Capitalist Greed and Fossil Fuels Threaten Human Civilization

Columnist: Zeeshan Khan

We are distressed by the deaths and devastation caused by floods, and we are being told that in the solar universe revolving around the sun, the only cradle of human life, our Earth, is under the threat of coal, oil and gas bombs which have the capacity to cause destruction far greater than the combined power of atom, hydrogen and cobalt bombs, and it is rapidly rushing towards doomsday.

Those who are telling and warning us are 160 intellectuals belonging to 46 countries of the world, who have received world-level awards and prizes for their outstanding services and performance on the subject of environmental pollution. They have published a joint appeal in a full-page advertisement in the New York Times and all other prominent newspapers of the world, in which it is said that thought should be given to foiling the last attempts to destroy human life and civilization, otherwise the world of colour and fragrance, sound and melody, beauty and love will end, will be extinguished, and everything will end with it.

It has been told that the profit-seeking of the capitalist system, which has touched new extremes of greed for wealth, has also crossed the extremes of interfering with natural seasons due to the enormous use of coal, oil and gas, because of which global warming can increase by six degrees, which can completely change the climatic conditions of the world. The earth can refuse to grow grain, water to quench thirst can become extinct, the world can enter its last war for life, the garment of human civilization can be torn to pieces. These apprehensions have been expressed for the last century, and for the last quarter century, emphasis has also been laid on efforts to handle and improve this situation, but the countries suffering from greed for wealth of the capitalist system all over the world, including America, are busy in thwarting these efforts and have brought the world along with human life and civilization to the last edge of destruction.

The 160 intellectuals have appealed to all sympathetic institutions, associations and groups of the human world that, in their own interest and in the interest of their future, they should protest against those running the industries engaged in the abundant use of coal, oil and gas, and refrain from actions that further worsen the conditions of “global warming” and turn the whole world into a blazing furnace, and also try to think that if there will be no human population in the world, where will they sell their products and from where will they earn profit? The economy and market shops also need customers. If there are no customers, how will markets run? If in the six degrees of global warming, i.e., unbearable heat, the whole world is made into Hiroshima and Nagasaki, then who will survive? Why does this not enter the minds of the profit-seekers of the capitalist system?

