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Free 50-Minute Phone Card + Free Shopping Spree! I received this very interesting (and much agreed with) point of view in an email from a friend. I think you'll like it too.
>>Larry Mosqueda, Ph.D.
>The Evergreen State College
>September 15, 2001
>
>Like all Americans, on Tuesday, 9-11, I was shocked and horrified to watch
>the WTC Twin Towers attacked by hijacked planes and collapse, resulting in
>the deaths of perhaps up to 10,000 innocent people.I had not been that
>shocked and horrified since January 16, 1991,when then President Bush
>attacked Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq and began killing 200,000 people
>during that "war" (slaughter). This includes the infamous "highway of
>death" in the last days of the slaughter when U.S. pilots literally shot in
>the back retreating Iraqi civilians and soldiers.
>I continue to be horrified by the sanctions on Iraq, which have resulted in
>the death of over 1,000,000 Iraqis, including over 500,000 children, about
>whom former Secretary of State Madeline
>Allbright has stated that their deaths "are worth the cost".
>Over the course of my life I have been shocked and horrified by a variety
>of U.S. governmental actions, such as the U.S. sponsored coup
>against democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of over
>120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed dictatorships over the course
>of four decades.
>Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the horror I felt when the
>U.S.overthrew the governments of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped
>to murder 3,000 people. And it reminded me of the shock I felt in
>1973,when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile against the democratic
>government of Salvador Allende and helped to murder another 30,000 people,
>including U.S. citizens.
>Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the shock and horror I felt in 1965
>when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder
>of over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over250,000
>innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian regime with the
>direct complicity of President Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissenger.
>I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S.sponsored
>terrorist contra war (the World Court declared the U.S. government a war
>criminal in 1984 for the mining of the harbors) against Nicaragua in the
>1980s which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent people (or as
>the U.S. government used to call them before the term "collateral damage"
>was invented--"soft targets").
>I was reminded of being horrified by the U. S. war against the people of El
>Salvador in the 1980s, which resulted in the brutal deaths of over 80,000
>people, or "soft targets".
>I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S.sponsored
>terror war against the peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola) that
>began in the 1970's and continues to this day and has resulted in
>the deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000. I was reminded of the shock
>and horror I felt as the U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas
>season of 1989 and killed over 8,000 in an attempt to capture George
>H.Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manual Noriega. I was reminded of
>the horror I felt when I learned about how the Shah of Iran was installed
>in a U.S. sponsored brutal coup that resulted in the
>deaths of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1979. And the continuing shock as
>I learned that the Ayatollah Khomani, who overthrew the Shah in 1979,and
>who was the U.S. public enemy for decade of the 1980s, was also on the CIA
>payroll, while he was in exile in Paris in the 1970s.
>I was reminded of the shock and horror that I felt as I learned about how
>the U.S. has "manufactured consent" since 1948 for its support of Israel,
>to the exclusion of virtually any rights for the Palestinians in their
>native lands resulting in ever worsening day-to-day conditions
>for the people of Palestine. I was shocked as I learned about the hundreds
>of towns and villages that were literally wiped off the face of the earth
>in the early days of Israeli colonization. I was
>horrified in 1982 as the villagers of Sabra and Shatila were massacred by
>Israeli allies with direct Israeli complicity and direction. The untold
>thousands who died on that day match the scene of horror that we saw last
>Tuesday. But those scenes were not repeated over and over again on
>the national media to inflame the American public.
>The events and images of last Tuesday have been appropriately compared to
>the horrific events and images of Lebanon in the 1980s with resulted in the
>deaths of tens of thousand of people, with no reference to the fact that
>the country that inflicted the terror on Lebanon was Israel, with U.S.
>backing. I still continue to be shocked at how mainstream commentators
>refer to "Israeli settlers" in the "occupied territories"
> with no sense of irony as they report on who are the aggressors in the
>region.
>Of course, the largest and most shocking war crime of the second half of
>the 20th century was the U.S. assault on Indochina from 1954-1975,
>especially Vietnam, where over 4,000,000 people were bombed, napalmed,
>crushed, shot and individually "hands on" murdered in the "Phoenix
>Program" (this is where Oliver North got his start). Many U.S. Vietnam
>veterans were also victimized by this war and had the best of intentions,
>but the policy makers themselves knew the criminality of their actions and
>policies as revealed in their own words in "The
>Pentagon Papers," released by Daniel Ellsberg of the RAND Corporation. In
>1974 Ellsberg noted that our Presidents from Truman to Nixon
>continually lied to the U.S. public about the purpose and conduct of the
>war. He has stated that, "It is a tribute to the American peoplethat our
>leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us
>that we were so easily misled."
