Re: There is no real terror threat...


angelagrace wrote:
marycain49@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

'This' is a saga, imo. It started way back there and has arrived at
the current point. Are you saying that the bombings and hi-jackings
were in retaliation for us being in their country? And, is their
reason for wanting us to abandon Isreal so that they will all live in
peace without us? What got us into the area in the first place? A
politically motivated lie? If any of this is what you believe, I'd be
very interested in hearing how you come by your opinion...seriously,
you might know things that I don't...I'm not overly political. It
seems to me, however, that this has been festering and growing for
practically my whole lifetime...and I'm not young! It traces from
before the Iran conflict (the taking of American hostages) during
Carter's term in office and just keeps on building. Now, I would never
attempt to say that we are entirely blameless in the matter, but, what
are our real options, right now? Do you sincerely believe that leaving
their country would suffice to end our conflict with them at this late
date?

And, if we got completely out of their country (not that that will
happen at present) would we simply be living in a false utopia, just
moving glibly toward the next mean nasty they cooked up? Saddam was
cooking up deadly potions that he threatened to hurl at Israel and us
and did bombard the Curds with...are you saying we should have turned a
blind eye to that?

I'm not trying to be arbitrary...I wish somone could change my mind
about it all...

It is indeed, as you say, a saga. A saga unfortunately not taught to us
in our various history classes in the unvarnished truth version. Our
government has been busy for my entire lifetime, and probably most
here, doing things most of us would be ashamed of. As a result of not
knowing the other side of events, many people cannot make any sense of
current events, or see the root cause of current problems around the
globe that our country has helped create. When you can't see the true
nature of a problem, there's absolutely no prospect of solving it.

Below is a sample of the other side that touches on some of the events
you allude to up above.

Angela


From
America's Amnesia:
'Jay Walking' through History
By Christian Dewar
http://elandslide.org/view.cfm?id=7805

After the September 11th attacks, U.S. citizens asked themselves, 'Why
do they hate us?' Several people suggested that it was 'blowback', a
CIA term for the unfortunate repercussions of U.S. foreign policy or
intelligence operations. This questioning and the attempt to understand
why these terrorists could kill so many innocent people was soon
labeled as unpatriotic by some right wing zealots. We must understand
and acknowledge the actions of our nation and how they impact on
others, not only to understand why some people would bring terrorism to
our shores but to also restore the democratic ideals of the founding
fathers which are revered world wide.

Yet, as the Howard Zinn points out, the constitution might hang on the
walls of our classrooms, but our foreign policy has often been
Machiavellian. There are many instances in which our defense and
military have served to destroy democracy abroad and to support
totalitarian governments.

The Iran-Contragate scandal is typical of the operations that have
secretly been conducted on our behalf that have had a profound negative
effect on several other countries. It was overseen by Bush, Casey and
Oliver North, operating outside government channels. It was a
'stand-alone', 'off-the-shelf' self-sustaining operation with no
oversight. These groups have often acting outside of the legal
constraints of our government. This is just one recent example of
actions by our government that foment war, kill civilians and
destabalize other countries.

The origins of this rogue government begin shortly after the Second
World War. The United States intervened in European politics covertly
to influence the outcome of various elections. These intelligence
operatives were active behind the scenes to ensure in Italy after WWII
to ensure that no leftist government could come to power. We provided
money, guns and propaganda to right wingers, including former fascist
supporters of Mussolini. In doing so, the CIA collaborated with the
Mafia, the 'blowback' being the resurrection of the heroin trade and
what has come to be know as 'The French Connection'.

Throughout the Middle East, the CIA and American government has labored
to keep repressive, anti-democratic regimes in power in part to
maintain a steady supply of oil. In Iran, the CIA helped to overthrow
the popular prime minister, Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh because he wanted to
nationalize his country's oil fields which were being exploited by
British and American petroleum companies. The Shah was installed in a
bloody coup. The U.S. trained his secret police, SAVAK, which tortured
and murdered his opponents. The blowback occurred when Islamic
fundamentalists overthrew his government and seized American hostages.
Small wonder they don't care much for our government.

The Arab countries see the U.S. as the armer of the Israeli army and
unsympathetic to their cause. In Lebannon, a peace keeping mission
undertaken by U.S. Marines 'mission creeped' into being an active
participant in the hostilities with our warships shelling civilian
neighborhoods. Terrorists responded by blowing up the marine barracks,
killing 241 soldiers.

