BUSH & THE MEDIA COVER-UP THE JIHAD SCHOOLBOOK SCANDAL
By Jared Israel [Posted 9 April 2002]
=======================================
Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?
Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad
schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"
Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the
US government shipped - and continues to ship - millions of Islamist
(that's short for Islamic fundamentalist) textbooks into Afghanistan.
Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated
this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd. (A)
According to Washington Post investigators, over the past twenty
years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical
schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.
"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured
drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then
[i.e., since the violent destruction of the Afghan secular government
in the early 1990s] as the Afghan school system's core curriculum.
Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington
Post, 23 March 2002 (A)
According to the Post, these violent Islamist schoolbooks,
which "served...as the Afghan school system's core curriculum"
produced "unintended consequences."
Core curriculum? Unintended consequences?
Yes, reports the Washington Post, according to unnamed officials the
schoolbooks "steeped a generation in [Islamist] violence."
How could this result be unintended? Did they expect that having
fundamentalist schoolbooks in the core curriculum would produce
moderate Muslims?
LET'S BE REASONABLE
Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions
of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children
towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed
US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended
consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist
content of the schoolbooks.
But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit,
print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers
into Afghanistan without somebody in high places (in the US
government) approving those primers.
So if the books weren't supposed to be Islamist, that is, if their
fanatical content contradicted US policy in Afghanistan, shouldn't
the mass media and top politicians, such as President George Bush,
now be calling for an investigation? Shouldn't they be demanding to
know the identity of the official or officials who subverted the
*intended* US policy by flooding Afghanistan with jihad primers?
Indeed, considering the disastrous consequences, shouldn't US
officials and the media be questioning the very practice of violating
the sovereignty of other countries by distributing millions of
Islamic fundamentalist schoolbooks?
Yet after a thorough Internet search we could find no evidence that
any mainstream Western newspaper, with the exception of the
Washington Post, or any TV station or government leader has
questioned - let alone denounced - sending fundamentalist schoolbooks
to Afghanistan.
Quite the contrary.
For example, here's what the Boston Globe (owned by the NY Times)
wrote about the old textbooks:
"Those schoolbooks that still exist are pro-Taliban screeds and
deemed unusable."
-- Boston Globe, March 17, 2002 (B)
This is implicitly misleading. How could Elizabeth Neuffer, who wrote
this article, and who is the Globe's UN Bureau Chief, not know that
these schoolbooks were made in USA? Was the UN also involved in
distributing the Islamist books? Perhaps instead of hiding US
complicity, she should do some investigative reporting!
Other newspapers went further, lying more elaborately about US
involvement. Here is the Daily Telegraph from Sydney, Australia:
[START DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT]
"AFGHAN children ran, skipped and dawdled to their classrooms like
pupils everywhere yesterday for the start of a new school year --
with girls and women teachers back in class and subjects like math
replacing the Islamic dogma of the Taliban.
"In a symbolic break from a war-scarred past, children opened new
textbooks written by Afghan scholars based at universities in the US.
"There are even pictures of people -- images banned by the
fundamentalist Taliban."
- The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002 (C)
[END DAILY TELEGRAPH EXCERPT]
By beginning the article with the irrelevant but cheery
image, "Afghan children ran, skipped and dawdled, etc.," the
Telegraph prepares us for an upbeat news experience. We are not
disappointed. In the new schoolbooks, we are told:
"There are even pictures of people -- images banned by the
fundamentalist Taliban."
This creates the impression that the Taliban were responsible for the
bad old texts. Good thing we invaded Afghanistan and brought US
influence to bear!
Unfortunately, as the Washington Post investigators reported:
"Even the Taliban used the American-produced books, though the
radical movement scratched out human faces in keeping with its strict
fundamentalist code." -- Washington Post, March 23, 2002
Other than their objections to the human face, the Taliban were
perfectly happy with the US-produced primers.
Next, as if presenting evidence of a sea change, the Telegraph tells
us great news: Afghan children now have new schoolbooks "written by
Afghan scholars based at universities in the US."