>I was continually shocked and horrified as the U.S. attacked and bombed
>with impunity the nation of Libya in the 1980s, including killing the
>infant daughter of Khadafi. I was shocked as the U.S. bombed and invaded
>Grenada in 1983. I was horrified by U.S. military and CIA actions in
>Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil, Argentina, and Yugoslavia.
>The deaths in these actions ran into the hundreds of thousands.
>The above list is by no means complete or comprehensive. It is merely a
>list that is easily accessible and not unknown, especially to the economic
>and intellectual elites. It has just been conveniently eliminated from the
>public discourse and public consciousness. And for
>the most part, the analysis that the U.S. actions have resulted in the
>deaths of primarily civilians (over 90%) is not unknown to these elites and
>policy makers. A conservative number for those who have been killed by U.S.
>terror and military action since World War II is 8,000,000 people.
>Repeat--8,000,000 people. This does not include the wounded, the
>imprisoned, the displaced, the refugees, etc. Martin Luther King, Jr.
>stated in 1967, during the Vietnam War, "My government is the world's
>leading purveyor of violence." Shocking and horrifying. Nothing that I
>have written is meant to disparage or disrespect those
>who were victims and those who suffered death or the loss of a loved one
>during this week's events. It is not meant to "justify" any action >by
>those who bombed the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. It is meant to
>put it in a context. If we believe that the actions were those of
>"madmen", they are "madmen" who are able to keep a secret for 2 years or
>more
>among over 100 people, as they trained to execute a complex plan. While not
>the acts of madmen, they are apparently the acts of "fanatics" who,
>depending on who they really are, can find real grievances, but whose
>actions are illegitimate.
>Osama Bin Laden at this point has been accused by the media and the
>government of being the mastermind of Tuesday's bombings. Given the
>government's track record on lying to the America people, that should not
>be accepted as fact at this time. If indeed Bin Laden is the
>mastermind of this action, he is responsible for the deaths of perhaps
>10,000 people-a shocking and horrible crime. Ed Herman in his book The
>Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda does not justify any
>terrorism but points out that states often engage in "wholesale" terror,
>while those whom governments define as "terrorist" engage is "retail"
>terrorism. While qualitatively the results are the same for
>the individual victims of terrorism, there is a clear quantitative
>difference. And as Herman and others point out, the seeds, the roots,
>of much of the "retail" terror are in fact found in the "wholesale" terror
>of states. Again this is not to justify, in any way, the actions of last
>Tuesday, but to put them in a context and suggest an
>explanation.
>Perhaps most shocking and horrific, if indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind
>of Tuesday's actions; he has clearly had significant training in logistics,
>armaments, and military training, etc. by competent and expert military
>personnel. And indeed he has. During the 1980s,he was recruited, trained
>and funded by the CIA in Afghanistan to fight against the Russians. As
>long as he visited his terror on Russians and his
>enemies in Afghanistan, he was "our man" in that country.
>The same is true of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who was a CIA asset in Iraq
>during the 1980s. Hussein could gas his own people, repress the
>population, and invade his neighbor (Iran) as long as he did it with U.S.
>approval.
>The same was true of Manuel Noriega of Panama, who was a contemporary and
>CIA partner of George H. Bush in the 1980s. Noriega's main crime for Bush,
>the father, was not that he dealt drugs (he did, but the U.S.and Bush knew
>this before 1989), but that Noriega was no longer going to cooperate in the
>ongoing U.S. terrorist contra war against Nicaragua. This information is
>not unknown or really controversial among elite policy makers. To repeat,
>this not to justify any of the actions of last Tuesday, but to put it in
>its horrifying context.
>As shocking as the events of last Tuesday were, they are likely to generate
>even more horrific actions by the U.S. government that will add
>significantly to the 8,000,000 figure stated above. This response may well
>be qualitatively and quantitatively worst than the events of Tuesday. The
>New York Times headline of 9/14/01 states that, "Bush And Top Aides
>Proclaim Policy Of Ending States That Back Terror" as if that was a
>rationale, measured, or even sane option. States that have been identified
>for possible elimination are "a number of Asian and African countries, like
>Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and even Pakistan." This is beyond shocking and
>horrific-it is just as potentially suicidal,homicidal, and more insane than
>the hijackers themselves.
