Showing posts with label Osama bin Laden. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Osama bin Laden. Show all posts
September 22, 2012
Ron Paul and Romney supporters EPIC debate
- The above 'WEARECHANGE.ORG'-stamped Youtube was posted (reposted?) by 'AG3NTANTHRAX',
September 20, 2012. The clip looks like
it was probably created during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida,
in late August. The debate is an excellent, wide-ranging, in-depth discussion. The debaters
are respectful and even-keeled - impressive, considering the political and economic mess we're in. There is no difference between Obama and Romney, argues the Ron Paul supporter. Agreed.
- Diane V. McLoughlin, September 22, 2012
September 13, 2011
May 22, 2011
Fascism, Terrorism and Osama bin Laden
by Diane V. McLoughlin, May 22, 2011
main website - mcloughlinpost.com
If we were gods, you and I, peering with omnipotent clarity at this precarious, nuclear-armed moment
in human history, I don't think we would see al Quaeda or Osama bin Laden as the principles in this
chromatic red canvass of blood, twisted sky-scraping steel, crumpled minarets, oil-soaked sand and
depleted uranium poisonous dust [1].
Although the picture is forever to remain less clear now that bin Laden has been killed during a U.S.
military raid in Pakistan, I am of the view that 9/11 was retaliation for American conquests conducted
in the Middle East; conquests orchestrated by insiders at the tippy-top with little-helper countries, for
whatever reason, joining in. Great Britain is all-in on this 'war on terror' for lucrative scraps, where
once she sat at the head of empire's bloated table.
These two forces, the U.S. under President Clinton, and the U.K., held Iraq under military siege,
deliberately bombing out that country's electrical and water treatment plants which caused the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies and children due to water-borne disease. This campaign of
terror against Iraq was conducted over the course of ten long, merciless years prior to 9/11 (1993 - 2003.)
That Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and subsequently was accused of harboring weapons of mass
destruction were the reasons given for the siege. Iraq maintained that Kuwait had always been a part of
Iraqi territory. It was Great Britain that redrew the regions' territorial boundaries early in the Twentieth
Century. Kuwait is suspiciously an independent speck on the giant bottom of Iraq. As far as WMD are
concerned, if Saddam had them he got them from the West which sided with Iraq during the disastrous
nine-year Iran-Iraq war (1980 - 1988). [1a] A million or more people perished in that conflict.
It is high time that our understanding of 'foreign intervention' matures past notions of national pride, in
order to weigh its actual justification.
Greed, arrogance, fear of blow-back, each thrusts tentacled arms of empire ever outward while
ordinary people on both sides are the only ones who pay the ultimate price, in blood (casualties) and
treasure (loot or tax.)
Even this is not an entirely fair or accurate criticism when it comes to Iraq. Because the fact of the
matter is that hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets around the world to demand that
their respective governments not participate in the war against Iraq in 2003. It was a very strange thing
to witness war commenced that was so obviously opposed by so many people everywhere.
---------
Mussolini coined the term corporatism to describe the
melding of state, military and corporate power. That term
works in describing America, but the term fascism is better
Corporatism, fascism, or military-industrial complex,
the effects hold a lot (most? all?) of the same risks in
common.
Progressives might be tempted to say it was the
neo-conservatives (neo-cons for short) who should
be blamed for the aggressive trajectory of American
foreign policy. But the fact is that America amassed
a thousand military installations around the world
in 186 countries regardless of who was in power;
that this provides plenty of scope for making enemies
is a mewling understatement. [1b]
It is peculiar that, while the empire spread throughout the Twentieth Century, the Democrats managed
to pull off the appearance of just having weakly gone along.
Current President Barack Obama inherited an empire-sized mess; true. But Democrats forget that
democratic President Bill Clinton helped get us there. Once so hopeful, the continuing blind defenders
of the current President, widely referred to as the Obamabots, cannot get around the fact that Obama
has picked up the ball and run with it instead of calling for a war and Constitution-shredding time-out.
The Obama Administration claims the right to put out hits on American citizens. [2] Bombs Libya
without Congressional approval in what appears to be a race against China over control of Africa's
resources rather than anything to do with humanitarianism. [3] Obama doesn't close Guantanamo
prison, a Bush Administration experiment with shades of lawlessness (torture; indefinite detention
without charge or trial against randomly rounded-up foreigners, handed over for cash rewards by dirt
poor foreign headhunters) even though Obama had vowed that he would. [4] [5] President Obama
apparently believes in preventive detention. [6] He continues the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the latter
now the longest war in the entire history of America, as of June, 2010. The President is now overseeing
the dropping of bombs via remote-controlled drones in Pakistan, a notoriously inaccurate means of
targeting individuals, with a terrible cost being paid in human life, not to mention diplomatic capital.
------------------
I don't know if bin Laden was involved with the events of 9/11 or not. Sometimes he said he
wasn't. [7] Sometimes he said he was. [8] I haven't got the slightest idea why his message wasn't
consistent. Definitely, he was a severe critic of American foreign policy. [9]
We do know that Osama bin Laden's guilt or innocence wouldn't have been the only thing judged in
court if he was arrested and charged, as is the usual case with criminal suspects. That Osama bin Laden
ended up dead instead of in custody leaves a cloud of suspicion over America's (and indeed the West's)
reputation.
What we are witnessing in our time is an unprecedented wearing away of the rule of law. The rule of
law protects all of us from abuse of authority [10]; from corruption; tyranny and oppression. The
continuous undermining of the law corrodes the dream of democracy. The broken scales of justice
herald the retreat of civilized progress into an uncharted Dark Age in human history.
_________________________
Notes
[1] Website - 'International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons: The Problem - Overview: 'A concise
guide to uranium weapons, the science behind them and their threat to human health and the
environment'; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/77.html ;
[1a] Wikipedia: 'United States support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war'; subsection, 'Chemical and
biological exports' - 'On May 25, 1994, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee released a report in which
it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other
biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S.
Department of Commerce." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war ;
[1b] 'Full-Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order - Part I in a review
of F. William Engdahl's book'; by Stephen Lendman; June 22, 2009; Global Research.ca;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14046 ;
[2] Article: 'Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen'; Glenn Greenwald; Apr. 7,
2010; Salon.com; http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations ;
[3] Video (7 mins): 'U.S. - China oil conflict behind Libya war'; (taken from approximately one minute
in) Press TV interviews former U.S. Treasury official Paul Craig Roberts, May 10, 2011 - “What has
happened is while Washington was caught off guard by the Arab protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain
they quickly learned that they could use Arab protests as a cloak behind which to hide while China and
Russia are evicted from the Mediterranean”; http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179142.html ;
[4] Article, 'Guantanamo still open as 9th anniversary looms'; Agence France Presse as republished in
Common Dreams.org; Jan. 10, 2011; http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/10 ;
[5] Article, 'Guantanamo's lost souls'; The Guardian; Brent Mickum; Jan. 8, 2007:
'...approximately 99% of the prisoners have never been charged with any transgression, much less a
crime. Approximately 400 of these prisoners, characterised by the Bush administration as "the worst of
the worst", have been released without charge, many directly back to their families. That any prisoners
have been released is due almost entirely to the outrage of the civilised world. What most of the world
does not yet realise is the extent of the misinformation disseminated by the Bush Administration and the
US military: for example, American forces captured only 5% of all the prisoners at Guantánamo; 55%
of the prisoners were found by the military never to have committed a hostile act against the United
States or its coalition allies; the vast majority of the prisoners at Guantánamo were turned over to the
Americans in exchange for large bounties paid for by the United States.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/08/post885?INTCMP=SRCH ;
[6] Article, 'Obama is said to consider preventive detention plan'; Sheryl Gay Stolberg; May 20, 2009;
New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?hp ;
[7] 'Interview with Osama bin Laden, denies involvement in 9/11'; Pakistani newspaper the Daily
Ummat in Urdu, as translated into English by the BBC Worldwide Monitoring Service, Sept. 29, 2001,
as republished on Global Research.ca: "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September
attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of
these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an
appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24697 ;
[8] 'Bin Laden admits 9/11 responsibility, warns of more attacks'; PBS NewsHour; Oct. 29, 2004;
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/binladen_10-29-04.html ;
[9] Full text of Osama bin Laden's, 'Letter to the American People'; translated into English and
published Nov. 24, 2002; the Guardian.uk Observer Worldview Extra.
