米国・英国で論議されている新帝国主義を考える。 Ｆより 新帝国主義が英米国で話題になっている。これは、このコラムでも 述べた通り、北部同盟は山賊の集まりで、兵士が民衆を略奪、殺人 することが多かった。このため、タリバンが支配した地域は、この 略奪をないために、民衆の支持を得たのです。しかし、タイバンも 原理主義的恐怖政治であったため、民衆の支持を得たわけではない ことが、判明している。 しかし、米国は北部同盟を支援して、タリバンと戦うのですが、 戦闘後の治安体制は、本当に大丈夫なのか心配である。事実、マジ ャリシャリフでは、強奪があったとのことである。 まだ、アフガンは、中世なのである。近代思想がない。人権もない のである。２０年以上、戦争であるから人権という概念さえないの であろう。このため、支配論理を確立した欧米人が支配した方が いいという理論のようである。 しかし、そのウラには、カスピ海の石油パイプラインをパキスタン まで通すルートとしての価値があるため、アフガンを手離したくな いという思いも感じる。コスモスさんの見解は正しいようである。 ＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝ 1. 「強姦」と「略奪」の無法地帯と化す 首都カブールに北部同盟が無血入城――。 手榴弾やカラシニコフ銃を掲げて歓喜する兵士たちの陰で、その ニュースに一番渋い顔をしたのは、実は、北部同盟の尻を叩き続け てきたブッシュ大統領だった。 「ブッシュ大統領とパキスタンのムシャラフ大統領の会談でも合意 されたことだが、米政府は北部同盟がカブールに入るべきではない と一貫して主張していた。なぜなら、マスード司令官というカリス マ的指導者を９月に自爆テロで失った北部同盟は、もはやタリバン 以上のならず者集団だという報告が、現地に派遣している米軍の 特殊部隊や軍事顧問から入っていたからだ。９日に北部同盟が奪還 した要衝都市マザーリ・シャリーフでは、すでに兵士たちによって 商店などの略奪、強姦、タリバン支持者たちへのリンチなどが頻発 している」（事件を取材する米紙記者） その北部同盟を支援し、マザーリ・シャリーフのタリバン勢力に 絨毯爆撃を加えたのは他でもないアメリカだ。だからこそ、北部同 盟のカブール入城で、その狼藉の実態が西側メディアにバレること を恐れたというわけだ。 現に、カブール奪還のその日、国連のアフガニスタン人道援助調 整事務所は、「１００人以上のタリバン兵士が北部同盟に殺された 。兵士たちは若く、戦闘中ではなかった」 という言い方で、少年 兵の虐殺が行なわれていることを厳しく非難した。同事務所によれ ば、少年兵らは学校に隠れているところを捕らえられたという。 また、日本のＮＧＯの報告によると、北部同盟による迫害や粛清を 恐れたタリバン支持の市民たちが、着の身着のままカブールから逃 げ出しているという。 前号で本誌特派のドイツ人ジャーナリスト、マルクス・ベンスマ ンが、米国のアフガン攻撃をいいことに、隣国ウズベキスタンで イスラム教徒への弾圧がエスカレートしている実態をリポートした が、ウズベクに限らず、タジキスタンやキルギスなど、周辺諸国で はイスラム教徒へのリンチや強姦が半ば黙認されているという報道 もある。北部同盟の首都奪還により、そうした蛮行がますます加速 することは間違いない。 http://www.weeklypost.com/jp/011130jp/brief/opin_2.html ＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝ Imperialism is the answer October 14, 2001 BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST For a few minutes last Sunday, Osama bin Laden was the only 11th century guy with his own CNN gig, and what he had to say was useful and illuminating. The cave man (literally) warmed up with a remark about ''the tragedy of Andalusia''--a reference to the end of Moorish rule in Spain in 1492. As he sees it, the roots of Islam's downfall in Andalusia lie in its accommodation with the Christian world and a move toward a pluralistic society. That's very helpful. Osama's not just anti-Jew or anti-Christian, but objects to the very idea of a society where believers of all faiths and none rub along together. He's at war with, for want of a better word, multiculturalism. The bonehead left, missing the point as always, march around the cities of the West waving placards against ''the racist war.'' But he's the racist. If Susan Sontag were to swing by his cave, he'd shoot her dead before she'd have time to bleat, ''But I'm on your side.'' By comparison with this big central grievance, the specific ones are easily solved. To be honest, he has a point about the U.S. military presence near Islam's holiest sites in Saudi Arabia: It is a humiliation that one of the richest regimes on Earth is too incompetent, greedy and decadent to provide its own defense that those layabout Saudi princes, faced with Saddam's troops massing on the border, could think of nothing better to do than turn white as their robes and frantically dial Washington. In fact, insofar as the Middle East's the victim of anything other than its own failures, it's not Western imperialism but Western post-imperialism. Unlike Africa, Asia, Australasia and the Americas, Araby has never come under direct European colonial rule. Instead, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the Great War, the winners carved up the Arabian peninsula not into colonies but ''spheres of influence,'' a system that continues to this day. Rather than making Arabia a Crown colony within the Empire, sending out the Marquess of Whatnot as governor, issuing banknotes bearing the likeness of King George V, setting up courts presided over by judges in full-bottomed wigs and introducing a professional civil service and a free press, the British instead mulled over which sheikh was likely to prove more pliable, installed him in the capital and suggested he have his sons educated at Eton or Harrow. The French did the same, and so, later, did the Americans. This was cheaper than colonialism and less politically prickly, but it did a great disservice to the populations of those countries. The alleged mountain of evidence of Yankee culpability is, in fact, evidence only of the Great Satan's deplorable faintheartedness : Yes, Washington dealt with Saddam, and helped train the