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : Israel’s expanding international reach raises a question that governments can no longer comfortably avoid: when does cooperation become dependence, and when does dependence begin to compromise sovereignty? Weapons, surveillance systems, intelligence partnerships, diplomatic advocacy and investment can establish enduring influence inside another country’s institutions. Examined together, these relationships reveal how a state can acquire leverage far beyond its territory without formally governing the societies affected by its decisions.
The central issue is the conversion of access into power. A weapons contract opens a relationship with a defense ministry. Technical support creates continuing contact with military personnel. Surveillance technology enters intelligence institutions. Political advocacy cultivates sympathetic decision-makers. Commercial partnerships establish constituencies interested in preserving cooperation. These channels can reinforce one another until challenging the relationship carries significant institutional and political costs. Influence becomes most consequential when governments stop asking whether those costs have narrowed their freedom to act.
Ideology matters because it shapes how political leaders justify the exercise of power. Religious nationalism can turn territorial ambitions into sacred obligations and portray compromise as betrayal. Where officials invoke divine entitlement or historical destiny, their language deserves close examination against their policies. The danger is the translation of claims about exceptional entitlement into governmental practice: unequal rights, territorial expansion or the belief that ordinary restraints should yield to a privileged national mission.
Such claims must be attached to identifiable leaders, movements and decisions. Their political force lies in what they authorize. A government that presents its objectives as beyond legitimate challenge creates conditions in which critics become enemies and civilian suffering becomes an acceptable instrument. International partners then face a choice: impose meaningful limits or help normalize exceptional treatment. Strategic friendship becomes dangerous when it functions as permission to evade accountability.
Israel’s international security industry supplies material foundations for its reach. Its defense ministry reported approximately $14.8 billion in new export contracts during 2024. These transactions can establish relationships lasting far beyond delivery. Advanced equipment requires maintenance, training, replacement parts and software. A government purchasing such systems must consider the political implications of relying on an external supplier for essential capabilities. The resulting vulnerability deserves as much attention as the advertised military advantage.
Latin America illustrates several pathways through which these relationships develop. Guatemala’s military governments received Israeli arms and assistance during a period of brutal repression. Colombia’s longstanding reliance on Israeli equipment, including Kfir aircraft and Galil rifles, complicated disengagement when diplomatic relations broke down. Argentina under Javier Milei and Honduras under Juan Orlando Hernández supplied prominent diplomatic backing through commitments concerning Jerusalem. Ecuador under Daniel Noboa pursued cooperation across defense, security, agriculture and water. Together, these cases show military, political and developmental relationships creating multiple points of institutional attachment.
Elsewhere, diplomatic openings and strategic partnerships expand the network. Bolivia restored relations in December 2025. Venezuela’s foreign ministry confirmed continuing technical cooperation following Israeli earthquake assistance in 2026. Recognition of Somaliland introduced Israel into a sensitive sovereignty dispute in the Horn of Africa. India developed extensive defense cooperation, while Austria established a strategic partnership. These relationships differ, but their cumulative significance is international access across security, technology, development and diplomacy. Each deserves examination for the commitments it creates and the interests it advances.
Political lobbying adds another layer. Former Australian foreign minister Bob Carr criticized what he considered excessive pressure from a hardline pro-Israel lobby on government policy. His account raises a fundamental democratic question: can elected officials exercise independent judgment when organized advocacy enjoys privileged access to executive leadership? The answer requires examining meetings, funding, communications and policy changes. Citizens should know whether decisions reflect publicly defensible national interests or pressure operating beyond effective scrutiny.
Surveillance exposes an especially intrusive form of power. Citizen Lab has documented Pegasus attacks involving journalists and human rights defenders. Such capabilities can penetrate the communications through which societies investigate corruption and organize opposition. Responsibility extends through the supply chain, from developers and licensing authorities to purchasing agencies and political leadership. Governments that conceal surveillance abuses cannot credibly claim to protect the freedoms those abuses undermine.
Economic sovereignty requires equally rigorous scrutiny. Banking infrastructure, telecommunications, investment platforms and critical software should be examined for ownership, access rights, contractual dependence and security vulnerabilities.
Claims about foreign control must be established through records and technical evidence. Governments should identify who can access sensitive information, interrupt essential services or influence strategic decisions. Confidential contracts cannot substitute for public accountability where national systems and citizens’ rights are at stake.
The United States provides the principal institutional foundation of Israel’s strategic support. Its longstanding military-assistance framework makes clear that international protection rests on identifiable decisions by legislators and administrations. Those decisions carry responsibility. Officials cannot authorize assistance and then treat its foreseeable consequences as someone else’s concern. An alliance becomes a mechanism of impunity when support continues without meaningful examination of conduct.
Gaza gives this argument its moral urgency. UN satellite analysis based on July 2025 imagery identified damage affecting approximately 78 percent of structures. The scale demands answers from Israeli authorities and the governments sustaining their military and diplomatic position. Palestinian rights cannot remain subordinate to the convenience of strategic partnerships. International standards lose their authority when powerful relationships determine whose suffering produces consequences.
Every government should therefore audit its dependencies, disclose sensitive agreements, investigate unlawful surveillance and scrutinize political influence. Where relationships facilitate abuse or compromise independent decision-making, they should be restricted, renegotiated or ended through lawful processes. Sovereignty requires the capacity to refuse.
Israel’s international influence deserves sustained scrutiny because power exercised through dispersed institutions can escape the accountability attached to visible force. The response must be concrete: expose the mechanisms, identify the beneficiaries and impose enforceable limits. No government should enjoy exceptional permission to override another society’s independence or another people’s rights.

