A more balanced view of mid-east developments. You will never see such views in the US mass media, but they have the ring of truth. The root of the problem is the continuing American/Israeli drive to totally dominate the region. Much more US blood will be shed unless these policies are changed.
MER - 8/13:
No American columnist for any establishment paper dares call
it "payback time" or point out that there are many around the world
who have legitimate reasons to attack the U.S. And nobody allowed
on U.S. TV reminds Americans that they have been dropping similar-
type bombs "liberally" around the Middle East for some time; not to
mention the covert actions of the CIA and Mossad throughout the Middle
East, including the campaigns of "abduction" and "assassination" the
U.S. and ally Israel take such pride in.
The following column is by the Toronto Sun's Foreign Editor, Eric
Margolis:
N O S H O R T A G E O F S U S P E C T S
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor - TORONTO SUN
ZURICH (13 August) -- The terror bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya
and Tanzania this week horrified Americans, and left them feeling they
were once again innocent victims of evil terrorism as mindless it was
abominable.
While certainly abominable, the attacks were hardly mindless: they
were clearly designed to punish the U.S., though innocent Africans
mostly paid the price. So far the culprits remain unknown, though
Mideast underground groups are clearly leading suspects.
Most Americans simply don't understand how deeply their nation is
involved in the turmoils of Asia and Africa. Or that the United States
has fully inherited the role of world imperial power played by Great
Britain last century. As the British discovered with notorious
Victorian malefactors, like Sudan's Mahdi, Somalia's "Mad Mullah," or
China's Boxers, the restless natives occasionally bite back.
The U.S. hardly lacks enemies abroad, thus suspects in the bombing
abound. At present, the U.S. openly admits to seeking to overthrow the
governments of four nations: Libya, Iraq, Sudan and Iran - the last
democratically elected. The U.S. has repeatedly tried to assassinate
the leaders of Libya and Iraq for impudently challenging
American-British hegemony in the Mideast.
Israel, with enemies galore, is seen in the Mideast as either an
extension of the United States, or the United States as an extension
of Israel. By the warped logic of the region, attacking the U.S.
equals attacking Israel. Last week's embassy bombings were similar to
an earlier - and still unsolved - terror attack on the Israeli Embassy
in Buenos Aires.
U.S. agents are conducting a secret war, including abduction or
assassination, against numerous Palestinian and Arab groups such as
Hamas, the PFLP and Saudi mujahedin. The CIA, FBI and U.S. military
intelligence are extremely active in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and
the Persian Gulf in protecting the undemocratic rulers of these
nations from being overthrown by their own citizens.
Defending the status quo brings the U.S. into head-on collision with
underground groups across the Mideast - like the shadowy Saudi, Osma
Bin Laden - whose aim is to replace the region's oil kings and sheiks
by popular Islamic and/or even democratic governments.
Radical underground groups in North Africa, Egypt, Jordan, "Holy"
Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf claim their nations have been turned into
virtual American colonies, under U.S. military occupation. They say
Arab "puppet" rulers give away their oil to the U.S. and Britain in
exchange for protection. American "occupiers" are thus fair game, as
in the bombing two years ago of a U.S. military garrison at El-Khobar,
Saudi Arabia.
Other somewhat less likely suspects:
* U.S.-trained Afghans who fought the Soviet Union - were later
branded "terrorists" by
Washington, and are now hunted by U.S. and Pakistani agents.
* Marxist Kurds of the PKK, who see the U.S. as the main supporter of
their blood enemy,
Turkey.
* Serbs, to distract Washington from their ethnic cleansing in Kosovo.
* Chechens, to punish the Clinton administration for financing
Russia's destruction of their tiny nation, and slaughter of 100,000
people.
* Colombian, Mexican or Peruvian drug lords angry over the U.S.-led
war against their
business.
* Congolese, for revenge against the U.S.-orchestrated overthrow of
their late leader, President Mobutu.
* Angola's UNITA movement - an old ally ditched and lately besieged by
the U.S., which now backs Angola's communist regime for reasons of
petropolitics.
The embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam suffered damage roughly
equivalent to a hit by a 2,000-lb bomb or 16-inch naval shell - just
what the U.S. liberally dropped on Libya and Iraq, or fired at
Lebanon. Or supplied to Iraq, to drop on Iran. And supplied to Israel
to drop on various Arab targets.
In other words, the attack was either payback time or a bloody step in
driving the U.S. out of its Mideast Oil Raj. Mindless, it was not.
Expect more.
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