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raimons
from Stockholm (Sweden) on 2003-01-18 04:06 [#00518686]
Points: 4266 Status: Lurker
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they despise, but against the Russian occupation and Russia's crimes against Muslims.
The "Afghanis" did not terminate their activities, however. They joined Bosnian Muslim forces in the Balkan Wars; the US did not object, just as it tolerated Iranian support for them, for complex reasons that we need not pursue here, apart from noting that concern for the grim fate of the Bosnians was not prominent among them. The "Afghanis" are also fighting the Russians in Chechnya, and, quite possibly, are involved in carrying out terrorist attacks in Moscow and elsewhere in Russian territory. Bin Laden and his "Afghanis" turned against the US in 1990 when they established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia -- from his point of view, a counterpart to the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, but far more significant because of Saudi Arabia's special status as the guardian of the holiest shrines.
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raimons
from Stockholm (Sweden) on 2003-01-18 04:06 [#00518688]
Points: 4266 Status: Lurker
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Bin Laden is also bitterly opposed to the corrupt and repressive regimes of the region, which he regards as "un-Islamic," including the Saudi Arabian regime, the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime in the world, apart from the Taliban, and a close US ally since its origins. Bin Laden despises the US for its support of these regimes. Like others in the region, he is also outraged by long-standing US support for Israel's brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year: Washington's decisive diplomatic, military, and economic intervention in support of the killings, the harsh and destructive siege over many years, the daily humiliation to which Palestinians are subjected, the expanding settlements designed to break the occupied territories into Bantustan-like cantons and take control of the resources, the gross violation of the Geneva Conventions, and other actions that are recognized as crimes throughout most of the world, apart from the US, which has prime responsibility for them. And like others, he contrasts Washington's dedicated support for these crimes with the decade-long US-British assault against the civilian population of Iraq, which has devastated the society and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths while strengthening Saddam Hussein -- who was a favored friend and ally of the US and Britain right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, as people of the region also remember well, even if Westerners prefer to forget the facts. These sentiments are very widely shared. The _Wall Street Journal_ (Sept. 14) published a survey of opinions of wealthy and privileged Muslims in the Gulf region (bankers, professionals, businessmen with close links to the U.S.). They expressed much the same views: resentment of the U.S. policies of supporting Israeli crimes and blocking the international consensus on a diplomatic settlement for many years while devastating Iraqi civilian society, supporting harsh and repressive anti-democratic regimes throughout the region, and imposing barr
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raimons
from Stockholm (Sweden) on 2003-01-18 04:08 [#00518689]
Points: 4266 Status: Lurker
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read more here
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flea
from depths of your mind (New Zealand) on 2003-01-18 04:23 [#00518703]
Points: 9083 Status: Regular
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9/11: The Winners and The Profiteers
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Red
from Hell (New Zealand) on 2003-01-18 05:16 [#00518758]
Points: 378 Status: Addict | Followup to KEYFUMBLER: #00516299
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Well history has this awful habit of repeating itself and some countries are probably not much better off than 100 years ago in terms of human rightsin fact probably worse off.
I insist that by reading Dr Helen Caldicott "The New Nuclear Danger. George W.Bush's Miltary Industry Complex" that I just completed in about 8 hours which illustrates some of the points I had made..better...you will feel a bit different if not totally paranoid :)
Here's a tidbit...
Globally the annual miltary expenditure stands at $780 billion dollars. The total amount required to provide global health care, eliminate starvation and malnurition, provide clean water and shelter for all, remove landmines, eliminate nuclear weapons, stop deforestation, prevent global warning, ozone depletion, and acid rain, reduce the paralysing debt of developing nations, prevent soil erosion, produce safe, clean energy, stop overpopulation, and eliminate illiteracy is only one third that amount -- $237.5 billion dollars.
She says America in particular has the power and resources to solve these problems. If less money was directed towards killing and the US met its obligations on Nuclear/Environmental UN treaties instead of violating them, forcing countries like North Korea that cannot feed its population to build ineffective Weapons of Mass Destruction in order to box China into an arms race etc etc the world would be a much safer place.
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Red
from Hell (New Zealand) on 2003-01-18 05:21 [#00518760]
Points: 378 Status: Addict | Followup to raimons: #00518689
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Cheers for the Noam Chomsky post, he's a total icon
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