Bin Laden, "Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple...Because you attacked
us and continue to attack us..."; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver ;
[10] Article, 'Republicans in Congress to Crown Obama King'; David Swanson; May 19, 2011; War Is
a Crime.org; discusses H.R.1540, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, and in
particular Section 1034; http://warisacrime.org/content/republicans-congress-crown-obama-king ;
main website - mcloughlinpost.com
If we were gods, you and I, peering with omnipotent clarity at this precarious, nuclear-armed moment
in human history, I don't think we would see al Quaeda or Osama bin Laden as the principles in this
chromatic red canvass of blood, twisted sky-scraping steel, crumpled minarets, oil-soaked sand and
depleted uranium poisonous dust [1].
Although the picture is forever to remain less clear now that bin Laden has been killed during a U.S.
military raid in Pakistan, I am of the view that 9/11 was retaliation for American conquests conducted
in the Middle East; conquests orchestrated by insiders at the tippy-top with little-helper countries, for
whatever reason, joining in. Great Britain is all-in on this 'war on terror' for lucrative scraps, where
once she sat at the head of empire's bloated table.
These two forces, the U.S. under President Clinton, and the U.K., held Iraq under military siege,
deliberately bombing out that country's electrical and water treatment plants which caused the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi babies and children due to water-borne disease. This campaign of
terror against Iraq was conducted over the course of ten long, merciless years prior to 9/11 (1993 - 2003.)
That Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and subsequently was accused of harboring weapons of mass
destruction were the reasons given for the siege. Iraq maintained that Kuwait had always been a part of
Iraqi territory. It was Great Britain that redrew the regions' territorial boundaries early in the Twentieth
Century. Kuwait is suspiciously an independent speck on the giant bottom of Iraq. As far as WMD are
concerned, if Saddam had them he got them from the West which sided with Iraq during the disastrous
nine-year Iran-Iraq war (1980 - 1988). [1a] A million or more people perished in that conflict.
It is high time that our understanding of 'foreign intervention' matures past notions of national pride, in
order to weigh its actual justification.
Greed, arrogance, fear of blow-back, each thrusts tentacled arms of empire ever outward while
ordinary people on both sides are the only ones who pay the ultimate price, in blood (casualties) and
treasure (loot or tax.)
Even this is not an entirely fair or accurate criticism when it comes to Iraq. Because the fact of the
matter is that hundreds of thousands of people marched in the streets around the world to demand that
their respective governments not participate in the war against Iraq in 2003. It was a very strange thing
to witness war commenced that was so obviously opposed by so many people everywhere.
---------
Mussolini coined the term corporatism to describe the
melding of state, military and corporate power. That term
works in describing America, but the term fascism is better understood by most.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower in an extraordinary
moment of stunning candor warned Americans to
guard against a growing military-industrial complex
becoming so powerful it could overtake America's
democracy, destroying it.Corporatism, fascism, or military-industrial complex,
the effects hold a lot (most? all?) of the same risks in
common.
Progressives might be tempted to say it was the
neo-conservatives (neo-cons for short) who should
be blamed for the aggressive trajectory of American
foreign policy. But the fact is that America amassed
a thousand military installations around the world
in 186 countries regardless of who was in power;
that this provides plenty of scope for making enemies
is a mewling understatement. [1b]
It is peculiar that, while the empire spread throughout the Twentieth Century, the Democrats managed
to pull off the appearance of just having weakly gone along.
Current President Barack Obama inherited an empire-sized mess; true. But Democrats forget that
democratic President Bill Clinton helped get us there. Once so hopeful, the continuing blind defenders
of the current President, widely referred to as the Obamabots, cannot get around the fact that Obama
has picked up the ball and run with it instead of calling for a war and Constitution-shredding time-out.
The Obama Administration claims the right to put out hits on American citizens. [2] Bombs Libya
without Congressional approval in what appears to be a race against China over control of Africa's
resources rather than anything to do with humanitarianism. [3] Obama doesn't close Guantanamo
prison, a Bush Administration experiment with shades of lawlessness (torture; indefinite detention
without charge or trial against randomly rounded-up foreigners, handed over for cash rewards by dirt
poor foreign headhunters) even though Obama had vowed that he would. [4] [5] President Obama
apparently believes in preventive detention. [6] He continues the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the latter
now the longest war in the entire history of America, as of June, 2010. The President is now overseeing
the dropping of bombs via remote-controlled drones in Pakistan, a notoriously inaccurate means of
targeting individuals, with a terrible cost being paid in human life, not to mention diplomatic capital.
------------------
I don't know if bin Laden was involved with the events of 9/11 or not. Sometimes he said he
wasn't. [7] Sometimes he said he was. [8] I haven't got the slightest idea why his message wasn't
consistent. Definitely, he was a severe critic of American foreign policy. [9]
We do know that Osama bin Laden's guilt or innocence wouldn't have been the only thing judged in
court if he was arrested and charged, as is the usual case with criminal suspects. That Osama bin Laden
ended up dead instead of in custody leaves a cloud of suspicion over America's (and indeed the West's)
reputation.
What we are witnessing in our time is an unprecedented wearing away of the rule of law. The rule of
law protects all of us from abuse of authority [10]; from corruption; tyranny and oppression. The
continuous undermining of the law corrodes the dream of democracy. The broken scales of justice
herald the retreat of civilized progress into an uncharted Dark Age in human history.
_________________________
Notes
[1] Website - 'International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons: The Problem - Overview: 'A concise
guide to uranium weapons, the science behind them and their threat to human health and the
environment'; http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/i/77.html ;
[1a] Wikipedia: 'United States support for Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war'; subsection, 'Chemical and
biological exports' - 'On May 25, 1994, the U.S. Senate Banking Committee released a report in which
it was stated that "pathogenic (meaning 'disease producing'), toxigenic (meaning 'poisonous'), and other
biological research materials were exported to Iraq pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S.
Department of Commerce." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Iraq_during_the_Iran%E2%80%93Iraq_war ;
[1b] 'Full-Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order - Part I in a review
of F. William Engdahl's book'; by Stephen Lendman; June 22, 2009; Global Research.ca;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14046 ;
[2] Article: 'Confirmed: Obama authorizes assassination of U.S. citizen'; Glenn Greenwald; Apr. 7,
2010; Salon.com; http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/04/07/assassinations ;
[3] Video (7 mins): 'U.S. - China oil conflict behind Libya war'; (taken from approximately one minute
in) Press TV interviews former U.S. Treasury official Paul Craig Roberts, May 10, 2011 - “What has
happened is while Washington was caught off guard by the Arab protests in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain
they quickly learned that they could use Arab protests as a cloak behind which to hide while China and
Russia are evicted from the Mediterranean”; http://www.presstv.ir/detail/179142.html ;
[4] Article, 'Guantanamo still open as 9th anniversary looms'; Agence France Presse as republished in
Common Dreams.org; Jan. 10, 2011; http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/10 ;
[5] Article, 'Guantanamo's lost souls'; The Guardian; Brent Mickum; Jan. 8, 2007:
'...approximately 99% of the prisoners have never been charged with any transgression, much less a
crime. Approximately 400 of these prisoners, characterised by the Bush administration as "the worst of
the worst", have been released without charge, many directly back to their families. That any prisoners
have been released is due almost entirely to the outrage of the civilised world. What most of the world
does not yet realise is the extent of the misinformation disseminated by the Bush Administration and the
US military: for example, American forces captured only 5% of all the prisoners at Guantánamo; 55%
of the prisoners were found by the military never to have committed a hostile act against the United
States or its coalition allies; the vast majority of the prisoners at Guantánamo were turned over to the
Americans in exchange for large bounties paid for by the United States.'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/jan/08/post885?INTCMP=SRCH ;
[6] Article, 'Obama is said to consider preventive detention plan'; Sheryl Gay Stolberg; May 20, 2009;
New York Times; http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?hp ;
[7] 'Interview with Osama bin Laden, denies involvement in 9/11'; Pakistani newspaper the Daily
Ummat in Urdu, as translated into English by the BBC Worldwide Monitoring Service, Sept. 29, 2001,
as republished on Global Research.ca: "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September
attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of
these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an
appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people."
