Opinion
Terrorism: America's Frankenstein
January 29, 2008 - 12:00amFrom Central Asia to Mesopotamia to the Eastern Coast of the Mediterranean, the United States — the world’s sole superpower — and its proxies continue to actively wage military warfare on Brown peoples of the impoverished world in the name of Freedom, turning our globe into a place of increasing economic disparity in the process. The government calls this, its latest belligerency, the “War on Terror.” Despite the official government claim that militant Islamists hate us for our “Freedom” (to buy what we can’t afford and be blamed for our own oppression), I think most of us know, at least on some level, that the United States is partly responsible for the World Trade Center attacks on Sept. 11. Now, I’m not arguing that 9/11 was an inside job or that Bush and Cheney knew about or even planned the attacks. To do so would be to absolve Al-Qaeda of its guilt, not to mention let the Democrats off the hook. Rather, I’m arguing that deliberate U.S. foreign policy has created the conditions that make such violence inevitable.
Since the government does not work for the people but rather for big business (hence the world capital-ism), it should come as no surprise that on the international front neither the Republicans nor the Democrats are seriously considering complete withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan, not to mention severing ties with the Israeli apartheid government (President Carter’s word, not mine) or empowering the marginalized at home or abroad.
Let’s make no mistake about it: it is not for Freedom or Democracy that we are plunging entire nations into chaos. It is, as it has always been, for money and power.
Need proof? Consider the case of Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically elected Iranian prime minister who nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later, British Petroleum or BP) and was promptly overthrown by the joint British-US Operation Ajax in 1953. Need more? Let’s not forget the case of Jacóbo Arbenz, the democratically elected president of Guatemala who began implementing agrarian reforms to empower the peasantry and was subsequently overthrown, in 1954, by a CIA-orchestrated coup. More yet? There’s also Salvador Allende, president of Chile, who was democratically elected for his moderate socialist platform and ousted on (ironically) Sept. 11, 1973 in a coup planned a right wing faction of the Chilean military and, once again, our good friends at Langley, Va.
Is the United States government then the protector of true democracy or the protector of the capitalist class’ own economic interests? Indeed, Freedom is a farce, a guise employed by the elite class to sell imperialist wars to the people of the United States.
The U.S. support of the many undemocratic monarchies in the Muslim world also illustrates this point. The governments of Saudi Arabia and Jordan, both U.S. allies, are reactionary monarchies. In addition, the U.S. supported the secular dictatorship of Saddam Hussein for eight years during the Iran-Iraq war before turning on its ally when Kuwait began drilling for petroleum underground at an angle that crossed the border into sovereign Iraqi soil. “Far fetched,” you say? I recommend The Fire This Time by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark who explains this backstabbing as a part of the U.S. agenda to prevent a regional power (i.e. Iraq or Iran) from rising to hegemony and hiking oil prices — no doubt what any democratic nation would do.
In two of the above four cases, the then-U.S. presidents were Democrats (JFK and LBJ). Thus it becomes apparent that the problem is endemic to the U.S. system, and we cannot blame the Republicans for everything after all.
To properly understand militant Islamism, and thus the falsehood of the War on Terror, this newest form of terrorism must be placed in the proper context: contrary to the official history, Brown and Black peoples have never complacently accepted the logic of European ideology. Rather, they have resisted — as they continue to do — the genocidal violence of the West and the patronizing arrogance with which it attempts to justify itself. One cannot justify the murder of millions.
If we simply turn off CNN or BBC, which dilute and manipulate the message of the Al-Qaeda, and listen to the unabridged version, we see that Islamist militants do not hate us for our Freedom; rather, they hate the U.S. for the mass murder of Muslim of all ages, colors and creeds. They hate the U.S. for supporting repressive monarchies and the Jewish apartheid state. They hate the U.S. for constructing military bases on holy Muslim soil. In fact, some of the largest military bases in the world are not on U.S. soil to defend us, but on the Arabian Peninsula to defend U.S. oil interests.
In the words of Mr. bin Laden, himself: “Why did we not attack Sweden?” The answer is obviously because Sweden does not fight wars of aggression or prop up puppet governments.
Come this November, when the minority of U.S. citizens who vote will decide between the Republican and the Democratic presidential nominees, the question should not be, “Who are you voting for?” but, “What difference does it make?”
Because both the Democrats and the Republicans work for the same oil companies, defense contractors and the investment bankers who finance them, the answer is, “It doesn’t.”
As Hip Hop M.C. Talib Kweli says:
“You try to vote and participate in the government/
But the motherfucking Democrats are acting like Republicans.”
Evan Baker-Smith is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at ebsmith@cornellsun.com. Illuminating Egalitarianism will appear alternate Tuesdays this semester.
that's all....
