- Dr. Robert M. Bowman directed all the "Star
Wars" programs under presidents Ford and Carter. He flew 101 combat
missions in Vietnam. His Ph.D. is in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering
from Caltech. He is President of the Institute for Space and Security
Studies
and Presiding Archbishop of the United Catholic Church.
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- A few years ago, terrorists destroyed two U.S. embassies.
President Clinton retaliated against suspected facilities of Osama bin
Laden. In his television address, the President told the American people
that we were the targets of terrorism because we stood for democracy,
freedom,
and human rights in the world. On that occasion, I wrote: "Tell people
the truth, Mr. President ... about terrorism, not about poor Monica. If
your Lies about terrorism go unchallenged, then the terror war you have
unleashed will likely continue until it destroys us.
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- "The threat of nuclear terrorism is closing in upon
us. Chemical terrorism is at hand, and biological terrorism is a future
danger. None of our thousands of nuclear weapons can protect us from these
threats. These idols of plutonium, titanium, and steel are impotent. Our
worship of them for over five decades has not brought us security, only
greater danger. No 'Star Wars' system ... no matter how technically
advanced,
no matter how many trillions of dollars was poured into it ... can protect
us from even a single terrorist bomb. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal
can shield us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Piper
Cub or a suitcase or a Ryder rental truck. Not a penny of the 273 billion
dollars a year we spend on so-called defense can actually defend us against
a terrorist bomb. Nothing in our enormous military establishment can
actually
give us one whit of security. That is a military fact.
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- "Mr. President, you did not tell the American people
the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism. You said that we are
the target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and human rights in
the world.
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- Baloney!
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- We are the target of terrorists because we stand for
dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in the world. We are the
target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because our
government has done hateful things.
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- "In how many countries have we deposed popularly
elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military dictators who were
willing to sell out their own people to American multinational
corporations?
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- "We did it in Iran when we deposed Mossadegh because
he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the Shah,
and trained, armed, and paid his hated Savak national guard, which enslaved
and brutalized the people of Iran. All to protect the financial interests
of our oil companies. Is it any wonder there are people in Iran who hate
us?
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- "We did it in Chile when we deposed Allende,
democratically
elected by the people to introduce socialism. We replaced him with the
brutal right-wing military dictator, General Pinochet. Chile has still
not recovered.
-
- "We did it in Vietnam when we thwarted democratic
elections in the South which would have united the country under Ho Chi
Minh. We replaced him with a series of ineffectual puppet crooks who
invited
us to come in and slaughter their people_ and we did. (I flew 101 combat
missions in that war which you properly opposed.)
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- "We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of
a million civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where
we have killed a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these
innocent victims have been children under the age of five.
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- "And, of course, how many times have we done it
in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin America? Time
after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of the
land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with
murderous
tyrants who would sell out and control their own people so that the wealth
of the land could be taken out by Domino Sugar, the United Fruit Company,
Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.
-
- "In country after country, our government has
thwarted
democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why we are
hated around the world. And that's why we are the target of
terrorists.
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- "People in Canada enjoy better democracy, more
freedom,
and greater human rights than we do. So do the people of Norway and Sweden.
Have you heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian embassies?
Or Swedish embassies. No.
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- "We are not hated because we practice democracy,
freedom, and human rights. We are hated because our government denies these
things to people in third world countries whose resources are coveted by
our multinational corporations. And that hatred we have sown has come back
to haunt us in the form of terrorism _ and in the future, nuclear
terrorism.
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- "Once the truth about why the threat exists is
understood,
the solution becomes obvious. We must change our government's ways.
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- "Instead of sending our sons and daughters around
the world to kill Arabs so the oil companies can sell the oil under their
sand, we must send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean
water,
and feed starving children.
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- "Instead of continuing to kill thousands of Iraqi
children every day with our sanctions, we must help them rebuild their
electric power plants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals
_ all the things we destroyed in our war against them and prevented them
from rebuilding with our sanctions.
