-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,551036,00.html
}}}>Begin
They can't see why they are hated
Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad
Special report: Terrorism in the US
Seumas Milne
Thursday September 13, 2001
The Guardian
Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New
York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans
simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the
message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom
and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as
soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually
responsible.
Shock, rage and grief there has been aplenty. But any glimmer of recognition
of why people might have been driven to carry out such atrocities, sacrificing
their own lives in the process - or why the United States is hated with such
bitterness, not only in Arab and Muslim countries, but across the developing
world - seems almost entirely absent. Perhaps it is too much to hope that,
as rescue workers struggle to pull firefighters from the rubble, any but a
small minority might make the connection between what has been visited
upon them and what their government has visited upon large parts of the
world.
But make that connection they must, if such tragedies are not to be repeated,
potentially with even more devastating consequences. US political leaders are doing
their people no favours by reinforcing popular ignorance wi
th self-referential rhetoric. And the echoing chorus of Tony Blair, whose
determination to bind Britain ever closer to US foreign policy ratchets up the threat
to our own cities, will only fuel anti-western sentiment. So
will calls for the defence of "civilisation", with its overtones of Samuel
Huntington's poisonous theories of post-cold war confrontation between the west and
Islam, heightening perceptions of racism and hypocrisy.
As Mahatma Gandhi famously remarked when asked his opinion of western civilisation, it
would be a good idea. Since George Bush's father inaugurated his new world order a
decade ago, the US, supported by its British ally,
bestrides the world like a colossus. Unconstrained by any superpower rival or system
of global governance, the US giant has rewritten the global financial and trading
system in its own interest; ripped up a string of trea
ties it finds inconvenient; sent troops to every corner of the globe; bombed
Afghanistan, Sudan, Yugoslavia and Iraq without troubling the United Nations;
maintained a string of murderous embargos against recalcitrant reg
imes; and recklessly thrown its weight behind Israel's 34-year illegal military
occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as the Palestinian intifada rages.
If, as yesterday's Wall Street Journal insisted, the east coast carnage was the fruit
of the Clinton administration's Munich-like appeasement of the Palestinians, the mind
boggles as to what US Republicans imagine to be a
Churchillian response.
It is this record of unabashed national egotism and arrogance that drives
anti-Americanism among swaths of the world's population, for whom there is little
democracy in the current distribution of global wealth and power.
If it turns out that Tuesday's attacks were the work of Osama bin Laden's supporters,
the sense that the Americans are once again reaping a dragons' teeth harvest they
themselves sowed will be overwhelming.
It was the Americans, after all, who poured resources into the 1980s war against the
Soviet-backed regime in Kabul, at a time when girls could go to school and women to
work. Bin Laden and his mojahedin were armed and tra
ined by the CIA and MI6, as Afghanistan was turned into a wasteland and its communist
leader Najibullah left hanging from a Kabul lamp post with his genitals stuffed in his
mouth.
But by then Bin Laden had turned against his American sponsors, while US-sponsored
Pakistani intelligence had spawned the grotesque Taliban now protecting him. To punish
its wayward Afghan offspring, the US subsequently f
orced through a sanctions regime which has helped push 4m to the brink of starvation,
according to the latest UN figures, while Afghan refugees fan out across the world.
All this must doubtless seem remote to Americans desperately searching the debris of
what is expected to be the largest-ever massacre on US soil - as must the killings of
yet more Palestinians in the West Bank yesterday,
or even the 2m estimated to have died in Congo's wars since the overthrow of
the US-backed Mobutu regime. "What could some political thing have to do
with blowing up office buildings during working hours?" one bewildered New
Yorker asked yesterday.
Already, the Bush administration is assembling an international coalition for
an Israeli-style war against terrorism, as if such counter-productive acts of
outrage had an existence separate from the social conditions out of which
they arise. But for every "terror network" that is rooted out, another will
emerge - until the injustices and inequalities that produce them are
addressed.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001
End<{{{
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Forwarded as information only; no endorsement to be presumed
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking
new landscapes but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe
simply because it has been handed down for many generations. Do not
believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do
not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not
believe in anything merely on the authority of Teachers, elders or wise men.
Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it
agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.
Then accept it and live up to it."
The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sutta
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
A merely fallen enemy may rise again, but the reconciled
one is truly vanquished. -Johann Christoph Schiller,
German Writer (1759-1805)
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that
prevents us from living freely and nobly. -Bertrand Russell
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Everyone has the right...to seek, receive and impart
information and ideas through any media and regardless
of frontiers."
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will
teach you to keep your mouth shut."
--- Ernest Hemingway
<A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A>
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
<A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A>
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
<A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A>
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
