Just Another Infidel

Kewl. New grist to use with my conservative friends. Got some references to estimate the size, motives and ideaology of these domestic terrorists enclaves? Are they Baptists, Dominion reconstructionists, seccionists, PETAs or greenies?

JAI

Sauron

Which only proves that American concern about mass-murders is selective to whatever the US's interests are at that time. And that sort of takes the wind out of the sails of anyone trying to paint the US as opposing such terrorism, out of any "higher moral sense".

And, of course, the fact that we ignore those crimes in our "allies" just sows the seeds for the next conflict 10 or 20 years from now.

Oh, one more thing: let's have a look at Daddy Bush's actions again:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...tkinson/1.html

Q: To put this coalition together what did Baker and Bush have to do ?

Atkinson: Well, there was a hundred and sixty-six day campaign of coercive diplomacy that was launched beginning August 2, 1990 in which Bush and Baker and company recognized that first of all the United States needed international support to roll back this invasion of Kuwait. They needed the support of the international community through the United Nations and also bilaterally. Among other things they needed money and there were subsequently two trips -- called `tin cup one `and `tin cup two' by members of the Administration going around collecting cash to underwrite American cost for this . And they raised more than fifty billion dollars. There were various concessions made to different countries whose support was critical for the American led coalition. Egypt for instance had seven billion dollars in various debts forgiven--wiped out. Syria was fundamentally forgiven tacitly of many of the same sins of which Saddam was accused, including state-sponsored terrorism. We were willing to look the other way because we really needed Syria's support. There were concessions made to different countries on different levels depending on their importance to the Allied effort . And this is a process that went on for five months -- right up until the first bomb fell in January.


The question is irrelevant. The topic is whether or not the US is consistent in showing concrete (and not merely lip-service) opposition to state-sponsored terrorism, or whether the US turns a blind eye to it, when it suits the US to do so.


The only reason I said "were" is because of the connection to Afghanistan. Pakistan is still supporting terrorism - just from inside Pakistan now, as opposed to inside Afghanistan.

From Pakistan, there is still support still going on, in the form of benign neglect. Musharraf has not enforced bans against such organizations, rounded them up, or other such actions - contrary to previous commitments made to Dubya. And he's also been reluctant to go the alternate route--allow coalition forces to conduct search-and-destroy operations inside Pakistan-- for domestic political reasons. The net effect of that is a large area of Pakistan that is not under control of the Pakistanis, and is an excellent staging ground for AlQaeda guerrillas.

And of course, this doesn't even touch on the topic of Pakistani support for terrorists operating against Hindus in India. And it also ignores the fact that Musharraf is a military dictator, who has rigged Pakistan's elections and oppressed his own people in the process.

We've seen this song-and-dance before, in Iran. We were prepared to ignore the Shah's crimes, because he was rabidly anti-communist. The net result was the Iranian revolution.

Terrorism has become the new communism - as long as a given country says it supports the "war on (some) terrorism", then the US is prepared to ignore that country's crimes - even if they are also terrorist in nature.

And if the US would stop supporting Israeli atrocities, I'm sure Syria would forgive much as well.