The U.S. armed both sides in the bloody Iran-Iraq war, but favored
Hussein. George H.W. Bush arranged to have our country sell Hussein
sophisticated supplies that he used to build his weapons of mass
destruction. When Iraq became irate that Kuwait was slant drilling into
land beneath their country to poach oil, Bush made it clear that it was
of no interest to the U.S. if Hussein invaded Kuwait. The Gulf War
ensued.

Hussein remained in power. He massacred the Kurds who had been
encouraged to revolt by the CIA who then abandoned them. Sanctions
mostly hurt the civilian population and Saddam was able to thwart U.N.
inspectors looking for weapons of mass destruction. Autocratic
governments of cooperating countries were allowed to remain in place.

Tens of thousands of U.S. vets from that campaign suffer from the Gulf
War Syndrome of unknown origin, perhaps caused by depleted uranium
shells, experimental anthrax vaccines or a toxic stew of burning
petrochemicals. We called this debacle a victory. George Herbert Walker
was hailed as a conquering hero. We didn't make many friends with this
campaign, except, perhaps, a few Kuwaitis and the Saudis who obliged us
by providing 14 of the 19 terrorists who flew hijacked jets into the
World Trade Center.

In Vietnam, The U.S. backed French attempts to re-colonize Indochina,
despite Ho Chi Minh's requests to the U.S. that they be allowed to
establish an independent nation. He even had written a constitution for
his country based on ours. The question still remains as to whether Ho
Chi Min was primarily a communist or nationalist.

The U.S. justified intervention on the basis of the fabricated Gulf of
Tonkin attacks. Around fifty nine thousand Americans died and between
one and three million Vietnamese perished. Nixon schemed to thwart
peace talks which he thought might help elect Hubert Humphrey, with the
result that when he finally withdrew from Vietnam, the peace terms were
no better but twenty thousand more U.S. troops died. The CIA developed
the Phoenix Project to disrupt the Viet Cong infrastructure. Even
operatives in this program confessed that it degenerated into little
more than a policy of systematic assassination.

In Laos, the CIA created a mercenary army to attack the communist
Pathet Lao and draw their country into the war. The U.S. dropped more
bombs on the country than it did in all of WW11. In Cambodia, Prince
Norodom Sihanouk was overthrown by a CIA sponsored coup because of his
neutrality in the Vietnam War and replaced with Lon Nol who immediately
committed his country to the U.S. cause. The U.S. launched massive
bombing raids on the country. Hostilities destabilized Cambodia. Pol
Pot and the Khmer Rouge came to power and genocide ensued which killed
over a million people, mostly innocent civilians. This did not keep the
CIA from backing Pol Pot when he went to war against the Vietnamese.

In Indonesia, the CIA sponsored coup replaced Sukarno with Suharto.
Thousands of deaths ensued. President Ford and Henry Kissinger gave
their tacit support for the invasion of East Timor by Suharto's troops.
They embarked on systematic genocide of the civilian population.
Political observers such as Christopher Hitchens have made convincing
arguments for the indictment of Kissinger for war crimes. Other people
believe Bush senior is also culpable. There is a reason why this
administration and the republicans do not want an International
Criminal Court.

In Africa, the CIA arranged for the assassination of Patrice Lumumba
due to his perceived neutrality in the cold war. Mobutu replaced him --
looting the treasury and repressing the citizens. Angola was an
especially pointless campaign with few U.S. interests at stake. The CIA
supported Jonas Savimbi's UNITA against a mildly leftist government in
a proxy war with the Soviets. The ensuing war devastated the country
and killed more than three hundred thousand people. The book, 'In
Search of Enemies' by former CIA agent John Stockwell describes the
tragic involvement of the U.S. in Angola.

In our hemisphere, the U.S. backed Somoza who looted Nicaraqua. When he
was overthrown, the CIA created the Contras to oppose the leftist
Sandanistas. The CIA actively mined the harbors, attacked refineries
and destroyed the infrastructure without an act of war or the knowledge
of our elected representatives. When congress cut of funds for the
guerillas, Reagan's administration sold arms to the Iranians which he
had condemned as terrorists and diverted profits to the Contras. U.S.
operatives made tidy profits as well.

In Chile, the CIA helped to overthrow the democratically elected
Salvador Allende and installed fascist Pinochet who tortured and
murdered hundreds of leftists and opponents including Orlando Letelier
who died from a car bomb in Washington, D.C. The U.S. government helped
to cover up the identity of the assassins.

