The Arab world and 9/11

[Ned]

Originally posted by The Pioneer
Most of the killings you mentioned GePap were carried out in some "obscure distant place" and not in the "western world", that's the plain truth and my biggest grip with the war against terror from the USA and its allies. I already mentioned in another post some days ago that this hyppocrisy (sp?) is the biggest problem that we have. If the UN, Bush and others would intervened in countries like Rwanda, East Timor, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Colombia and many others then we could really talk about trying to free people and fight for democracy and rid the world of terror. Only then can we speak and mean what we say in all the rhetoric that has been popular in the last year.

OBL is an evil person, no doubt about and it does not have anything to do with the fact that he is muslim or an Arab but he does present a danger for them as well as for "the infidels".

So long...

Reagan got bruised in Lebanon when they blew up the Marine barracks. So instead of trying to pacify the entire country, he pulled us out entirely. Aside from Grenada, Reagan never again intervened in a conflict. (At least that I can recall.)

Bush I took care of Noriega and pushed Saddam out of Kuwait. He sent troops to Somalia in the last days of his admin.

Clinton was bruised by the disaster in Somalia. He as very reluctant thereafter to commit the US to peacekeeping operation until Sebrenicia. After that, he was willing to commit American airpower, but not ground troops. (Exception: Haiti.)

So we do have a record of going after the bad guys even in places of marginal US interests. But there is a limit to our willingness to take losses in such humanitarian efforts. There is also a real limit on our power as well. At times, we simply cannot change things for the better at the point of a gun.

[The Pioneer]

Ned, what you are saing is correct but let me give a small example just to put things in perspective. In Rwanda there was a genocide of Apocalyptic dimension, the estimated vary but the truth is in the hundreds of thousands and in Sierra Leone a civil war that has been ravaging for years with thousands of innocent victims (I saw a documentary from a local journalist about that last year which made me sick to my stomach, as an example 10 year olds killing and raping). Now I am not saying that th US should commit troops but it could take a leading role in the UN to try to resolve such terrible situations. I do not believe that it should be always the US to send in troops, us here in Europe and others should supply their share. If the US had done such a thing then the arguments against Iraq would probably sound more sincere to the rest of the world.

But the truth of the matter is that ALL such business falls in the responsibility area of the UN and if they do not do anything against to resolve these situation then the organisation is failing its purpose!

So long...

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap
All this 'arab are terrorists', 'there is something terribly wrong with Arabs' is just a bunch of self-serving rantings design to make people in the US and Europe feel like they are the biggest victims in the world. Lets look at some interesting numbers:

# people killed by Al Qaeda in terrorist attacks: High estimates: 5000 people since 1993.
# Israelis killed by all Palestinian factions since 1950: 2500 (the Israeli foreign office gives out ful lists of all Israeli citizens killed in what Israel considers terrorists attacks since 1950. I have added about 700+ extra just to be safe)
# westerners killed by other Arab terrorist groups since 1970: lets say 4000 (way to high by any strech of the imagination)

Total? 11500 people in 50 years, most in the last 25.

Number kiled in Colombia over the same time? 30000 plus.
Numer killed in Guatemala? 150000
NUmber killed in Gulf War? 100000+
Number kiled in iran Iraq war? half million plus
NUmber killed in the Sudan war? 2.5 million
Number of people killed in Ethopia Eritrea border war? 50000.
Number of people kiled in central African war? 2 million.
Number killed by Hutu extremists in 3 months in 1994? 1 million (figures based on Rwandan government census)
Number kiled by regime in kampuchea in 1970's? 2 million.

Everyone here keeps talking about how evil and screwed p the Arabs are, the muslims are, yet in simple temrs of human suffereing all the terrorists attacks, including the biggest one of all, 9/11, are dwarfed by the vast human suffering in many parts of the world, much of it having 0 to do with Arab, or Muslims, or the normal bogeymen. Can someone lease explain to me why Osama Bin Laden is labelled the greatest evil in the wolrd, when there is a man in trial in Tanzania, accused of helping to organize, lan and execute a chain of events that killed 1000000 in three months, or three times as many dead as in 9/11 a day, for 90 plus days in a row? Is it because he isn't Arab ad Muslim that we can't label a man, with possibly, endlessly more blood on his hands, the greatest evil man in the worlkd today?

I note thay your incomplete list nonetheless contains two wars started by Iraq which account for 1.1 million deaths (IIRC Iran-Iraq cost about 1 million), and one war in Sudan for which 90% of the blame can be laid at the feet of the Arabs which so far has cost 2.5 million lives. Considering the relative number of Arabs this is not exactly small change. Adding in casualties from muslim wars and massacres bumps up the totals considerably.

Considering the amount of firepower available to armies vs the relatively small numbers of terrorists their toll is pretty high as well, and what's more it is ongoing. Don't blame the posters here whose opinions are shaped in large part by media coverage (or the lack of it), and don't expect events which don't involve the west to have nearly the same impact as attacks against the west for obvious reasons.

