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ROOTS OF TERRORISM
Will terrorism end or intensify?
The September 11 terrorist attacks on the US triggered a process
that no one knows the final outcome of. What we do know is that
suddenly security became a fantasy since no nation is immune
from attacks by largely invisible hate-driven fanatics who use
their interpretation of Islam as justification for indiscriminate
killing of innocent civilians and the destruction of mostly non-military
targets.
The hijacked planes delivered a heavy blow that goes far beyond
the death toll and material damage of their targets. It has brutally
demonstrated that the mightiest military power in the world is
vulnerable to enemy attack against which it has no foolproof
defense. So much fear and uncertainty is generated in the US
by bioterrorism and threats of attacks, that the world economy
is in crisis mode. Air travel globally is down about 25 per cent,
hotel occupancy rates in the US are down about forty per cent,
consumer spending is way down and unemployment is rising.
No amount of flag-waving and singing patriotic songs can stop
the growing fear and uncertainty spreading throughout the US
which was and remains totally unprepared to effectively deal
with this crisis. To understand how radicaly the terms of engagement
have changed consider this: if any nation in the world had atacked
the US and caused the death and destruction the terorists inflicted
that country would have been wiped off the map by a massive military
strike by the US. Conventional battles like the Gulf War can
be effectively won by the US in a short time. But the scale and
nature of the present conflict is both unconventional and unprecedented.
The US is like a mighty elephant that could be brought to its
knees by a swarm of killer bees.
The claim by the US it will find and destroy terrorists wherever
they are and punish the countries that harbour them is a threat
that can't possibly be carried out. Bin Laden's al-que'da organization
alone has cells in more than forty countries of which Afghanistan
is only one. Is the US going to bomb Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lybia
and so on?
How does one deal with terrorists who consider it an honour to
die for their religious beliefs? Threatening to kill them obviously
is not effective. Bombing Aghanistan with total assets worth
less than the World Trade Centre alone is clearly not going to
stop terrorism either. Worse the killing of Muslims, especially
civilians, with American bombs will irrefutably create more terrorists
than destroy. The Taliban has thousands of foreign volunteers
eager to join the Jihad against the US, some of them trained
in the US.
History lessons
While no one knows how this new conflict will end, history
is replete with examples of how such conflicts begin.
History shows America's favorite kind of war is a proxy war.
It allows people native to a foreign country to get killed while
the US supplies weapons and advice. This keeps US casualties
down to a minimum, while imposing US foreign policy in some distant
land. The US has done that many times including in Nicaragua
by arming the so-called contras and in Chile it helped the military
topple democratically elected, but left-leaning President Salvador
Allende. It tried to do the same in Vietnam until it got sucked
into the conflict which the US had no business being involved
in since a peace treaty had already been signed at Geneva in
1954. When advisors and military supplies proved to be inadequate
to defeat North Vietnam, the US sent hundreds of thousands of
military troops to do the job which failed as well. If the US
had stayed out of Vietnam some 58,000 American lives would have
been saved, not to mention close to two million Vietnamese.
Now the US is conducting another proxy war in Afghanistan which
has killed thousands of Afghans, while the US so far (November
24, 2001) has not lost one military person in combat in that
desolate country. Instead, from the comfort and safety of high-flying
planes the US is bombing Taliban forces s well as defenceless
targets such as UN food depots and several hospitals. The irony
is, of course, that the enemies of the day are the Taliban and
Osama Bin Laden, both of which were financed by the US during
to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan. Bin Laden was even taught
by US advisors how to build strong bunkers, impenetrable by bombs....
The US is notorious for supporting political leaders who later
turn against America. Here are a few examples:
Syria, 1948 - The U.S. overthrows the regime; Syria turns
anti-U.S.
Iran, 1954 - The U.S. overthrows nationalist Mossadegh, puts
the Shah in power. Result: Ayatollah Khomeini's 1979 Islamic
revolution.
Egypt, 1955 - The U.S. tried to kill nationalist Gamal Abdel
Nasser. He turns to the Soviets.
Iraq, 1958 - The U.S. puts Col. Kassem in power. He turns
into an anti-American lunatic.
Indonesia, 1967 - The U.S. overthrows Sukarno. The army and
mobs then kill 500,000 Sukarno supporters.
Libya, 1969 - The U.S. helps a young officer, Moammar Khadafy,
seize power in Libya, then tries to kill him in a 1986 bombing
raid.
Iraq, 1975 - The U.S. helps young Saddam Hussein seize power.
In 1979, the U.S. encourages Saddam to invade Iran in an effort
to crush Iran's Islamic revolution. Some 700,000 die in the war.
Lebanon, 1983 - U.S. forces intervene in the civil war to
prop up the Christian government, 240 U.S. Marines die.
Kuwait/Iraq, 1991 - The U.S. goes to war against former ally
Saddam, but keeps him in power.
Somalia, 1992 - The U.S. intervenes in a civil war, loses
men and flees.
Not a record to boast about. Undaunted by failure, the U.S.
has now found its latest client, the Northern Alliance, and is
moving quickly to implant its leaders in Kabul. But anyone who
knows anything about Afghans knows: 1) they will never accept
any regime imposed by outsiders; 2) an ethnic minority government
can never rule Afghanistan's ethnic majority, the Pashtun, roughly
half the population. Taliban members are mostly Pashtun. Tajiks
account for 18%-20% and Uzbeks for 6% of Afghans.
Washington's plan for "nation-building" in Afghanistan
is a recipe for disaster that may well trigger an enlarged civil
war. Instead Afghans should be allowed, through a national tribal
council, called a loya jirga, to create a new, post-Taliban government
whose strings are not pulled from abroad.
Clinton ties the present
to the past
Former US president, Bill Clinton told students November 7
that terror has existed in America for hundreds of years and
the nation is "paying a price today" for its past practice
of slavery and for looking "the other way when a significant
number of native Americans were dispossessed and killed."
Mr. Clinton in a speech to nearly 1,000 students at Georgetown
University said: "This country once looked the other way
when a significant number of native Americans were dispossessed
and killed to get their land or their mineral rights or because
they were thought of as less than fully human and we are still
paying a price today."
Mr. Clinton said the international terrorism that has only
just reached the United States dates back thousands of years.
"In the first Crusade, when the Christian soldiers took
Jerusalem, they first burned a synagogue with 300 Jews in it
and proceeded to kill every woman and child who was a Muslim
on the Temple Mount. I can tell you that story is still being
told today in the Middle East and we are still paying for it."
Mr. Clinton said America needs to pay more attention to its
enemies and to the way the United States is viewed by the rest
of the world. "There are a lot of people that see the world
differently than we do. It is quite important that we do more
to build the pool of potential partners in the world and to shrink
the pool of potential terrorists."
"The answer," Mr. Clinton said, "is to spread
freedom and democracy, reduce global poverty, forgive billions
in debt, improve health care systems and encourage -- even fund
-- education in developing countries." He added the US should
pay for these children to go to school which is a lot cheaper
than going to war.
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