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=24697 ;
[8] 'Bin Laden admits 9/11 responsibility, warns of more attacks'; PBS NewsHour; Oct. 29, 2004;
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/binladen_10-29-04.html ;
[9] Full text of Osama bin Laden's, 'Letter to the American People'; translated into English and
published Nov. 24, 2002; the Guardian.uk Observer Worldview Extra.
Bin Laden, "Why are we fighting and opposing you? The answer is very simple...Because you attacked
us and continue to attack us..."; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver ;
[10] Article, 'Republicans in Congress to Crown Obama King'; David Swanson; May 19, 2011; War Is
a Crime.org; discusses H.R.1540, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012, and in
particular Section 1034; http://warisacrime.org/content/republicans-congress-crown-obama-king ;
Discussing whether or not targeted assassinations are good policy vis a vis bin Laden - 'The Osama bin
Laden Exception'; Glenn Greenwald; May 6, 2011, Salon.com;
For further reading on American foreign policy: 'Enforcing American Hegemony - A Timeline'; Josh
Buermann; 2002 - 2007; http://www.flagrancy.net/timeline.html ;
May 03, 2011
Fox News Napolitano - bin Laden 'killed on the illegal whim of the President'
--------------------------------------
Authorization for Use of Military Force
September 18, 2001
Public Law 107-40 [S. J. RES. 23]
107th CONGRESS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
JOINT RESOLUTION
To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.
Whereas, on September 11, 2001, acts of treacherous violence were committed against the United States and its citizens; and
Whereas, such acts render it both necessary and appropriate that the United States exercise its rights to self-defense and to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad; and
Whereas, in light of the threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by these grave acts of violence; and
Whereas, such acts continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States; and
Whereas, the President has authority under the Constitution to take action to deter and prevent acts of international terrorism against the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This joint resolution may be cited as the `Authorization for Use of Military Force'.
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.
(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.
(b) War Powers Resolution Requirements-
(1) SPECIFIC STATUTORY AUTHORIZATION- Consistent with section 8(a)(1) of the War Powers Resolution, the Congress declares that this section is intended to constitute specific statutory authorization within the meaning of section 5(b) of the War Powers Resolution.
(2) APPLICABILITY OF OTHER REQUIREMENTS- Nothing in this resolution supercedes any requirement of the War Powers Resolution.
Approved September 18, 2001.
-------------------------------------------
In effect, the above law rescinds the rule of law - Diane V. McLoughlin
August 30, 2010
To Bob on Empire
The following was prompted by a comment on my essay, 'Reactions to American Extremism'; by a guy named Bob.
Bob wrote, 'I just can't stand the message that America is to blame for all the faults that go around the world that is just not true we are the greatest nation in the WORLD, also read what she is saying, it almost seems to me that she is kinda taking sides with bin laden and she is quoting castro'.
by Diane V. McLoughlin, September 1, 2010
Bob. Hi. I hope everything is well with you. I have a toothache I can't fix. How I feel these days (beyond the immediate of the tooth and its broader implications) is this way: I see things in a particular way because I have been studying current affairs full-time now for several years; a luxury not open to most.
The spirit of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are embedded in my DNA. I believe these rights are the inalienable rights of every single person living on this planet. People have a right to be free - from discrimination, from fear, from want, from occupation, from oppression, from resource-hungry military-backed multinational corporations, and from remote-controlled U.S. drones dropping bombs on your village compound. That's me.
I believe most Americans feel the same way, too. But the government (or, more precisely, interests with a powerful influence on government) does not believe it. And the more I learn, the more I see that it almost never has. When it looked like the government might be led in a better direction by President John F. Kennedy, for example, he was assassinated; November 22, 1963.
His brother Robert Kennedy was bravely willing to take up the challenge to run for President, by 1968. 'Kennedy stood on a platform of racial and economic justice, non-aggression in foreign policy, decentralization of power and social improvement...He aroused rabid animosity in some quarters, with J. Edgar Hoover's Deputy Clyde Tolson reported as saying, 'I hope that someone shoots and kills the son of a bitch.'[]...It has been widely commented that Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency far outstripped, in its vision of social improvement, that of President Kennedy...;'. (1)
Robert F. Kennedy was, like his brother, assassinated in cold blood; June 6, 1968. You know what I remember about Robert Kennedy? I remember hearing that he wanted to see what life was really like for Blacks in the Deep South. What I remember is that he came back stunned that Black kids weren't getting milk. Their families could not afford milk.
Patrick Buchanan gets a lot of flack from the left, and it may well be that it's fair criticism and that I just don't know much about him. But I picked up a book of his in a Salvation Army store a few years ago, and although it could have been edited better, the message rang true in the choice facing the United States: Republic - or Empire?
Bob, you spit out Fidel Castro's name as if he were a minion of the devil. He's a man. People have flaws. We make mistakes. But he was motivated in his younger years by the suffering of his people, to try to do something about it. He seems motivated now to stress the perils nuclear weapons pose to the people of the whole world. I see nothing but good in that.
As for my discussing the events of 9/11 and what motivated Osama bin Laden - that for one thing, we murdered over 500,000 Iraqi children during our siege of Iraq 1993-2003 - that is a discussion that is long overdue.
Empires are vicious, blood-thirsty, soulless entities, as my Mom put it to me in a chat earlier today; it doesn't matter which one, or which time in history we pick to talk about - they are all the same. Empires don't know when to stop trying to expand their centers of control, either, and that is one of the reasons they fall apart.
But another thing that empires do is lie to the people, Bob. You can't get people to occupy other countries or kill other people unless you have a damned good reason to do it - defense from imminent attack - or you lie to them because you don't have a good reason; you have evil, racist, greedy reasons. American companies such as Halliburton, now headquartered off-shore to avoid paying taxes; Kellogg, Brown and Root; Blackwater, and others - have profited beyond the dreams of Midas from the foreign adventures our government has conducted overseas. The profit motive motivates. Diversification of American industry away from war is going to be key to peace.
Image, right: Donald Rumsfeld, Special
Envoy of President Ronald Reagan, and his pal,
Saddam Hussein - 1983 - Getty Images (1a)
Now, it is my view that you have been lied to your whole life, Bob. Americans are daily inundated with lies. I view myself as a failure, because, so far at least, I have not found the right words to help. I'm only one person, I know. But who will save the people from self-destruction? I view it as self-destruction, if and when the enemies we have made for ourselves retaliate.
We have 1,000 - one-thousand - military bases and outposts; U.S. personnel is situated in 156 countries around the world.(2) That's an empire.
The take-over of the government is not complete. The people can change things. I would share that at 'War Is A Crime.org', - (link: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/caws ) - you can find a list of candidates who have signed a pledge to refuse to authorize any more war funding, if they are voted in.
There is another list, here - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/whipwars - where you can check your current representative's voting record on war funding, too.
For anyone reading this (hello, how are you, hope all is well), the first question comes down to this: Are you prepared, as a citizen of whatever country you reside in, to countenance the possibility that those in power are abusing that power? If you are not prepared to even consider that as a possibility, then time may either be short - or it is already too late.
