American Hiroshima - the next 9/11?
- From: "Salahuddin" <Muslim@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 05:35:59 GMT
When Australian police announced recently that eight men arrested on
terrorism charges were planning a bomb attack against a nuclear reactor near
Sydney, many security observers elsewhere were not surprised.
Officials and analysts in the United States have been warning that al-Qaida
or associated groups are planning such attacks on American soil.
Dubbed American Hiroshima, the plan apparently targets New York, Miami, Los
Angeles, Philadelphia, Chicago, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Boston and
Washington, DC.
Former US Defence Secretary William Perry says there is an even chance of a
nuclear attack on the US this decade. Renowned investor Warren Buffet has
predicted "a nuclear terrorist attack ... is inevitable".
David Dionisi, a former US army intelligence officer, is convinced that
plans for a nuclear attack are under way.
Once a conservative Republican, Dionisi enjoyed success as a Fortune 500
business executive after leaving the army. But he later rejected his
political beliefs and now advocates peace, social justice and
humanitarianism.
In his new book, American Hiroshima, Dionisi argues decades of unjust US
foreign policies will be largely to blame for sowing the seeds of hostility
and vengeance which could lead to a nuclear catastrophe.
Aljazeera's Shaheen Chughtai caught up with Dionisi in London.
Dionisi had just flown from Liberia where he helps run a Catholic orphanage.
Aljazeera.net: You were once a conservative Republican. What made you change
your beliefs?
Dionisi: The transformation was a discovery process. When I joined the
military, I had a very limited view of what the US was doing around the
world. Through my experiences as a military intelligence officer and later
as a business executive doing international volunteer work, I started to see
our foreign policies were often hurting people and making the world more
dangerous.
One of the more dramatic moments in this process was when I was assigned to
a unit focusing on implementing US foreign policy in central America. I was
part of a rapid deployment team designed to go in and suppress forces
working for social justice in places such as Honduras, Nicaragua, El
Salvador and Guatemala.
You describe the US public as uninformed - why?
The major media outlets are owned by a handful of corporations interested in
promoting advertising and pro-government messages. Anything that challenges
the existing power structure very often fails to receive air time. I
highlight Fox as an extreme example of the Republican propaganda machine.
But when your country is fighting a war, you have an obligation to
understand what's really going on. If you don't, you can become an agent of
injustice. If people can find the time to watch baseball or soccer etc, they
can make an effort to read, travel, talk and not be limited to the messages
of fear.
They also need to understand their history. In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff presented a plan called Operation Northwood, which is now
declassified. It proposed conducting mass casualty attacks on American
targets and blaming it on Cuba to rally public support for war against Fidel
Castro. President Kennedy rejected the plan. So we shouldn't just assume any
future attack on our soil is the work of al-Qaida.
Your book condemns alliances with repressive regimes. Can't these be
justified if they serve a greater cause?
History teaches us that when you form alliances that promote injustice, you
can only expect injustice in the future. Kindness begets kindness and the
inverse is also true.
The US fought the largest secret war in its history during the 1980s in
Afghanistan - over $6bn was funnelled into that war. As a result, US
collaboration with and responsibility for al-Qaida goes well beyond what
most even informed Americans understand.
If you consider that there are over 500 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay from
over 40 countries - though not a single one is from Iraq - and that the CIA
recruited thousands of people from over 40 countries to be part of that
war - none from Iraq - you can better understand how the US played a direct
role in creating what became the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Bush supporters argue the removal of Saddam and the Taliban was beneficial
and therefore justified military action.
That starts from an artificial premise. When the Bush administration says,
"Well, it's great that Saddam's gone," it fails to acknowledge that Bush's
father and President Ronald Reagan were key forces that helped create Saddam
Hussein.
Looking at what happened in 1979 it can put a lot of this in perspective. As
Reagan came into office, the US embassy hostages in Iran were released after
444 days in captivity. Americans don't know this wasn't a coincidence. The
US had agreed in writing not to attack Iran and also paid Tehran $8bn.
That's why that media event (of the hostages' release during Reagan's
inauguration ceremony) occurred with such precise timing.
How do you know this?
These are facts that were subsequently published. The agreement with Iran
was submitted for review by the current administration to see if it would be
binding and prevent an attack in the near future.
Bush administration attorneys concluded it was signed under duress and
therefore not binding. I know this from a former senior member of the Bush
administration, a seasoned CIA officer named Ray Flynn.
The US felt humiliated; the Reagan administration wanted to hurt the
Iranians but its hands were tied. So Saddam Hussein was used as the agent
for that. He ended up invading Iran ... and you had this brutal war from
1980 to 1988 that killed over a million people.
