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Viewing Terrorism through a Different
Lens
By Jason Miller
10/04/05 "ICH"
-- -- Remember in September of 2001, when the US President
(appointed by Katherine Harris) dissembled to the American
public about why the Middle Eastern "terrorists" hate
America?
In case you forgot, here is what he told us:
"Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate
what we see right here in this chamber -- a democratically
elected government. Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate
our freedoms -- our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech,
our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each
other."
How ironic that the man who utilized his brother's governorship,
Katherine Harris's lust for power, and a corrupt decision
rendered by the Supreme Court to steal the 2000 presidential
election would pontificate to Americans about democratic
elections in the US and self-appointed leaders in the Middle
East. Since it is a given that such a virtuous "born
again" Christian could not have been lying, it is obvious
that temporary amnesia prevented him from recalling voter
disenfranchisement, his regime’s plans to strip its citizens'
freedoms with the Patriot Act, and his nearly absolute
intolerance for dissent.
Reality is too Complicated to Conform to Your Fairy
Tale, Mr. Bush
Why do the "terrorists" and other people of the Middle
East hate us? The truth is much more complicated than George
Bush's disingenuous, propagandistic explanation to the American
public. However, Bush's assertion was accurate in one sense.
When he said, "They hate what we see right here in this
chamber," he captured the true focus of the ire of the
Arab world: the US government.
Since the internal combustion engine became an indispensable
aspect of economic vitality, the United States government has
invaded, exploited, manipulated and cheated Arab nations in its
ongoing quest to purloin their precious oil. Preying upon
internal strife and ongoing unrest amongst varying factions and
sects of the Islamic faith, the US government has raped the
people of the Middle East for decades. Terrorism is the symptom,
not the disease. Acts of retaliation against the US are the
result of victimized people attempting to thwart their
over-powering, deceitful oppressors in Washington.
Show Me the Democracy….
Consider the fact that the power-brokers in Washington DC have
long supported, and continue to support, a repressive monarchy
in Saudi Arabia known as the House of Saud. Washington maintains
this incestuous relationship with these iron-fisted rulers to
ensure a steady supply of crude oil and to guarantee they have
an ally to host regional military bases from which to further
their goal of global hegemony. (The US has recently
significantly diminished its military presence in Saudi Arabia,
but once it has established a stable occupation in Iraq, it is
quite likely US forces will return to the Saudi Kingdom in large
numbers). Over the years, the world's "champion of
freedom" has consistently looked the other way as the Saudi
government has enforced Shari'a Law. This ruthless monarchy has
routinely flogged and imprisoned alleged homosexuals without a
trial. Political parties have not been allowed allowed. The
House of Saud has allowed virtually no freedom of expression.
Saudi citizens have often been detained and tortured
arbitrarily. Saudi women have been treated as second class
citizens. With full knowledge of these human rights abuses, the
US government continues to pump billions of dollars of oil money
into the over-flowing coffers of the House of Saud and to
provide the “muscle” to ensure that the Saudi monarchs
retain power. In August, the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia
reported that relations with the US "couldn't be
better". Leaders from both nations work tenaciously to
preserve this reprehensible symbiosis.
You’re Continuing to Pour Gasoline on the Fire, George
Perhaps the most poignant and timely illustration of the US
government fueling Arab antipathy is Iraq. In 1963, the US
helped sponsor a coup which brought Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath
Party to power. King Hussein of Jordan has confirmed that the
CIA located Iraqi Communists for the Ba'athists, who in turn
tortured and killed these members of their opposition. Once
Saddam came to power in 1979, the US became his staunch ally,
pushing for Iran's defeat in the Iran-Iraq war during the
1980's. Providing money (via loans from Middle Eastern US
allies), conventional weapons (through US allies), and the
precursors to biological weapons (directly from the CDC) to
Hussein (despite realizing he was committing genocide by killing
tens of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and using chemical weapons
against Iran), the US government again showed its willingness to
support a brutal tyranny to further its own interests.
Once the Iran-Iraq war ended and Hussein became expendable, the
US government deftly deceived Hussein into invading Kuwait in
1990. Bush I declared Hussein to be the sworn enemy of the US
and launched the Gulf War. Hussein was defeated but remained in
power. Throughout the next decade, harsh UN economic sanctions
spear-headed by the US resulted in the death of tens of
thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians. The sanctions left
Hussein, their alleged target, virtually unscathed.
In 2003, Bush II, with the aid of the sycophantic Tony Blair,
launched the illegal invasion and occupation of the sovereign
nation of Iraq. They based their incursion on the false pretexts
that Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and that he was an
ally of Osama bin Laden. Evidence abounds (i.e. the Downing
Street Memos) that Bush lied to the American public and Congress
so he could secure the authority he needed to expand the
American Empire. In an egregious violation of international law,
the US invasion has resulted in the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqi
civilians, the establishment of a puppet government, and the
beginning of long-term US occupation of Iraq (twelve permanent
US military bases are under construction).
To summarize:
1. The US supported Hussein when he killed tens of thousands of
Iraqi Kurds in the 1980's.
