[Peace-discuss] Getting Serious About Terrorism

[David Johnson]

This column was published in the Connecticut Post in reply to this column by
Representative Jim Himes:
<http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=224&siteid=2181&id=11689365&
t=1423872021>
http://cached.newslookup.com/cached.php?ref_id=224&siteid=2181&id=11689365&t
=1423872021

 

 
<http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Getting-serious-about-terrorism-60883
53.php>
http://www.ctpost.com/opinion/article/Getting-serious-about-terrorism-608835
3.php

 

 

Getting Serious About Terrorism



by Andy Piascik 

 

Representative Jim Himes (U.S. Needs Strategy to Halt Terrorism, February
15) misses the two best and most obvious ways the United States can combat
terrorism: stop doing it and stop giving arms, money and diplomatic cover to
others who do. Instead, he trots out the usual suspects, all official
enemies of US imperialism, though that could change tomorrow; the US ruling
class, after all, wrote the book on switching teams and on simultaneously
funding both sides of conflicts.

In polls, people around the world regularly select the US as the number one
terrorist state. With ongoing US wars of terror in Iraq, Afghanistan,
Pakistan and other places too numerous to list, that is surprising only to
US nationalists like Himes. Much was made recently of the horrific burning
alive by ISIS of a Jordanian; virtually nothing is made in the corporate
media here in the U.S. of the burning alive by US drone strikes of tens of
thousands in recent years, the majority non-combatants including many
children.

Here's what a real strategy to stop terrorism might include:

 

            First, we can demand that our ruling class stop invading other
countries. Illegal invasions of Iraq in 1991 and 2003, plus the interceding
sanctions of mass destruction, have resulted in three million Iraqi deaths
and a society in utter disarray. Where Sunni and Shia coexisted for
centuries in relative harmony, they now live in savage conflict catalyzed by
US aggression. Where al-Qaeda and ISIS were nonexistent, they now thrive,
again because of US-induced chaos. And still the killing by the US goes on,
long after all the announced pretexts for the invasions have been stripped
away as lies and the real reason - access to and control of oil - has become
apparent to all.

Iraq is only one example. In recent decades, the US has invaded Laos, Haiti,
Vietnam, Panama, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Nicaragua, and
many more while many others have been invaded by US proxies. In every case,
those invasions were to defend, install, or re-install dictators in service
to Wall Street and answerable to Washington who were despised by their
people.

Second, we can stop arming, funding and providing diplomatic support to mass
murderers. Rwandan dictator Paul Kagame is one current example. In 1990,
Kagame's Rwandan Patriotic Front provoked war by illegally invading Rwanda
from Uganda. After killing hundreds of thousands of Rwandans, Kagame twice
illegally invaded the Congo and bears most of the responsibility for the 6-8
million deaths in that country the last two decades. None of Kagame's crimes
were possible without US support. 

Again, Kagame is just one in a long line of butchers supported by the US:
the Somozas, Jonas Savimbi, Suharto, the ARENA terrorists in El Salvador,
the Duvaliers, Ian Smith, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Mobutu, Roberto D'Aubisson, the
Kosovo Liberation Army and on and on. Right now, the US is sabotaging the
peace accords negotiated recently in Ukraine, upping its aid to the
neo-Nazis in Kiev and showing again it prefers war to peace and has nothing
but contempt for democracy.

             

Third, stop overthrowing governments and putting into power dictatorships
that oppose the people and serve US corporations. The US spent $5 billion to
overthrow the Ukrainian government and install war-hungry, neo-Nazis in
power. It has spent tens of millions trying to overthrow the
democratically-elected government of Venezuela including a foiled coup
attempt last week. In 2009, it embraced coup leaders who have turned
Honduras into one of the poorest and most violent countries in the world.
Again, the pattern is long and clear: Greece in 1946, Iran in 1953,
Guatemala in 1954, Congo in 1960, Brazil in 1964, Indonesia in 1965, Ghana
in 1966, Greece in 1967, Chile in 1973, Argentina in 1976, Haiti in 1991 and
2004, as well as Yugoslavia in the 1990's.

Fourth, stop arming and financing Israeli terror in Palestine. Time and
again, Israel launches strikes against occupied Palestine and every time the
US is there with support. Every time, millions around the world rally to
demand justice for Palestine. In addition, leaders of virtually every
country except the US have come to see Israeli attacks on Palestine as a
likely road to calamity in the Middle East. In addition to Israel, the US
props up the monarchy in Saudi Arabia that funds ISIS, al Qaeda, the 9/11
terrorists and who knows who else.

Himes and the rest of the political class serve the Super Rich and by
definition rule in opposition to the popular will, as President Obama's
recent budget proposal illustrates. In the midst of a major crisis in
education and with a majority of Americans opposed to US aggression, Obama
proposes eight times as much for weapons as for education. Change of the
sort suggested above can, therefore, only come from an aroused populace.
Then and only then will we stop the carnage inflicted worldwide in our names
and perhaps begin to live with others in something approximating harmony.  

 

Andy Piascik is a long-time activist and award-winning author who writes for
Z, Counterpunch  and many other publications and websites. He can be reached
at  <mailto:andypiascik at yahoo.com> andypiascik at yahoo.com.

 

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