Similarly, an article five weeks earlier in the Omaha World-Herald
declares that, "Afghanistan stands at least a chance of hauling a
modern, healthy society up out of the ashes of war and oppression,"
partly because University of Nebraska at Omaha "officials and
staffers" will be "cranking up their presses in neighboring Pakistan"
to churn out schoolbooks, all funded by "a $ 6.5 million grant from
the U.S. Agency for International Development [AID]." (D)
Neither newspaper mentions the fact that the bad *old*
schoolbooks "were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to
the University of Nebraska-Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan
Studies." -- Washington Post, March 23, 2002)
What about the US government? Have any US congressmen demanded an
investigation to find out who in the US government was involved in
the production of jihad primers that "steeped a generation in
[Islamist] violence"?
No they have not.
SPEAKING OF FORKED TONGUES...
What about George Walker Bush?
You may recall that George and Laura Bush have made passionate
speeches denouncing Islamic fundamentalism. At first Mr. Bush told us
we needed to attack Afghanistan in order to stop Mr. bin Laden. But
later on he (and Laura Bush) told us we were fighting to crush the
vicious fundamentalists.
Has George Bush said anything about the textbooks?
Yes, Mr. Bush talked about the jihad primers in a March 16th radio
broadcast. He held nothing back:
"And before the end of the year, we'll have sent almost 10 million of
them [that is, new textbooks] to the children of Afghanistan. These
textbooks will teach tolerance and respect for human dignity *instead
of indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry*." -- My
emphasis - Radio Broadcast, March 16, 2002 (E)
Note the phrase, "instead of indoctrinating students with fanaticism
and bigotry."
So according to Bush, Afghan school children won't have to contend
with bad schoolbooks anymore because finally the US has taken charge,
replacing those other guys, those evil educators who published
textbooks "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry."
The amazing thing is not only that he tells such total lies but that
he delivers them with such righteous indignation.
What about the new textbooks? Will they "teach tolerance and respect
for human dignity" as Honest George promises?
To be precise (which may be an unwise move in the New World Order)
how will the new textbooks that George Bush Junior is shipping into
Afghanistan differ from the old ones?
You know, those old books that were also designed at the University
of Nebraska at Omaha and also paid for by US AID? You know, those
old, un-American books that George Bush Junior attacked
for "indoctrinating students with fanaticism and bigotry"? You know,
those terrible old books that were shipped into Afghanistan by US AID
when George Bush Senior was President?
Here's the Washington Post again:
"On Feb. 4, [Chris Brown, head of book revision for AID's Central
Asia Task Force] arrived in Peshawar, the Pakistani border town in
which the textbooks were to be printed, to oversee hasty revisions to
the printing plates. Ten Afghan educators labored night and day,
scrambling to replace rough drawings of weapons with sketches of
pomegranates and oranges, Brown said."] - My emphasis, Washington
Post, March 23, 2002
So it appears that the only change is that some violent pictures have
been removed from the printing plates and some fruit has been added.
There is no indication that the texts have been changed.
What does a non-fundamentalist Afghan educator think about the new
schoolbooks?
"'The pictures [in the old schoolbooks] are horrendous to school
students, *but the texts are even much worse,'* said Ahmad Fahim
Hakim, an Afghan educator who is a program coordinator for
Cooperation for Peace and Unity, a Pakistan-based nonprofit.'"
-- (My emphasis, Washington Post, March 23, 2002)
So the Untied States government is right now shipping into
Afghanistan millions of Islamic Fundamentalist schoolbooks whose
texts, according to a non-Fundamentalist Afghan educator, are not
just "horrendous," they are "much worse."
Is it possible that this is all a terrible mistake? That Mr. Bush and
US AID just don't know what's in the new schoolbooks?
Apparently not.
According to the Washington Post, the "White House defends the
religious content" of the schoolbooks. And as for US AID, the Agency
for International Development, which pays for the books:
'It's not AID's policy to support religious instruction,' Stratos
said. 'But we went ahead with this project because the primary
purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a
secular activity.'"
(-- Washington Post, March 23, 2002)
So because education is predominantly secular it's OK for the
schoolbooks to be fundamentalist. Likewise, since marriage is
predominatly monogamous it's OK to cheat on your wife. And since
banks are after all mainly places where people deposit money to keep
it safe, it's fine to go rob a bank.
