- Crusades are messy, bloody affairs, and it's often hard
to tell the good guys from the bad guys.
-
- Exhibit A: Afghanistan, where the United States just
suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the wily Russians. Happily
for the White House, neither the media nor the American public understand
what just happened. They continue to cheer on the president, who is mighty
thankful he is leading a jolly little war against Muslims instead of having
to explain to voters why the economy is nose-diving and hundreds of thousands
are losing their jobs.
-
- The Northern Alliance is not a merry band of pro-American
freedom fighters battling the wicked Taliban, but a Russian front organization
run by leaders of the revived Afghan Communist party. It has also reopened
the heroin trade the Taliban had shut down.
-
- The Alliance proclaimed itself Afghanistan's legitimate
government last week. Moscow recognized the Alliance, and rushed "advisers"
and troops into Afghanistan.
-
- On Sept. 11, Alliance forces were a mere 10,000 men.
A month later, it fielded 30,000 with an array of Russian armour and artillery.
It's likely regular troops from neighbouring Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and
Uzbekistan - all Russian satellite states - were sent into Afghanistan.
-
- OIL AND GAS RESOURCES
-
- Russia now dominates Afghanistan, thus reversing its
historic defeat of the 1980s, shutting the U.S. and Pakistan out of Central
Asia, and ensuring future Russian control of the Caspian Basin's oil and
gas resources. Bush was too busy trying to "smoke out" outlaws
Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar to notice his new best friends, the Russians,
had drygulched him and grabbed the lion's share of Afghanistan.
-
- The much ballyhooed Afghan unity conference in Germany
last week, hailed by the U.S. and UN as a "breakthrough" and
the beginning of a viable "democratic" government in Afghanistan,
was a farce.
-
- The U.S., UN, and Europe are waiting to shower tens of
millions in aid on a "new," non-Islamic Afghanistan. The Northern
Alliance realize they need a few women and some toothless royalists to
create the illusion of a multi-party government in order to cash in on
western aid. Armed, supplied and guided by the Russian Army and KGB, the
Alliance remains the real power in Afghanistan.
-
- Last week, hundreds of Taliban prisoners of war were
reportedly massacred in the Mazar-E-Sharif fort by soldiers of communist
warlord Rashid Dostam, assisted by U.S. and British special forces, and
air strikes by U.S. warplanes. Our side says the prisoners tried to break
out and had to die. Some more neutral observers claim the prisoners were
murdered en masse. Amnesty International is calling for an investigation.
U.S. troops also watched while 140 Taliban prisoners were executed in southern
Afghanistan.
-
- The U.S has been using fuel-air munitions that rights
organizations claim are inhumane weapons that should be banned.
-
- Last week, bin Laden's holy war syndrome seemed to infect
the White House. Bush proclaimed a new jihad against Saddam Hussein, warning
Iraq was next on his hit list. Saddam was moved into the terrorist column
by Bush for allegedly planning to produce weapons of mass destruction to
threaten his neighbours. The president forgot to mention Israel and India,
who have also threatened their neighbours with nukes.
-
- While Bush was preaching a new crusade against Iraq,
other high administration officials were warning that Iran, Libya, Syria,
Yemen, Lebanon, Somalia and even Pakistan might be added to Bush's jihad
list. A decade ago, this would have been called warmongering. Now, the
frightful Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. are being used to justify all sorts
of adventures abroad, and the curtailment of civil rights and free speech
at home.
-
- Bush's anti-Muslim crusading policy is being advocated
by a group of Dr. Strangeloves, hardline "neo-conservatives"
- the Washington chapter of Ariel Sharon's far-right Likud party. They
want to use America to destroy all of Israel's enemies and block peace
between Israelis and Palestinians.
-
- RESTRAINT
-
- Sensible Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the administration's
sharpest mind, Secretary of State Colin Powell, are trying to restrain
the Sharonistas, who seem dangerously close to convincing Bush to launch
a crusade against much of the 1.2-billion-person Islamic world. They failed
with clever Bill Clinton, but are succeeding with the unworldly Bush.
-
- America's European, Asian and Muslim allies are horrified
by the dire threats emanating from Washington, but so far no one has dared
to publicly break ranks and tell the president to holster his sixguns and
simmer down. America is not refighting World War II.
-
- In fact, it is not even at war, since none has been declared
by Congress. It is fighting a handful of small but deadly international
criminal organizations. This is not D-Day, nor the Alamo, and certainly
no reason to launch America on the 21st century's first world war.
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- Copyright © 2001, Canoe Limited Partnership
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- http://commondreams.org/views01/1202-05.htm
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