---------------------------------
Notes:
(1) Wikipedia, Robert F. Kennedy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy ;
(1a) 'Shaking Hands With Saddam Hussein; The U.S. Tilts Towards Iraq: 1980 - 1984'; National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 82; Edited by Joyce Battle; February 25, 2003;
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ ;
(2) 'The Worldwide Network of Military Bases; The Global Deployment of U.S. Military Personnel'; by Professor Jules Dufour; Global Research; July 1, 2007;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5564 ;
Main website: mcloughlinpost.com
(back, 'To Bob, on Empire' posted at main website.)
Bob wrote, 'I just can't stand the message that America is to blame for all the faults that go around the world that is just not true we are the greatest nation in the WORLD, also read what she is saying, it almost seems to me that she is kinda taking sides with bin laden and she is quoting castro'.
by Diane V. McLoughlin, September 1, 2010
Bob. Hi. I hope everything is well with you. I have a toothache I can't fix. How I feel these days (beyond the immediate of the tooth and its broader implications) is this way: I see things in a particular way because I have been studying current affairs full-time now for several years; a luxury not open to most.
The spirit of the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights are embedded in my DNA. I believe these rights are the inalienable rights of every single person living on this planet. People have a right to be free - from discrimination, from fear, from want, from occupation, from oppression, from resource-hungry military-backed multinational corporations, and from remote-controlled U.S. drones dropping bombs on your village compound. That's me.
I believe most Americans feel the same way, too. But the government (or, more precisely, interests with a powerful influence on government) does not believe it. And the more I learn, the more I see that it almost never has. When it looked like the government might be led in a better direction by President John F. Kennedy, for example, he was assassinated; November 22, 1963.
His brother Robert Kennedy was bravely willing to take up the challenge to run for President, by 1968. 'Kennedy stood on a platform of racial and economic justice, non-aggression in foreign policy, decentralization of power and social improvement...He aroused rabid animosity in some quarters, with J. Edgar Hoover's Deputy Clyde Tolson reported as saying, 'I hope that someone shoots and kills the son of a bitch.'[]...It has been widely commented that Robert Kennedy's campaign for the American presidency far outstripped, in its vision of social improvement, that of President Kennedy...;'. (1)
Robert F. Kennedy was, like his brother, assassinated in cold blood; June 6, 1968. You know what I remember about Robert Kennedy? I remember hearing that he wanted to see what life was really like for Blacks in the Deep South. What I remember is that he came back stunned that Black kids weren't getting milk. Their families could not afford milk.
Patrick Buchanan gets a lot of flack from the left, and it may well be that it's fair criticism and that I just don't know much about him. But I picked up a book of his in a Salvation Army store a few years ago, and although it could have been edited better, the message rang true in the choice facing the United States: Republic - or Empire?
Bob, you spit out Fidel Castro's name as if he were a minion of the devil. He's a man. People have flaws. We make mistakes. But he was motivated in his younger years by the suffering of his people, to try to do something about it. He seems motivated now to stress the perils nuclear weapons pose to the people of the whole world. I see nothing but good in that.
As for my discussing the events of 9/11 and what motivated Osama bin Laden - that for one thing, we murdered over 500,000 Iraqi children during our siege of Iraq 1993-2003 - that is a discussion that is long overdue.
Empires are vicious, blood-thirsty, soulless entities, as my Mom put it to me in a chat earlier today; it doesn't matter which one, or which time in history we pick to talk about - they are all the same. Empires don't know when to stop trying to expand their centers of control, either, and that is one of the reasons they fall apart.
But another thing that empires do is lie to the people, Bob. You can't get people to occupy other countries or kill other people unless you have a damned good reason to do it - defense from imminent attack - or you lie to them because you don't have a good reason; you have evil, racist, greedy reasons. American companies such as Halliburton, now headquartered off-shore to avoid paying taxes; Kellogg, Brown and Root; Blackwater, and others - have profited beyond the dreams of Midas from the foreign adventures our government has conducted overseas. The profit motive motivates. Diversification of American industry away from war is going to be key to peace.
Envoy of President Ronald Reagan, and his pal,
Saddam Hussein - 1983 - Getty Images (1a)
Now, it is my view that you have been lied to your whole life, Bob. Americans are daily inundated with lies. I view myself as a failure, because, so far at least, I have not found the right words to help. I'm only one person, I know. But who will save the people from self-destruction? I view it as self-destruction, if and when the enemies we have made for ourselves retaliate.
We have 1,000 - one-thousand - military bases and outposts; U.S. personnel is situated in 156 countries around the world.(2) That's an empire.
The take-over of the government is not complete. The people can change things. I would share that at 'War Is A Crime.org', - (link: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/caws ) - you can find a list of candidates who have signed a pledge to refuse to authorize any more war funding, if they are voted in.
There is another list, here - http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/whipwars - where you can check your current representative's voting record on war funding, too.
For anyone reading this (hello, how are you, hope all is well), the first question comes down to this: Are you prepared, as a citizen of whatever country you reside in, to countenance the possibility that those in power are abusing that power? If you are not prepared to even consider that as a possibility, then time may either be short - or it is already too late.
---------------------------------
Notes:
(1) Wikipedia, Robert F. Kennedy;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy ;
(1a) 'Shaking Hands With Saddam Hussein; The U.S. Tilts Towards Iraq: 1980 - 1984'; National Security Archive Briefing Book No. 82; Edited by Joyce Battle; February 25, 2003;
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/ ;
(2) 'The Worldwide Network of Military Bases; The Global Deployment of U.S. Military Personnel'; by Professor Jules Dufour; Global Research; July 1, 2007;
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5564 ;
Main website: mcloughlinpost.com
(back, 'To Bob, on Empire' posted at main website.)
August 27, 2010
Reactions to American Extremism
I don't know exactly how, but we need to stop.
They need to forgive, but I don't know how they could.
by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 27, 2010
Writer Ross Douthat faults Americans for 'failing to recognize extremism when it’s staring them in the face...'; whenever they are, in his opinion, taken in by Islamic extremist polemicists.(1) Although there are aspects to his article where I find myself agreeing with him, when, for example, he suggests that we can't expect Muslims to behave exactly like ourselves and we should seek common ground with moderates, I think the above quote best describes most Americans about the United States itself.
When it comes to American extremism Americans don't see it, even though it is as plain as day - American Exceptionalism; American spiritual (Christian and Jewish and democratic) purity; caring, philanthropic America: this is the fiction.
Soldiers returning, some of them, come home seeing things quite differently: the reality. (1a)
If anything spurs an Islamic reactionism toward America, it has to be two things: American hypocrisy, and American terrorism.
If anything could take the gas out of the tank of Islamic reactionism it is that we stop being hypocrites and we stop terrorizing.
For individual Americans, there are acceptable excuses for not knowing or understanding America's war crimes. But Osama bin Laden didn't seem to think so, in his 2002, 'Letter to America':
'The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.' (2).
I guess nobody took the time to tell him about the Bush-Gore farce of a 2000 presidential election, or how that all turned out.
To him, in a democracy, the people choose leaders who represent their views, unlike in a dictatorship; politicians enact the will of the people in a democracy; ipso facto: all Americans are guilty.
Too simplistic. I totally disagree. In order to make good choices, you have to have information; you need to be an informed voter.
Also, stupidity is an excuse, to a degree. Stupidity has a genetic component. Half of any population has an I.Q. of 100 or less. There are all kinds of intelligence, of course: social intelligence; moral intelligence; the latter, in my view, being of far greater importance than whether or not one knows a hypotenuse from a hippopotamus.
THE FUCKING MORONS - this is what I yelled, for example, at my T.V. during the beyond-evil American 'Shock-and-Awe' bombing campaign of Iraq when that began to unfold in 2003 - the fucking morons in the military and political leadership that dream these things up - they are another category entirely - the one labeled 'Guilty'.
