ABSOLUTE POWER PARALYSES

By M. Raza Haroon (London)

The recent and yet another uncalled for murder of a British citizen Ken Bigley has added to the collateral damage of “War Against Iraq”.  The death toll as an aftermath of this unjustified war has claimed the lives of more than 13086 civilians, including foreigners and Iraqis. According to the Iraq Body Count Website. around 140 foreigners of many nationalities have been taken hostage in Iraq since last April. Most have been released, but at least 30 have been killed by militants. Mr Bigley a 62 (Sixty two)years-old man was working as an engineer in Iraq while only weeks from retirement.

An official US report is saying that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when US-led forces invaded has intensified the debate about justification for the war. Half a dozen investigations by U.S. intelligence failures on Iraq have reached similar conclusions: The mistakes were caused by limited and unreliable informations from inside Iraq and an unshakable belief by the U.S. administration that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The latest and most definitive findings came this week from the head of the U.S. weapons hunt in Iraq, Charles Duelfer. He concluded that Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, had no programs to make them as nuclear power, and had little ability to revive the banned weapons programs. Democratic challenger John Kerry has criticized Bush as being too eager to involve USA in war with Iraq and unwilling to admit mistakes. The weapons assumption was also a problem in Great Britain, where intelligence services had reached to the similar conclusions.

This is not the first incident in history, whereby a leader under the illusion of absolute power has shown total disregard to weaker opponents. The world has so far witnessed two World Wars and many other incidents of forceful occupations of weaker nations. However, the notion of declaring war under the misapprehension of being the super power has failed time and again. As someone has most appropriately quoted, “absolute power corrupts/paralyses ones brain power, thus rendering that person to become irrational with no fear of repercussions of their actions and as a result under the illusion of success blocking the thinking process. This results in loss of foresight and leaves that person unplanned or unprepared to face the consequences. The adrenaline level rises and disables the rational thought process.”

Today’s Iraq and Afghanistan serves as a testament to the above. We have now seen that pre-war intelligence of British and US intelligence agencies was a failure and as a result the foundation of the entire fiasco, i.e. WMD and Saddam’s link with Al-Qaeda has fallen apart. Today the report of Iraqi Survey Group (ISG) is no different then that presented by Hans Blix. By not allowing the UN inspection to complete inspection and invading Iraq on the pretext of WMD and links with Al-Qaeda, the US, British and their Allied Forces have demonstrated that their action not only lacked intelligence but also no post war arrangement.

Absolute power paralyses as did after 1947, when those at the helm of affairs under the same illusion, amazingly declared those who supported Pakistan Movement as traitors, i.e. Muslims of Minority Provinces of Undivided India (Mohajirs), Sindhis and their leader G M Syed, Bengalis of former East Pakistan etc. Those claiming to be patriots invaded East Pakistan thinking that Bengalis are weak and will succumb to their absolute power. However, history stands witness that the presumed weaker people defeated the strong armed forces of West Pakistan and more than 93000 army personnel were made prisoners of war.  Action taken without thinking about the repercussions. Similarly, an army action was commissioned against the Baloch and later on in 1992; an army operation was launched against the innocent civilians of Sindh, particularly Karachi and their representative political party, the MQM. The then Chief of Army Staff, while daydreaming of being absolute power embark upon crushing the MQM. Thousands of MQM leaders, workers and supporters were ruthlessly extra-judicially executed and thousands of others were incarcerated in prisons on false and fabricated charges. However, taking an action with no foresight into its repercussions, the army miserably failed not only in crushing the MQM but also gained international notoriety of committing large-scale human rights violations.

Unfortunately, Pakistan has witnessed army rule directly or indirectly since its independence in 1947. As a result, those at the helm of affairs under the delusion of having absolute power continued exploiting the resources of the country and using heavy hand tactics to suppress the voice of the mass and use undemocratic and dictatorial methods to unleash a reign of terror upon the representatives of poor and unfortunate middleclass people of the country.

We as a country must keep a keen eye on world occurrences and learn from history as well as from the global changes taking place since 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq by US, Britain and its Allies. There are lessons to learn. A super power fully capable of winning the wars has failed to act accordingly in a post war scenario. They may have won the battle but seem to be loosing the war on moral and ethical grounds. Justifications to these invasions based on intelligence reports have proved fatally incorrect. Civilians of Iraq and other nations are paying the price of actions taken under the illusion of having absolute power. It therefore, highlights once again the reality that those with absolute power must first recognize their limits, not be short-sighted, have enough foresight and awareness, to not only justify their acts but also to keep themselves aligned with other nations and most importantly and modestly do not allow power in any form or sort to corrupt or paralyse their mind, keep thinking positively, which will in effect leave little room for them to falter.