The U.S. invaded Haiti five times during this century, once occupying
the country for almost twenty years. Thousands of Haitians have died as
a result of our intervention. The U.S. left the country to be ruled by
the dictator 'Papa Doc' Duvalier whose secret police, the Tonton
Macoutes repressed the citizenry through murder.

The U.S. invaded the Dominican Republic four times in the 20th century.
The CIA supported the murderous Rafael Trujillo who looted the
country's coffers. He was killed in a CIA inspired coup and replaced
with Juan Bosch was himself was overthrown by our government when
perceived as too independent for U.S. policy. We invaded and installed
a succession of repressive governments.

El Salvador was ruled by a plutocracy of fourteen families that owned
around sixty per cent of the land. The CIA backed this regime and
trained the death squads to maintain the status quo. The School of the
Americas trained many leaders of these killing squads such as Robert
'Blowtorch' D'Aubuisson who got his nickname from his favorite
instrument of torture. A big fan of Hitler, he ordered the murder of
Oscar Romero when this archbishop requested that the U.S. cease from
arming the repressive government.

In Panama, the popular head of state, Omar Torrijos was killed under
suspicious circumstances, probably by CIA asset Manuel Noriega. Known
to be involved in drug smuggling and money laundering, Noriega was an
associate of George H.W. Bush and assisted in covert activities. When
it was suspected that he was also spying for Cuba and that he had
become too independent, the U.S. staged an invasion that killed between
two and four thousand Panamanian civilians.

The CIA overthrew the democratically elected president of Guatamala,
Jacobo Arbenz, who had offended the Rockefellers by nationalizing their
United Fruit Company (although he had compensated them). The CIA raised
a mercenary army, bombed the capital and installed fascist regimes that
murdered between two and four hundred thousand people over the next
forty years.

When Maurice Bishop was portrayed by the U.S. as sympathetic to the
Soviets, the CIA embarked on a campaign of terrorism, financed his
opponents and then invaded the island of Grenada which was found to
only have a handful of Cuban troops.

The CIA has even meddled in the affairs of close U.S. allies. The Nugan
Hand bank which was staffed by high level CIA assets and military
officers was heavily involved in drug and weapon smuggling and money
laundering. They helped to overthrow the Australian government that
they perceived as not being sympathetic our role in the Vietnam War.
The bank was riddled with corruption and collapsed in a scandal that
resulted in the loss of millions of dollars. This was a prelude to the
CIA involvement in the Dillingham, S&L, BCCI and BNL financial
scandals. Now, there are dark rumors that the CIA had ties to the Enron
Scandal and that proceeds may have been siphoned off for use by the
Agency in covert operations.

Perhaps the most shocking revelations about the corruption of our
government are the substantiated reports of U.S. involvement in the
drug trade, despite the pretense of a 'War on Drugs'. Those who wish to
familiarize themselves with this issue will find an excellent overview
of this criminality in the book by Professor Alfred W. McCoy entitiled:
"The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade".

Many people are content to blindly accept the government's line and not
question how the last presidential election was manipulated, how
corporations can enact their own legislation or how Bush cronies can
reap huge fortunes from the oil and defense industries. The foreign
press has even reported that Bush emissaries threatened to go to war
against the Taliban on behalf of the oil companies before 9/11 if they
didn't cooperate with efforts to install a pipeline across Afghanistan!
Now, Bush has insisted that any investigation of the World Trade Center
tragedy be limited in scope.

Jay Leno has an amusing segment on his Tonight Show called 'Jaywalking'
where he asks bystanders basic questions about history and current
events. The results are frequently hilarious with the respondents
incapable of answering the most basic questions about politics or our
nation's history. But at the same time, it is tragic that so many
Americans are unaware of how our government has been co-opted by
secretive, unaccountable groups within our government

These are only a few instances where the U.S. has intervened to subvert
other country's democracies. This nation needs a good military and
intelligence capability but we can no longer allow them to be
unaccountable. If we are to restore democracy to the United States,
foreign policy cannot be made in secret by a select few individuals
with no oversight by our elected leaders. If we do not know our own
history, we will never know why terrorists would seek to destroy us.
The dream of the Founding Fathers is being co-opted by oil hucksters,
carney barkers and grifters. As has been pointed out, the price of
democracy is eternal vigilance. Unless we wake up to the criminality of
the current administration, we will have lost that dream.

A very interesting read...some of which I knew, some I had fragments
of, and some I'd never known beofre now.

Thanks for your reply. (and the time it took to compile all the data)

Karen

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