the author is a Kashmir-based journalist, thinker, rationalist, philosopher, writer and a public relations professional:
Jus ad bellum. Jus (or ius) ad bellum is the title given to the branch of law that defines the legitimate reasons a state may engage in war and focuses on certain criteria that render a war just. The principal modern legal source of jus ad bellum derives from the Charter of the United Nations, which declares in Article 2: “All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations”; and in Article 51: “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations.” These words have been used as a justification to propel wars by some of the constituent members of the United Nations, even though by default they forget the first “adjudication” of the Charter which notes a point of refrain from waging unjustified wars while the second part is used as fodder to soldiers committed to “national integrity and security”. That is what the United States’ war on terror is all about, even though this fact in no way alters the reality that Muslims have been involved in unprovoked and unnecessary violence across the world under the pretext of waging a “holy war” which is an incited refrain of the term “jihad” which according to Islamic texts does not justify using violence against non-Muslims. The United States uses purgatory theories to trample over nation-states over the context of conquering oil-rich terrains while the Muslims use religion to attain something which is quite ludicrous. So be it jus ad bellum or the misconstrued meaning of the term “jihad”, the West as well as Muslims who are up against the West are involved in what constitutes a violation of human rights.
America’s crusade is a temporal delineation for its “hunger” for conquering territories that are oil rich (unfortunately most being under the control of Muslims), besides imposing under the garb of the IMF and the World Bank, the privatization of State enterprises and the transfer of the countries’ economic assets into the hands of foreign capital. Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, are home to around 70 percent of the world’s total oil reserves, while the United States has barely 6 percent of total oil reserves, including its major ally oil producers. America, in its diluted attempts at conquering control over oil-rich territories uses religion, Islam in this case, to cover up the basic objectives of its military interventions – the in vogue being launching military interventions on ethical and moral grounds against “Islamic terrorists” and “rogue states”. The purported threat to the “Homeland” is the basic contrived instinct that drives American soldiers to launch unprovoked attacks on nations that are home to massive oil reserves and this was the case with Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Middle East war imbroglio, Iran and Syria have always been next on the list of the “axis of evil”. The US is known for sponsoring military aid to fuel “civil wars” in regions like Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, Colombia, Yemen, Angola etc. besides covertly intervening in the local crisis in many regions. America has contorted the ethics of war, the very principle of jus ad bellum by ignoring the opposite i.e., jus in bello, which is a set of laws that come into effect once a war has begun. Its purpose is to regulate how wars are fought, without prejudice to the reasons of how or why they had begun. America’s war on terror is the war against “Islamic terrorists” and confidentially the entire Muslim population is terrorist as per the US. Let us come to the point of agenda of the “Islamic terrorists” and let us see under what contexts do they ride their horses into war?
“Jihad” contemporarily translated as the “holy war” is not a thesis for violence. The Arabic word for war is “al-harb” while “jihad” actually means striving or struggling. As per the holy Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), “jihad” has many meanings. It can refer to internal as well as external efforts to be a good Muslims or believer, as well as working to inform (not assert) people about the faith of Islam. Even in the sense that “al-harb” of let us say military “jihad” is deemed necessary for protecting Islam or the people of the faith it can be achieved using legal, diplomatic, economic or political means. In case no peaceful alternative is found, Islam also allows military warfare within a strict adherence to the ethics of war lays special privilege to women, children and invalids who cannot and must not be harmed in any manner if a military engagement is inevitable. The concept of a “just war” is crucial to Islamic war ethics. The Islamic population that is up in arms against the West is using a twisted and contorted Islamic view about war to keep its war machinery up and running and using oil, which the US eyes, to covertly fund its operations. There are also groups like the Al Qaeda, which understand the importance of keeping the oil reserves from invasions to control the world economy. In his 1996 declaration of war against America, bin Laden said that oil was not part of the battle because it was “a large economic power essential for the soon to be established Islamic state.” But in a December 2004 audiotape he reversed this promise. Declaring Western countries’ purchase of oil at then-market prices “the greatest theft in history,” he stated: “Focus your operations on it [oil production], especially in Iraq and the Gulf area, since this [lack of oil] will cause them to die off [on their own].” –Jihad for Oil, Foundation for Defence of Democracies, 25th December 2015. This gives us an insight into how the “Islamic” war is positioned on the subject of oil. It is control.
Based in the outskirts of al-Omar oilfield in eastern Syria, the ISIS runs its “machinery” by using oil. “Estimates by local traders and engineers put crude production in Isis-held territory at about 34,000-40,000 barrels per day. The oil is sold at the wellhead for between $20 and $45 a barrel, earning the terrorists an average of $1.5m a day,” reports indicate. ISIS is basically adopting the mechanisms of operation of oil corporations across the world and is known to be recruiting engineers in huge numbers. The ISIS is not mainly concerned about the “destruction” of the West but it is more concerned about its own survival and growth as a probable “oil magnate” which could wreak havoc on the world economy if they were to conquer more oil-rich territories.
We have two conflicting “point of views” here. One is the US-led invasion on the oil-dominant, Muslim inhabited world working over the pretext of the contorted meaning of jus ad bellum and on the other hand we have Islamic militants, assumed to be, fighting the same West over a contorted meaning of the word “jihad”. So, essentially both are using contrived religion as a driving force and contorted ethics as the refuelling point to engage in what could be called one of the world’s most preposterous conflicts in which thousands of people – children, women and men, are dying every day and the justification that can be fished from the innards of the collapsing giants is a battle for monopoly over oil? http://nation.com.pk/blogs/03-Jan-2016/jus-ad-bellum-and-jihad-the-islamic-war-is-a-battle-for-monopoly-over-oil
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