How many future leaders of tomorrow will read this article and ignore it's lessons, or deny it outright? How many republican and democratic students will cast this away as hippy hogwash, ignoring these well documented facts about who we really are as a people, who we have supported and why, and how the blowback from our actions are the real threat to our survival and world peace.
Honestly, how many of these fine Ivy leaguers have even heard the name Allende before, or will ever take the time to hear it again? This is exactly the type of history that gets washed away in this country.
So, if you are one of the true students of the world out there, if you care at all to open your mind and learn about how this country and media and world really works, why not take a few minutes and google a bit about the recently deceased Suharto.
You may have heard about him in the NY Times and other papers since he passes away the other day. If you take two minutes to search around a bit, you'll find that the whitewashing pathetic Times articles barely touches on the atrocities this man is responsible for. More importantly, our well documented support of Suharto during and after his slaughter of thousands is appalling.
So wake up kiddies...the truth you either don't want to admit or don't care to learn about is that your great country, your inspiring leaders, are as corrupt and guilty and murderous as anyone else. You see...there are good murderers and bad murderers. (Saddam used to be good....then he was bad, then he was good again, then he was bad). there are apparently good genocides and bad genocides. Suharto slaughtering and torturing everyone in East Timor was acceptable to us, until we decided it wasn't.
Here's some fun reading for you kiddies. learn something.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB174/index.htm
What about our dear Suharto?
Yes!
Evan,
Thanks for writing this wonderful editorial. You are the man for telling it how it is!
Our military is also in
Our military is also in Japan, Germany and South Korea and no terrorist attacks come from them. The sad fact is that Islamic extremists wish to impose Sharia law, fundamentalist Islamic law, on the entire world. The last great impediment to that goal is the Western, secular non-Muslim-majority world. Chief among these Western powers is the United States. Other Western nations, such as Britain, Spain and France have recently been subject to terror attacks, and foiled many others. Sweden is strategically and militarily insignificant. The Muslims can deal with it once the larger fish (US, Germany, France, Russia) are fried. Of course, in Sweden as in most of Europe, Muslims are in the midst of a demographic takeover. The average Muslim in Britain would welcome Sharia law in that country.
What the author displays is a fundamental misunderstanding of Western secular liberals. The fallacy: "people are all the same. We need to explain why Muslims are committing such barbarous acts against innocent civilians. Since we are fundamentally the same socially and psychologically, we must have done something really awful to them, terrible enough to warrant this as a proportionate response." But the reality is that we are not the same. The thinking of the Muslim world is so different from ours that we can not truly understand it. But we may do well to listen to their calls to take over the sinfully secular part of the world that is not yet under their control.
A note on your Israel comments. Apartheid is Afrikaans (a language spoken in South Africa) for separation. It connotes racism the likes of which existed in South Africa before Emancipation. I quote from Alan Dershowitz (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dershowitz/the-world-according-to-ji_...):
"The basic evil of South African apartheid, against which I and so many other Jews fought, was the absolute control over a majority of blacks by a small minority of whites. It was the opposite of democracy. In Israel majority rules; it is a vibrant secular democracy, which just today recognized gay marriages performed abroad. Arabs serve in the Knesset, on the Supreme Court and get to vote for their representatives, many of whom strongly oppose Israeli policies. Israel has repeatedly offered to end its occupation of areas it captured in a defensive war in exchange for peace and full recognition. The reality is that other Arab and Muslim nations do in fact practice apartheid. In Jordan, no Jew can be a citizen or own land. The same is true in Saudi Arabia, which has separate roads for Muslims and non-Muslims. Even in the Palestinian authority, the increasing influence of Hamas threatens to create Islamic hegemony over non-Muslims. Arab Christians are leaving in droves."
"The Muslims?" You mean the
"The Muslims?"
You mean the millions of Muslims in Indonesia, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Morocco, oh hell, how about the whole world who have absolutely nothing to do with Arab Muslim extremism? Conservatives and fear-mongers wish to make out that theres this trans-national, 3/4 billion Muslim movement to stamp out absolutely everything non-Muslim in the rest of the world. Excuse me, how exactly are you going to get Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria to unite in a common front to stamp out the West, not to mention the rest of the world (Yes, there is more to the world than the West and the Arabs). Please. As for the argument of Muslim immigration into Europe (which we seem to have the same with those damn dirty Mexicans), if you really want to make a difference, I would suggest having 12 children, raise them to be xenophobic just like yourself.