2. Economic sanctions imposed by the UN (due to great pressure
exerted by the US), caused the deaths of tens of thousands of
Iraqi civilians.
3. The US government has killed over 100,000 innocent Iraqi
civilians since the illegal occupation began in 2003. They
justify their state terrorism by calling these murdered victims
"collateral damage".
"Terrorism Score"
Number of Middle Eastern "Conventional
Terrorist"-inflicted civilian deaths (in the WTC Attack): 2,726
Number of US "State Terrorist"-inflicted civilian
deaths in Iraq (since Hussein took power in 1979): Hundreds
of Thousands (and counting)
Tell us again why they hate us, Bush II? And tell us, who are
the real terrorists?
As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap….
Iran, a member of the triumvirate Bush cited as the "Axis of Evil", is another Middle Eastern victim of US state terrorism. In 1953, through Operation Ajax, the CIA led a coup which replaced Iran's nationalist leader, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, with Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the infamous Shah of Iran. The Shah outlawed the existence of rival political parties and created SAVAK, his secret police force. SAVAK vigorously pursued and crushed dissent against the Shah's government. The Shah routinely tortured dissidents in the infamous Evin Prison. US government support of the Shah and of his "Westernization" of Iran both infuriated the populace of Iran and eventually led to the Shah's ouster in 1979. His successor was the virulently anti-American Ayatollah Khomeni. Violence spawns violence. Hatred begets hatred.
Despite principally supporting Iraq, the US played both ends against the middle to jockey for strategic advantage by supporting some factions within Iran during the Iran-Iraq war, thereby perpetuating a conflict that killed over a million Arabs and Persians. Today, the Bush regime continues to enhance the choler of many in the Middle East with its hypocritical efforts to prevent Iran from developing nuclear power while beating the drums for another unprovoked war against a sovereign Middle Eastern nation.
US and Israel: Hypocrisy, Double
Standards, and More State Terrorism
Despite the numerous examples of the US government's
detrimental intervention in Middle Eastern affairs, the most
flagrant violation of Arab identity and sovereignty has occurred
in Palestine. Since its founding in 1947-48, Israel has treated
the Palestinians much like the US government treated Native
Americans and Afrikaners treated the indigenous population of
South Africa. Despite their repugnant violations of human
rights, the US has remained a staunch ally to Israel. In fact,
Israel’s government has followed its benefactors lead by
consistently employing state terrorism against the Palestinians.
To gain perspective on the grossly disproportionate amount of
money the US has expended in aiding Israel, consider that from
1949 to 1998, the US supplied more money to the 5.8 million
people of Israel than it did to the 1,054,000,000 people of
Latin America, the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. When Israel
was founded, it controlled 78% of Palestine and half of
Jerusalem. Israelis displaced 750,000 Palestinians and have
fought four wars with various Arab nations throughout Israel's
existence because of their imperialist aspirations.
Palestinians now reside in the "reservations" of Gaza,
the West Bank, and half of the city of Jerusalem. Israel has
“allowed" them to occupy 22% of Palestine, but has denied
Palestinians full autonomy within their meager allotted
territories. While Israelis have denied the right of Palestinian
Arabs to form a sovereign nation, the US government has
continued to pressure Middle Eastern governments to officially
recognize the state of Israel. I just cannot imagine why that
would infuriate Arabs. Can you?
Israeli state terrorism has resulted in the deaths of tens of
thousands of innocent Palestinians who have been denied their
right to statehood. Yet when the Palestinians strike back
against Israel, they are labeled as "terrorists". Such
has been the perverse argument of the US government for decades.
If a state-backed military action kills innocent civilians,
those murdered are called "collateral damage", and the
killings are "justified". Yet if a group (or
individual) opposing an imperialist, tyrannical nation attacks
that nation's military or citizens, the US leaders brand them as
"terrorists". Why are violence, killing, and mayhem
justified for some, but not for others? Murder of civilians is a
crime, whether it is by a state or by individuals.
Manure is a More Accurate Description of What the Bush
is Spreading
Inciting still more Arab fury, Bush II cloaks his imperial
ambitions in Iraq under the guise of "spreading
democracy". Democracy in the United States is a media
produced camouflage for a government "of the rich, by the
rich and for the rich", as evidenced by the Patriot Act,
Jose Padilla, the 2000 election, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib, the
military industrial complex, the obscene power of corporations,
thinly-veiled Social Darwinism and racism, and the tragic
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. It is now quite obvious to the
casual observer that the US government is deeply corrupt and
avaricious, and has the mechanisms in place to implement an
overt tyranny to protect the interests of wealthy plutocrats
while essentially enslaving the rest of the population. While
they have yet to utilize their new-found powers on a wide scale,
they do have them. Democracy is a scarce commodity in the US,
and America certainly is in no position to spread it to the rest
of the world.
On The Daily Show, Kurt Vonnegut skewered the
US version of democracy and the absurd notion that America could
“spread democracy” to other nations when he stated:
"In democracy after a hundred years you have to let
your slaves go. After 150 years you have to let your women vote.
