Very unusual criticism of President Bush by a high official — SARA Chief Ye Xiaowen

China Aid Association
Bush should reflect
Feb 1, 2007
Hundreds of thousands of peace-lovers from all over the United States recently gathered in Washington D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco for anti-war demonstrations.
As an old Chinese saying goes, “A just cause enjoys abundant support, while an unjust cause finds little.” The whole world has campaigned against terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks, so why then has the US-led Iraqi war, launched in the name of the fight against terror, failed to get widespread support? Why have the American people taken to the streets in protest? It is because of the unjust nature of the war.
At the very beginning President George W. Bush made a “slip of tongue” and called the war a “crusade” against terrorism. He was forced to apologize to Islamic countries and change his campaign name to “operation infinite justice”. However, the Muslim was still not satisfied, sensing violation of the authority of Allah, and he had to change it again to “operation enduring freedom”. The president has not changed the name since, although the scope of his anti-terror ambitions has evolved from “reforming Islam” to nakedly opposing “Islamic fascism”.
How can a fight against terror target a specific religion?
Although a form of social ideology, religions are simply reflections of social and economic contradictions. Conflict caused by religious issues in today’s world mask economic and political struggles. The “clash of civilizations” is simply a fig leaf of real interest clashes, but in social and economic contradictions religion often plays a unique role. Religion can summon the masses. Conflict for real economic and political benefits often borrow the sacred cloak of religion and wars are fought in its name.
Religion, however, once entangled in such conflicts, sharpens and complicates the matter significantly. Conflict born of religious sentiment can be a hopeless mess; alternatively, it can die down slowly leaving huge psychological scars that may never heal.
The United States was once confident of winning the war in Iraq, given its superb military strikes against “Islamic fascism” and its Christian notion of “reforming Islam”. However, despite borrowing “light”, “strength” and “name” from religion, Iraqi militants neither succumbed to the US’ iron fist nor was the US able to reform the country into a “democratic” fairyland with the use of soft power in democratic elections.
Washington was, however, able to catch, sentence and execute Saddam Hussein, but it could not prevent him from holding high the Koran at his trial or shouting his Islamic beliefs with the noose around his neck. It toppled Saddam’s regime but opened Pandora’s Box with different races and factions now struggling desperately for power. In today’s Iraq, the Shiites, the Sunnis, the Kurds and al-Qaida militants are fighting tooth and nail against one another in a situation that has gone out of control. Frequent violence has turned the nation into a giant mincing machine sucking in innocent lives every day. The US is bogged down deeper and deeper in this mess. How many more soldiers it will put on the path to ruin?
The US has great financial, material and military strength, and is using this both to combat terror and introduce hegemony; backed by the rise of Fundamentalism in the Islamic Revival Movement, international terrorism has been running wild. If neither unilateralism nor terrorism can dominate and destroy the other, when will the cycle of “violence for violence” be broken? Terrorism hides under the cloak of religion, but why too does unilateralism use that cloak? Religion only adds trouble to the fight against terror. Can the US, lacking support, cast away unilateralism and seek harmony despite differences?
The author, Ye Xiaowen, is director of the State Administration for Religious Affairs translated by People’s Daily Online