See this page for links to articles on OpEdNEws that articulate both sides on the issues in the middle east. It is the goal of OpEdNews to air opinions from both sides to stretch the envelope of discussion and communication. Hate statements are not accepted. Discussions of issues and new ideas for solutions are encouraged. .
Remember, good patriots, we are at war with Islam, Socialism, Communism, drugs, crime, illegal immigration, Gays, labor unions, liberal university professors, peace activists, environmentalists, Anti-Semites, secular humanists, and all those who pose a threat to the United States. Each of these groups shares culpability for the terrorism which has killed several thousand of US, British, Spanish, and Israeli citizens since 2001. They are a cancer upon the American Way and must be excised. Freedom and liberty will prevail despite their onslaught of evil.
Suspension of civil liberties, concentration of power into the hands of the Executive branch, slaughtering hundreds of thousands of innocents civilians, collective punishment of millions through wanton destruction of infrastructure, widespread dissemination of depleted uranium, reduction of wasteful spending on "useless eaters" via massive cuts in entitlement spending, ongoing ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank, torture, denial of justice to "enemy combatants", massive tax cuts to the wealthy, obscene increases in defense spending, propaganda blitzes to keep the public believing horrendous lies, preemptive war, reduced government restriction of corporate exploitation of humans and the environment, and continued neocolonial expansion are all essential to the United States fulfilling its Manifest Destiny and ending the terrorist threat. Remember, they hate our freedom.
A pleasant fiction indeed for the United States' ruling elite and their loyal supporters who violently reject challenges to their hubristic and fanatical devotion to American Exceptionalism and entitlement.
Are they the relative handful of militants (amongst the billions of oppressed people around the globe) who are ready to sacrifice their lives to strike at the deeply corrupt machinations of the socioeconomic system which supports a few wealthy elites ruling the United States, Israel and their sycophants (i.e. Great Britain, Saudi Arabia)? Osama bin Laden, the face of "terrorism" in the minds of many Westerners, has repeatedly stated that Al Qaeda will end its violent actions if the United States withdraws its military from the Middle East and ends its support of Israel. Reasonable demands, actually, when one considers the millions of Arabs, Persians, and others indigenous to that region who have suffered or died as a result of Western intervention in the Middle East.
That is not to say that the murder of civilians by groups opposing the United States and Israel are justified. They are heinous war crimes. The perpetrators deserve to be punished to the extent of international law. When they target the military of their oppressors and occupiers, these groups are waging a just cause, but killing innocent human beings is despicable and evil. Ideally Middle Eastern resistance would take the form of non-violence in the tradition of Gandhi, but the "coalition of the willing" has given their victims little choice but to fight or die.
To recognize the terror with which the human race needs to be more concerned, we need to shed the corporate media propaganda and look beyond the fairly small groups of determined, enraged individuals who have only demonstrated the capacity to kill relatively small numbers of the "good guys" in the West. Real terror emanates from the power wielded by Western ruling elites by virtue of their wealth, potent militaries, and indoctrinated citizenry.
Can you say economic terrorism?
Consider the staggering fact that the United States its fellow Western powers represent 25% of the world's population yet consume 75% of the world's resources. Thanks to this gross disproportionality, three billion human beings survive on less than $2 per day. And 1.3 billion subsist on less than ONE DOLLAR. The income of the wealthiest 1% of the world's population equals that of the poorest 57%. 3 billion people lack access to sanitation while 2 billion have no electricity. Free trade agreements, multinational corporate exploitation, oppressive lending terms imposed by the World Bank, and support of corporate friendly authoritarian leaders who defy the interests of their own people ensure that these conditions persist.
Half of the planet exists on $730 per year and Western economic analysts were wringing their hands over the economic impact the recent alleged terror plot in London would have on the airline industry.
How about nuclear terrorism?
The same oligarchs, corporate elite, dictators, and plutocrats who hoard the Earth's bounty (to the extreme detriment of billions of human beings) also have their fingers poised to activate the ultimate weapons of mass destruction. Possessing enough nuclear firepower to destroy the world thousands of times over the "benevolent" United States is the only nation to have deployed nuclear weapons against human beings. Nearly 200,000 Japanese died as a result of US nuclear terror. (And I personally almost vomited when I recently visited the Truman Library and saw the marble placard thanking Harry Truman for making the decision to drop the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.) What more profound terror could an individual or group have at their disposal than the power to destroy the world multiple times?
And what about the terrorism inherent in imperial expansion?
Dating back to its founding and contradicting to its self-professed devotion to truth, justice, democracy, and so on, the United States has followed the examples of the Western European colonial powers from which it sprang. Eradicating 90% of the Native American population to "acquire" their land; enslaving the Black race; annexing Hawaii; taking half of Mexico by force; slaughtering 600,000 "heathen" Filipinos; subjugating Cuba; killing three million Vietnamese; extinguishing the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians in various Latin American nations; enabling Israel's imperial conquest of Palestine; and annihilating millions of Iraqis via the Gulf War, UN sanctions throughout the 90's, and the current illegal occupation have made the United States the empire it is today.
Click the link below to see examples of profound human suffering stemming from United States sponsored terrorism:
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