Chowrangi

In 1986, there was Colonel Gaddafi, whose country President Reagan bombed from bases in Britain, killing mostly women and children, including Gaddafi’s 16-month-old daughter.

In 1990, there was General Noriega, said to be a dangerous drugs trafficker, whose capture by US Marines required a full-scale invasion of his country and the death by bombing of at least 2,000 Panamanians, mainly the poorest of the poor in their barrios. Noriega and drugs had little to do with it. The aim was to put Panama, its canal and its US base under direct American sovereignty, managed by other Noriegas.

In the same year, there was Saddam Hussein, another one of Bush’s and Reagan’s old pals, whose regime they had armed and backed. Saddam’s use of American and British weapons in his attack on the mullahs in Iran in 1980 was perfectly acceptable. A million people died in that ‘forgotten’ war; and the American and British arms industries never looked back.

Saddam then attacked the wrong country, Kuwait, which is effectively an Anglo-American oil protectorate. He was clearly unreliable: “an uppity bastard”, as one State Department briefer described him more in sorrow than anger. Punishing the uppity bastard cost as many as 200,000 Iraqi lives, according to a study by the Medical Educational Trust. These were ordinary Iraqis who died during and immediately after a period of military and economic carnage whose true scale has never been appreciated outside the Middle East.

The following year, Bush attacked Somalia in what was called a ‘humanitarian intervention’. He was in the midst of his re-election campaign. Bush said the Marines were doing “God’s work”, saving thousands of innocents”. Like his moralising over the Gulf war, this was accepted by the British media.

American television crews were waiting as the Marines landed in a beautiful African pre-dawn.When the American warlords had completed their adventure in Somalia and taken the media home with them, the story died. According to CIA estimates, the Marines had left between 7,000 and 10,000 Somalis dead. This was not news

Soon after Clinton was elected in 1992, he attacked Baghdad with 23 Cruise missiles. These destroyed a residential area, killing once again, mostly women and children. Interviewed on his way to church with his wife, Clinton said, “I feel quite good about this, and I think the American people feel quite good about it.” The pretext for the attack was an Iraqi ‘plot’ to kill George Bush on a visit to Kuwait. There was no evidence and the plot story is now widely regarded as fake.

Clinton attacked Iraq again, this time insisting that he was ‘defending’ Kurds against Saddam Hussein, who ‘must pay the price’. Once again civilians paid the price.

When an American president needs to divert his people’s attention away from his sex scandal the easiest thing he finds is to bomb Muslim countries.

The USA and Britain killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis without letting the world see the blood, thus practicing a lesson learned during the Vietnam war. Serbs have killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims and raped thousands of women in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Israel has been for half a century destroying the Palestinian people with the help of arms and financial and moral support provided by the USA.

I can go on and on………

Other posts by Mohammad Yusha

• Are Indian cricketers selfish? - February 9th, 2010
• Ball tampering is only wrong if you are a Pakistani cricketer - February 2nd, 2010
• Dowry Harassment: Silence Hides Violence - December 20th, 2009
• Drink plenty of water for health benefits - December 19th, 2009
• Rising Dowry in Rising India - December 18th, 2009
• The biggest Bank Robbery in Pakistan; the very guard hired to protect the bank robs it - December 17th, 2009
• Politeness towards one's children - December 15th, 2009
• Wife wants to be treated with love, not like a fly - December 14th, 2009
• TV Show - Living On the Edge - November 12th, 2009
• Why Indians and Pakistanis fight each other and how to bridge the gap? - November 12th, 2009