News and Comment
Embarrassment to the USA

News:

 US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that this election season’s anti-Muslim rhetoric was an “embarrassment” to the United States.

In an interview to CBS News “Face the Nation” show, Mr Kerry said that such statements had baffled every overseas leader he met this season.

“Everywhere I go, every leader I meet, they ask about what is happening in America. They cannot believe it,” he said. “I think it is fair to say that they’re shocked.  They don’t know where it’s taking the United States of America.”

After last week’s terrorist attacks in Brussels, some Republican politicians have reiterated their demand for banning Muslim immigrants. Others demanded continuous surveillance of Muslim homes and worship places in the United States. Some also called for torturing Muslim terrorism suspects for extracting information from them. Asked if world leaders saw this rhetoric as part of the election circus or took it more seriously, Secretary Kerry said: “It upsets people’s sense of equilibrium about our steadiness, about our reliability.” (Dawn, March 29th, 2016)

Comment:

Since post World War II, the USA has set itself up as the policeman of the world. Initially it used key institutions like UN and NATO to forward its objectives in the world and today it is the head of all major alliances and economic forums. The USA’s view of the world is based on holding the key position and being the main superpower.  It is very well seen to have its far stretching tentacles everywhere.

Part of this role would be to be seen in a certain light by others but the image of America is crumbling especially after 9/11 due to its various atrocities in the world committed in the name of anti-terror. Within America itself people are questioning all kinds of intrusion into the private sphere with excessive surveillance and actions that go against its own constitution in the name of ‘security’.

Whilst it may seem embarrassing to hear what is being said and broadcast in the US election campaign, do the Muslim masses abroad see America in a favorable light? And will they be shocked that such hatred is being aimed at Muslims within the States?

Although John Kerry paints a picture of the USA being perceived as ‘steady’ and ‘reliable’ in the international political arena, this is not really the case for the vast majority of people who have borne the negative brunt of US foreign policy. Muslims across the world as a whole have seen the role of the USA in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria and Palestine to name a few. The double standards and search for its interests alone are clear for all to see. From drone attacks on innocents, torturing and rendition, to turning a blind eye to the agents that are torturing and oppressing their populations and only intervening when their current agent lives past his sell by date just to be replaced by anyone that is convenient at the time- we are all aware of the crimes of the US when it professes to be the world savior.

A Pew Survey 2014 reported, nearly 80 percent of the people living in Palestine qualify America as an “enemy.” About 85 percent of Egyptians and Jordanians and 73 percent of Turks, all key U.S. allies in the Middle East, have a similar opinion. Polls show that 7 of the top 10 countries that view the United States most unfavorably are Muslim countries.

It would seem that the frankness of some of the current candidates in the US elections appears to be ‘too much’ but really the actual way the US operates abroad shows that the same sentiments prevail.

It is ultimately the way capitalism operates that should be an embarrassment, a system that allows man to oppress man and use political offices to manipulate the masses-whether in domestic or foreign policy. America may still pretend to be rescuing the world from others but the whole world today is a victim of its policies and ideals and is in desperate need for a serious alternative. The only one that can be offered is the Islamic Khilafah "Caliphate" (caliphate) system upon the method of the Prophethood.

[وَمَا أَرْسَلْنَاكَ إِلَّا رَحْمَةً لِّلْعَالَمِينَ]

“And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to the worlds” [al Anbiyah: 107]

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Nazia Rehman