Paris (Imran Y. CHOUDHRY) :- Former Press Secretary to the President, Former Press Minister to the Embassy of Pakistan to France, Former MD, SRBC Mr. Qamar Bashir analysis : When a thief is caught and punished, justice has been done in that case. It does not follow that every theft has been detected or every thief punished. This distinction becomes consequential when powerful states cite a handful of military prosecutions as evidence that their overseas operations function within an effective system of accountability.
The arrest of a U.S. Marine in Okinawa on suspicion of robbery and murder brings that distinction into focus in Oct 2026. The allegation remains unproven, but the public anger surrounding it reflects earlier crimes, including the 1995 assault of a schoolgirl by American servicemen and the 2016 rape and murder committed by a former Marine working as a base contractor.
America presents its military power as a shield for freedom, democracy, and international order. Israeli officials likewise invoke military morality. Such declarations invite examination against conduct. A victim’s family cannot measure ethical standards through speeches, recruiting slogans, or the existence of disciplinary regulations. Its concern is whether the person responsible will answer for what happened.
Prosecutions establish that particular offenders were held accountable. They cannot reveal how many offenses escaped detection, how many complaints were abandoned, or how many victims lacked the means to pursue justice. The unseen total cannot responsibly be invented. Neither can it be assumed away because a government produces several examples of punishment.
Military contracting makes this problem more complicated. Private companies perform legitimate tasks, including transport, maintenance, construction, and protection. But when public operations pass through commercial contracts, responsibility can become dispersed among commanders, officials, corporations, and subcontractors. Victims confront an institutional maze while the government retains the benefit of the services it commissioned.
This concern comes from within the American military scholarship itself. Deborah Kidwell’s 2005 study, Public War, Private Fight?, published by the Army’s Combat Studies Institute, described divided authority over contractors and warned that it could obscure responsibility. The author’s views were not official policy, but the publication demonstrates that these structural weaknesses were recognized decades ago.
Kidwell discussed allegations of sexual slavery and illegal weapons purchases involving contractor employees in Bosnia. She also examined contractor interrogation work at Abu Ghraib and difficulties bringing criminal prosecutions. Her study provides grounds for questioning whether outsourcing can weaken accountability precisely where the exercise of power requires the strongest supervision.
Nisour Square illustrates both the possibility and fragility of justice. Blackwater guards killed 14 unarmed civilians in Baghdad in September 2007, according to American prosecutors. Four guards were convicted; Nicholas Slatten eventually received life imprisonment. President Donald Trump pardoned all four in December 2020. Punishment established through judicial proceedings was subsequently removed through political authority.
Those convictions cannot be treated as proof that other contractor abuses were discovered or punished. Nor can the pardons be separated from their wider message. Iraqi families watched the country financing the security operation forgive men convicted over civilian deaths. Legal accountability had existed, but its consequences proved vulnerable to presidential preference.
The regular forces also supply documented examples. Steven Green received life imprisonment for his role in the rape of an Iraqi girl and the murder of her family. Robert Bales received life without parole after murdering 16 Afghan civilians. Calvin Gibbs was convicted following staged killings of Afghan civilians presented as legitimate combat encounters.
These cases expose grave crimes; they do not measure the full extent of misconduct. Haditha offers a different outcome: 24 Iraqi civilians were killed, while the final defendant pleaded guilty to negligent dereliction of duty and received no imprisonment. The distance between human loss and legal consequence deserves examination beyond simply counting convictions.
Corruption further connects uniformed authority with private enterprise. In Afghanistan, soldiers and a contractor employee used fraudulent transport documents to facilitate fuel theft exceeding a million dollars. Their prosecution established responsibility for that scheme. It supplied no basis for concluding that every comparable scheme had been uncovered or that oversight worked consistently.
Remote warfare introduces another distance between power and consequence. Reported signature strikes targeted suspected militants through behavioral patterns without necessarily identifying them by name. Contractors support drone operations, although involvement does not establish independent authority to order killings. The central concern is the reliability of decisions that turn observed association into grounds for lethal force.
Reporting on leaked records from Operation Haymaker described a five-month period during the 2012–2013 Afghanistan campaign when nearly 90 percent of those killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. This does not establish that all were civilians. It does expose the inadequacy of treating technological accuracy as a guarantee of narrow human consequences.
The human cost becomes unbearable when children are involved. In March 2026, Reuters reported preliminary investigative findings pointing toward likely American responsibility for the February strike on an Iranian girls’ school. Iranian authorities reported 168 children killed. Attribution required investigation; the suffering demanded answers that could withstand independent scrutiny rather than reassurance from those conducting the war.
Leadership shapes the atmosphere in which restraint operates. On April 7, Trump warned that “a whole civilization will die tonight,” before later agreeing to a ceasefire. His administration portrayed the threat as negotiating pressure. Yet the language placed an entire people within a threat of destruction, treating their collective existence as an instrument of coercion.
Pete Hegseth’s dismissal of “stupid rules of engagement” compounds the concern. Rules governing military force help protect civilians and translate legal obligations into operational decisions. When senior officials disparage restraint, their words risk encouraging subordinates to regard caution as weakness. That risk extends across America’s extensive overseas presence and into the relationships troops maintain with host communities.
Watching the Avatar films, I recognized a disturbing metaphor in the colonel’s treatment of another world’s inhabitants as obstacles to domination. Fiction proves nothing about particular operations. It nevertheless dramatizes the intoxication of power: overwhelming capability becoming, in the aggressor’s imagination, sufficient justification for violence. Military superiority then takes the place of moral reasoning.
The danger also returns home. When leaders teach that strength places a nation above rules, they weaken the principle that authority must justify itself. Citizens may then encounter the same reasoning in domestic policing, political disputes, and public administration. Foreign victims experience the immediate consequences, but Americans inherit the institutional habits formed when their government exercises power without sufficient scrutiny or durable corrective consequences.
A contract cannot erase responsibility for public power. Accountability requires examination of those who commission, supervise, and authorize operations, alongside those who carry them out. Isolated punishments cannot answer complaints that remain uninvestigated. American citizens can demand disclosure, meaningful independent scrutiny, and consequences that survive political convenience. A country’s ethical standing depends on the restraint it practices, not the innocence it proclaims.