From: "E.Pavlov" <epavlov-AT-mail.ru>
Subject: Re[2]: HAB: samizdat
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 15:53:05 +0000 (GMT)


 
> > Islam is maddened and humiliated
> >  especially by the monumentally cruel treatment of the palestinians
> 
> I am not sure about this.  I believe that some Islamic individuals are 
> envious.  These actions have to be financed and supported in a conspiratorial 
> method.  It is not enough to claim feebly that these actors were trained here 
> or there, they have support from a large organized network of individuals, 
> especially if we are to believe that the legitimate government within several 
> of the Islamic (Arab and or Muslim) countries/nations are opposed to 
> terrorism.  Let's consider the massacres of Sabra and Shatila - who did it?  
> How did the war in Beirut start?  Are these US responsibilities?  What is the 
> role of the Palestinians in their own demise?  Were Khaddaffi and Hussein 
> motivated by the "cruelties to the Palestinians?"

I remember following the events that took place after the bombings of US embassies in Africa in 1998. I still have a copy of an interview of Samuel Berger, national security advisor, who spoke with persuasion that the factory in Sudan was connected with bin Laden and "there is no question" about the fact that it produced chemical weapons - Jim Lehrer asked: You have physical evidence that they were making nerve gas in that plant? Berger answered: We have physical evidence that they were making a chemical which is essentially one step removed from VX gas. Later as we all know that turned out to be not true, but until this day there were no official apology or financial compensation. In the last issue of Harvard International Review there is a piece by former German embassador in Sudan on this bombing.  There were plenty of comments that this move did not stop terrorism, but was a tool in anti-American propaganda. Some commentators suggested that it will simply escalate the conflict and next terrorist attack will be even worse - here we go. Did US do anything to prevent this attack? Was there anything to be done? How does a democratic state react to such an attack? Retaliation? War? Against all who are bad enough to be called a terrorists? Does present response - "they kill our people, we'll kill theirs" - reflect a higher moral stand than that of terrorists? I realize that we are all sad because of the horrible attack, but how is a life of an Americal citizen more valuable than a life of Sudanese who died of malaria because US has destroyed the only drug factory that could provide him/her with a medicine? How about recently reported attacks on Arab Americans in US and soon to come racial profiling (think of an Arab American businessman boarding the plane to go on business)? There is a time to be sad, but will there come a time when all these and many other questions will be addressed?

Evgeni 


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