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- "Instead of seeking to be king of the hill, we must
become a responsible member of the family of nations. Instead of stationing
hundreds of thousands of troops around the world to protect the financial
interests of our multinational corporations, we must bring them home and
expand the Peace Corps.
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- "Instead of training terrorists and death squads
in the techniques of torture and assassination, we must close the School
of the Americas (no matter what name they use). Instead of supporting
military
dictatorships, we must support true democracy _ the right of the people
to choose their own leaders. Instead of supporting insurrection,
destabilization,
assassination, and terror around the world, we must abolish the CIA and
give the money to relief agencies.
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- "In short, we do good instead of evil. We become
the good guys, once again. The threat of terrorism would vanish. That is
the truth, Mr. President. That is what the American people need to hear.
We are good people. We only need to be told the truth and given the vision.
You can do it, Mr. President. Stop the killing. Stop the justifying. Stop
the retaliating. Put people first. Tell them the truth."
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- Needless to say, he didn't ... and neither has George
W. Bush. Well, The seeds our policies have planted have borne their bitter
fruit. The World Trade Center is gone. The Pentagon is damaged. And
thousands
of Americans have died. Almost every TV pundit is crying for massive
military
retaliation against whoever might have done it (assumedly the same Osama
bin Laden) and against whoever harbors or aids the terrorists (most notably
the Taliban government of Afghanistan). Steve Dunleavy of the New York
Post screams "Kill the bastards! Train assassins, hire mercenaries,
put a couple of million bucks up for bounty hunters to get them dead or
alive, preferably dead. As for cities or countries that host these worms,
bomb them into basketball courts." It's tempting to agree, but
retaliation
hasn't rid us of the problem in the past, and won't this time.
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- By far the world's best anti-terrorist apparatus is
Israel's.
Measured in military terms, it has been phenomenally successful. Yet Israel
is still the primary target of terrorists and suffers more attacks than
all other nations combined. If retaliation worked, Israelis would be the
world's most secure people. Only one thing has ever ended a terrorist
campaign
denying the terrorist organization the support of the larger community
it represents. And the only way to do that is to listen to and alleviate
the legitimate grievances of the people. If indeed Osama bin Laden was
behind the four hijackings and subsequent carnage, that means addressing
the concerns of the Arabs and Muslims in general and of the Palestinians
in particular. It does NOT mean abandoning Israel. But it may very well
mean withdrawing all financial and military support until they abandon
the settlements in occupied territory and comply with their duty to return
to 1967 borders. It may also mean allowing Arab countries to have leaders
of their own choosing, not hand-picked, CIA-installed dictators willing
to cooperate with Western oil companies. Chester Gillings has said it very
well: "How do we fight back against bin Laden? The first thing we
must ask ourselves is what is it we hope to achieve security or revenge?
The two are mutually exclusive; seek revenge and we WILL reduce our
security.
If it is security we seek, then we must begin to answer the tough questions
what are the grievances of the Palestinians and the Arab world against
the United States, and what is our real culpability for those
grievances?
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- Where we find legitimate culpability, we must be prepared
to cure the grievance wherever possible.Where we cannot find culpability
or a cure, we must communicate honestly our positions directly to the Arab
people. In short, our best course of action is to remove ourselves as a
combatant in the disputes of the region.
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- "To kill bin Laden now would be to make him an
eternal
martyr. Thousands would rise up to take his place. In another year, we
would face another round of terrorism, probably much worse even than this
one. The vast majority of Arabs and Muslims are good, peaceful people.
But enough of them, in their desperation and anger and fear, have turned
first to Arafat and now to bin Laden to relieve their misery.
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- Remove the desperation, give them some hope, and support
for terrorism will evaporate. At that point bin Laden will be forced to
abandon terrorism (as has Arafat) or be treated like a common criminal.
Either way, he and his money cease to be a threat. We CAN have security
... or we can have revenge. We cannot have both.
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