Stupidity is not to be equated with illiteracy. You can be smart and not know how to read. But it is tragic that one in seven American adults can't read, making it that much less likely that they would be able to ferret out
alternative news sources beyond the mainstream. Illiteracy itself is a threat to a functioning democracy. (2a)
Wisdom only comes with time and experience, no matter how intelligent you are.
So, if you're stupid and you don't know or don't realize that your country is doing wrong, personally, I think you get a pass. Young and naive, again, personally, no one should blame you for not knowing what your government has been doing to others. In my own heart of hearts, young and naive tragically describes the majority of American troops, duped into fighting corporate resource wars. Ignorance and youth are two of the most important reasons why moral leadership is so vitally important to right conduct of any nation.
It is a war crime, or a crime against humanity, to target civilians. It is important to understand, however, that we have committed the same war crime of targeting civilians, ourselves.
Osama bin Laden seemed not to realize the important role mass communications and education both play in controlling what the people know and what they think. If the people are not told the truth about their country's activities, either in the news or in schools, where, exactly, are they supposed to get it in order to vote for the men and women who will best represent them? It isn't always exactly impossible, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as easy, either, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Living in a so-called democracy brings up another issue: Politicians lie.
Perhaps it is also news to bin Laden and his followers that democracy in the United States is corrupted by monied interests; it isn't working as it should. I can't bring myself to say that America's political culture is corrupt straight to the bone, but like a computer with a hidden virus using power behind the scenes for its own purposes, there is corruption.
Based on bin Laden's own argument, then, 9-11 was a crime against innocent civilians. Osama bin Laden's group thinks that Americans know what's going on and that they approve of it. And my bedrock conviction is the polar opposite: No they don't.
Most Americans do not know. Some have some degree of knowledge, but the magnitude? No way.
Perhaps this is the biggest lie of all told by America's leaders to the people: The downplaying of the sheer magnitude of the destruction, just the vast scale of the human cost in the wars we have waged in both Iraq and Afghanistan - and are now beginning to quietly wage in Pakistan with remote-controlled, armed planes called drones - as if hunting down and killing people were like some sort of computer game. The carnage in the imprecision of it is mind-boggling - for Pakistani villagers, of course, not for us.
Those in the news business that don't agree with American foreign policy, some of them say something (3). There are a few courageous writers. But more either say nothing or hold their nose and repeat the fiction. To what? Hold on to a job? I worry about maintaining a roof over my head, but I worry far more about my children living on after me in a viable world - a world with flowers, trees and honey bees. It may not happen.
That last, hints, I suppose, at one source of my impatience with right-wing writers droning on and on, or shouting, as the case may be, about radical versus moderate Islam - not an honest word nor the faintest whiff of a suggestion that we are anything but lily-white in our activities in the Middle East.
'Like what; what whiff?', the trusting citizen might ask. Good question.
A short, far from complete (with apologies) list:
Iran: 1950's CIA overthrow of the democratically-elected leadership of Iran, leading to an American puppet's reign of abject, despotic state terror against Iran's own people. Over what? Oil.
Great Britain has a hand in it. (4)
Iraq: Eight-year war between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran. The U.S. sides with Iraq, giving aid and weapons including chemical and biological weapons. A million people die. (4a)
Iraq: Ten-years military siege and bombing campaign of Iraq 1993-2003; 500,000-plus Iraqi children murdered via American biological warfare; (5; 5a)
Iraqi city of Fallujah: Alarmingly high numbers of Iraqi children today are being born genetically deformed, our use of depleted uranium nuclear-waste bullets and bombs suspected cause; (6)
2003-present: War and occupation of Iraq based on lies; (7)
Afghanistan: 2001-present, war of Afghanistan based on lies; (8) the longest war in American history, as of June 7, 2010; (8a)
(Image, right: Rumsfeld/Saddam Hussein; Dec. 20, 1983;
Getty Images)
late-2008 - early 2009.)
----------------------------
9-11 was blow-back. It had nothing to do with religion. America's intellectual and political
leadership are afraid - they'd have to be - because of what we've done, and because of
what we continue to do.
We're the bully in the school yard sitting on some poor schmuck - sooner or later, you have to get off. What happens next, is anyone's guess.
Some of the people pissed at us come from parts of the world where most people are Muslim. But that is only the half of it. We've been stirring it up making enemies all over the place - including placing, or attempting to place, nuclear missiles at Russia's doorstep.
We have over 700 military outposts around the globe. We're in Africa; Central and South America, too. We'll be challenging, no doubt, Canada and Russia over control of the melting Arctic marine shipping routes, along with the imagined pot of gold of Arctic oil exploration. Gulf II plus territorial disputes. Grand.
Yet, all one hears is stuff about a religious faith called Islam, and in which ways it should be practiced that would be deemed acceptably uncritical of the U.S.; judged appropriate, or not - by us.
We need to wake up. We need everybody on board - Christians, Muslims, Jews, the Right, the Left - everybody. We have to realize that if we don't stop, and say 'enough!' - then it doesn't stop. Somehow, together, we must stop this evil building as it rolls downhill.
I don't know exactly how. But we need to stop. They need to forgive, but I don't know how they could.
Otherwise, where it ends could be the end. Cuba's Fidel Castro is thinking about this. He recently wrote, after conferring with scientific advisors, that it may be that it actually only takes a few nuclear bombs, rather than many, to make the world inhospitable for the continued survival of the human race in an ensuing nuclear winter; that a nuclear winter may last, not two years as is currently imagined, but ten. (9)
It is a shocking revelation to him. It is to me, too. I think I understand where Castro is coming from. He is on his way to checking out. What's going on? What's the big picture? To what aspect of world affairs might he make the most lasting contribution in the time left to him? He settles his gaze on the immensity of risk inherent in current world conflict.
Nuclear weapons have been put on the move. For several years it has been open debate about whether or not to use 'tactical' nuclear weapons against Iran.
In conclusion: If America is to be encouraged to pull back from this destructive course, the world will have to meet America half-way. For the sake of mankind's survival, the world needs to reassure an America fearful of retaliation that all efforts will be made to help defuse the justifiable anger - and let it go.
-------------------------------
Footnotes:
(1) New York Times Op Ed: 'Imam Rauf and Moderate Islam'; Ross Douthat; August 26, 2010;
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/imam-rauf-and-moderate-islam/#preview
(1a) See, for example, website, 'Iraq Vets Against the War';
http://ivaw.org/node/6111 ; also, 'Military Families Speak Out'; http://www.mfso.org/
(2) 'Letter to America'; Osama bin Laden; as published in observer.co.uk, November 24th, 2002;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
(2a) 'Literacy study: 1 in Seven U.S. Adults Are Unable to Read This Story'; Greg Toppo; USA Today; 1/8/2009;
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm
(3) For discussion, see: 'Iraq: Why the Media Failed'; Gary Kamiya; Salon.com; April 10, 2007; the writer
highlights notable and noble examples of American journalistic excellence in criticizing the proposed Iraq war.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/kamiya/2007/04/10/media_failure
(4) 'New York Times Special Report: CIA in Iran'; James Risen; NYT on the web; 2000; notes it was a joint goal of the CIA and Britain's SIS;
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html
(4a) 'Partners in Crime: US Complicity in the War Crimes of Saddam Hussein'; Paul Rockwell; December 23, 2003; Common Dreams;
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1223-11.htm
(5) 'BBC News Middle East Iraqis blame sanctions for child deaths'; Jeremy Bowen; August 12, 1999; notes that the 500,000 figure comes from Unicef estimates;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/418625.stm ;
(5a) 'We Think the Price Is Worth It'; Rahul Mahajan; Fair Extra!; November/December 2001;
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
(6) 'Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah'; David Randall; The Independent; September 15, 2009;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-munitions-may-be-cause-of-baby-deaths-and-deformities-in-fallujah-1820971.html ;
(7) Youtube clip: President George W. Bush admits there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE
(8) Excellent analysis by Eric Margolis: 'Afghanistan: A War Of Lies'; LewRockwell.com; c. Eric Margolis, 2009;
http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis165.html ;
(8a) 'Afghan war is now longest war in U.S. history'; Thomas Nagorski; ABC News; June 7, 2010;
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/afghan-war-now-longest-war-us-history/story?id=10849303
(9) 'Nuclear Winter'; Fidel Castro, as published in CounterCurrents; August 24, 2010;
http://www.countercurrents.org/castro240810.htm ;
They need to forgive, but I don't know how they could.
by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 27, 2010
Writer Ross Douthat faults Americans for 'failing to recognize extremism when it’s staring them in the face...'; whenever they are, in his opinion, taken in by Islamic extremist polemicists.(1) Although there are aspects to his article where I find myself agreeing with him, when, for example, he suggests that we can't expect Muslims to behave exactly like ourselves and we should seek common ground with moderates, I think the above quote best describes most Americans about the United States itself.
