[Peace-discuss] Re: [Aware] Can you help?

[C. G. Estabrook]

Virginia Langdon wrote:
> Can you help me understand why you are against the war on terroism? I 
> came to see your protest the war movement on saturday 27. I watched and 
> read some of the signs and I am not sure what to believe. On sept.11 
> 2001 radical Islamists killed a lot of americans. Why should we not try 
> to keep them from doing it again? I hope you can tell me. Thank you for 
> your time.    sincerly Virginia Langdon.

Dear Ms. Langdon:

The "war on terrorism" is not keeping radical Islamists from killing
Americans, as they did on 9/11/01.  Instead, it's driving them to try
again.  Before the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration knew --
even the CIA told them so -- that the invasion would increase terrorism
by bringing the terrorists new recruits.  But the administration was
willing to have that happen, because its real goal in launching wars on
Afghanistan and Iraq -- which they misleadingly called a "war on
terrorism" -- was to continue the long-standing US policy of controlling
the oil of the Middle East.

It is particularly hypocritical of our government to use the crimes of
9/11 as an excuse for crimes of their own.  The government that you and
I are responsible for has killed hundreds of thousands of men, women and
children in Iraq.

Of the nineteen men who committed the suicide attacks on 9/11, fifteen
were from the principal American ally in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia,
and none was from Iraq.  But our government immediately wanted to attack
Iraq, even in place of going after those who were probably responsible
for the attacks, Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization.  The Bush
administration did decide that they had to appear as though they were
going after bin Laden, who was in Afghanistan, but when the Afghan
government offered to negotiate turning him over for trial, the US
refused the offer, and attacked the country instead.

Osama bin Laden has said that he planned the 9/11 attacks for three
principal reasons: (1) the sanctions on Iraq enforced by the US and
Britain after the Gulf War (1991), which killed hundreds of thousands of
Iraqis -- perhaps as many as half a million Iraqi children -- during the
Clinton administration; (2) US support for the occupation and oppression
of Palestinians by the Israelis for almost forty years; and (3) the US
military presence in the holy places of Islam and support for the
oppressive government (Saudi Arabia) that controls them.  These truly
are crimes, and many people in the world -- not just the Muslim world --
regard them as such.

Of course, our crimes do not justify the crimes of 9/11, just as the
crimes of 9/11 do not justify the further crimes the US has committed in
attacking Afghanistan and Iraq (and by proxy, Lebanon and the Occupied
Territories).  But the 9/11 crimes killed three thousand people: the
American crimes just mentioned probably killed five hundred times as
many -- and they are continuing.

Most people now realize that it was an outright lie when the Bush
administration said that they launched an aggressive war on Iraq "to
eliminate weapons of mass destruction."  Instead, our government wanted
to establish permanent bases (which are being built) in the midst of the
world's greatest energy-producing region, in the country that in fact
has the world's second-largest oil reserves (Saudi Arabia is first, Iraq
is second).

It is a basic principal of US foreign policy for decades that the US
must control Middle East oil, not just have access to it.  The US in
fact imports very little oil form the Middle East, but Republican and
Democrat administrations alike have demanded control of Middle East oil
as a way to control America's economic competitors in Europe and Asia.
And now the Bush administration, which does not have to face the voters
again, seems willing to attack Iran, a much stronger country than Iraq,
and even use nuclear weapons against it, in order to assert this control.

The "War on Terror" is just a cover story for the maintenance and
extension of American control around the world.  The best evidence for
that fact is that the Bush administration has not done the simple things
that they would do if they were primarily concerned with keeping
Americans safe from more attacks like 9/11.  Baggage on airplanes is
still not completely screened for explosives, and containers coming into
American ports on ships are not examined.  And the cost of doing that is
a fraction of the sums that we have spent to kill people in the Middle East.

I agree with you that one of the first responsibilities of any American
government is to keep Americans safe.  But not only is this
administration not doing that, it is committing vast crimes and mass
murders that can only result in Americans' being less safe, not more,
every day.

Regards,
C. G. Estabrook