-Caveat Lector- --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Agent Smiley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
http://www.yellowtimes.org/article.php?sid=486&mode=thread&order=0 ''Terrorism begets terrorism: what the U.S. teaches terrorists – Part 1'' Printed on Friday, July 12, 2002 @ 00:38:59 EDT ( ) By Ruhi Khan YellowTimes.org Guest Columnist (United States) (YellowTimes.org) – "Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed or 'disappeared,' at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame." - Amnesty International, 1996 If you ever wondered where the terrorists learn their moves - just glance through Uncle Sam's war history. In fact the modus operandi that terrorist employ or we fear they might employ today are just reflections of U.S. "war crimes" in other nations. This series of articles hopes to bring to focus certain threats U.S. citizens fear the most today in the wake of the September 11 tragedy, and reflect on the similar attacks by the United on other nations. After all, terrorism begets terrorism! The Terrorism Threat: Attack on a nuclear facility or use of nuclear arsenal on civilians? Status: In the words of Dr. Henry Kelly, President of the Federation of American Scientists, before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations [March 6, 2002] … "Threat of malicious radiological attack in the U.S. is quite real, quite serious, and deserves a vigorous response." Frighteningly plausible! The threat that terrorists might try to blow up a U.S. nuclear facility is always looming on everyone's mind. Let's just ponder what would have been the consequence if a fuel- laden jetliner or a truck loaded with explosives crashed into a nuclear reactor causing a meltdown and dispersing radioactive material? Of course it would first cause a massive explosion - a huge ball of fire with a series of successive explosions dispersing various toxic gases that makes breathing difficult and cause instant death. Maybe something similar to Chernobyl disaster depending on the magnitude of the damage and capacity of the reactor. But what is definitely confirmed is the resulting spread of radioactive material would cause an extremely high number of casualties and the ecological devastation would be tough to measure and affect generations to come. In 1981, an environmental impact statement prepared by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) estimated that a large truck bomb used against a nuclear reactor in a highly populated area could produce 130,000 fatalities. If this were to become a reality, pregnant women should mentally prepare themselves for delivering babies who don't quite look like babies. If it is not a child without a brain, then maybe it's one with a giant head; if not without arms then maybe stumpy arms like those of a thalidomide victim; two fingers instead of five; a heart with missing valves; missing ears; missing genitals, the internal organs may well be lying outside the body or missing altogether. But yes the deformities will have one thing in common: they will all be congenital! Does that scare you? Of course it does. Why else would a charge against Abdullah al Muhajir, a Puerto Rican Muslim from Chicago, of planning to build a radioactive "dirty bomb" to attack a U.S. city create such an uproar even though it was against any sound judgment? News reports stated that Muhajir had no accomplices, no access to materials and no training in making such a bomb. Yet he is still being held without trial. The threat is so ominous that it did manage to silence U.S. corporate media and many civil rights organizations. There were a plethora of news stories focusing on the frightening consequences of a "dirty bomb" but none of them even remotely mentioned that the United States is the only country to have used hundreds of "dirty bombs" all over the world. Yes, the U.S. does admit that the government has used thousands of these radioactive bombs in Iraq and Yugoslavia but of course as that wasn't on American soil it doesn't create the ripples of fear. Terrorists' Inspiration: the USA and its war legacy of contaminating Third World countries with depleted uranium [DU] leading to devastating after effects. During the 1991 U.S. war against Iraq, U.S. bombing destroyed not one but two operational nuclear reactors in Iraq sending off dangerous radioactive material into the air. Point to note: this happened within a month after the United Nations had passed a resolution reaffirming its "prohibition of military attacks on nuclear facilities" in the Middle East. The United States was supposedly operating under the UN's mandate but conveniently ignored this resolution. The attacks did not just end with reactors. In fact, alleged chemical- warfare facilities and biological- warfare plants were also targets of American bombs. According to the 1995 U.S. Army Environmental Policy report, the Pentagon reportedly fired more than 940,000 uranium-tipped 30-millimeter bullets and more than 14,000 large 120- mm DU rounds. This could leave behind more than 600,000 pounds of radioactive waste that will continue to contaminate the soil, water and air in Iraq. European scientists and environmentalists detected traces of chemical weapons agents and toxic vapors after the bombings. On Jan. 18, 2001 an investigating team from a U.S. solidarity delegation to Iraq found "extremely high levels of radioactivity" in soil samples in the Iraqi desert south of Basra. This is killing many civilians even today. During