Got it?
Mr. Bush describes the texts of the old books as "indoctrinating
students with fanaticism and bigotry." But note, having been
republished in the new books, these exact same texts have undergone a
transformation. They have been reborn as "religious instruction"
(says US AID) or "religious content" (says the White House). It's a
modern miracle.
Reading these news reports and statements one might feel a certain
sympathy for citizens of the US and allied countries, required to
hold in their minds at one time a) the conviction that Mr. Bush is
sincerely fighting Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan and b) the
knowledge that the US is spending millions of dollars to indoctrinate
Afghan school children with Islamic fundamentalism.
Not to worry. This problem has been solved by the US and allied mass
media, which, with the exception of the Washington Post, have never
told their readers and viewers who it was that produced the old books
or what it is that's in the new ones.
Even the Washington Post has pulled its punches. For example,
consider the headline of the March 23rd article, the only one that
deals critically with the jihad primers.
Here's the headline:
"From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad; Violent Soviet-Era Textbooks
Complicate Afghan Education Efforts."
"Violent Soviet-Era textbooks." This phrase doesn't even make it
clear that the books were shipped in by theUSA! They could have been
hateful *Russian* books.
And the phrase, "Complicate Afghan Education Efforts" sounds like the
books are hindering current US attempts at effecting progressive
change. Nobody would guess from this headline that US AID has been
forcing Islamic fundamentalist texts on Afghan kids for 20 years. And
that they're still importing the same fundamentalist texts today.
(This is important because studies show that with any given article,
most people only read the headline.)
In the body of the article itself the Post asserts without offering
any evidence that steeping "a generation in [Islamist] violence" was
an "unintended consequence" of giving these kids violent Islamist
schoolbooks.
"Unintended consequence" is fast becoming the US Establishment's
favorite excuse for the many disasters of its foreign policy. "We
didn't know. We weren't prepared. We used old maps. We didn't see the
train. We thought there were tanks in the refugee column. Who could
have expected this to happen?" and on and on.
But does the case of the Islamist textbooks seem like "unintended
consequences?" Or, quite the contrary, doesn't it show every
indication of being "deliberate policy!"
In a forthcoming article we will examine other "unintended
consequences" of US policy in Afghanistan.
-- Jared Israel
Emperor's Clothes is Under Attack!
(See note at end)
***********************
FURTHER READING:
***********************
1) 'Congressman: U.S. Set Up Anti-Taliban to be Slaughtered' can be
read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/misc/rohr.htm
2) 'Washington's Backing of Afghan Terrorists: Deliberate Policy.'
A Washington Post article with introduction by 'Emperor's Clothes'.
Can be read at http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/anatomy.htm
3) 'CIA worked with Pakistan to create Taliban'
>From 'Times of India.' Can be read at http://emperors-
clothes.com/docs/pak.htm
4) ''Gaping Holes in the 'CIA vs. bin Laden' Story,'' by Jared Israel
can be read at
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probestop-i.htm
*******************
FOOTNOTES
*******************
A) Washington Post, March 23, 2002, "From U.S., the ABC's of Jihad;
Violent Soviet -Era Textbooks Complicate Afghan Education Efforts."
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/abc.htm
B) The Boston Globe March 17, 2002, Sunday, THIRD EDITION FOCUS; Pg.
E1 "THE TASK: EDUCATING A GENERATION OF WOMEN, AND QUICKLY WITH A
FEMALE LITERACY RATE OF LESS THAN 4 PERCENT, TEACHERS FACE OBSTACLES
EVEN WITH THE TALIBAN GONE" By Elizabeth Neuffer
c) The Daily Telegraph (Sydney), March 25, 2002 * WORLD; Pg.
19, "Girls' return spells out school changes - WAR ON TERROR: A
NATION'S HOPE"
By ALEXANDRE PEYRILLE and MEHRDAD BALALI in Kabul
D) Omaha World-Herald, February 8, 2002 EDITORIAL; Pg. 6B
E) March 16, 2002 Saturday, FDCH Political Transcripts, "GEORGE W.
BUSH DELIVERS WEEKLY RADIO ADDRESS"
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