Theos-Talk Archives (September 2001 Message tt00328)

Any Sources El Barto ?

Narada Orpheus Saccas





Osama Bin Laden is considered to be the best organizer 
in the terrorist world. It is doubtful that anything happens in 
his organization that he is unaware of; his major value to the 
terrorist movement is as an organizer, not as a symbol.

> A Saudi Arabian millionaire, Bin Laden became a militant Islamic 
> leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. 
He was one 
> of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and 
> financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to 
> cause maximal harm to the Russians, (quite possibly delaying their 
> withdrawal, many analysts suspect), though whether he personally 
> happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not 
> particularly important.

All the Afghan resistors were helped by the U.S. 
government. And the purpose was not to "cause maximal harm to 
the Russians", but because the Russians had embarked on a 
genocidal mission to kill every man, woman and child in Afghanistan.

> Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel 
> fighters they could mobilize.

There is something that I learned a long time ago. 
People have motives and goals. In order to deal with people, it 
is important to understand those motives and goals. If one just 
assumes that someone is insanely evil, then one will never be 
able to deal with that person (except in the very rare cases 
where the person IS insanely evil). Chomsky assumes that the 
CIA is insanely evil, and therefore it makes sense for him to 
ascribe to the CIA characteristics that make no sense whatsoever. 

Given the two possible motives of the CIA (the stated 
motive of helping the Afghans prevent Soviet genocide or the 
goal Chomsky assumes of causing maximal harm to the Russians), 
recruiting the most fanatical and cruel fighters is not the 
most efficient way to go about it. One needs to recruit 
EFFICIENT fighters, and cruel fanatics are NOT efficient. 

> The end result was to "destroy a moderate regime and create a 
> fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans" , 
> London Times correspondent, Simon Jenkins, also a specialist on the 
> region.

Simon Jenkins is defining a regime that deliberately 
uses poison gas on civilians to be "moderate".

> These "Afghanis" as they are called, (many, like Bin Laden, not from 
> Afghanistan), carried out terror operations across the border in 
> Russia, but they terminated these after Russia withdrew. 
Their war was 
> not against Russia, which they despise, but against the Russian 
> occupation and Russia's crimes against Muslims.

Most people would say "crimes against humanity". 

> The "Afghanis" did not terminate their activities, however. They 
> joined Bosnian Muslim forces in the Balkan Wars; the US did not 
> object, just as it tolerated Iranian support for them, for complex 
> reasons that we need not pursue here, apart from noting that concern 
> for the grim fate of the Bosnians was not prominent among them. The 
> "Afghanis" are also fighting the Russians in Chechnya, and, quite 
> possibly, are involved in carrying out terrorist attacks in 
Moscow and 
> elsewhere in Russian territory.

Very often, one is faced with choosing between evils. 
The U.S., in the Balkans, took the side of whatever group was 
getting slaughtered at the moment, to stop mass slaughter. 
Unfortunately, the slaughterers and the slaughterers kept on 
changing places. The reason why Chomsky doesn't feel the need 
to go over the reasons is because they would go AGAINST his 
case, so he casually refrains from giving them.

> Bin Laden and his "Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they 
> established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia, from his point 
of view, a 
> counterpart to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, but far more 
> significant because of Saudi Arabia's special status as the guardian 
> of the holiest shrines.

Except that the United States was not dictating policy, 
and trying to PREVENT biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons 
from being used, and was willing, ready and able to leave any 
time the Saudis asked them to. 

> Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive 
> regimes of the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," 
including the 
> Saudi Arabian regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime 
> in the world, apart from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its 
> origins.

Saudi Arabia, while being somewhat fundamentalist, is 
far from being the most extreme example in the world. Iran and 
Afghanistan are two that are worse, just for example. And of 
course, Chomsky considers democracy to be corrupt and 
repressive. Because the U.S. supports the regimes where the 
people have the most freedom, and...

> Bin Laden despises the US for its support of these regimes.

> Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US 
> support
> for Israel's brutal military occupation, now in its 35th 
year: Washington's 
> decisive diplomatic, military, and economic intervention in 
support of the 
> killings, the harsh and destructive siege over many years, the daily 
> humiliation to which Palestinians are subjected, the 
expanding settlements 
> designed to break the occupied territories into 
Bantustan-like cantons and 
> take control of the resources, the gross violation of the Geneva 
> Conventions, and other actions that are recognized as crimes 
throughout most 
> of the world, apart from the US, which has prime 
responsibility for them.

Israel is the ONLY country in the world which is being 
taken to task for these "crimes", which, for the rest of the 
world, is standard operating procedure. It's so-called 
"brutality" is in preventing people from killing Israeli citizens.

> And like others, he contrasts Washington's dedicated support for these
> crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian 
> population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and 
caused hundreds of 
> thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein, who 
was a favored 
> friend and ally of the US and Britain right through his worst 
atrocities, 
> including the gassing of the Kurds, as people of the region 
also remember 
> well, even if Westerners prefer to forget the facts.

And the U.S. actions are to KEEP Hussein from repeating 
those atrocities, and their attacks are designed to MINIMIZE 
civilian deaths.

> The Wall Street Journal, (Sept. 14), published a survey of 
opinions of 
> wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region, (bankers, 
> professionals, businessmen with close links to the U.S.). They 
> expressed much the same
> views: resentment of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli 
crimes and
> blocking the international consensus on a diplomatic 
settlement for many
> years while devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and
> repressive anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing
> barriers against economic development by "propping up 
oppressive regimes."

The wealthy Muslims of the region became that way 
through oppression of the people. They are against any country 
that gives all Muslims equal rights, including (possibly 
especially) Israel.

> Among the great majority of people suffering deep poverty and 
> oppression, similar sentiments are far more bitter, and are 
the source 
> of the fury and despair that has led to suicide bombings, as commonly 
> understood by those who are interested in the facts.

The suicide bombers are a result of months of 
indoctrination (using techniques sometimes referred to as 
"brainwashing"). 

> To quote the lead analysis in The New York Times, (Sept. 16), the 
> perpetrators acted out of "hatred for the values cherished in 
the West 
> as freedom, tolerance, prosperity, religious pluralism and universal 
> suffrage. U.S. actions are irrelevant, and therefore need not even be 
> mentioned."

This is the same paper which ALSO seriously printed an 
analysis that George W. Bush was behind the bombings. And there 
is a difference between editorial analysis and news analysis.

> Simply ask how the same people would have reacted if Nicaragua had 
> adopted this doctrine after the U.S. had rejected the orders of the 
> World Court to terminate its "unlawful use of force" against 
Nicaragua 
> and had vetoed a Security Council resolution calling on all states to 
> observe international law.

The U.S. was, once again, helping forces working 
against a brutal dictatorship. And the U.N. has been, over the 
years, well known to be controlled by the forces of hate and 
bigotry (note the recent farcical conference on racism). 

> The U.S. has already demanded that Pakistan terminate the food and 
> other supplies that are keeping at least some of the starving and 
> suffering people of Afghanistan alive. If that demand is implemented, 
> unknown numbers of people who have not the remotest connection to 
> terrorism will die, possibly millions. Let me repeat: the U.S. has 
> demanded that Pakistan kill, possibly, millions of people who are 
> themselves victims of the Taliban. This has nothing to do even with 
> revenge. It is at a far lower moral level even than that.

This is total bull, as events have shown.

Chomsky indulges in what is called "moral equivalency" 
(William F. Buckley came up with an excellent definition of 
moral equivalency: Saying that pushing an old lady into the 
path of a moving car and pushing an old lady OUT of the path of 
a moving car were equivalent actions, because in both cases one 
is pushing an old lady). He takes the actions, and ignores the 
motives and the extended results.

Bart Lidofsky



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