U.S. fickle in fight against terror-food for thought

[Bootsy Whoosh]

Okay, first off I did not write these. These articles appeared in my University's newspaper on the opinion page, I pulled them off the web to post here. I just thought this was interesting food for thought. (the authors names appear below each column.)

I am sorry this is a long post, but I urge you to read it all anyway.

~Bootsy (who thinks that patriotism and nationalism are wonderful things, as long as we are not totally blinded by them)

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U.S. fickle in fight against terror

There is no doubt what happened, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, were a great tragedy. In fact, my uncle was sitting on the 72nd floor of the first World Trade Center building when it was hit at the 82nd floor. The suffering of innocent people cannot be justified anytime anywhere.

The taking of a soul unjustifiably, in Islam, is not permitted. In fact, Islam stresses valuing and saving life. Undue suffering is totally prohibited in Islam.

In fact, the holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said that even if a chicken is to be lawfully slaughtered for food it should be done with a very sharp knife in order to minimize the suffering of the chicken. Imagine then Islam’s attitude toward human life.

Allah is just, and has prescribed the rule of justice for all of his creation. To Allah, all human beings are equal. He feeds and clothes those that are atheists, pagans, agnostics, and all others. In other words, an American soul is equal to the soul of the black Sudanese and to the Japanese and to the Afghan.

Iranian souls were lost when an American destroyer in the Persian Gulf shot an Iranian Jumbo 747 with one cruise missile and dumped 300 people into a watery grave. The captain of the destroyer was decorated by the Navy. Twenty cruise missiles destroyed a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan and killed several innocent people. In the United States, we heard the lies that it was a chemical weapons factory. Several F-16s bombed the tent dwelling of Muammar Gadhaafi in Tripoli, Libya and killed his innocent infant daughter.

These incidents took place in the last five years. In 1998, America fired 70 some cruise missiles into Afghanistan and slaughtered 74 innocent people and maimed many others. President Clinton appeared elated the next morning — I assume because he had just committed a crime against humanity. Ten of these missiles landed in neighboring Pakistan and killed 12 people. The same Pakistan is now asked to become an ally. Did any American care enough to send a letter to his representative then? Did these people in Afghanistan not have mothers to cry over them, or sisters and brothers to grieve? Do children in Afghanistan not have nightmares after witnessing such barbaric acts? Do they not need psychological counseling after such horrendous crimes? Did anyone in America hear even a single anguished cry from that far off land?

Does the distance make it less of a crime, less of a tragedy, or make humanity less human? Is it because they are brown and not white, Muslims and not Jews? Or is it because Americans are rich and Afghans are poor? Is the suffering of an American somehow greater than an Afghan’s? America has always put up seemingly plausible excuses to justify its atrocities of bombing here and bombing there. These excuses may work for people here, but these incidents galvanize the local reaction “over there” against the United States. America stands alone as the only country in the world that used a nuclear bomb on humanity, but we are told that was done for peace. Has anyone asked the Japanese? Americans who choose to go on accepting silly excuses, no doubt, will be awakened by World Trade Center type incidents. They should rather begin to look at both sides of the coin and arm themselves with the truth.

Americans need to wake up to what their tax dollars are doing to their neighbors in this world that is now a global village. If Americans are truly for peace, freedom and justice, they should ask about the people of occupied Palestine. They have suffered untold misery and oppression at the hands of Zionists over the last 53 years with the help of over $500 billion American tax dollars. How many more hundreds of thousands of people must die with American money and weapons before we will take notice? Until we do, no amount of security measures will bring peace and tranquility to America. American embassies already look like fortified bunkers.

To phrase a common American idiom in a positive light, I will only say that if we do good to others, nothing but good will come back to us.

Farah Salim first year law student and has Afghan roots.

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Bush in pursuit of bin Laden, U.S. should guard own soil

Now that President George W. Bush has declared “a war on terrorism,” I know of some terrorists he won’t be pursuing, and who are a lot easier to catch than Osama bin Laden.

What about Emannuel Constant, the leader of the Haitian death squad known as FRAPH, who is now lives in New York City, and would be easy to apprehend? Then there are right-wing Cuban exiles, Luis Posada Carriles and Orlando Bosch, who bombed a Cubana plane in 1976, killing all 73 people, including all of the Cuban fencing team. How about Felix Rodriguez, a Cuban exile and CIA agent, who operated the Ilopango airbase in El Salvador, where arms were to the Contras and drugs back to the United States? If the United States didn’t have a double standard on terrorists, then why couldn’t the Chilean intelligence agents and Cuban exiles who assassinated Orlando Letelier and Ronni Moffitt in Washington, D.C. be captured with little trouble?