When it comes to American extremism Americans don't see it, even though it is as plain as day - American Exceptionalism; American spiritual (Christian and Jewish and democratic) purity; caring, philanthropic America: this is the fiction.
Soldiers returning, some of them, come home seeing things quite differently: the reality. (1a)
If anything spurs an Islamic reactionism toward America, it has to be two things: American hypocrisy, and American terrorism.
If anything could take the gas out of the tank of Islamic reactionism it is that we stop being hypocrites and we stop terrorizing.
For individual Americans, there are acceptable excuses for not knowing or understanding America's war crimes. But Osama bin Laden didn't seem to think so, in his 2002, 'Letter to America':
'The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.' (2).
I guess nobody took the time to tell him about the Bush-Gore farce of a 2000 presidential election, or how that all turned out.
To him, in a democracy, the people choose leaders who represent their views, unlike in a dictatorship; politicians enact the will of the people in a democracy; ipso facto: all Americans are guilty.
Too simplistic. I totally disagree. In order to make good choices, you have to have information; you need to be an informed voter.
Also, stupidity is an excuse, to a degree. Stupidity has a genetic component. Half of any population has an I.Q. of 100 or less. There are all kinds of intelligence, of course: social intelligence; moral intelligence; the latter, in my view, being of far greater importance than whether or not one knows a hypotenuse from a hippopotamus.
THE FUCKING MORONS - this is what I yelled, for example, at my T.V. during the beyond-evil American 'Shock-and-Awe' bombing campaign of Iraq when that began to unfold in 2003 - the fucking morons in the military and political leadership that dream these things up - they are another category entirely - the one labeled 'Guilty'.
Stupidity is not to be equated with illiteracy. You can be smart and not know how to read. But it is tragic that one in seven American adults can't read, making it that much less likely that they would be able to ferret out
alternative news sources beyond the mainstream. Illiteracy itself is a threat to a functioning democracy. (2a)
Wisdom only comes with time and experience, no matter how intelligent you are.
So, if you're stupid and you don't know or don't realize that your country is doing wrong, personally, I think you get a pass. Young and naive, again, personally, no one should blame you for not knowing what your government has been doing to others. In my own heart of hearts, young and naive tragically describes the majority of American troops, duped into fighting corporate resource wars. Ignorance and youth are two of the most important reasons why moral leadership is so vitally important to right conduct of any nation.
It is a war crime, or a crime against humanity, to target civilians. It is important to understand, however, that we have committed the same war crime of targeting civilians, ourselves.
Osama bin Laden seemed not to realize the important role mass communications and education both play in controlling what the people know and what they think. If the people are not told the truth about their country's activities, either in the news or in schools, where, exactly, are they supposed to get it in order to vote for the men and women who will best represent them? It isn't always exactly impossible, but I wouldn't exactly describe it as easy, either, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
Living in a so-called democracy brings up another issue: Politicians lie.
Perhaps it is also news to bin Laden and his followers that democracy in the United States is corrupted by monied interests; it isn't working as it should. I can't bring myself to say that America's political culture is corrupt straight to the bone, but like a computer with a hidden virus using power behind the scenes for its own purposes, there is corruption.
Based on bin Laden's own argument, then, 9-11 was a crime against innocent civilians. Osama bin Laden's group thinks that Americans know what's going on and that they approve of it. And my bedrock conviction is the polar opposite: No they don't.
Most Americans do not know. Some have some degree of knowledge, but the magnitude? No way.
Perhaps this is the biggest lie of all told by America's leaders to the people: The downplaying of the sheer magnitude of the destruction, just the vast scale of the human cost in the wars we have waged in both Iraq and Afghanistan - and are now beginning to quietly wage in Pakistan with remote-controlled, armed planes called drones - as if hunting down and killing people were like some sort of computer game. The carnage in the imprecision of it is mind-boggling - for Pakistani villagers, of course, not for us.
Those in the news business that don't agree with American foreign policy, some of them say something (3). There are a few courageous writers. But more either say nothing or hold their nose and repeat the fiction. To what? Hold on to a job? I worry about maintaining a roof over my head, but I worry far more about my children living on after me in a viable world - a world with flowers, trees and honey bees. It may not happen.
That last, hints, I suppose, at one source of my impatience with right-wing writers droning on and on, or shouting, as the case may be, about radical versus moderate Islam - not an honest word nor the faintest whiff of a suggestion that we are anything but lily-white in our activities in the Middle East.
'Like what; what whiff?', the trusting citizen might ask. Good question.
A short, far from complete (with apologies) list:
Iran: 1950's CIA overthrow of the democratically-elected leadership of Iran, leading to an American puppet's reign of abject, despotic state terror against Iran's own people. Over what? Oil.
Great Britain has a hand in it. (4)
Iraq: Eight-year war between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Iran. The U.S. sides with Iraq, giving aid and weapons including chemical and biological weapons. A million people die. (4a)
Iraq: Ten-years military siege and bombing campaign of Iraq 1993-2003; 500,000-plus Iraqi children murdered via American biological warfare; (5; 5a)
Iraqi city of Fallujah: Alarmingly high numbers of Iraqi children today are being born genetically deformed, our use of depleted uranium nuclear-waste bullets and bombs suspected cause; (6)
2003-present: War and occupation of Iraq based on lies; (7)
Afghanistan: 2001-present, war of Afghanistan based on lies; (8) the longest war in American history, as of June 7, 2010; (8a)
(Image, right: Rumsfeld/Saddam Hussein; Dec. 20, 1983;
Getty Images)
1947-present: 3 billion American dollars worth of military hardware gifted to Israel every year, making the occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians possible; support for Israel's various attacks, occupation, of Lebanon; destruction, cluster-bombing of Southern Lebanon, 2006.
(Image, right: Israel attacks Gaza, code-named 'Operation Cast Lead',late-2008 - early 2009.)
----------------------------
9-11 was blow-back. It had nothing to do with religion. America's intellectual and political
leadership are afraid - they'd have to be - because of what we've done, and because of
what we continue to do.
We're the bully in the school yard sitting on some poor schmuck - sooner or later, you have to get off. What happens next, is anyone's guess.
Some of the people pissed at us come from parts of the world where most people are Muslim. But that is only the half of it. We've been stirring it up making enemies all over the place - including placing, or attempting to place, nuclear missiles at Russia's doorstep.
We have over 700 military outposts around the globe. We're in Africa; Central and South America, too. We'll be challenging, no doubt, Canada and Russia over control of the melting Arctic marine shipping routes, along with the imagined pot of gold of Arctic oil exploration. Gulf II plus territorial disputes. Grand.
Yet, all one hears is stuff about a religious faith called Islam, and in which ways it should be practiced that would be deemed acceptably uncritical of the U.S.; judged appropriate, or not - by us.
We need to wake up. We need everybody on board - Christians, Muslims, Jews, the Right, the Left - everybody. We have to realize that if we don't stop, and say 'enough!' - then it doesn't stop. Somehow, together, we must stop this evil building as it rolls downhill.
