Dangerous results of mindless "experts"

A pertinent question that needs to be raised is why the US ended up supporting the very people who carried out the 9/ 11 attacks. The American government seems to have poor judgment and does not seem to care for morals when it comes to choosing allies or implementing its foreign policy. There seems to be a pattern in the kind of people it trusts and works with - Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, the House of Saud, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, and a whole bunch of dictators and terrorists.

Why is it that they consistently support terrorists? Is it not dense of them to lend support to those who end up attacking them? To answer these questions, we need to turn our attention to the so-called "think tanks" which advice the government.

People from the humanities departments of various American universities form the staff of these self-described "think tanks," and each "think tank" has its own agenda usually defined by powerful Christian fundamentalists. Much of the analysis by the "experts" at these "think tanks" is inaccurate and very superficial. Occasionally, they get something right about another country, but it is usually well known information easily available from newspapers published in that country. When they hit upon such ordinary information, they feel good about it and brand themselves "experts". A few years back, one such "expert" on hearing that the person speaking to him was an Indian, is reputed to have exclaimed that it was wonderful that India and Malaysia were building a bridge connecting the two countries. He had probably read about a joint project between the neighbouring countries of Malaysia and Indonesia.

To gauge the quality of scholars at these "think tanks," one just needs to look at the works churned out by them. In a remarkable piece, William Milam, former Ambassador to Pakistan and now attached to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, argues that Pakistan's rulers ought to be rewarded with F-16s in order to pacify them. In other words, the more violent they are, the more rewards they deserve. He also claimed that Pakistan was a "stable democracy." Even president Clinton, who appointed him ambassador, did not believe his cockamamie about Pakistan being a "stable democracy." During his official visit to Pakistan, Clinton ducked down, hid from public view, sent a decoy plane, and had a double walk out of it, before he quietly arrived by another plane and entered the country unnoticed.

Another "expert" familiar to Indians is Stephen Cohen of the Brookings Institution, who was a policy adviser to the state department in the Reagan administration. Known for his pedestrian analysis, he goes by the title of "South Asia expert". In June of this year, Cohen argued before the House International Relations Committee of the US Congress that Pakistan should be supplied with weapons, and that it had been helpful in its "cooperation in revealing its clandestine support for the Iranian, Libyan, North Korean and other missile and nuclear programs". The terrorists must have got the message - all they need to do after supplying nuclear arms to Libya, Iran, and North Korea, is to call up the South Asia "expert" at Brookings Institution and reveal their transactions, and Cohen is sure to argue that they must be rewarded with more arms! In the very first sentence of his testimony, Cohen did not fail to announce that he was pleased to share his "expertise".

For its part, the state department has been led by people equally naïve about the state of affairs in other countries.

The previous secretary of state, Madeleine Albright - who is supposed to have risen high in the ranks of power due to her father's reputation and her marriage to a wealthy media magnate - supported the Islamist group Kosovo Liberation Army, a group that has ties to Osama bin Laden. Condoleezaa Rice, the current secretary of state who has a PhD in international studies, claimed that Iran was trying to spread Islamic fundamentalism to the Taliban, and that it was "doing all kinds of things with Pakistan". At the time she made this claim, Iran was opposed to Pakistan as well as the Taliban. The only country that continually does "all kinds of things with Pakistan" is the US. In another display of its famed stupidity, the US airlifted a number of Taliban fighters and evacuated them from the war zone.

US support for terrorist groups and dictators is not limited to Islamists. It also extends to Communists. It is for this reason that Stalin termed them as "useful idiots". That they still support Communists can be seen from the fact that both conservatives and liberals support the Bengali Bolsheviks and Nehruvian-Stalinists in India. In fact, the Indian Communists have American politicians wrapped around their fingers, and use them at will. That is how they managed to get the US Library of Congress to appoint a Marxist from India to one of its chairs. This control by Indian Marxists over American politicians was also on display when along with their Islamist allies, they got the American government to spew their propaganda about Narendra Modi, the chief minister of Gujarat, and rescind his visa. Among those who were used by the Communists and Islamists to act on behalf of them in pushing this agenda were Congressman Reverend Joe Pitts, Congressman John Conyers, and the US department of state. Many clueless Congressmen, including Reverend Joe Pitts and Dana Rohrabacher, are part of the lobby group that lobbies on behalf of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

Many of the politicians who act against India are also driven by Christian fundamentalism. Over the years, US governments have implemented the agenda of Christian fundamentalists in their foreign policy as well as their domestic policies. James Watt, who served as the secretary of the interior in the Reagan administration, believed that the end of the world was imminent and allowed the pillaging of natural resources. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Watts said, "I do not know how many future generations we can count on before the Lord returns."

