Guner Ozkan JTW Columnist printable version send your friend message to author add comment ()

Wednesday, 21 January 2009

On the 13th of January, the US's highest civil award, the Congressional Gold Medal of Honour was given to three ‘outstanding’ politicians by the outgoing President Bush. They are former British and Australian Prime ministers of Blair and Howard and President Uribe of Colombia. Handing over this Medal to such political figures as Blair and Howard is especially meaningful while Gaza is under heavy fire by Israel and carries important messages for outside world.

Who Deserves this Medal Thing?

This Medal of Honour goes as far back as the time of President Truman just after the WWII. There are in fact two medals: Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal of Honour being given to the people who have shown outstanding contribution to the development of freedom, democracy and human rights around the world. Many prominent individuals were bestowed on this Medal in the past like John Lennon of Beatles, Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and so on. Bush himself has just presented 78 such medals during his 8 years of tenure. Blair was actually awarded previously in 2003, but never picked it up, perhaps, because of his concern to be ‘officially registered’ as a ‘poodle’ of Bush after his much criticized support for US invasion of Iraq. Blair the Medal dodger couldn’t this time escape from taking it alongside Howard, another staunch supporter of Bush in the war against Iraq. The Medal to Blair is also very meaningful as he is the Middle East Peace Envoy for the Quartet (Russia, the US, the EU and UN). Sarcastically saying, Blair indeed just got time for collecting his Medal as if his huge contribution to the Middle East peace process made him utterly exhausted and nothing was now happening there. By this Medal, Bush meant to say he was very thankful for Blair’s and Howard’s help for honourable causes taken to the places to flourish where there had been tyranny and torture.

A Medal for Security of the West: Forget the Rest?

The trio has made their countries much more secure, but at the expense of freedom, democracy and human rights everywhere. They created a domestic atmosphere of fear in which they portrayed a world divided into them and the rest; just the same as what recently diseased Huntington foresaw main characteristic of the new post-Cold War world order in 1993, the clash of civilizations. Validity of Huntington’s prediction above has surely been strengthened since 9/11 terrorist attacks to the US and following wars and terrorist attacks here and there creating tens of thousands of, overwhelmingly Muslim, deaths in Iraq, Afghanistan, Europe and Africa. In this era of war and mass killings, the policy of fear worked well for Bush, Blair and Howard to maintain themselves in power in their respective countries. Strict surveillance of foreigners, especially the Middle Eastern origin, in the US, Europe and Australia, Guantanamo and secret prison cells around the world run by CIA have all surely made those western lands safer compared to the rest of the World. Of course, every government of a state has the right and obligation to protect their own citizens against threats directed from inside and outside. But the trio tried to fulfil that duty so recklessly that they have now not only become the most hated political figures around the world but also endangered their own citizens’ security in true sense.

Neither have their most celebrated Medal of Honour reflected the true pictures inside Iraq and Afghanistan for which Bush, Blair and Howard had fought to bring security, freedom, human rights, democracy and prosperity. For sure, the question of whether Afghanistan and Iraq are now safer, freer and more democratic and prosperous than before invasion is telling all the truth. God knows exactly how many civilians got killed and still counting and become refugees and displaced in both Afghanistan and Iraq: hundred thousand, five hundred thousand, one million, five million, or more? Isn’t it Afghanistan which has since the invasion turned into the biggest heroin exporter in the world poisoning Afghani people and other societies in Central Asia and further away because of the lack of security and unfulfilled promises of financial aids?

A Medal of Honour for the War on Gaza

Doesn’t the trio of Bush, Blair and Howard know the fact that the Palestinian issue has sat at the very hearth of the so-called international terrorism mainly inflicted by armed groups having Islamic background? Have they forgotten that 9/11 happened because decades long sufferings of the Palestinian people have radicalized many social segments of Arab and Muslim world? Of course, they know. But they are not interested in the root causes of the Palestinian problem and the ongoing mass killings in Gaza by Israel. It is because they feel closer to Israel in terms of culture, religion and way of life. Rather, in the ongoing “clash of civilisations” they have embraced Israel as one of their own and the Palestinians as aliens who are backward, uncivilised and the enemy of God.

Having had such feelings and notions towards Palestinians, the trio of the Medal doesn’t care much about how many thousands of children and civilians are murdered in Gaza by Israeli army. If they had really concerned about the sufferings of the people there, they so far would have first of all paid a bit more attention to the pains of millions of expelled Palestinians from the lands of their forefathers and thousands imprisoned in Israeli jails. Tens of international documents including numerous UN Security Council resolutions expressed the root causes, and possible resolution of, the Palestinian issue. Majority of Arab and Muslim world including Hamas are already offering peace and security in the Middle East for all if Israel pulls back its current borders to the pre-1967 war lines. Under such a peace offer and desperation of the Palestinian people, now especially in Gaza, Israel can’t justify its military atrocities just saying that it is using the right to defend itself against Hamas as ‘terrorist organisation’. Israel can’t convince anyone of this argument in the world apart from Blair and Howard, the most honourable medallists of Bush.

At the end, Blair and Howard got their Medals from Bush in the name of democracy, freedom and human rights. This trio, either by supporting or keeping silent against Israel’s action, is responsible from the bloodbath in Gaza which many international humanitarian relief organisations have described as genocide, humanitarian disaster and state terrorism. So, gathering of Bush, Blair and Howard in this year’s Medal of Honour of the US is very unfortunate and ironic, and signifies nothing but a contemptuous treatment to the murdered Palestinians and many more thousands killed and tortured in Iraq and CIA cells. Let’s hope the new President, Obama, gives the next Medal to people who truly deserve it in the eyes of world community and many honourable Americans, Britons and Australians, but not just in the eyes of few Zionists and Neo-Cons.

Guner Ozkan is an expert on International Security and the Caucasus at the Ankara-based International Strategic Research Organization (ISRO/USAK) and a lecturer at Muğla University.
E-mail: gunerozkan005@yahoo.com
Revised edition of this article was published by the Hürriyet Daily News on January 19, 2009.