This received from Richard Watson ….
Lot of criticism of the USA but.. Read the catalogue of events and ask how anyone can take the position that all we have to do is bring our troops back from Iraq, sit back, ,re-set thesnooze alarm and go back to sleep and no one will bother us again. In case you missed it, WW111 began in November 1979.. that alarm has been ringing for years.. US Navy Captain Ouimette is the Executive Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacols, Florida.. Here is a copy of a speech he gave in 2004. It is an accurate account of why we are in so much trouble today and why this action is necessary,. "America (and the World) needs to wake up. " That's what we heard on 11th September 2001 (when more than 3,000 were killed). and maybe it should have been "Get out of Bed" In fact the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few minutes of peaceful sleep again..
It was a.cool day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheavel when a group if Iranian students siezed the American Embassy in Teheran. Th is siezure as an outright attack on American soil: it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency. The attack on this sovereign US Embassy set the stage for events to follow in the next 25 years. America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam expeerince and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union then when President Carter had to do something . He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal witth terrorism America's military had been decimated and downsized right after the Vietnam war. A poorly trained and poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start. Shortly after the Teheran experience Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad.
The attacks against US soil continued. In April 1983 a large vehicle packed with explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. It kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the snooze button again. then just six short months later a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps HQ in Beirut and 241 US Servicemen are killed. Two months later in December 1983 another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber
The following year in September 1984 another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut and America still slept. Soon the terrorism spread to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid. Then in August a Volkswagon loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force base at Rhein-Main -22 are killedand the snooze button is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked. Fifty nine days later a cruise ship the "Auchille Lauro" is hijacked and we watch an American in a wheelchair singled out from the passengers and executed. The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland killing 259. Clinton treated these terrorist acts as crimes; in fact we are still tryng to bring these people to trial. These are acts of war. The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder. The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America. In January 1993 two CIA agents are killed as they enter CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The following month, February 1993 a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into an underground parking garage at the World Trade Ventre in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1,000 injured. Still this is a crime not an act of war. The snooze alarm is pressed again.
Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women. A few months later,in 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from a military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force base killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively. They move to co-ordinate their attacks on two US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America respponds with cruise missile attacks then goes back to sleep. The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for re-fuelling on 12 October 2000, when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killin 17 US Navy sailors. Attacking a War Ship is an Act of War, but we sent the FBI to investigate the attack and went back to sleep.
And of course you know of the events of 11 September 2001 yes, a long time ago! In the news we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in the government over what they knew and what they did not know.. But if you read the papers and watch the news you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979. The President is right on when he says we are engaged in a war . I think we have been engaged in a war for the past 23 years and it will continue until people decide we have had enough. America needs to "Get out of Bed" and act decisively now. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life. continues/ We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over to sleep
After the attack on Pearl Harbour Admiral Yamamoto said "It seems all we have done is to awake a sleeping giant!" This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world. This is about Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to Come"
Since this speech the terrorist war has been brought to Europe. I need not recount what has happened here in the UK - you know. Yet we too are hitting the snooze button. Judges are releasing suspected terrorists because "It is the law!" At the beginning of WW2 no such thing occurred - suspects were locked up for the duration. We will not send suspects back to countries where they have committed terrorist acts "In case they are tortured! Not much consolation for the victims of the above murderous acts or the still grieving relatives of those killed. The death of one innocent man in London is to be regretted. But those who scream about injustice have never themselves been in a situation the police were - shoot or maybe a hundred die. The UK must WAKE UP now. Alreadsy the terrorists in Iraq have a new weapon. the black robed women used as suicide bombers. Show me one police officer in this country who has stopped a woman in Muslim dress - not one. They dare not for the outcry there would be from one section of our community.