It’s obvious there are two kinds of terrorists — “ours” and “theirs.” Those evil people called leftists, who want things like unions, better wages, universal health care and land reform can be killed in extremely large numbers with no retribution from the United States — the people who murder them will not even be called terrorists. However, anyone who attacks U.S. military or economic interests will be pursued to the ends of the earth.

Guy Sudborough

Bellflower, Calif.
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Proceed with Care
U.S. strikes back, media’s role vital

America’s retaliation has begun.

This is a time of war and we as a nation need to come together behind our government. However, it is just as important to be certain that the leaders of our country are doing the right thing.

At least 90 percent of American citizens agree that strong action needs to be taken against the Taliban, but have all those people been thoroughly convinced of the evidence against bin Laden?

If the answer rests solely on the information given by Bush and his cabinet, then the answer has to be no.

It is completely understandable for our leaders to keep certain information confidential — information that if it becomes public could hinder military attacks. But the evidence against the Taliban is not one of the things that deserves to be held out of the public eye.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has been the most willing to give up information that needs to be seen by the American people. That shouldn’t be the case. Our own government, a democracy that is built around the needs of society, is responsible for presenting all the facts before acting in any war-time conflict.

While the airstrikes ordered by Bush yesterday may have been the right thing to do — it is necessary to push the Taliban military deep into their hideouts so our ground troops can have better access to enter Afghanistan — it is vital that we as a country know for sure that it is the right thing to do.

That job falls on the media, who need to be serving the people just as the government is. In the past few weeks, several columnists across the country have been fired for questioning the acts of President Bush including a columnist for a newspaper in Texas who was fired for questioning the president’s leadership skills. It is the duty of responsible citizens to question the actions of our leader and no one should be punished for doing so.

It is our job to question the steps our government take, and until we as a society are presented with the necessary evidence, that is just what we should do.
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(sorry I had to put that one part in bold, because I think it so totally absurb that someone got fired over that. I totally agree that this is not the time to poke fun of our president, as in on "Saturday Night Live!" or "That's My Bush", but the last time I checked we weren't living in communist China and still have the freedom to question our leaders without fear of repercussions.)


[This message has been edited by Bootsy Whoosh (edited 10-08-2001).]

[Meg07945]

That is absurd, firing a columnist for questioning the authorities...whatever happened to Freedom of the press?

In history we have been studying the 3 major monotheistic religions to come out of Mid East. We learned about the rules of Jihad, or holy war in the Islamic religion.. If the Taliban thinks that is ready to fight a Holy war, they have already broken many rules.

First of all, Jihad can only be fought in defense...

Here is a list of the acts prohibited during Jihad (thanks [url]http://justpeace.net.ph/updates/views/views/v2000_1016_06.htm[url]):

1.Killing of non-combatants.
2.Cruel ways of killing, e.g. torturing by fire and burning of prisoners.
3.Execution of prisoners of war.
4.Severing of heads of fallen enemies and sending them to higher authorities.
5.Mutilation of man and beast.
6.Unnecessary devastation of the enemy's land, destruction of harvests, and the unnecessary cutting of trees.
7.Adultery or fornication with female captives.
8.Killing of enemy hostages even if the enemy had resorted to such action.
9.Massacre of innocents.
10.Killing of one's parents who belong to the enemy's camp except in self-defense.
11.Killing of peasants, traders or merchants, and others indulging in peaceful occupations - provided they do not participate in combat.
12.Using enemy prisoners as shields or compelling them to fight their own army.
13.Violating agreements with the enemy on what they have mutually agreed to avoid in war.
14.Retaliation against the enemy when they kill Muslim women, children, the aged, and hostages.
15.Retaliation against the enemy for acts of mutilation.

Isn't that interesting, I bolded the ones I question...

If you are intrested:
http://justpeace.net.ph/updates/view...00_1016_06.htm

What does everyone else think?!
-Meg

[This message has been edited by Meg07945 (edited 10-08-2001).]

Edited so many times because I don't know how to use UBB code...

[This message has been edited by Meg07945 (edited 10-08-2001).]

[Bootsy Whoosh]

Meg-
lol, about the editing....

Thanks for your reply. That is very interesting, I'm glad you shared. I admit I know little about Jihad.

I am not so sure if the Taliban has technically violated any of those terms, because they did not declare a Holy War until the U.S. attacked. They did not say that the attacks on the Trade Center were an act of Holy War, because after all, the Taliban never even owned up to having a hand in those attacks. They said that they would declare a Holy War if the U.S. attacked.

What I question is....how will they deal with their prisoners. So far they have missonaries in jail for supposedly trying to convert Muslims to Christianity....since we started our attacks, I seriously question if those prisoners are still alive. If they aren't I only hope they were granted a quick death and weren't tortured first.