>Also, qualitatively, these actions will be even worse than the original
>bombers if one accepts the mainstream premise that those involved are
> "madmen", "religious fanatics", or a "terrorist group." If so,they are
>acting as either individuals or as a small group. The U.S. actions may
>continue the homicidal policies of a few thousand elites for the past 50
>years, involving both political parties.
> The retail terror is that of desperate and sometime fanatical small
>groups and individuals who often have legitimate grievances, but engage
>in individual criminal and illegitimate activities; the wholesale terror is
>that of "rational" educated men where the pain, suffering, and deaths of
>millions of people are contemplated, planned, and too often, executed, for
>the purpose of furthering a nebulous concept called the
> "national interest". Space does not allow a full explanation of the
>elites Orwellian concept of the "national interest", but it can be
>summarized as the protection and expansion of hegemony and an imperial
>empire.
>The American public is being prepared for war while being fed a continuous
>stream of shocking and horrific repeated images of Tuesday's events and
>heartfelt stories from the survivors and the loved ones of those who lost
>family members. These stories are real and should not be
>diminished. In fact, those who lost family members can be considered a
>representative sample of humanity of the 8,000,000 who have been lost
>previously. If we multiply by 800-1000 times the amount of pain, angst,
>and anger being currently felt by the American public, we might
>begin to understand how much of the rest of the world feels as they are
>continually victimized.
>Some particularly poignant images are the heart wrenching public stories
>that we are seeing and hearing of family members with pictures and flyers
>searching for their loved ones. These images are virtually the same as
>those of the "Mothers of the Disappeared" who searched for their
>(primarily) adult children in places such as Argentina, where over 11,000
>were "disappeared" in 1976-1982, again with U.S. approval. Just
>as the mothers of Argentina deserved our respect and compassion, so do the
>relatives of those who are searching for their relatives now. However we
>should not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the media and U.S.
>government into turning real grief and anger into a national policy of
>wholesale terror and genocide against innocent civilians in Asia and
>Africa. What we are seeing in military terms is called "softening the
>target." The target here is the American public and we are being
>ideologically and emotionally prepared for the slaughter that may commence
>soon.
>None of the previously identified Asian and African countries are
>democracies, which means that the people of these countries have virtually
>no impact on developing the policies of their governments, even if we
>assume that these governments are complicit in Tuesday's actions. When one
>examines the recent history of these countries, one will find that the
>American government had direct and indirect influences on creating the
>conditions for the existence of some of these governments. This is
>especially true of the Taliban government of Afghanistan itself.
> The New York Metropolitan Area has about 21,000,000 people or about 8 %
>of the U.S. population. Almost everyone in America knows someone who has
>been killed, injured or traumatized by the events of Tuesday. I know that
>I do. Many people are calling for "revenge"
>or "vengeance" and comments such as "kill them all" have been circulated on
>the TV, radio, and email. A few more potentially benign comments have
>called for "justice." This is only potentially benign since that term may
>be defined by people such as Bush and Colin Powell. Powell is an
>unrepentant participant in the Vietnam War, the terrorist contra war
>against Nicaragua, and the Gulf war, at each level becoming more
>responsible for the planning and execution of the policies.
>Those affected, all of us, must do everything in our power to prevent a
>wider war and even greater atrocity, do everything possible to stop the
>genocide if it starts, and hold those responsible for their potential war
>crimes during and after the war. If there is a great war in 2001
>and it is not catastrophic (a real possibility), the crimes of that war
>will be revisited upon the U.S. over the next generation. That is not some
>kind of religious prophecy or threat, it is merely a
> straightforward political analysis. If indeed it is Bin Laden, the world
>must not deal only with him as an individual criminal, but eliminate the
>conditions that create the injustices and war crimes that will inevitably
>lead to more of these types of attacks in the future. The phrase "No
>Justice, No Peace" is more than a slogan used in a march, it is an
>observable historical fact. It is time to end the horror.
>In a few short pages it is impossible to delineate all of the events
>described over the past week or to give a comprehensive accounting of U.S.
>foreign policy. Below are a few resources for up to date news and some
>background reading, by Noam Chomsky, the noted analyst. The titles
>of the books explain their relevance for this topic.
>For the most current information see http://www.commondreams.org/.
>For information on how the media distorts the news see
>http://www.fair.org/.
>For excellent links on the Middle East see
>http://al-awda.org/newyork/links.html.
>For background reading by Noam Chomsky see:
>"Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies"
>"Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media"(with Ed
>Herman) Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians
>Deterring Democracy
>"An eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind."
>Mahatma Gandhi