I don't know exactly how. But we need to stop. They need to forgive, but I don't know how they could.
Otherwise, where it ends could be the end. Cuba's Fidel Castro is thinking about this. He recently wrote, after conferring with scientific advisors, that it may be that it actually only takes a few nuclear bombs, rather than many, to make the world inhospitable for the continued survival of the human race in an ensuing nuclear winter; that a nuclear winter may last, not two years as is currently imagined, but ten. (9)
It is a shocking revelation to him. It is to me, too. I think I understand where Castro is coming from. He is on his way to checking out. What's going on? What's the big picture? To what aspect of world affairs might he make the most lasting contribution in the time left to him? He settles his gaze on the immensity of risk inherent in current world conflict.
Nuclear weapons have been put on the move. For several years it has been open debate about whether or not to use 'tactical' nuclear weapons against Iran.
In conclusion: If America is to be encouraged to pull back from this destructive course, the world will have to meet America half-way. For the sake of mankind's survival, the world needs to reassure an America fearful of retaliation that all efforts will be made to help defuse the justifiable anger - and let it go.
-------------------------------
Footnotes:
(1) New York Times Op Ed: 'Imam Rauf and Moderate Islam'; Ross Douthat; August 26, 2010;
http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/imam-rauf-and-moderate-islam/#preview
(1a) See, for example, website, 'Iraq Vets Against the War';
http://ivaw.org/node/6111 ; also, 'Military Families Speak Out'; http://www.mfso.org/
(2) 'Letter to America'; Osama bin Laden; as published in observer.co.uk, November 24th, 2002;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
(2a) 'Literacy study: 1 in Seven U.S. Adults Are Unable to Read This Story'; Greg Toppo; USA Today; 1/8/2009;
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-01-08-adult-literacy_N.htm
(3) For discussion, see: 'Iraq: Why the Media Failed'; Gary Kamiya; Salon.com; April 10, 2007; the writer
highlights notable and noble examples of American journalistic excellence in criticizing the proposed Iraq war.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/kamiya/2007/04/10/media_failure
(4) 'New York Times Special Report: CIA in Iran'; James Risen; NYT on the web; 2000; notes it was a joint goal of the CIA and Britain's SIS;
http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html
(4a) 'Partners in Crime: US Complicity in the War Crimes of Saddam Hussein'; Paul Rockwell; December 23, 2003; Common Dreams;
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1223-11.htm
(5) 'BBC News Middle East Iraqis blame sanctions for child deaths'; Jeremy Bowen; August 12, 1999; notes that the 500,000 figure comes from Unicef estimates;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/418625.stm ;
(5a) 'We Think the Price Is Worth It'; Rahul Mahajan; Fair Extra!; November/December 2001;
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
(6) 'Toxic munitions 'may be cause' of baby deaths and deformities in Fallujah'; David Randall; The Independent; September 15, 2009;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/toxic-munitions-may-be-cause-of-baby-deaths-and-deformities-in-fallujah-1820971.html ;
(7) Youtube clip: President George W. Bush admits there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSN-Kku_rFE
(8) Excellent analysis by Eric Margolis: 'Afghanistan: A War Of Lies'; LewRockwell.com; c. Eric Margolis, 2009;
http://www.lewrockwell.com/margolis/margolis165.html ;
(8a) 'Afghan war is now longest war in U.S. history'; Thomas Nagorski; ABC News; June 7, 2010;
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/afghan-war-now-longest-war-us-history/story?id=10849303
(9) 'Nuclear Winter'; Fidel Castro, as published in CounterCurrents; August 24, 2010;
http://www.countercurrents.org/castro240810.htm ;
August 20, 2010
Today - NYT comment No. 70 Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings
Comment (link) by Diane V. McLoughlin, August 20, 2010
The cultural center must be built, as is, where is.
The cultural center is not the problem here. The problem is the country is deteriorating because the people have been lied to, for so long, that they no longer know what is true.
As Ground Zero is on the New York Times' home turf, I hold it highly responsible.
When 9-11 occurred, the thing of utmost importance that needed to transpire, above and beyond anything else - from a news organization's perspective - was to analyse why it occurred. All the other questions were addressed: How, where, who, when, what?
On too many fronts, 'why' has been MIA in the mainstream American press for too long. Why did 9-11 happen? Why did they do it?
They hate us for our 'freedoms', was a direct insult, a slap in the face, to the collective intelligence.
The answers, should a news organization care to look for them, were simple and easy to obtain. Osama bin Laden published his 'Letter to America' itemizing, in a short list, what he viewed as America's crimes.
Even now, the New York Times doesn't want to discuss it. My comment to Douthat's 'Two Americas' several days ago, was censored.
Bin Laden had three top reasons for the 9-11 attack. Woefully few are the numbers of Americans that know them. I'll get to Barack Obama's shamefully inadequate response to the mosque controversy in a second.
I forget the order, but One: America is directly responsible for the murders of 500,000 Iraqi children. That is, a half-million children, not counting the adults, we killed in the ten-year military bombing and siege campaign we waged against Saddam Hussein's Iraq under President Clinton.
We bombed the water treatment plants - in a place that is in large part desert. We embargoed children's vaccines.
It is important to understand what we did: We waged biological warfare against Iraq's most vulnerable citizens. As night follows day, they died.
Two: We assist in buttressing the non-democratic regime in Saudi Arabia
- bin Laden is/was a Saudi citizen.
Three: Our direct financial and military support of Israel's ongoing oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people (to the tune of 3 billion in U.S. tax-dollars, most in military hardware, each and every calendar year.)
9-11 was blowback. It was not, it had not, anything to do with Islam or Muslims. They happened to be Muslims. 9-11 was not part of a holy war to spread the faith or to destroy anothers'.
So three-thousand murdered over here, apparently this is sufficient for us to go to war over there.
But we kill 500,000 children over there before that, and you are going to sit there on your couch and tell me that they'll suck it up? There isn't an American on this planet that would think that - if they knew.
But Americans, instead, have been encouraged on the sly to assume that it's Muslims that are the enemy. They aren't the enemy. They are victims, just like good-hearted Americans have been hoodwinked - by their own government.
Obama should be ashamed of himself. When it reached his ears that some Americans wrongly had been led to believe that he is Muslim, he should have come out and challenged the bigots: So what? So what if I were? You got a problem with Muslims? What, you some kind of racist?
Instead, he reinforces the notion that Islam is somehow less desirable, not me, I'm no Muslim, deepening the threat to everybody's liberty because either we're all free, or none of us are secure in our freedom.
Now why would he do that?
Hopefully, you get the idea.
editor, mcloughlinpost.com
*Comment No. 70. In response to, 'Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings Locally'; Paul Vitello, NYT; Aug. 20, 2010
The cultural center must be built, as is, where is.
The cultural center is not the problem here. The problem is the country is deteriorating because the people have been lied to, for so long, that they no longer know what is true.
As Ground Zero is on the New York Times' home turf, I hold it highly responsible.
When 9-11 occurred, the thing of utmost importance that needed to transpire, above and beyond anything else - from a news organization's perspective - was to analyse why it occurred. All the other questions were addressed: How, where, who, when, what?
On too many fronts, 'why' has been MIA in the mainstream American press for too long. Why did 9-11 happen? Why did they do it?
They hate us for our 'freedoms', was a direct insult, a slap in the face, to the collective intelligence.
The answers, should a news organization care to look for them, were simple and easy to obtain. Osama bin Laden published his 'Letter to America' itemizing, in a short list, what he viewed as America's crimes.
Even now, the New York Times doesn't want to discuss it. My comment to Douthat's 'Two Americas' several days ago, was censored.
Bin Laden had three top reasons for the 9-11 attack. Woefully few are the numbers of Americans that know them. I'll get to Barack Obama's shamefully inadequate response to the mosque controversy in a second.
