-Caveat Lector- Via http://www.neravt.com/left/ From http://politics.guardian.co.uk/attacks/comment/0,1320,555463,00.html > The CIA passed responsibility for backing mojahedin terrorism to the > British - much of it coordinated by an MI6 officer in Islamabad. >>>We have to recall that the Britlanders have a great deal of dislike for their failures in colonising this part of the world, that of Afghanland. Their enthusiasm for seeing a former adversary brought to ruin on the one hand and not allowing a different adversary to prevail on the other seems to be tailor-made. "If we can't have it, no one can!" attitude. I have two takes on Bush's comment to Blair in the Capitol this past Thursday. One, his thanking his "friend" was earnest and genuine for having someone who would stand with him. The other, second, is a veiled bit of sarcasm, realising that if the Britlanders had not been so intent on their colonialism and imperialism earlier on. much of what has happened in the past two weeks and what is going on today would never have happened. Notice that in the past week, Bush has had the heads of France and Britland as visitors. These two orchestrated the European view of not only what happened to Europe following WW One but what eventually evolved as the Middle East as we find it today. My comments to each of the two would include references to this. A<>E<>R <<< }}}>Begin Blair has made Britain a target The prime minister's belligerence is dangerously irresponsible. We want an end to terrorism, not a new war Special report: terrorism in the US John Pilger Friday September 21, 2001 The Guardian The prime minister's "we are at war" statements are irresponsible in the extreme. It is said that some of his senior officials understand this, as do many MPs: thus the messages of "restraint" now being whispered to journalists. Tony Blair is endangering the people of this country as well as Britons abroad. His willingness to join Bush's "crusade" and use military force will neither avenge nor bring justice to nor honour the memory of the ordinary people who died so terribly in America last week because this will almost certainly lead to a gratuitous slaughter of more innocents in Afghanistan, Iraq or elsewhere. It also risks nurturing a new generation of suicidal killers. Two years ago, Denis Halliday, the assistant secretary general of the United Nations who resigned over the Anglo-American-imposed embargo of Iraq, told me: "We are likely to see the emergence of those who may well regard Saddam Hussein as too moderate and too willing to listen to the west. Such is the desperation of people whose children are dying in their thousands and who are bombed almost every day by American and British planes." Blair's wanton disregard of this threat has been demonstrated in recent years. On a bogus pretext, he joined America's all-out assault on Iraq in 1998 and backed Clinton's missile attack on a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. The following year, his "moral crusade" with Clinton against Yugoslavia killed hundreds of innocent civilians. This summer, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reported the Bush and Blair governments had privately "given Sharon a green light" to invade Palestinian territories. With each of these actions, and now his bellicose declarations, Blair increases the risk of terrorist attack against British citizens. Blair's being "shoulder to shoulder" with Bush means allying this country to a willingness to kill large numbers of non-Americans in pursuit of uncertain immediate goals that has long been a feature of US policy. This list is long. Remember, if you can, the "free fire zones", including the use of chemical weapons, that killed as many as 50,000 civilians every year in Vietnam; the bombing of Cambodia that killed 600,000 people; the unnecessary slaughter of tens of thousands of Iraqis during the 1991 Gulf war, the beginning of a silent holocaust that has since claimed half a million children, according to the UN. For Blair and Bush to say that war has been declared upon America is rich. During my lifetime, America has been constantly waging war against much of humanity: impoverished people mostly, in stricken places. Moreover, far from being the main perpetrators of terrorism, Islamic peoples have been its victims - more often than not of an American fundamentalism and its proxies. Blair is acting like a schoolboy who has never seen war and what cluster bombs do to human beings. He and the Queen shed tears for the victims in America; they have yet to shed tears for his - yes, his - victims in Iraq. Nor will St Paul's cathedral be reconvened to mourn the innocents who will die when he and Bush attack the shadows of Osama bin Laden. In these surreal days, there is one truth. Nothing justified the killing of innocent people in America last week and nothing justifies the killing of innocent people anywhere else. For the prime minister to behave responsibly, he would have to speak out with a very different voice. He could say: "Our response must not be to sink to the level of this criminal outrage and kill for the sake of killing." He could seize this extraordinary historic moment and call for the redirection of western politics away from war and towards peace - specifically peace in those regions of the world where one type of terrorism is the product largely of imperialism, old and new. Britain is deeply implicated. As John Cooley writes in Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism: "It was only Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's British government which supported the jihad with full enthusiasm." The CIA passed responsibility for backing mojahedin terrorism to the British - much of it coordinated by an MI6 officer in Islamabad. Osama bin Laden was given "free rein" in Afghanistan. After more than a century of invasion, plunder and bombing (since the 20s by the RAF), we in the west owe the people of Afghanistan and the Middle East peace. The start of peace would be the establishment of a Palestinian homeland, as laid down in international law by a 34- year-old UN resolution; the lifting of the horrific embargo on the civilian population of Iraq; and the careful, negotiated ending of Afghanistan's isolation. A tall order, yes. But these are the root causes of a grievance and rage we can barely imagine, and there is no other enduring solution than peace with justice. Unless real politics replaces the autocratic impositions of power, the understudies of those who murdered so many in America will appear and act; nothing is surer. They cannot be bombed into oblivion. Only justice for the millions of ordinary people, who are not murderers, will bring the peace and security that is, after all, a universal right. www.johnpilger.com 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
