CAIRO,
September 12 (IslamOnline.net) - The United States has showed its real
face in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and used its military juggernaut
to intimidate the Arabs and Muslims, a leading Muslim intellectual
said.
Gamal
El-Banna has also called Sunday, September 12, on the Islamic
countries to thrash out a new formula for reforms to abort US attempts
to impose its hegemony over the Arab and Muslim world.
“The
United States has showed its real face in the wake of the 9/11 attacks
and is now adopting an aggressive policy under the motto ‘either
with us or with terrorists’,” he told IslamOnline.net as the US
marked the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks on New York and
Washington.
Gamal
El-Banna said following the September attacks, the United States has
increasingly used excessive military force to combat what it terms
“terror”.
The
prominent Egyptian intellectual stressed that the US main goal in the
region remained unchanged whether before or after the 9/11 attacks: To
put its oil resources under its grip.
“America's
main goal is to control and guarantee the flow of oil. The US
benefited from the Iraq-Iran war by controlling the Gulf oil resources
and now it controlled the Iraqi oil.”
Losing
Credibility
El-Banna
said three years after the 9/11 attacks the United States has at the
end of the day lost its credibility in the Arab and Islamic world with
anti-US sentiments are running high in the region.
“A
US policy shift started when Washington turned its back to Osama Bin
Laden following the Afghan victory over the Soviets, and to Saddam
Hussein after the Iraq-Iran war and let alone its staunch support to
[Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon's policies against the
Palestinian people,” Banna said.
In
the past, he maintained, the US had cooperated closely with ousted
Saddam during his bloody eight-year war with Iran, the
friend-turned-enemy Bin Laden in his war with the then Soviet Union
and had also backed somehow the Palestinians, which was culminated in
the signing of the Oslo Accords.
“The
Americans used to depend on their allies in the region as was the case
with Saddam, but following the September attacks, the United States
has changed its policy into using its military juggernaut as the case
with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.”
Bin
Laden’s Bugaboo
On
the pressing issue of reform, El-Banna said the Muslim rulers
succeeded in convincing the Americans that reform meant that the
Islamists would take over.
“They
[the rulers] keep on using Bin Laden’s bugaboo and terrifying the
Americans that his ghost would haunt them in every Islamic country if
they pressed ahead with their reform plans,” Banna said.
“It
is, of course, a myth, but unfortunately the Americans swallowed
it.”
El-Banna
urged the Arab and Muslim peoples to close ranks for aborting the US
and Israeli ambitions in the region.
“The
US hegemony is encouraged basically by the Arab weakness. The unity of
the Arabs and Muslims is the one and only way to resist the US
hegemony.”
El-Banna
has also taken swipe at the incumbent Arab regimes for trying their
best to resist winds of change.
“They
are useless,” he said. “The Arab regimes are closing the door in
the face of any attempts to change for the better.”