I agree that the genocide in Rwanda was horrific and unparalleled in recent years. However OBL is trying to whip up the world's mulsims (1 billion) against the west (500 million at least). If he succeeds the casualties will dwarf any of those listed above. What's more the vast majority of the posters on this board are the targets of OBL's crusade. Don't blame them for seeing OBL's potential and trying to nip it in the bud. His vision is as evil as any in the last 50 years, so lets hope that his capabilities (and more important the capabilities of those who are his allies) remain unequal to that vision.

[The Pioneer]

Originally posted by Sikander

... and don't expect events which don't involve the west to have nearly the same impact as attacks against the west for obvious reasons.

That is right and to the point but the UN is a organisation that includes all countries and all religions and although a lot of its work is not as public as one may expect it has not up to today been very agressive in resolving such tragic occurences in "obscure" countries! The point is though that they should've done so!

So long....

[Faeelin]

It's worth noting that in the event of a war between NATO (Or the USA and EU) vs. the arabs, the arabs would get slaughtered. The only strategic resource they have is oil. There's no industrial base, and most military weapons are produced in the west.

Of course, China would probably mcuk around in it, but Russia might join the USA and EU to advance its own interests in the region.

[Ned]

Pioneer, I agree with you. But consider this. To some extent, Rwanda, like Cambodia before it, was a civil war - seemingly beyond the jurisdiction of the UN. When a civil war begins to include mass slaughter or oppression of civilians, the regime that is committing the attrocities is also committing crimes against humanity justifying intervention.

Unfortunately, if this principle becomes universal, it may lead us into war against China and Turkey if we are to believe the stories of human rights violations of both countries. The Russian war against Chechenya may have also qualified.

But where both sides are engaged in mass slaughter, all we can do call for cease fires and the like. We cannot intervene, can we?

But you also made a good point about the consequences of a UN call for active intervention. This almost always means US troops will be in the lead. Thus our reluctance to vote in favor of intervention unless our own interests are somehow involved to even a marginal degree.

The Europeans simply must build up offensive combat power in order to help carry the load. IIRC, even the UK could not have conducted the Falklands campaign without US support. It would be nice to see, for example, Germany taking care of some of these problems without US support.

If in due course, for example, the UN calls for a military solution to Iraq, I hope that Germany is there with us. Saddam is the single worst dictator, aggressor and violator of human rights since Hitler. If Germany fails to cooperate with the UN in this case....

[GePap]

I stand by what I said- all this talk of somehting being fundamentally wrong wih either Muslims or Arabs is a bunch of navel gazing by rich white people. This is a very violent world- the only difference being that it is Arab and Mulims who have taken that violence into the west, in a way that no other attacks have, which should be no surprise, since Arabs and Islam and their fate, the fate of the levant, has been intertwinned with that of Europe and the west from the beginning of the West itself.

I do not defend or condone any violence- but I also refuse to view the lives of any individuals as being worth more than others- 3000 dead Americans, 2500 dead israelis mean no more to me than 30000 dead Colombians, 50000 dead between Eritrea and Ethiopia- many dead in conflicts inside the Muslim world, or 1000000 dead Tusti and Hutu (not counting the quarter million killed in Burundi since the 70's, or th previous bouts of ethnic violence in Rwanda that also cliamed about a quarter million)

As for intent: what does that matter to the dead? Oh, yeah- sorry Madam- we didn't intend to kill everyone in your village- that just the way war works. But the terrorists, they are evil murderers.

On an aside: we claim to be at war with terrorists. Back in WW2 the validity of attacking civilians to break enemy morale was established. Why then, if we are at war, can't the terrorists attack civilians to break the political will of the enemy, us? (hence the term terrorism, much as the them terror raids conducted against European and Asian cities by all sides in WW2)
We have nice accurate weapons that don' kill civilianson purpose (though in the war on terrorism, collective punishment is seen as allowable) but they don't/ The morality of war is now decided based on what weapons one can afford? How sporting of us: we can afford million dollar missiles that might not kill innocens- you can't. We can wage war, you can't, cause you will kill civiliasn while we only have the chance of killing them! See how much better we are! Give me a break!

I personally decide to term terrorists(sadly an imperfect definition) as what they are: criminals, without the right to strike at us, as they would have if it were a war. But if they ar criminals, the 'wartime' powers of government are a ruse as well.

[chequita guevara]

Re: The Arab world and 9/11

Originally posted by Faeelin
Yet where's the support in the Arab world itself for democratic reforms?

They were killed off in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s by the local thugs and the CIA. That's why they turned to "radical" Islam.

[Tolls]

"That's why they turned to "radical" Islam."

Don't forget attempts in Iran in the past few years. It may not be moving as fast as the US would like, but they have been trying.

[Faeelin]

Re: Re: The Arab world and 9/11

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


They were killed off in the '50s, '60s, '70s, and '80s by the local thugs and the CIA. That's why they turned to "radical" Islam.

If you really think the CIA can strangle the entire democratic movement, if it existed on a large scale, then you're an idiot.

The Gestapo, on home turf, couldn't do that.