I forget the order, but One: America is directly responsible for the murders of 500,000 Iraqi children. That is, a half-million children, not counting the adults, we killed in the ten-year military bombing and siege campaign we waged against Saddam Hussein's Iraq under President Clinton.
We bombed the water treatment plants - in a place that is in large part desert. We embargoed children's vaccines.
It is important to understand what we did: We waged biological warfare against Iraq's most vulnerable citizens. As night follows day, they died.
Two: We assist in buttressing the non-democratic regime in Saudi Arabia
- bin Laden is/was a Saudi citizen.
Three: Our direct financial and military support of Israel's ongoing oppression and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people (to the tune of 3 billion in U.S. tax-dollars, most in military hardware, each and every calendar year.)
9-11 was blowback. It was not, it had not, anything to do with Islam or Muslims. They happened to be Muslims. 9-11 was not part of a holy war to spread the faith or to destroy anothers'.
So three-thousand murdered over here, apparently this is sufficient for us to go to war over there.
But we kill 500,000 children over there before that, and you are going to sit there on your couch and tell me that they'll suck it up? There isn't an American on this planet that would think that - if they knew.
But Americans, instead, have been encouraged on the sly to assume that it's Muslims that are the enemy. They aren't the enemy. They are victims, just like good-hearted Americans have been hoodwinked - by their own government.
Obama should be ashamed of himself. When it reached his ears that some Americans wrongly had been led to believe that he is Muslim, he should have come out and challenged the bigots: So what? So what if I were? You got a problem with Muslims? What, you some kind of racist?
Instead, he reinforces the notion that Islam is somehow less desirable, not me, I'm no Muslim, deepening the threat to everybody's liberty because either we're all free, or none of us are secure in our freedom.
Now why would he do that?
Hopefully, you get the idea.
editor, mcloughlinpost.com
*Comment No. 70. In response to, 'Islamic Center Exposes Mixed Feelings Locally'; Paul Vitello, NYT; Aug. 20, 2010
June 30, 2010
Global Jihad - Attack? Or Counter-attack? What Osama bin Laden Wrote
by Diane V. McLoughlin
June 30, 2010: I would take up a New Yorker's challenge to explain the motivation behind the World Trade Center bombings, who asks, rhetorically, what did we do to deserve those attacks? I've got unhappy news for him - we did plenty. For openers, under Presidents Bush I and Clinton, we deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of Iraq's children - 'worth it', according to Secretary of State M. Albright.
Osama bin Laden wrote clearly in his 'Letter to America' why the Muslim world fights against the machinations of the United States; it should be read by every American citizen. To the eternal discredit of the mainstream American press, most Americans have never even heard of it. For the sake of brevity I have shortened the letter to its most central points, adding a few brief comments of my own in square brackets. (The full text of the letter can be viewed here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver)
The crimes against humanity that the U.S. and the West are complicit in committing against the oppressed Palestinian people is Exhibit A in bin Laden's Letter:
'a) You attacked us in Palestine.'
[The U.S. donates in value three billion dollars to Israel each and every year - most of it in the form of military hardware used against the Palestinian people (and also Lebanon), who in truth have languished for fifty years under Israel's racist, barbed-wire Apartheid regime.
[Bin Laden seems less sanguine than Iran's Ahmadinajad on this issue: Ahmadinajad calls for a referendum to be held in Palestine by the people - both Jews and Palestinians - for them to determine democratically for themselves a structure for a just and fair society; bin Laden says that the creation of Israel was a crime that must be erased. I have no idea whether bin Laden would respond positively to Ahmadinajad's democratic proposal.]
'b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.
'(c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;
'(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of your international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
'(e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.
'(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.
'(g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque...[for brevity, skipped text...]
'(3) You may...dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:
'(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.
'(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq...
'...if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back...That which you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom?'
Bin Laden held out a hand of reconciliation: 'We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefit.'
---------------------------------------
- mildly edited from my original comment No. 76 on New York Times blogger Robert Wright's excellent opinion piece: 'The Myth of Modern Jihad'; June 29, 2010
June 30, 2010: I would take up a New Yorker's challenge to explain the motivation behind the World Trade Center bombings, who asks, rhetorically, what did we do to deserve those attacks? I've got unhappy news for him - we did plenty. For openers, under Presidents Bush I and Clinton, we deliberately killed hundreds of thousands of Iraq's children - 'worth it', according to Secretary of State M. Albright.
Osama bin Laden wrote clearly in his 'Letter to America' why the Muslim world fights against the machinations of the United States; it should be read by every American citizen. To the eternal discredit of the mainstream American press, most Americans have never even heard of it. For the sake of brevity I have shortened the letter to its most central points, adding a few brief comments of my own in square brackets. (The full text of the letter can be viewed here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver)
The crimes against humanity that the U.S. and the West are complicit in committing against the oppressed Palestinian people is Exhibit A in bin Laden's Letter:
'a) You attacked us in Palestine.'
[The U.S. donates in value three billion dollars to Israel each and every year - most of it in the form of military hardware used against the Palestinian people (and also Lebanon), who in truth have languished for fifty years under Israel's racist, barbed-wire Apartheid regime.
[Bin Laden seems less sanguine than Iran's Ahmadinajad on this issue: Ahmadinajad calls for a referendum to be held in Palestine by the people - both Jews and Palestinians - for them to determine democratically for themselves a structure for a just and fair society; bin Laden says that the creation of Israel was a crime that must be erased. I have no idea whether bin Laden would respond positively to Ahmadinajad's democratic proposal.]
'b) You attacked us in Somalia; you supported the Russian atrocities against us in Chechnya, the Indian oppression against us in Kashmir, and the Jewish aggression against us in Lebanon.
'(c) Under your supervision, consent and orders, the governments of our countries which act as your agents, attack us on a daily basis;
'(d) You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of your international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world.
'(e) Your forces occupy our countries; you spread your military bases throughout them; you corrupt our lands, and you besiege our sanctities, to protect the security of the Jews and to ensure the continuity of your pillage of our treasures.
'(f) You have starved the Muslims of Iraq, where children die every day. It is a wonder that more than 1.5 million Iraqi children have died as a result of your sanctions, and you did not show concern. Yet when 3000 of your people died, the entire world rises and has not yet sat down.
'(g) You have supported the Jews in their idea that Jerusalem is their eternal capital, and agreed to move your embassy there. With your help and under your protection, the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque...[for brevity, skipped text...]
'(3) You may...dispute that all the above does not justify aggression against civilians, for crimes they did not commit and offenses in which they did not partake:
'(a) This argument contradicts your continuous repetition that America is the land of freedom, and its leaders in this world. Therefore, the American people are the ones who choose their government by way of their own free will; a choice which stems from their agreement to its policies. Thus the American people have chosen, consented to, and affirmed their support for the Israeli oppression of the Palestinians, the occupation and usurpation of their land, and its continuous killing, torture, punishment and expulsion of the Palestinians. The American people have the ability and choice to refuse the policies of their Government and even to change it if they want.
'(b) The American people are the ones who pay the taxes which fund the planes that bomb us in Afghanistan, the tanks that strike and destroy our homes in Palestine, the armies which occupy our lands in the Arabian Gulf, and the fleets which ensure the blockade of Iraq...
'...if we are attacked, then we have the right to attack back...That which you are singled out for in the history of mankind, is that you have used your force to destroy mankind more than any other nation in history; not to defend principles and values, but to hasten to secure your interests and profits. You who dropped a nuclear bomb on Japan, even though Japan was ready to negotiate an end to the war. How many acts of oppression, tyranny and injustice have you carried out, O callers to freedom?'
Bin Laden held out a hand of reconciliation: 'We also call you to deal with us and interact with us on the basis of mutual interests and benefit.'
---------------------------------------
- mildly edited from my original comment No. 76 on New York Times blogger Robert Wright's excellent opinion piece: 'The Myth of Modern Jihad'; June 29, 2010
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