Again we muist WAKE UP and deal with terrorism wherever it is. Bring back the death penalty for acts of terrorism, withdraw British citizenship from any associated with terrorism or acts which may result in the death of our Servicemen and deport them
The GOS says: We apologise to our readers for reproducing this illiterate drivel. We're not sure why we thought you ought to see it, but at least it gives us the opportunity to point out a few things in reply ….
Over the years the USA has achieved a record unchallenged by any other nation for invading weaker, poorer countries - and let's face it, any other country is bound to be weaker and poorer than the world's richest, most powerful superpower. Its closest neighbour Mexico was one of the first to come under the cosh (1846 and 1914-18), followed by Nicaragua (four times, in 1854, 1855, 1912 & 1981), Puerto Rico (1898), Guam (1898), Hawaii (1898), the Philippines (1898), Cuba (1898 & 1961), the Dominican Republic (1905 & 1965), Haiti (1915 & 1994), Lebanon (1958), Vietnam (1962-73), Cambodia (1970), Grenada (1983), Panama (1989), Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (1990 & 2003). And those are just the ones the GOS can think of!
The CIA engineered coups d'état in Haiti, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Guatemala, Chile and Nicaragua, and attempted to do so in Venezuela quite recently.
A few more random thoughts ….
In 1979 U.S. President Jimmy Carter designated the Persian Gulf a vital U.S. interest and declared the U.S. would go to war to ensure the flow of oil. In Afghanistan the US provided more than $3 billion in arms and aid to the Mujahideen. By 1987 65,000 tons of US-made weapons and ammunition a year were entering the war. The US-Soviet rivalry produced a war that tore Afghanistan apart. More than one million Afghan people were killed and one-third of the population fled into refugee camps. Twenty years later, the fighting in Afghanistan has still not ended.
In 1981 and again in 1986, the U.S. held military manoeuvres off the coast of Libya to provoke a response from Colonel Qaddafi's regime. In 1981, when a Libyan plane fired a missile at US planes violating Libyan airspace, two Libyan planes were shot down. In 1986, after a bomb killed two Americans in a Berlin nightclub, the US claimed Qaddafi was behind it and bombed Libya, killing dozens of civilians including Qaddafi's daughter.
In Iraq it is calculated that in addition to those killed by military or terrorist action, 500,000 to 1,500,000 Iraqis have died from disease and malnutrition caused by US sanctions.
In Indonesia half a million people were slaughtered in 1965 as the independent nationalist Sukarno was overthrown by American-backed insurgents amid "a staggering mass slaughter of communists and pro-communists." The US media rejoiced at the massacre of landless peasants and the destruction of the only Indonesian political party that enjoyed mass support, the PKI.
In Brazil in 1964, liberal capitalist president Goulart was overthrown with US aid by a group of neo-Nazi generals who compiled over the next few decades a truly horrific human rights record but who were praised for producing an "economic miracle". The population sunk into malnourishment and disease, land became ever more concentrated in fewer hands, and millions of street children swarmed the cities.
Article 7 of the UN Charter explicitly prohibits UN intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The US is the only country ever to have been condemned for "terrorist activities" by the UN.
Meanwhile, the US which has 7% of the world's population continues to use up 25% of the world's resources, and to use military power to make sure it can continue to do so. It has consistently blocked attempts by the world community to make it reduce its pollution of the atmosphere.
So, Richard Watson, what are the rest of the world supposed to think? That America is hard done-by, and the nasty bad terrorists are coming to get us all?
Our only regret is that our weak, foolish leaders have allowed us to support American aggression and that we are therefore tarred with the same brush. Think about it - historically Britain, France, Spain, Holland, Italy, Portugal and Germany all had substantial overseas empires at one time of another. In every case this involved war and oppression. It was usually unjust by modern standards. Yet how many former colonies now bear so much hatred for their oppressors that they are stealing airliners and crashing them into St.Paul's, the Arc de Triomphe or the Konzertgebouw?
Richard, you badly need to buy and read John Pilger's book The New Rulers of the World
. It's got a lot of long words in it, mind.
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
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