Alos..."14.Retaliation against the enemy when they kill Muslim women, children, the aged, and hostages."

How telling is that of Islamic culture? You can kill their women and children, but there is no mention of the men in that statement. So if you kill men, they'll retaliate, but the women and children etc. are expendable? I don't know, I fully admit that maybe I am misunderstanding that statement....

Our world is so stupid and so full of petty misunderstandings (on all sides). The Muslims keep saying that America has declared a Holy War on Islam. But what they don't even get is that America has no concept of what a Holy War really is, so how in heck could we start one? There is a reason we use the word "jihad" for it over here, because English has no direct translation for all the concepts that word entails...."holy war" is the closest estimation we can come up with, but it does not cover everything "jihad" means or implies.

[Kitt]

There are no details about the fired journalists. Doesn't that seem odd to you. I would expect the op. ed. writer to give more detail. We should all have someone to write to to voice our dismay. Without the details I'm can't be sure that there is any truth in it. Do you know any more about it?

[Bootsy Whoosh]

Originally posted by kittflynn:
There are no details about the fired journalists. Doesn't that seem odd to you. I would expect the op. ed. writer to give more detail. We should all have someone to write to to voice our dismay. Without the details I'm can't be sure that there is any truth in it. Do you know any more about it?

Good point kitt. If I wasn't running on only a few hours sleep, perhaps that would have occured to me too. I will look into it, and get back to you. If anyone else can confirm/deny this, please feel free to post here.

[Bootsy Whoosh]

Well thankfully the editors of my school newspaper aren't lying, and I don't have egg all over my face. But it was still good of you to question kitt. I suspect they didn't cite sources because sources are rarely if ever cited on an opinion page. If the item had been written in another part of the newspaper, there probably would have been a source. Anyway, here is a few sources I have found so far that you can check out that are saying the same thing:

Un-American Activities (from MSNBC.com & Newsweek)

The column that got Tom Gutting of the Texas City Sun fired

Columnists Fired After Criticizing Bush (from Editor & Publisher Online)


[This message has been edited by Bootsy Whoosh (edited 10-09-2001).]

[Kitt]

Thanks, Bootsy, for providing the referrences. I didn't think that the editors were lying. Maybe, though, for the same reason that you bold-faced that portion of the article they could have provided more information. It is indeed apalling that journalists are being fired for trying to do their job. I've been bothered by the overall gush of approval by journalists for how Bush is handling the situation and have suspected their sincerity. Decisions made today will have consequences for a long time to come. I hope the questions are being asked and asked again. When heads are rolling, as they are, I can't be so sure.

Pardon the edit. Hard to do these things without messing up something!

[This message has been edited by kittflynn (edited 10-09-2001).]

[Ags2000]

Hey Bootsy, when was this article written? The reason I am asking is because in the first article
U.S. fickle in fight against terror

It said

...Several F-16s bombed the tent dwelling of Muammar Gadhaafi in Tripoli, Libya and killed his innocent infant daughter.

These incidents took place in the last five years.

I know for a fact that that did not occur in the past five years. In fact it occured (if I remember correctly) in 1986.

D

[Bootsy Whoosh]

I can't say for sure when the piece was written, but it appeared in the Monday Oct. 8th edition of our newspaper.

At this time I feel like maybe I should reiterate 2 points that maybe were not clear. First, these columns appeared on the opinion page, meaning that they are not "articles" in the sense that maybe the authors didn't check all their sources as thoroughly as they should have. Also, everything written should be taken with a grain of salt, as we cannot be sure what all is factual. These pieces are merely opinion of a select handful of students at my University, but I choose to post them because I thought they presented an interesting view of another perspective on current events.

The last point I suppose I should make is that I make no claim to the validy of the statements provided in these pieces. As I said before I did not write them. I merely found them interesting, and thought they might stimulate some interesting conversation.

As for the bombings in Tripoli, after some checking, you are write Ags2000, that did occur in 1986. Don't know if the author was simply mistaken, or if it was purposely included because it helps their argument. Just another example of why these should be taken with a grain of salt. I'm not asking anyone to believe everything they read here, or even to agree with it, it is simply some things to think about....

[This message has been edited by Bootsy Whoosh (edited 10-09-2001).]

[Kitt]

The sentence, "These incidents...past five...1998" is the beginning of a paragraph. I don't think the author is referring to what we were told about in the previous paragraph. I don't see mulitple incidents in the bombing Pakistan paragraph but it seems plausible, that's what the author is saying.

[Bootsy Whoosh]

That's a good point kitt.