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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen O who wrote (1248)	9/16/2002 1:44:49 PM
From: Stephen O	Respond to of 8683

Another Canadian view of Mr Chretien globeandmail.ca Don't blame the victim, Mr. Chrétien By MARCUS GEE Saturday, September 14, 2002 – Page A17 Your neighbour is murdered by a deranged fanatic. "It's a terrible thing," you say, "but he shouldn't have been such a bully." That, in essence, is what Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said this week about the United States. His handlers are insisting that he was misunderstood when he made his remarks to the CBC. Nice try, guys. The meaning of the Prime Minister's words is plain. In an interview that he knew would appear on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, he was asked how he thought the world had changed as a result. His conclusion: "You cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation for the others. That is what the Western world -- not only the Americans, the Western world -- has to realize. Because they are human beings, too. There are long-term consequences . . ." Western countries are getting too rich compared to the poor, he went on, and so the poor look on us as "arrogant, self-satisfying, greedy, and with no limits." That, of course, is precisely what Osama bin Laden says. He blames the brute exercise of American power in the Middle East for humiliating Muslims and defiling the Islamic world. Humiliation, in fact, is the key word in his vocabulary. And the cause of that humiliation, he says, is the arrogance and greed of the Western world. That the Prime Minister should even faintly echo the theories of a terrorist fanatic is disturbing enough. That he should do it as Americans were bowing their heads in remembrance was simply disgraceful. Imagine if a separatist fanatic had murdered 3,000 Canadians a year ago? How would we feel if George W. Bush told us to consider how we had humiliated Quebeckers? It is sad to have to say it again, but Americans are not to blame for what happened on Sept. 11. Osama bin Laden and his murderous brand of Islamic extremism are. The actions of the U.S. government did not give rise to that extremism. In fact, Washington has often used its muscle to defend Muslims. It was the United States that intervened to stop the Anglo-French move on the Suez Canal zone in Muslim Egypt, the United States that went in to halt the killing of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, the United States that sent troops to stop a famine in Muslim Somalia, and the United States that expelled Iraqi troops from Muslim Kuwait. As for the humiliation of poverty, everyone agrees that the rich countries should do more to help the poor ones. Mr. Chrétien's own government slashed foreign aid more than any other program during its deficit-cutting phase, so he is hardly one to preach. But it's simplistic to tie the rise of Islamic terrorism to poverty. Osama bin Laden was a millionaire. Most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were the middle-class sons of a wealthy country, Saudi Arabia. People in many of the world's poor regions -- Latin America, for example -- live with the fact of Western affluence without turning to terrorism against Westerners. No act of U.S. foreign policy, no economic grievance, can explain the hate-filled ideology that led to the murders of Sept. 11. This was an evil act perpetrated by evil men. To explain it away as the natural and perhaps inevitable result of their alienation is to let the killers off the hook. Worse, it is to blame the victim for his own misfortune. Americans are innocent, wholly innocent, in the events of Sept. 11. They did not bring it on themselves. They did not have it coming. They did not sow the seeds of hatred. They are not seeing the chickens come home to roost. The leader of their closest neighbour, of all people, should know that.mgee@globeandmail.ca

To: Stephen O who wrote (1248)	9/16/2002 1:52:37 PM
From: Raymond Duray	Respond to of 8683

Steven, With respect, Ms. Wente has no clue what she's talking about. She states: The U.S. foreign policy establishment has a lot on its conscience. Ridiculous. The U.S. foreign policy establishment has absolutely no conscience, no sense of morality and operates strictly on a realpolitick basis of greed and advantage. Re: You can't protect your freedom by making yourself inoffensive to your enemies. Dean Acheson said that once. Dean Acheson said a lot of stupid and hateful things. We can blame him, in part, for the insane policies of the last 50 years that brought us the crazed "Mutally Assured Destruction" scheme and a SIX TRILLION DOLLAR drain on the wealth of the American people for an asinine and vastly overblown nuclear weapon industry. -Ray