And at the beginning of democracy there's quite a bit of
genocide and ethnic cleansing…..."
So, again I pose the question Bush II and his adherents. Why do
"terrorists" and other Middle Easterners hate the US?
Terrorism is a Two Way Street
Admittedly, the perpetrators of 9/11 (if one believes
that Arab terrorists actually committed the act), the members of
the resistance in Iraq who have bombed Iraqi civilians, and
members of Hamas who have killed Israeli civilians, have
committed acts of terror. However, the number of murders they
have committed pales in comparison to the "collateral
damage" inflicted by the US government and the civilians
killed by its proxies. Besides, not all acts committed by Hamas
or similar groups are acts of terrorism. Some of the acts the US
government labels as "terrorism" are carried out by
sovereign nations (or oppressed people) defending themselves
against imperial aggressors.
What is my conclusion? Both the US government and Arab
organizations (which truly commit terrorist acts) are
abominations because they kill for political or ideological
gain.
What Does the Real Majority Want?
Thankfully, many US citizens and Middle Easterners thirst for a
peaceful solution to a conflict which has festered far too long.
What rational-minded individual wants to live in nearly constant
fear of a terrorist attack? Neither the Christian faith, which
many Americans practice, nor the Islamic faith, which is the
dominant religion in the Middle East, promotes killing or
violence. Many Arabs and Americans simply want to find a means
to co-exist with minimal conflict.
Unfortunately, religious extremists like Pat Robertson and the
terrorists comprising the Bush regime have juxtaposed
Christianity as the "good" against the
"evil" Islamic faith. They have used this false
dichotomy to whip uneducated and uninformed Americans into a
furor against the Arab world, enabling the US and Israeli
governments to continue committing egregious acts of state
terrorism. Fundamentalist Islamic clerics have turned many of
their followers against "the Great Satan", fueling
acts of individual terrorism against the US, its Western allies,
and its allies in the Arab world.
Two Disparate Goals: US Hegemony vs. Arab Survival
Perpetual war benefits the small minority who sit atop the food
chain. The poor and working class suffer and die while society's
elite, wealthy leaders grow richer and more powerful. While
Arabs share in the responsibility for the conflict in the Middle
East, much of the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders
of the state terrorists who have operated from their command
centers at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the Pentagon, Foggy Bottom,
and Langley over the last several decades. Arab
"terrorism" is a reaction to years of victimization at
the hands of the US government and its proxies in the Middle
East. The way to end "terrorism" is for the American
people to engage in a non-violent revolution to replace the
abhorrence in Washington which masquerades as a democracy, to
withdraw from Iraq, to close US military bases in the Middle
East and around the world, to stop supporting Israel's ethnic
cleansing of the Palestinians, and to redirect this nation
toward humanitarian objectives rather than military ones. 5% of
the world's population does not need to account for 50% of the
world's military expenditures. America simply needs to reduce
its military to a force large enough to defend itself and scrap
its imperial ambitions.
Power to the People...
A true victory in the “war on terror” would involve
eradicating the US terrorist state and criminally prosecuting
those who have perpetrated the associated war crimes. Bush,
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and many others in that foul administration
belong in Guantanamo Bay with those they have deemed to be
terrorists. The most dangerous terrorists on Earth move about
freely, wield great power, enjoy immense wealth, and reside
openly in Washington, DC. Corrupt, bellicose, avaricious
war-mongers represent a fraction of the US population yet they
harbor almost all of the power and wealth in the world's only
remaining superpower nation. Arrests and prosecutions through US
and international courts, tax revolts, protests, nation-wide
strikes/walkouts by union and non-union employees alike, massive
consumer boycotts, increased education of the American public,
increased unity amongst the proponents of social justice, and
the emergence of a powerful spiritual leader whose true goal is
to achieve social justice are needed to excise the cancer in
Washington which plagues the world.
Teetering on a Precipice....
Meanwhile, Bush II edges the US closer and closer to tyranny as
he imposes the elites' Social Darwinism upon the poor and
working class by butchering social welfare program budgets,
weakening unions, lowering taxes on the wealthy, working to
dismantle Social Security, protecting and empowering
corporations, and deregulating businesses. During the New
Orleans debacle, the US government's response revealed glimpses
of a US military machine prepared to employ state terrorism
domestically. Katrina was a wake-up call for the people. Bush's
nomination of Harriet Miers, his former personal attorney who
has no experience as a judge, to fill the US Supreme Court
vacancy continues an unprecedented pattern of incredibly corrupt
cronyism. Miers' virtually assured approval by a
Republican-controlled Senate will complete the trifecta
necessary for Bush II to control each branch of the US
government. Social justice and peace can still prevail, but the
elitists and war-mongers hold a significant advantage in the
struggle, and are strengthening their hand.
We the People have a lot of wood to chop.....
Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist
writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works in the
transportation industry, and is a husband, and a father to
three boys. His affiliations include Amnesty
International, the ACLU and the Americans United for
Separation of Church and State. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com
or comments on his blog at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
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