What was the US role in that war?
By 1982, Iran had recaptured lost territory and Saddam asked the US for
help. So President Reagan signed a National Security Decision Directive -
NSDD 114 - to provide all means of support to Saddam Hussein. Donald
Rumsfeld then went on a very sensitive mission to deliver satellite
intelligence, other forms of intelligence and weapons of mass destruction
(WMD).
That's why the current Bush administration was so confident Saddam had
chemical and biological weapons; they knew the US had supplied the
ingredients in the 1980s.
Saddam broke with the US, however, when he found out we were selling weapons
to Iran in the mid-1980s - the Iran-Contra affair. All this puts the
invasion of Kuwait into perspective. Saddam got clear messages from the US
saying he could invade; plus he felt the US owed him one after betraying him
over Iran.
All these wars form a continuum of injustice. Look at the UN economic
sanctions in the 1990s that the US and UK refused to lift: over a million
Iraqis died, including 500,000 children. That's more than the number who
died from the Nagasaki and Hiroshima atomic bombings.
You list numerous "unjust" actions that led to attacks on US targets - isn't
that justifying terrorism?
I talked to the CIA's Michael Scheuer, head of the "find Bin Ladin" team,
and he stresses that people in the Muslim world are not fighting us because
of our freedoms or elections but our foreign policy. This is something the
Bush administration constantly twists.
The basic principle is: if you hurt someone, they're going to want to hurt
you. We need to ask questions like: Why did 9/11 happen? Bin Ladin has a
very clear articulation of why he's at war with the US, Britain, Israel and
others. If Americans read it, they'll see it's very clear about things such
as US forces on Arab land.
And it's not just an Arab or Muslim issue. I learnt this in South Korea
where the US has had troops since 1950. When you're there that long, it
sends a powerful message that you're not there to liberate, you're there to
occupy.
You describe the US as the biggest WMD proliferator. Why?
The US has spent $5 trillion on 70,000 nuclear weapons since 1945 - more
than the rest of the world combined. A Congressional report in 1999 found
the designs for every deployed nuclear warhead - and for some not built
yet - had been stolen and passed to China. Israel acquired its programme
from the US too.
Despite this, ordinary Americans are more concerned about the Bush
administration's lies and hyped-up warnings about WMD in places such as
Iraq.
Is Iran really a threat to the US? An alliance between Shia Iran and
Sunni-led al-Qaida seems far fetched.
Iran will not attack the US if the US does not attack Iran. Congressman Curt
Weldon (who accuses Tehran of plotting to attack the States) talks about
attacking Iran but such talk makes the world more dangerous. If we were
Iran, we'd develop nuclear weapons simply because Israel has them. So the US
should facilitate a process whereby Israel eliminates its nuclear weapons.
As for the religious differences between Iran and al-Qaida, yes, that's been
true - but Bush's War on Terror has been pushing the sects together.
Intelligence reports indicate Bin Ladin's son Saad has been based in Iran.
No, we can't be certain they're helping each other. But in any case, the
Bush administration does not want peace with Iran.
You say "kindness begets kindness". What's your evidence?
After the first world war, the Treaty of Versailles punished Germany
harshly, producing hardship and hostility that the Nazis exploited. But
after the second world war, when the Marshall Plan helped rebuild Germany
and Japan, the US did more to promote democracy than at any time during the
Cold war.
To make the world a safer place, we must aggressively attack the causes of
suffering and hostility. Imagine if Bush had said after 9/11: "People are
capitalising on our mistakes in the Middle East. So, let's ensure there is
no hunger, lack of clean water, lack of education etc in the Muslim world."
We would have made more friends and drained support for our enemies.
If we can't expect US foreign policy to change soon, isn't it too late to
stop an American Hiroshima?
It's not too late although your point is realistic. But we can still
influence the US response. Far more people will die in the retaliation and
the counter-retaliation.
If the US had the wisdom, we could make the world safer. The US military
budget was over $420 billion in 2005. We could split that three ways: a
third on economic development in the Middle East, especially Iraq; a third
on tackling injustice at home, such as providing universal healthcare - and
that would still leave us with the world's biggest military budget.
People have to become more involved. The anti-Vietnam war movement is an
example - but it failed to hold government to account. If we had tried
(former Defence Secretary) Robert McNamara or (former Secretary of State)
Henry Kissinger for crimes such as the illegal bombing of Cambodia, it would
have sent a powerful message to future leaders. The Bush government today
wouldn't have been so bold.
Ultimately, Americans need to understand many of them will die and parts of
their country will become uninhabitable unless they hold their government to
account.
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D99265B2-4402-46FE-A905-1F086F513A3D.htm
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