Christian fundamentalism in America is not limited to the right wing. The leftists too support Christianity. The number of religious people among their leadership over the years is revealing - Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton. Liberals definitely seem more comfortable rallying behind a church leader. Liberal thinking is also conditioned by subliminal racism. They have a hierarchy according to which they view people of various races. During his 2003 anti-war speech in Washington D.C., Bill Fletcher of the Trans Africa Forum opposed Bush's policies and stated that Bush ought to deal with the problem between India and Pakistan. In other words, Bush was not good enough to be trusted with policies that affect Americans, but it was okay to leave Indians in the care of Bush.

An important "think tank" that politicians rely on is the Rand Corporation - an organisation that works for various intelligence agencies in the US - which routinely publishes policy reports that end up as fodder for right-wing Christian fundamentalists. From an academic standpoint, most of its reports are of poor quality and full of factual inaccuracies, but it provides the fundamentalists with propaganda material. For example, a recent report authored by Greg Treverton and a few others made the factually incorrect claims that India was a "Hindu State" and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangha (RSS) was a religious movement that based its philosophy on hate. It went on to liken RSS with Islamic terrorist outfits that hijack planes and plant bombs in marketplaces.

Greg Treverton, former vice chair of the National Intelligence Council, who has also served on the National Security Council, runs the intelligence policy centre of the Rand Corporation. Had Treverton done his homework, he would have known about the RSS and not ended up with a shoddy piece of work.

RSS members who are part of the Bharatiya Janata Party at best indulge in a weasel war dance and make a lot of noise about restoring the rights of Hindus in India. When they were in power, they failed to liberate the Hindu temples from the control of the government, and actually helped the Islamic cause by increasing subsidies for Muslims. Gary Brecher, a writer for the website eXile.ru, made the perceptive comment about the term "Hindu militant", that burning Hallmark greeting cards does not qualify one to be classified as a "militant". It says a lot about American "think tanks" that an amateur writing for a website has a better understanding about India than the "experts" at various "think tanks" have.

The propaganda against the RSS is the result of Communists everywhere branding their opponents as fascists, and Rand Corporation seems to have swallowed the propaganda fed by Indian Communists. Privately, Indian Communists themselves admit that they use the label for political purposes and express surprise that Americans actually swallowed their propaganda. The ill-researched documents that the naïve staff members at Rand Corporation routinely come up with may explain why the CIA was caught by surprise over the 9/ 11 attacks, and believed that weapons of mass destruction were buried in the sands of Iraq.

Interestingly, Rand Corporation is headquartered in a building shaped like the "Jesus Fish". The "Jesus Fish" is a figure that consists of two intersecting arcs resulting in the shape of a fish, and many Americans place this figure on their cars in order to make the statement that they are Christian fanatics. Opponents consider it a badge of stupidity that advertises the backward thinking of those who display it. Early Christians, who had to go underground due to their violent activities, apparently used this figure as a secret sign to indicate their meeting place.

The view of Americans expressed here is not a judgment on the many hardworking Americans who have a scientific temper, are innovative, and whose contributions have benefited all of us around the world. Nor is it a judgment on media outlets like Frontpage Magazine, which has published insightful articles by writers such as Serge Trifkovic, or thinkers like Hugh Fitzgerald who have a good understanding about the world. It is a judgment on the Christian fanatics. The fanatics must take responsibility for the "Stupid American" stereotype.

Like their counterparts in the media and academia, those who work in the "think-tanks" have an inaccurate understanding of the world and feed wrong ideas to their politicians. While it is true that many Americans are intelligent and have a positive influence on the world, the establishments that form the power structure in America do not attract the best brains in the country. American policy is not scripted by the sharpest pencils in the box, and as a result, things have become dangerous for everyone in the world. Just as the stereotype of Americans being arrogant results from interacting with American corporations, the idea that they are stupid results from interacting with the American media, "think tanks," and policy makers. Between them, they have managed to make the world a dangerous place.

It is tough to watch the performers and ignore the dangerous fire started by their clumsy actions, but it may actually be exciting. After all, when geese dance and fools versify, there is bound to be sport.



Concluded.

Arvind Kumar is an expert on the United States.