A quote from the article below advocating bombing our stauch ally Turkey (as nuke put it):
"As you know, a freedom fighter is fighting
for independence from someone we don't like; a terrorist is
fighting for independence from someone we do."
Let's Bomb Turkey
ARTHUR HOPPE
Monday, April 5, 1999
OUR LEADERS say we must keep on bombing
Kosovo to save
the Kosovars from being killed by the Serbs
instead. People of
good will can't help but applaud our
humanitarian efforts, but I
think we should stop bombing Kosovo and
start bombing Turkey.
The Serbs may have been kicking the
Kosovars around lately, but
Turkey has been oppressing the Kurds for
nigh on 80 years. True,
the Turks may not have slaughtered as many
innocent citizens in
recent weeks as the Serbs have, but over
the years the Turks have
built up a pretty darned impressive record
of executing dissidents,
burning villages and driving peasants into
exile. Some will say that
we can't stand idly by while 2 million
Kosovars are being hounded
by the evil Serbs. Nonsense, we are very
good at standing idly by.
Look how idly we stood by when the Hutus
were hacking to death
800,000 Rwandans. Of course the Rwandans
were not only
black, but had no oil fields to speak of.
Instead of bombing Kosovo in the
humanitarian spirit, I say we
should make diplomatic protests to
Belgrade. Diplomatic protests
worked just as well in punishing oppressors
in China, South Africa
and Latin America as did our bombs in
Vietnam, Libya and Iraq.
From all accounts, all our bombs have
accomplished so far in
Kosovo is to drive the Serbians into
committing more and more
atrocities.
But if we must bomb someone to save our
national honor, I say we
should bomb Turkey. First of all, great big
Turkey is easier to hit
than tiny little Kosovo. Second, there are
25 million Kurds to save
with our bombs -- more than ten times the
number of persecuted
Kosovars.
To be sure, there are a few obstacles to
bombing Turkey. For one
thing, she's our staunch NATO ally. That
means the Kurds who
are fighting for freedom are not freedom
fighters. Our State
Department has officially labeled them as
terrorists and rightly so.
As you know, a freedom fighter is fighting
for independence from
someone we don't like; a terrorist is
fighting for independence from
someone we do.
So the Kurds are official terrorists, and
we certainly can't engage in
a humanitarian bombing campaign in favor of
terrorists.
What about China? China is no friend of
ours. Therefore, those
fighting for freedom in China are freedom
fighters, not terrorists.
But China is awfully big, and it has
nuclear missiles, too. There's no
sense getting carried away by our
humanitarian feelings.
Then we have East Timor. The inhabitants
declared the
Democratic Republic of East Timor in 1975,
and the Indonesians
have been kicking them around ever since.
As I recall, though, the
Indonesians are our pals these days, so the
East Timorians may
well be terrorists. Anyway, ''Democratic
Republic'' sounds
vaguely communistic, and we certainly don't
want to waste our
vast arsenal of humanitarianism on a bunch
of commies.
Sri Lanka's a likely candidate. The Sri
Lankans have been
butchering the rebel Tamil Tigers for
years. Unfortunately, I'm not
sure who's on our side. But what about the
Congo? Or Burkina
Faso? Or maybe . . .
Anyway, there are oppressed people all over
the world who
deserve our humanitarian bombs. So what
have the Kosovars
done to merit our magnanimous concern?
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