This unusual piece of writing took more time than usual because I was searching for a fitting opening citation. George Orwell’s all-time famous quote: “Political language is designed to make lies, sound truthful and murder respectable.” Orwell’s one sentence sums up today’s politics and the way people in power treat ordinary people by selling their propaganda.
The three Ps in the headline connect the cords of official global rhetoric in our contemporary times. Decades ago, Orwell’s idea of politicians is so fitting in today’s power politics at the cost of ordinary people.
Recently, I watched a series of videos documenting and exhibiting the fall of Assad's brutal regime in Syria, the subsequent joy of ordinary people, the departure of the Russian and Iranian forces, and the return of anti-regime fighters in their daily attires as civilians.
“West has nothing to fear from Syria,” vowed Abu Mohammed al-Golani, leader of the Syrian group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Of course, the Western politicians, press, public bodies and pressure groups all seem happy as al-Golani has “reinvented” his identity in conformity with their adjectives: "from extremist leader to an opposition politician.”
That’s a prevalent Western ideology and a popular trend in the contemporary world. This is detectable in Britain’s mainstream newspaper, The Independent, which celebrated the change in Syria as: “How Bashar Assad went from London doctor to Syria’s monstrous dictator,” while American media like Fox News reminded the world how Assad “used chemical weapons multiple times on his population” and lost to “extremist rebels” who “conquer” Syria.
The fourth P (press), I mean the sections of the Western media, did not recall stories of their governments supplying chemical weapons to dictators like Saddam Hussein in the Middle East who “gassed Iran.” In the age of misinformation and disinformation, people have short memories.
Hours later, after the opposition took over Damascus, the Israeli army entered Syria and captured land double the size of Gaza. The world knows all about the "Greater Israel Project," yet the majority of the nations, including many Muslim countries, are silent over Israel's inhumane and illegal acts.
The Week report, “What is the Greater Israel movement?” disclosed Israeli politicians' “expansionist ideology,” who sees it as their right to take parts of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Türkiye, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
It's a pity, though, that the Western governments have no issue with the Israeli invasions. As I am writing this piece, Israel has launched the “most violent” attack on Syria’s land because “it vows to double settler numbers in the Golan Heights.”
The Israelis are "good invaders" versus the Russians and Iranians, who were portrayed as "bad invaders." After all, Russian forces bombed and killed Syrian civilians besides the Assad regime. Prior to this, they have killed Muslims in Afghanistan, Chechnya and beyond.
A few weeks ago, a viral video showed smart Russian President Vladimir Putin kissing the Holy Quran in Chechnya’s Mosque, probably assuring Muslims that he is their savior and ally. Well, Russia needs young soldiers on the Ukrainian front. “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.”
Recall Americans and their Western partners killing civilians in their illegal and brutal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Palestine, Somalia and Sudan. All killings and bombings are acceptable, even legal, if these serve the people in power, be it establishing hegemony, controlling natural resources, benefiting from the country's human capital and so on.
Think of Western values: Human rights, democracy, equality and justice have no meanings other than being empty slogans. The result is the "good" versus the "bad," worthy victims (Israeli hostages) and unworthy victims (45,000 people killed by Israel). That’s George Orwell’s idea of “Double Speak.”
What happens next? Of course, like any soft-hearted person, I pray for peace. But sadly, peace is not an option for those in power corridors who own and run arms businesses. If there is no war, billions upon billions of dollars worth of companies will shut down, and who is that foolish? No one.
The multiple wars continue to expand globally because conflicts generate money. No matter what happens to Gazans, Lebanese and Syrians.
C. Wright Mills's book “The Power Elite” best sums up the challenges facing ordinary people in our contemporary world. The Power Elites have a different world, so don’t be surprised they are all related.
Gaza presents an enduring model of the elite's agenda who have unconditionally backed, supported and supplied weapons and money to Israel that has turned Gaza into rubble or better, it would be called a “parking slot.”
Several leading critics see Gaza as an “open-air prison” where Israel tests its deadly weapons because it treats Palestinians as “animals” and that is why “Israel has transformed Gaza into an ‘industrial-scale slaughterhouse.'”
In years to come, if Israel allows Palestinians to live, it will take years to remove “42 million tons of rubble,” costing “$700M.” Palestinians may rebuild it, but who can bring back their loved ones? Who will feed the Palestinian disabled children?
Gazans are the “victims of natural resources”; “relax Syria sanctions to bring in Western oil operators” is so true in the case of “Lebanon: a country created, divided and destroyed by Western imperial interests.”
Regrettably, from the Western powers to China and Russia and several Muslim nations, governments' key goal is to get their slice of cake in the current conflict. It’s the business, not humanity.
I must say it out loud: The current Gaza, Lebanon and Syria experience is not new. It's an extension of a decades-long project: destabilizing, destroying, demolishing and finally reconstructing the areas using Western companies, businesses and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) with Gulf and Muslim-funded charities.
This happens at regular intervals. New bidding for rebuilding Gaza will reopen once U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes charge of the office – this prediction is not rocket science.
It seems that Israel will continue to bomb people and places in the Middle East to capture the land “the chosen people” owned over two millenniums ago. Will there be a two-state solution in practice? The politics of power elites will not allow it to happen swiftly. Unfortunately, more bloodshed is on the way as the lives of common people are unworthy of what we have seen so far in the Middle East and beyond.
