sigh, the ridiculous become sublime, or at least news, in this montage of bizarre word spins of the USA power elite in their attempt to justify a rather hodge podge of so-called policy to attack and destroy anything or anybody anywhere that visibly and forcefully opposes its attempts at hegemony.
Poor old Mullah M. Omar seems more like the straight man in a charicature of Mullan Nassureddin, the ancient icon of paradoxical folk wisdom throughout the region. how can he ever be anybody's "enemy" no matter how much he spouts off about his Pushtum folk idioms of arch conservative traditionalism. Bush & crew have not a clue about the cultures of the region, if they understand anything beyond a born-again whitecollar Texas redneck petrodollarspeak. As to the base (al qu'eda) as an organization, which is a bizarre misnomer, over 100,000 men from all over the Muslim world were passed through this network of CIA-ISI established training camps both before and after Bin Ladin had any significant influence on them. The motivation of individuals to come train and fight for Islam against its enemies was as broad as their socioeconomic and ethnic backgrounds. In the initial case, teh foremost enemies were Soviet Russian & Afghan Communist governance and forces, and later, a perception of defending Muslim peoples against all enemies and occupation forces, which gradually came to include the USA as primary supporter of most repressive regimes that oppressed Muslims. Those regimes ranged from the then US supported Saddam Hussein's Iraq to Israel to the Philippines, and consistently the post-soviet Russian genocide in Chechnya and against all the Muslims under their control. Independence for Chechnya is more important than for Tadjikstan, Uzbekistan, Kazhakstan, and Kyrgizistan, as those states had no historical integrity or ethnic unity, but were one and all Stalin's creations to divide & rule the Central Asian peoples and insure that none of those states would ever have the ethnic coherence to form an opposition, either singly or as a pan-Islamist resistance. So too, China's illegal occupation of both Tibet, with a 5% Muslim population, and Eastern Turkistan with its 95% Muslim population, was seen as legitimate target for liberation of Muslim peoples and their historically occupied lands from foreign imperialist and non-Muslim control. So from this perspective, most Muslims throughout the world, myself included, would support the objectives of these fighters for the defense and freedom of the Muslim world. Therefore to call them all "terrorists" as the US regime has done, falls into the Russian strategy of callng freedom fighters as bandits, or at the very nicest, rebels. Can one be a rebel in one's own country when it is occupied by foreign invaders? The Moros of Mindanao, Jolo and Sulu never surrendered to the 17th century Spanish invaders, nor recognized any Spanish claim to rule those Sultanates, and when the US invaded during the Spanish American war, they fought for their lands, which was an interesting chapter in US imperial military history. So too, their claims to exist as independant states from Philippine rule, is equally valid and strong. Thus the Moro liberation movement has been fighting to maintain its independance as long or longer than the Muslims of Central Asia have been fighting Russia & China to maintain theirs. If its policy is to label all Muslim movements for national liberation as terrorit, the USA will have to take on the entire Muslim World from Zamboanga to Albania, irrespective of whatever stance is taken by various governments that rule over Muslim peoples, whether or not those governments are avowedly secular as Iraq's or "Islamic" like the Saudi's Arabia. Unless the USA pulls back, I predict that anti-American and nati-Wesern and anti-governmental forces will rise up globally. This week four British Muslim citizens from the London area were killed by a US bomb attack on a house in Kabul, their schoolmates and friends vow revenge. How many AfroAmerican Muslim US troops will desert or turn against their officers. Already many are reported to have asked for conscientious exemption from combat in Muslim countries. How many angry American Muslims will disappear into global guerilla movements to fight for the integrity of the Muslim world? Since the 1970's there there have been American Muslims from "Filipino" ethnic background training with the Moro National Liberation Front. Perhaps Huntington was partly rightif the USA chooses to make teh Muslim world a scapegoat and enemy to be stepped on & crushed in their rush towards ascendency as one global superpower, against which no opposition will be tolerated. History lesson finished for now & awaiting feedback. -----Original Message----- From: Ian Murray [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 9:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:20130] exit theory, mercenary style [second time in a decade we take care of Saudi Arabia's problems eh?........] US troops ready for swift pullout Allies fear Bush will launch other offensives Simon Tisdall in Washington Thursday November 29, 2001 The Guardian The Bush administration underlined its intention yesterday to make a swift military exit from Afghanistan once its objectives of destroying Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network and toppling the remnants of the Taliban regime have been achieved. The word was given as US marines consolidated their bridgehead near the Taliban stronghold of Kandahar and the Pentagon tried to assess the impact of Tuesday night's dramatic air strikes on a compound supposedly occupied by the Taliban leadership . Despite the emphasis being placed by Britain and other European coalition partners on long-term stabilisation, humanitarian, and nation-building tasks, US attention is shifting beyond Afghanistan and towards extending the "war against terrorism" to Iraq and other possible targets, such as Somalia. Speaking unattributably, a senior state department official said the administration, which has managed the international coalition's military campaign in Afghanistan almost single-handedly, would consider that it has done enough if and when the Tal iban and al-Qaida are finally crushed. "There's no need at that point for the coalition still to be present," the official said. Although the US intended to join other countries in the political and physical rehabilitation of Afghanistan, "I would not imagine that the United States would be a participant in that," the official added. The comments will alarm European allies on two counts. One is the fear that international reconstruction and humanitarian relief efforts will be hampered by the continuing lawlessness which has claimed the lives of several foreign journalists in recent days. The other is that a swift US military pullout will hasten the prospect of US offensive action elsewhere, including Iraq, where US and British warplanes were again in action this week. No assessment of the impact of Tuesday night's US air strikes on the Taliban compound south of Kandahar was forthcoming yesterday. Mr Rumsfeld, visiting the US central command headquarters in Tampa, Florida, earlier on Tuesday, had forecast that there would be important results from the attacks on a "leadership area". "Whoever was there is going to wish they weren't," he said But US was unable to say what if anything the raids had achieved, while in Islamabad a Taliban spokesman said the regime's leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, was alive and well.
