Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 10:19:25 +0200 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Paul Richards <paul@freebsd-services.com> Cc: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: helping victims of terror Message-ID: <20010924101924.A837@lpt.ens.fr> In-Reply-To: <3BAEA43A.DF42C7B@mindspring.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote: > Paul Richards wrote: > > > Either the U.K. has sovereignty over Ireland, in which case the > > > conflict is internal, or it doesn't, in which case, "the right > > > side" is a matter of debate. > > > > It's clear from that statement that you don't actually know > > anything about the Irish situation. > > Would that be because of my Protestant father, or my Catholic > mother? All I see is a bunch of idiots killing each other in the > name of God as a result of a religious difference that arose from a > King wanting a divorce and a Pope denying it, Yes, I guess it all looks the same from American. Britain, Ireland, France, Germany, same thing... > So call it "Northern Ireland" instead of "Ireland". It still needs to be explained to you? <Slowly> Ireland is an independent country and has been for decades. Northern Ireland is a part of Great Britain. Paul's point was that Ireland, a foreign country to Great Britain, has been "harbouring" terrorists to the same extent that the US accuses Afghanistan of harbouring them. Yes, the scale of human lives lost has been different. Britain has not carpet-bombed Ireland, or destroyed pharmaceutical factories claiming they are chemical weapons plants. In fact, in recent years Britain is not, I believe, responsible for killing any Irish civilians at all. But the principle is the same. The point is, what does Bush mean by nations who "harbour" terrorists? Does he mean they are actively supporting them? In that case there was no need to negotiate with the Taliban, was there? They are criminals as much as Osama (assuming there's some proof against Osama, which is not at all clear, all we have is a bunch of names of Saudi pilots half of whom are alive and well and shocked at being associated with this thing). Or does he mean the terrorists happen to be living in that country? In that case, let alone Ireland, America too harbours terrorists: it harboured the very same ones who struck on Sept 11. And what is a terrorist? Someone who kills civilians in order to instil terror in the population? America fits that description perfectly. When I heard the news about the WTC, I was shocked and horrified. When a little later I heard about the Pentagon, I just couldn't react with the same shock: rationally, I knew that there were civilians there too, and of course there were all the passengers on the plane, but my dominant (irrational, I know) reaction was one of satisfaction that someone had targeted that abominable building. In fact, if the terrorists had struck only the Pentagon and had done so without killing innocent passengers and flight crew, I doubt I could have felt any regret at all. Maybe my view of the Pentagon and, particularly, the CIA is coloured by the fact that I've lived most of my life in a third world country (though many western Europeans seem to share my views, in fact according to reports questioners on the BBC's "Question Time" reduced a former US ambassadors to tears). True, the CIA has not actually been active in India (though many Indians believe to this day that it was the CIA which downed the commercial aircraft carrying Homi Bhabha, Indian nuclear scientist, in the 1960s). But the entire Afghanistan/Pakistan mess is due to the CIA. Osama is a CIA creation; so are the Taliban. Remarkably, it seems many Americans do not realise that at all. The American media does a remarkable job at self-censoring. Speaking of Pakistan, America had terrific relations with that country while it was ruled by the unspeakable military dictator Zia-ul-Haq. After his mysterious death, when a semblance of democracy returned there, their relations with America took a sharp downturn. In this case it's sometimes attributed to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, which removed Pakistan's importance in American eyes, but in fact the pattern is not new: America has consistently befriended the worst dictators in the world (Saddam Hussein, anyone? Yes, America supported and armed him, too. Marcos? Much of Central and South America, for that matter? Does the American press even mention these things?) Today Pakistan is again ruled by a military dictator, which of course makes things convenient for America. India has never been a dictatorship (well, except for 3 years in the 1970s), but our best relations with the US have been in the last 3 years, with a right-wing Hindu nationalist party in power. Coincidence? I'm not sure at all. Sorry if I seem bitter. In fact I'm not at all sympathetic with Islamic terrorism, being from a country which has been suffering from it for years. But I find this blind unthinking American jingoism and "the rest of the world doesn't count" attitude totally nauseating, especially at this time. (Britain, of course, has been a party to much of this, including the attacks where that Sudanese aspirin plant was bombed, and the ongoing genocide of the Iraqi people in the name of targetting Saddam Hussein. But at least the British public, and the British press, seems much more informed and thinking, and has much less of that "wave that flag" attitude.) - R To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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