the 1999 U.S./NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, thousands of rounds of radioactive depleted uranium were again fired. NATO's "precision airstrikes" have deliberately poisoned Kosovo, such as the case of Grocka, where bombs fell on the site of a nuclear reactor. In Baric, large amounts of nuclear waste, a large factory for the production of chloride (with similar technology as that of the Union Carbide plant in Bhopal, India) was bombed repeatedly; in Pancevo, site of a large petrochemical factory and another plant used to produce fertilizers, was bombed at least a dozen times. It was estimated that temperatures inside the collapsing factory reached 1,000 degrees centigrade. A chemical factory was bombed in Belgrade's suburb, Sremcica. A rocket fuel storage area was hit in the same town, pouring toxins onto surrounding land and into the water. The United Nations Population Fund has sent emergency reproductive health kits to Kosovo that include contraceptive material and equipment, which can be used for abortions due to concerns about birth defects caused by bombs with depleted uranium and the release of toxins from the bombing of chemical factories. The U.S. also used cluster bombs in this conflict, which contain hundreds of small explosive devices that are spread over a wide radius as the bomb nears the earth. Many of the small bombs do not explode upon impact, becoming land mines. Hundreds of thousands of these devices and other unexploded bombs now cover Kosovo and other parts of Yugoslavia. Kosovo has been referred to as the most dangerous place in the world since the bombing. Afghanistan also bears the testimony of the extremely destructive effects of the American military's use of cluster bombs, along with the 15,000-pound "daisy cutter" explosives. Reports from the Center for Defense information suggest that at least 500 tons of smart bombs and cruise missiles were used in just the first three weeks of the Afghan war. A major article by Robert James Parsons in Le Monde Diplomatic on March 3, entitled "America's Big Dirty Secret," charged that depleted uranium is the heavy metal used in the enormous bunker bombs that burrow through mountains of rock or many feet of reinforced concrete to destroy cave complexes. According to the LAKA Foundation in the Netherlands, the Israeli army first used depleted-uranium weapons in the 1973 war, under direction from U.S. advisers. The 1995 report from the U.S. Army Environmental Policy Institute asserts that Israel is one of the countries with DU munitions in its arsenal. The Israeli military's use of dumdum bullets and CS gas in the occupied Palestinian territories are obvious. Through the Pentagon, which supplies most Israeli weapons, the Israeli military is supplied with DU. These U.S. weapons include the M1 Abrams tank - which fires DU shells and is armored with DU-reinforced metal. The "Apache" and the Cobra helicopter gun ships are also equipped to fire DU shells. The U.S. has shipped Israel "the newest and most advanced multi-mission attack helicopters in the U.S. inventory," as reported in the Jerusalem Post. The U.S. Threat: We don't need terrorists to set off radioactivity; the U.S. government has exposed us enough. What did we gain from these "nuclear" wars? Thousands of Gulf War veterans were exposed to radiation and died as a result of the "Gulf War Syndrome" which in layman's language is radioactive poisoning. Also the Department of Veteran Affairs found that children of Gulf War vets are twice as likely to be born with birth defects as children of other soldiers. Female Gulf War vets are three times more likely to have children with birth defects. Also reports of a strange increase in cancers among young European NATO soldiers stationed in Kosovo and Bosnia caused a political uproar in Europe and demanded for an investigation into the use of depleted uranium weapons by the United States. The French, Italian and Portuguese troops showing signs of exposure have already been withdrawn from the land. In Le Monde Diplomatic, Dai Williams, a medical researcher, warned medical professionals, employees of aid organizations and soldiers stationed in Afghanistan about the threat of DU contamination. According to inferences drawn from various research, the International Action Center, founded by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, alleged that during the Cold War the Pentagon deliberately exposed more than 250,000 U.S. military personnel to radiation during nuclear tests from 1945 to 1963 in order to study the impact on humans. Angry mass movements have forced the U.S. government to acknowledge that it has test-fired radioactive weapons at U.S. bases in Okinawa, Japan, Vieques, Puerto Rico, and South Korea. The army has also tested these weapons at more than 25 domestic sites, including Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland, according to a 1995 Army Environmental Policy Institute report. According to U.S. Department of Energy reports, thousands of Marshal Islanders were also callously exposed to radiation and secretly studied. U.S. Excuse: Preventing the creation of weapons of mass destruction (as long as the suspect is not on "our side" or pulls our strings). August 1945 saw sixty-six of Japan's largest cities in ashes after napalm bombing. Tokyo alone saw many dead and watched as a million civilians became homeless. Major General Curtis Lemay, who was in charge of the fire bombing operations, described them as "scorched and boiled and baked