name: Yuram Abdullah Weiler
Comments and thoughts of an American Muslim on US Foreign policy in the Middle East and the so-called War on Terror,examining the contradictions from a perspective of justice, fairness and human rights.
A Tale of Two Countries
15 January, 2008
This is a story about two countries. One is The United States of Acirema, often called Acirema or the US for short, and the other is called Nari. Now the US and Nari were as different as night and day, black and white, or east and west. The Aciremans spoke English which is written from left to right, while the Narians spoke a language called Persian--just like the Gulf off its shores--which is written from right to left. The US was a small peace-loving country while Nari was a rich, aggressive, imperialistic power with military bases in many countries, including those surrounding Acirema like Abuc, Ocixem and Adanac.
Acirema was lead by the beloved President Egroeg Shub while Nari was lead by the dictatorial and tyrannical fanatic President Dajen Idamha. President Shub was known for his kindness and generosity as well as for his support of education and health care for children and the poor. President Shub was so generous that he donated his entire salary to charity while he was Governor of Saxet . Contrary to this, President Idamha was a ruthless businessman-turned-politician from the city of Narhet in Nari who gave tax cuts to the wealthy and denied health care to children and the poor.
Acirema had absolutely no nuclear weapons and no plans to build any while Nari had a huge arsenal with over 8,000 nuclear warheads. Both countries were signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty whose terms gave every nation the right to pursue nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, but President Idamha of Nari did everything in his power to deny Acirema ths right. He charged that US nuclear research was nothing but a front for a weapons program and bullied other nations into voting in favor of applying economic sanctions against the US. In fact, he threatened the US with military strikes if it didn’t halt its nuclear program immediately. He even declared that he would never allow the US to have a “nucular” weapon and charged that the US was the biggest threat to the security of the free world.
Nari had dwindling oil reserves, but with an ever-increasing appetite for energy, it became increasingly aggressive militarily. A few years earlier, Nari had actually invaded Ocixem and established a puppet government there and stationed over 150,000 troops within its borders. Since the United States of Acirema also had huge oil reserves which Narian oil companies coveted, the Narian President had been trying without success to find any excuse for a military intervention. To this end, President Idamha dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the Gulf of Ocixem to protect Narian “interests” in the off-shore oil-producing region. These were in addition to the task force that was stationed off the coast of Ocixem in support of the occupation forces there.
Despite these obvious provocations by the Narians, the Aciremans tried to cooperate peacefully with them as best as they could.
One day, as Nari Navy war ships were conducting military exercises in the Gulf of Ocixem near Port Ravilob (close to Notsevlag, Saxet, speed boats, identified as belonging to the US Coast Guard inadvertently came too a Narian destroyer. Previously, President Idamha had declared the US Coast Guard to be a terrorist organization, so he wasted no time in taking advantage of the mishap, calling it a deliberate provocation by the US and using it an an excuse to escalte tensions between the two countries.
The whole incident was allegedly filmed from on board the Narian warship. Within an hour, the Hexagon, the Narian center for military command and control, called the news media who broadcasted the story far and wide of what the Narian President was calling a blatant Acireman provocation. As an aside, the Hexagon used to be called the Pentagon, but had been expanded to include the Ministry of Homeland Security a few years earlier.
President Idamha filed a formal complaint with the Acireman Embassy in Adanac. There was no Nari embassy in the US since it had broken off diplomatic relations some 30 years earlier after the Aciremans overthrew the Nari-installed dictator. In explaining his actions to the press, President Idamha responded that “Narian Naval ships were performing peaceful maneuvers in territorial err-- aah-- international waters off the US coast in the Gulf of Ocixem near Port Ravilob when they were approached in a dangerous manner by speed boats of the US (of Acirema) Coast Guard, a known terrorist organization. I’m telling you I think it was provocative act, pure and simple.”
President Idamha then played an edited version of the video that he claimed had been filmed from the bridge of the Narian destroyer, recording the entire incident. The amateurish film showed two small motor boats trying to avoid the wake of the massive war ship. Then a voice, alleged by the President to be one of the Aciremans on the speed boats, warned with a thick Acireman accent, “I am coming to you ... you will explode soon!”
When questioned about the incident, The US Foreign Minister said that it was simply an error on the part of the Acireman boat captain who apparently did not recognize the Narian war ships and had approached them too closely in an attempt to make an identification. The boats were not from the US Coast Guard but rather from the local harbor patrol. “This sort of thing has happened before in the Gulf near Port Ravilob, and it was nothing but an accident,” the minister said.
Quite unexpectedly, the captain of the Narian destroyer bravely spoke up and denied that the incident was an act of aggression on the part of the US, saying that it happened exactly as the Acireman foreign minister had stated. However, President Idamha remained undeterred and continued his efforts to escalate the mishap into a pretext for military intervention in the US. He insisted that the US had attempted a dangerous attack on a Narian ship in peaceful transit in territorial err-- ahh-- international waters in the Gulf of Ocixem and that a retaliatory military strike against suspected US “nucular” facilities would commence shortly and without further warning.
To most Narians, Adanac, Ocixem, Saxet and Port Ravilob were just strange names of far-off places on the other side of the world of which they knew very little. But some of the more thoughtful and intelligent among them began to recall vaguely an incident that took place many years before with eerie similarity to the present situation. Suddenly, the vagueness vanished and things became crystal clear. Yes, one of them exclaimed, it was the Gulf of Tonkin incident off the coast of Vietnam that a former Nari president used as a pretext to bomb Hanoi.
So a group of these Narians went to President Idamha and said to him, “We must stop this escalation of tensions between Nari and the US before we repeat what we did to Vietnam. We must look at things from the opposite perspective and even in reverse, if necessary, in order to clarify our interpretation of this situation. If we can look at it from the US point of view, you will see, Mr. President, that we are the aggressors in this incident. We know it’s difficult for you to look at it this way, sir, but you must realize that we are the ones doing military maneuvers in the Gulf off their coastline, are we not? After all, Mr. President, it’s not as if the US Navy is doing maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, is it?”
Yuram Abdullah Weiler
2008-1-14