[Datajack Franit]

But USA didn't do anything to stop the islamic revolution in Iran in the 70's. Instead they're kissing saudi arses because of oil, while countries like Syria (yes, they support terrorism in Israel but you CAN'T talk about radical islam in a syrian city without being beated to death by police) the saudis instead have been proved to fund Osama for many, many years

[chequita guevara]

Re: Re: Re: The Arab world and 9/11

Originally posted by Faeelin
If you really think the CIA can strangle the entire democratic movement, if it existed on a large scale, then you're an idiot.

The Gestapo, on home turf, couldn't do that.

The proof is in the pudding. First off, you need to remember who taught the CIA to be such dirty bastards. It was former Nazis (like Klaus Barbi) whom the US whisked off to America to use in the comming Cold War. They learned both from Nazi successes as well as failures.

Democracy movements are inherently fragile. Such movements are by necessity coalitions, organizations hobbled together with competing interests on time with lots of egos that need tending, with people who are easily given to rumor and excitable, etc. It isn't at all hard to exploit the weaknesses of such an organization, and the US is damned good at doing this.

Where such coalitions hold together is usually on the strength of one particular personality, such as Corazon Aquino or Megawati etc. If the government thinks it can get away with it, it will kill that person, as the Nigerians did to Ken Saro-Wiwa or jail them like South Africa did to Nelson Mendela.

Finding out who to knock off, how to exploit the weaknesses of organizations, the names of the people involved in such movements is what the CIA is very good at. And that information is then passed on to the local government (if the US wants to support the government), and they take it from there.

Saddam Hussein was one such thug who was passed a list of 5,000 pro-democracy and leftist Iraqis in 1963, with the end result of many of them ending up dead. When Suharto overthrew Sukarno in Indonesia, the CIA passed him another such list, half a million people died in that orgy of violence.

At times when the government is too weak to do anything about its impending overthrow, the CIA has helped divert the course of the movement. Solidarity was originally a socialist movement in Poland, whih then became a pro-capitalist, pro-Catholic movement, as the CIA and the Vatican aided the leaders it wanted to see come to the fore.

The CIA had the Ayatollah Khomeni on the payroll for years, to keep him friendly, and use him incase the Shah ever fell. When the Shah fell and the Iranian revolution looked to go in a communist direction, they dusted off this crusty old nut job and got him to Iran. That he subsequently bit the hand that had fed him for all those years was only the first in a long line of "prices" the US would pay for supporting arch-reactionaries against the left.

The CIA isn't all powerful. It doesn't have to be. The inherent weakness of democratic movements and local thugs can easily be exploited by anyone who knows how to do it. Heck, organizations often blow apart on their own. Give it a little push, by distracting the leaders with marital problems (the FBI used to tell spouses of movement leaders that they were having affairs with people in the movement), by secretly telling people that so-and-so in the movement is actually a CIA spy (when he or she isn't), by spreading rumors between organizations that this organization is really using all the orther groups for its own ends, etc. I used to be in an organization with a former target of one such COINTELPRO tactic, Joanna Misnick, who was singled out on an FBI created flier during her work against the Vietnam War.

Most of the pro-democracy groups in the Arab world were similarly dealt with. Those whp survived the massacre ended up in exile. An organization I wored with in Chicago, New World Resource Center, provided a meeting space for Iranian pro-democracy activists. The Iraqi National Congress is headquarterd in London. Every Arab country has similar type groups somewhere in exile.

[Ned]

Che, I think you use the word "democracy" when most others would use the word "communist." When you speak of people most others would label "pro-democracy," you use the word "capitalist." It is interesting how you communists twist the language to your purposes.

As to the Ayatollah Khomeni, he was a exile in France. But he led the revolution from there. He returned to Iran before the Shah "fell" with the permission of the Shah. He then demanded that the Shah resign. The Shah did. (This from memory.) The Ayatollah did not return after the Shah fell.

As to being on the CIA payroll, this does not seem likely at all given what happened next.

[ZoboZeWarrior]

Originally posted by Felch X
When the typical Arab is a wife beating, hyper-religious bigot, what can you expect?

[chequita guevara]

No, I mean democracy. That Commies were involved in these movements does not mean that they were communist movements nor led from Moscow. However, their involvement would allow the government to label them as such and take apporpriate measuers with the full backing and aid of the US. Even when commies weren't involved, they would still be tarred with that brush, and the US would happily help crush them.

As far as the Iranian revolution, no one led it. There was a growing pro-democracy movement in Iran, which did have input from Islamists, but they weren't the leaders. When the Shah fell, the Ayatollah was still in Paris. After the Shah fell, workers in the industrial cities formed workers councils to run their industries (shades of Russia in 1905 and 1917).

Then the Ayatollah returned. Even though the Clerics were able to weild considerable power, their ascendency was by no means assured. In the first year of the revolution there was quite a bit of power struggle between the newly elected government and the Clerics. The seizure of the Embassy allowed the Clerics to coalece their power, mobilize people around radical Islam, and the once secular government sank more and more under their control. Today, not only the government, but the whole economy, is under the direct control of the Clerics.

As for the Ayatollah being on the payroll given what happened next, remember that Osama bin-Laden was once a CIA asset as well. Hamas was originally on the Israeli payroll. So were Noriega and Hussein (though they were betrayed by us, not the other way around).