to death." Now that was indeed mass destruction. Has the U.S. stopped making such weapons? Over a billion pounds of DU exists in the United States and must be safely stored or disposed of by the Department of Energy. But since this costs millions of dollars it is freely given away to arms manufacturers to make more and more Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMDs]. The Oval Office only deems the weapons used by the "enemy" as WMDs. They often chant that such weapons in the hands of terrorists would destroy the world. The irony is Washington officials do not include American "precision" cruise missiles or the DU loaded Apache and Cobra, or the Tomahawk Cruise missile whose payload of a thousand pounds of TNT crashes into the center of a densely populated city often with depleted uranium in its warhead, or the "smart" bombs, landmines and cluster bombs lying in wait to explode on some unsuspecting civilians, as weapons of mass destruction. This is definitely a shaky argument given the well-known extremely devastating damage to non-military targets - residences, schools and hospitals, in the bombings of Iraq and Yugoslavia and more recently in Afghanistan and Palestine. This is indeed an undeniable mass destruction of the world. Since the Gulf War, the U.S. has reiterated the need to attack Iraq and prevent it from developing WMDs. However, the U.S. ignores the major culprit in that region - Israel, who has a plethora of WMDs: 200-500 thermonuclear weapons with a sophisticated delivery system. The news reports also alleged Israel of possessing bombs from "city busters" larger than the Hiroshima Bomb to tactical mini nukes. Weapons include ballistic missiles and bombers capable of reaching Moscow; cruise missiles, nuclear land mines and artillery shells with a range of 45 miles. Israel also possesses a comprehensive arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, which in all probability include an "ethnically targeted" biological weapon or the ethno bomb which contains a certain developed virus or bacterium to attack people carrying a particular gene (more specifically - the Arab gene) according to Israeli military and western intelligence sources cited in a front- page report in the London Sunday Times. (1998) The Israeli nuclear arsenal does not just threaten the future of peace in the Middle East but has dire implications for the entire planet. The unspoken major use of the Israeli bomb is to pull the strings at U.S. decision making to act in Israel's favor even against its own strategic interests. To quote Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project: "We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, 'If you don't want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.' " (London Sunday Times, 1986) Our Best Defense: Our human face. America is seen as a major military superpower that has always created chaos and destruction. People in those lands witness their homes demolished and families' dead and generations affected by the use of American WMDs. Terrorists breed in such war affected zones and thus have lost consideration for American lives. If we protest against U.S. terrorism elsewhere which fails to distinguish between the innocent civilians and military and treats both with ruthlessness, the terrorists will eventually learn to differentiate between the power hungry government officials and the peace loving Americans. Isn't it high time we take a stand against the U.S. and its use of weapons of mass destruction and stop the barrage of U.S. and European soldiers being sent on foreign soil to fight a battle that was never theirs? Today's soldiers are disposable to the Pentagon generals' but are they equally disposable to American citizens? If the U.S. can justify going back to Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from creating weapons of mass destruction and in the process justify creating mass destruction in those lands, exposing thousands of soldiers to radioactivity endangering their lives too, then we as rational thinkers of the West need to speak against them. If terrorism is breaking laws to create weapons of mass destruction and creating terror in the lives of civilians then aren't these examples of U.S. terrorism? Something has benumbed our consciousness against this reality. Our silence is only giving the men in the White House the go ahead signal. Mobilizing investigations and mass protests against the use of DU weapons can stop this crime against humanity and also minimize the nuclear threat we face today. [Ruhi Khan is a business student but started writing freelance thanks to the popular media that oft buries truth deep under layers of "diplomacy" and "selective focus." Her pen has strong faith in people's mobilization to create revolutions. When the time comes to pick sides, hopefully we won't do it on the basis of religion and blind patriotism but truth and justice.] Ruhi Khan encourages your comments: [EMAIL PROTECTED] YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction must identify the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated. ~~~~~ Is NATO at war with China? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psy-op/message/10243 Wildfire For Profit? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/psy-op/message/10248 You are being conditioned http://www.memes.org --------------------------------- Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes --- End forwarded message --- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