Furthermore, crimes on one side (and they are crimes) do not apologize for crimes on the other, especially if the US wants to maintain our "polished" foreign image. We shouldn't have troops in Germany, South Korea, and Japan, much less in the Middle East. There is a difference between apologizing for criminals like Al Qaeda and behaving in a manner befitting of a "civilized" country. For a start, that means no invading foreign countries for bogus reasons, and not propping up evil dictators, such as we have in Saudi Arabia, and like we did in Iran and Iraq (not to mention practically everywhere else).
If you really want to fear the whole Muslim world, fine. I would suggest a more enlightened path.
Best
Thomas
actually...
There are quite active anti-US military base movements in Korea and Japan, we just never hear of it. The article is about protecting capitalist interests, which the elites and growing bourgeois middle classes of Japan and Korea also want. But, if you notice at WTO meetings, the Korean farmers are always on the front line of the protests. Trust me, they don't like the US military presence. That is why in Seoul, Korea there are a sh*tload of soldiers for blocks and blocks around the US embassy...
Well said. Sadly it'll fall
Well said. Sadly it'll fall on deaf ears.
I guess the only thing a Red, White, and Blue-blooded American can ask is "Why do you hate freedom?"
Keep it up! Someone has to.
Best,
Thomas
Disparaging the boot is a bootable offense.
I hesitate to even post something lest it lend some sort of legitimacy to your silly article, but a number of points (among pretty much all of them) bear particular refuting.
First of all, the ancient bugaboo of "American foreign policy" did not cause terrorism. This is patently absurd. Anyone with even a passing awareness of history will understand that radical Muslims attack non-Muslims for precisely that reason - they are not Muslims. The *excuses* will change, but the true motivation stays the same: the creation of a repressive, cruel global "ummah" of Muslims, whatever the cost.
Observe, for example, the U.S. experiences with the Barbary Pirates (Muslim caliphates in the Med.). The very moment the United States declared independence from Britain, the Muslim states started attacking U.S. shipping and enslaving (yes, as actual slaves) American sailors. How could this be? After all, your brilliant thesis ties such aggression to foreign policy, yet the US had NONE- it had JUST BECOME A COUNTRY. Indeed, the answer was provided by a Muslim ambassador to Britain: the Koran required Muslims to attack and enslave non-Muslims. Period.
Interestingly, it wasn't until the United States stopped paying tribute and started fighting back that the Muslims left us alone. Ever wonder where the Marines got the names "leather necks" (hint: Muslims like beheading) or the line "Shores of Tripoli" got into their fight song? Look it up.
This in turn leads to my next point: your bizarre quotation of Bin Laden as "In the words of Mr. bin Laden, himself: “Why did we not attack Sweden?” The answer is obviously because Sweden does not fight wars of aggression or prop up puppet governments."
Actually, the answer is that we were attacked BECAUSE WE FIGHT BACK. Sweden, which is quite content to become an Islamic nation simply through insane socialist immigration policies, is no threat. But the United States actually stands up to Islamic aggression, and quite well I might add. Hence the need to attack us.
Simply put, you are fundamentally failing to appreciate that the global Islamic movement has been fighting this battle since the creation of Islam. Every single Islamic nation was once non-Islamic. Simply because we in the West have short memories and a need to tie everything militant Islam does to something that happened in the last 6 months does not disguise the fact that Islam has been marching by the sword around the world since its creation. You would do well to stop blaming the victims and focus on the aggressors. After all, as any religious minority or someone trying to carry a Bible into Saudi Arabia will tell you, it is Islam that has the tolerance problem, not us.
-I did not mention anything
-I did not mention anything about Mexican immigrants to the United States, with whom I have absolutely no problems because they do not for instance want to ultimately force every American to eat Tacos or face death. They also are not plotting terrorist attacks against innocent and defenseless civilians.
-In fact, there are active Al Qaeda cells in all those countries you mentioned, and they appear to be quite cooperative with one another.
-Here's a fun fact: non-Muslims are not even allowed in the city of Mecca. I invite you to find an example of Western discrimination to match that.
Since this article is so
Since this article is so devoid of facts and unrepresentative of reality it begs the question:
Is this a spoof?
so move!
Dear Evan,
You are so far left you are practically falling over. I've had conversations with you, and while so many of the responses to this column applaud you and claim that the readers of your column are so close-minded that they would never understand your point of view, I can't help but feel you have become the same way. I hate to say it, but it was you who showed me how so many of the examples you used in your article are not so black and white, and how much room there is for gray in this world. It saddens me to see that you have ceased to be able to see the different colors in the spectrum. Maybe the media distorts facts, I can't disagree with you on that, but your sources are probably just as biased. If you're so unhappy with everything about our country and there are no good options, leave. Your cloud of smoke is making me cough anyway. Love, a liberal yet practical friend