)?

The answer is yes, if, and only if, those fighters are moderates.

Now, who's a moderate? Some people get confused on this part, but it's not really that difficult to get straight. Fighters who want to blow up buildings and airplanes and cars and pedestrians and playgrounds can be either moderates or extremists, since war has nothing to do with their categorization. After all, we're picking which people to arm in the war.

Also, the question of whom a fighter is fighting for or against is completely irrelevant. The CIA and the Department of Defense have armed and trained forces that are fighting against each other in Syria. Obviously, both are moderate.

The New York Times recently claimed, and peace advocates repeated, that President Barack Obama will be the first U.S. president to have been at war for two complete four-year terms. It's also become common to refer to the current U.S. war on Afghanistan as the longest U.S. war ever. These ideas fit well with the universal activist demand that we return to the time of peace or the age of justice or the wisdom of the Founding Fathers or the era before superdelegates.

This is all based on a fundamental misunderstanding of history, and of its uses and abuses for life. You cannot "take back our country!" because you never had it. There is no age of peace or justice to be returned to. The United States has been at war since before it was a United States, and formed itself as such in part in order to expand its western wars.