Real Axis of Evil
The writer is a former Ambassador of Pakistan. The views expressed here are his own
In 2002, American President George Bush labeled Iran, Iraq and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil”, accusing them of threatening international security, promoting terrorism, violating human rights among other “crimes”. But reality is very different when not viewed through the American lens. Even a cursory study of modern history shows that the real axis of evil includes the US and its close allies — Israel and India.
America has the dubious distinction of enforcing the genocide of Native Americans while simultaneously enslaving people of African descent, who are still subjected to discrimination. Yet the American constitution claims that “all men are created equal” with “certain unalienable rights”. The reality, however, was and remains quite different — characterised by cynical hypocrisy.
When the European colonialists spread like a pestilence around the world, as documented by Jared Diamond in his book, Guns, Germs and Steel, they committed the genocide of 100 million natives in the Americas alone. In the US, over 50 million were killed by the start of the 20th century, through direct genocide (killing of the people) and indirect genocide (destroying crops, killing animals and confiscating land). Indeed, even after the decimated native tribes were sent to “reservations”, starvation was imposed by restricting amounts of food available or outright denial, such as meat. Worse has been the hypocrisy of American colonialism — celebrating Thanksgiving even today as a shared feast with the natives, yet in truth with whom they had systematically and willfully massacred. In his book, American Holocaust, DE Stannard maintains that “The destruction of the Indians of the Americas was, far and away, the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.”
The African slaves fared no better. Treated worse than animals, they were held in captivity, branded to denote ownership, frequently tortured, mutilated and whipped to instill discipline, and sexually exploited for sport. From 1619 to 1865 it is estimated that there were 179 million slaves in the US especially in the South. Even after abolishing slavery and despite the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, African-Americans have continued to face racial discrimination. Forced to live in ghettos, riddled by drugs and crime, denied equal opportunities for education and employment and subjected repeatedly to police brutality, most of them have been forced into criminal activities, constituting the largest number of prisoners in American jails. The Black Lives Matter movement and a black president have hardly made any difference.
Beyond America’s borders, the US has spread death and destruction from South America to the Middle-East to South-East Asia, most recently in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, under the guise of fighting communism or terrorism or promoting democracy. According to Brown University’s Cost of War Project, since 9/11 alone the US has killed over 930 thousand people while spending over 8 trillion dollars in these wars.
The latest American outrage is the unqualified support for the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, especially the current carnage in Gaza. With full American military support, over 12,000 Gazans have been indiscriminately killed, most of them women and children, a form of collective punishment in which not even hospitals have been spared.
The Zionist genocide against the Palestinians started after the infamous 1917 Balfour declaration, settling European Jews in British-controlled Palestine and leading to the Nakba, the forced expulsion of indigenous Palestinians, after the creation of Israel in 1948. Palestinians were forced to become refugees in neighbouring countries or live under Israeli apartheid. Following the Nazi policy of “Lebensraum” seeking territorial space for Jews, Israeli also imposed “Kibbutz” settler communities on occupied Palestinian or Arab lands, which still continues. The ongoing massacre in Gaza is the continuation of this policy to expel the remaining Palestinians from Gaza and eventually the West Bank and thereby kill the two-state solution. Biden, the self-professed Zionist, and his henchmen are fully complicit in this outrage.
Another Zionist tout is the fascist Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who has fully supported the Israelis as he is himself implementing the same evil enterprise of ethnic cleansing and genocide against Indian Muslims and especially the Muslims in Indian occupied Kashmir. Modi’s abrogation of Articles 370 and especially 35A of the Indian constitution to deprive the Kashmiris of their legitimate right to self-determination and the imposition of new citizenship rules for Indian Muslims are clear examples of his policy to change the Muslim majority demography in occupied Kashmir while also enforcing discrimination against Indian Muslims.
This shared Indo-Israeli-American agenda underscores the growing trilateral strategic partnership, which began after the end of the Cold War, gaining further momentum under Modi. In the military sphere, India purchases over 2 billion dollars’ worth of weapons from Israel, making India the largest customer for Israeli’s defence industry. The three countries have also colluded to demonise Muslims as terrorists and jihadists which enables them to target opposing countries.
Ironically, these countries operate behind the cynical facade of freedom and democracy. In reality, however, their policies are totally contrary. America assassinated leaders like Lumumba of Congo and Allende of Chile; Israeli Prime Minister Shamir led the Stern terrorist gang that assassinated UN mediator Count Bernadotte; and Modi was responsible for the Gujarat massacre of Muslims. These countries are also gross violators of the UN charter, repeatedly flouting UN resolutions, aggressively undermining the international rules based order.
It is time for this duplicity to be exposed and this axis of evil recognised for what it is — the source of genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes and crimes against humanity, which continue to pursue their nefarious designs with impunity. The continuing outrage in Gaza has served as an eye-opener for the international community, resulting in massive demonstrations around the world, even in the US itself. Such a global response cannot be ignored any longer by these countries. The time has come to hold them to account, beginning with the rejection of their self-proclaimed virtues about freedom and democracy. They must be exposed for what they actually are — the real axis of evil.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 25th, 2023.
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