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‘War
on Terror’ Smokescreen Created By “The Ultimate Terrorist,
U.S.”: Observer
LONDON,
July 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Following the attack by
U.S. author Gore Vidal on U.S. President George W. Bush’s so-called
war on terror, John Pilger launched yet another attack in his book
‘The New Rulers of the World.’
“The
rulers of the world have since ground our language into a paean of
cliches and lies about the 'war on terrorism' - when the most enduring
menace, and source of terror, is them,” Pilger said in an article
published Sunday, July 15, 2002, in the British daily newspaper, The
Observer.
The
Observer quoted the Sydney-born writer
as saying that instead of targeting the terrorists who attacked the
United States, more than 5,000 civilians, mostly women and children,
have been bombed to death in stricken Afghanistan, the latest in a
wedding party of 40 people. Not a single Al-Qaeda member has been
caught there.
After
the U.S. “stunning victory” in Afghanistan, he said, hundreds of
prisoners were sent to “an American concentration camp” in Cuba,
where they have been held against all the conventions of war and
international law.
No
evidence of their alleged crimes has been produced, he added, and the
FBI confirms only one as a genuine suspect. In the United States, more
than 1,000 people of Muslim background have “disappeared” and none
has been charged in the process.
“Having
swept the Palestinians into the arms of the supreme terrorist Ariel
Sharon, the Christian Right fundamentalists running the rampant in
Washington, now replenish their arsenal in preparation for an attack
on the 22 million suffering people of Iraq,” Pilger added, The
Observer reported.
He
mentioned that the new target of the U.S. ‘war on terror’ is Iraq
- “a nation held hostage to an American-led embargo” for more than
10 years because of the leadership which Iraqis have no control on.
Contrary
to propaganda orchestrated from Washington and London, the coming
attack has nothing to do with Saddam Hussein's ‘weapons of mass
destruction', if these exist at all, Pilger said. The reason is that
America wants a more compliant thug to run the world's second greatest
source of oil, he added.
The
“stream of rumors and lies” by the journalists of the propaganda
campaign have ranged from false claims about an Iraqi connection with
the anthrax attacks in America to a discredited link between the
leader of the 11 September hijacks and Iraqi intelligence, he
continued. When the attack comes, these consorting journalists will
share responsibility for the crime.
Pilger
said it was British Prime Minister Tony Blair who served notice that
imperialism's return journey to respectability was under way:
“Hark
to Blair’s 'abiding' concern for the 'human rights of the suffering
women of Afghanistan' as he colluded with Bush who, as the New York
Times reported, 'demanded the elimination of truck convoys that
provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian
population'. Hark to his compassion for the 'dispossessed' in the
'slums of Gaza', where Israeli military, manufactured with vital
British parts, fire their missiles into crowded civilian areas.”
Pilger
further attacked Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi whom he
accused of reviving the imperial idea of ‘the other’ and described
as an “ally of crypto-fascists”. The new imperialists share a
concept whose true meaning relies on a xenophobic or racist comparison
with those who are deemed uncivilized, he said, adding that the
question is how best 'we' can deal with the problem of 'them'.
The
most important taboo is the permanence of the U.S. as both a terrorist
state and a asylum for terrorists, maintained Pilger. That the U.S. is
the only state on record to have been condemned by the World Court for
international terrorism (in Nicaragua) and has vetoed a U.N. Security
Council resolution calling on governments to observe international
law, is unmentionable.
In
recent months, the Bush regime has torn up the Kyoto treaty, which
would ease global warming, to which the U.S. is the greatest
contributor. The U.S. has threatened the use of nuclear weapons in
'pre-emptive' strikes (a threat echoed by British Defense Minister
Geoffrey Hoon). It has tried to abort the birth of an international
criminal court.
The
U.S. has further undermined the United Nations by blocking a U.N.
investigation of the Israeli assault on the Palestinian refugee camp
of Jenin, Pilger added, and it has ordered the Palestinians to replace
their elected leader [Yasser Arafat] with an American puppet.
These
facts will no doubt support the idea of 'anti-Americanism', Pilger
concluded. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, the Nazis silenced
argument and criticism with 'anti German' slurs. Of course, the United
States is not Germany; it is the home of some of history's greatest
civil rights movements, such as the epic movement in the 1960s and
1970s.
The
writer, who was in the U.S. last week, glimpsed that other America,
the one rarely seen among the media and Hollywood stereotypes, and
what was clear, he said, was that it was stirring again. In an open
letter to their compatriots and the world, almost 100 of America's
most distinguished names in art, literature and education wrote this:
“Let
it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their
government declared a war without limit and instituted stark new
measures of repression… We, too, watched with shock the horrific
events of September 11. But the mourning had barely begun when our
leaders launched a spirit of revenge. The government now openly
prepares to wage war on Iraq - a country that has no connection with
September 11.”
“We
say this to the world. Too many times in history people have waited
until it was too late to resist. We draw on the inspiration of those
who fought slavery and all those other great causes of freedom that
began with dissent. We call on all like-minded people around the world
to join us.”.
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