precursors of the Taliban, and fancied Colonel Gadhafi as a better bet than King Idris, just as in the '50s they bolstered the Shah of Iran and then in the '70s took against him, when Jimmy Carter decided the Peacock Throne wasn't progressive enough and wound up with the ayatollahs instead. This system of cherrypicking from a barrel-load of unsavory potential clients was summed up in the old CIA line: ''He may be a sonofabitch but he's our sonofabitch.'' The inverse is more to the point: He may be our sonofabitch, but he's a sonofabitch. Some guys go nuts, some are merely devious and unreliable, some remain charming and pleasant but of little help, but all of them are a bunch of despots utterly sealed off from their peoples. As we now know, it was our so-called ''moderate'' Arab ''friends'' who provided all the suicide bombers of Sept. 11, just as it's in their government-run media--notably the vile Egyptian press--that some of the worst anti-American rhetoric is to be found. The contemptible regime of President Mubarak permits dissent against the U.S. government but not against its own, licensing the former as a safety-valve to reduce pressure on the latter. This is a classic example of why the sonofabitch system is ultimately useless to the West: The United States spends billions subsidizing regimes who have a vested interest in encouraging anti-Americanism as a substitute for more locally focused grievances. As a result, the West gets blamed for far more in a part of the world it never colonized than it does in those regions it directly administered for centuries. By comparison with the sonofabitch system, colonialism is progressive and enlightened. Even under its modified, indirect Middle Eastern variation, the average Egyptian earned more under the British than he does today--that's not adjusted for inflation, but in real actual rupees. Even in Afghanistan, the savagery of whose menfolk has been much exaggerated by the left's nervous nellies, such progress as was made in the country came when it fell under the watchful eye of British India. With the fading of British power in the region in the 1950s, King Zahir let his country fall under the competing baleful influences of Marxism and Islamic fundamentalism. What will we do this time 'round? Will we stick Zahir Shah back on his throne to preside over a ramshackle coalition of mutually hostile commies, theocrats and gangsters, and hope the poor old gentleman hangs in there till we've cleared Afghan airspace? Or will we understand Osama bin Laden's declaration of war on pluralism for what it is? Afghanistan needs not just food parcels, but British courts and Swiss police and Indian civil servants and American town clerks and Australian newspapers. So does much of the rest of the region. America has prided itself on being the first non-imperial superpower, but the viability of that strategy was demolished on Sept. 11. For its own security, it needs to do what it did to Tojo's Japan and Hitler's Germany after the war: Systematically dismantle them and rebuild them as functioning members of the civilized world. Kipling called it ''the white man's burden''--the ''white man'' bit will have to be modified in the age of Colin Powell and Condi Rice, and it's no longer really a ''burden,'' not in cost-benefit terms. Given the billions of dollars of damage done to the world economy by Sept. 11, massive engagement in the region will be cheaper than the alternative. If neo-colonialism makes you squeamish, give it some wussify ied Clinto-Blairite name like ''global community outreach.'' Tony Blair, to his credit, has already outlined a 10-year British commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan under a kind of UN protectorate. We can do it for compassionate reasons (the starving hordes beggared by incompetent thug regimes) or for selfish ones (our long-term security), but do it we must. Mark Steyn is senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc. Original URL http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn14.htm ＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝ コスモス 新帝国主義についてなのですが、カブールを占領した北部同盟を 欧米が無力化し終わることには、立ち消えになる使い捨ての主義だ と思うのです。 入城したとたんに北部同盟へのアムネスティからの抗議やら上記 の新帝国主義理論が始まったところを見ると、アフガン戦後の利権 をうまく確保するために、北部同盟は英雄であってはならないので しょうな。 そのうちに「北部同盟はカブールのタリバン協力者を虐殺し始め た」というデマが流れて、有力者への買収・分裂によって、再び 北部同盟は無力化するでしょう。いま新帝国主義をぶち上げている 人達は、それ以降は用済みになると思う。