From, interestingly, the Moscow Times:
lobal Eye -- Apt Pupils
By Chris Floyd
As Islamic extremists strike now in Bali, now in Mombasa, working their way toward the next
big attack on Western soil, it would perhaps be salutary to recall once more how we got to
this dire point in our common human history.
Terrorism itself is nothing new, of course -- not even suicidal Islamic terrorism. For example,
those of us of a certain age can easily recall the 1983 attack on the U.S. Marine compound in
Beirut, when a couple of holy-rolling yahoos with an old truck inflicted a devastating
military defeat on the world's greatest power, killing more than 200 soldiers in a single blow.
We likewise recall the reaction of Ronald Reagan on that occasion. The hard right hero
didn't declare an endless "war on terrorism" -- no, he just turned tail and ran. A wise move
under those particular circumstances, although this belated perspicacity hardly makes up
for the murderous stupidity of the original decision to send young Americans into the
middle of someone else's civil/religious war.
In any case, it would have been somewhat awkward for Ron (and his vice president/CIA
handler, George H.W. Bush) to launch a "war on terrorism" -- seeing as how terrorism was
one of the prime instruments of their foreign policy. At that time, Reagan and Bush were secretly supplying terrorist regimes in both Iran and
Iraq (using Donald Rumsfeld as their special conduit to Saddam Hussein), plus fielding terrorist proxy armies in Latin America and
Afghanistan. It is the latter group of godly guerrillas that concerns us here.
For while there is no real difference in kind between the terrorists who afflict us now and the carnage-wreakers of yesteryear, there is a
difference of several magnitudes in the firepower, finance, technology and training that today's mass killers can command. And these
enhanced capabilities are the direct result of the bipartisan decision by successive American governments to build an army of Islamic
extremists to bedevil the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.
As noted here recently, the U.S. arming of international jihad actually began before the Soviets sent troops to help their client regime in
Kabul quell growing unrest in 1980. The American operation was not just a reaction to the Soviet incursion; it was also one of its causes.
Under the direction of Bush's CIA, the anti-Western, woman-hating, death-addicted holy warriors set about their fanatical task. The CIA
schooled them thoroughly in terror tactics -- including the ability to operate under deep, impenetrable cover, to strike without warning, and to
use the vicious slaughter of non-combatants to demoralize the enemy.
The CIA also drew on its long history of drug-running to add another source of funding for jihad -- and another weapon of demoralization
aimed at the Russians. Cheap heroin and other goodies from the extremists' vast poppy fields soon flooded into the Soviet ranks -- and from
there, into Soviet society. The drug trade was protected by the deeply pious president: Reagan's attorney general signed a "special waiver"
exempting the CIA from having to report on its arrangements with international dope lords.
In fact, the unholy nexus of narcobusiness, terrorism and government intelligence agencies is one of the great hidden movers of the modern
world: a genuine "axis of evil" that touches -- and taints -- almost every aspect of global society. It's the primary reason why terrorism is now
amped to globe-rattling levels. Fattened by the profits from well-connected criminal enterprises, terrorists can obtain any deadly technology,
any weaponry they want from the endless supply of arms being made and marketed by the bastions of "civilization" -- America, Britain,
France, Russia and their imitators among the "lesser" nations.
The arms trade is one of the most state-coddled, pampered and protected industries on earth. (The oil
industry probably outranks it, but just barely.) The sheer amount of death-machinery available on the
market today dwarfs the wildest dreams of the most virulent terrorist of previous generations. And in
the case of bin Laden and his Afghan war veterans, some of the deadliest weapons were just doled out
to them "like lollipops" by the CIA, as John Cooley reports in his indispensable work, "Unholy Wars."
Last week's attack in Mombasa saw the first appearance of Western security agents' worst nightmare:
the use of shoulder-fired Stinger missiles to shoot down civilian aircraft. In this case, it was a near-miss,
probably because the Israeli plane had been hardened with anti-missile technology. But almost every
other kind of airliner in the world is defenseless against a hit from a Stinger, or one of its many
knock-offs. And bin Laden and the boys were given hundreds, perhaps thousands of these missiles by
the CIA, which then directly tutored the Islamic extremists in their use.
The sheer pig-ignorant lunacy of this "grand strategy" is now coming to deadly fruition all over the
world. And incredibly, even after the supreme blowback of Sept. 11, the policy is still being followed.
For in addition to arming and bankrolling extremist dope lords in Afghanistan, the Bush regime is
courting Islamic warriors from Iraq -- Shiite leaders exiled to Iran -- in hopes of using them to help
unseat Saddam, The New York Times reports.
Well, perhaps it's not so incredible. The Bush family is hardwired into the Nexus, and the current
Regime is larded with many of the same people who plunged America into this blood-soaked filth in the
first place. With the world's security in the hands of such blundering, blinkered fools, we'll see a lot
more deadly fruit come falling down.
fred |
