Location: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/0818rees.htm
Face it: U.S. foreign policy contributes
to acts of terrorism
By Charley Reese
Published in The Orlando Sentinel, August 18, 1998
Contrary to the rhetoric of the Clinton administration and
the Beltway Babblers, terrorism is not a criminal act in the
ordinary sense.
Terrorism is a political act, a response to U.S. foreign policy.
It is an act of war waged by people too weak to have a
conventional army or one large enough to take on the
United States.
Therefore, capturing an individual terrorist does not even
address the problem. People who execute terrorist actions
are expendable, replaceable soldiers. Catch one, kill one,
and two will take his place.
Because the terrorism is political, so, too, is the solution.
One ends terrorism by ending the policies that create it.
Yes, I know, many Americans believe that we and our
government are so good, so beneficent, so kind, so idealistic
that it is an absolute mystery why anyone in the world
would dislike us, much less hate us enough to kill.
The Clinton administration perpetuates this wrong
evaluation of reality by implying that terrorists are evil and
mad, like some demons, who, for no rational reason, strike
out at the innocent. They like to say, as if they were heroic
defenders en route to liberate France, ``We will not be
deterred.'' Notice, however, that they never say what we
will not be deterred from doing.
Maintaining cruel sanctions on Iraq that already have cost
half a million innocent lives? Those sanctions alone are
enough to spawn terrorism for the next 40 years. The
sanctions are unjust, injuring and killing people who are
innocent of any wrong doing. They are stupid, because they
only strengthen Saddam Hussein's government. The
sanctions have enraged not only Iraqis but also Arabs
throughout the Middle East who are sick of the U.S. double
standards, lies and hypocrisy.
For example, the United Nations nuclear inspectors
recently gave Iraq a clean bill of health, certifying they have
no nuclear weapons and no physical plants to produce
them. They recommended closing the book on the nuclear
issue. The United States said, ``No.'' So many U.S. officials
have said publicly that the United States will not agree to lift
the sanctions no matter what Iraq does that I don't know
why they even maintain the pretense of looking for
weapons.
Actual U.S. foreign policy is far from idealistic. We
arbitrarily sided with former Nazi allies in the Balkan civil
war and bombed Serbs who fought with us in two wars. We
slapped sanctions on Sudan allegedly because someone in
Washington doesn't like its internal human-rights policies
that, you can be sure, are far more humane than China's or
those of some of the African dictators we so ardently
supported. I suspect the real reason is the current
government won't cut a deal on the oil discovered in Sudan
many years ago.
Why do Iranians hate Americans? We overthrew their
government in the 1950s and installed a dictator whom we
backed for decades while he executed and tortured his
opponents. Why does anyone expect the survivors of a
U.S.-imposed tyrant to like the United States?
The one-sided support of Israel, even when Israel is
clearly an aggressor or an abuser of human rights, creates
enemies. When your wife and children are killed with U.S.
weapons wielded by a government backed by the United
States and protected from U.N. sanctions by the United
States, it doesn't sit too well.
What I hope people will get from this column is this: Foreign
policy does affect your life. It can get you or your children
killed. It can make it unsafe for you to travel. Don't tell the
parents of those Americans who died on Pan Am Flight 103
that foreign policy has no effect on Americans.
A U.S. government that actually lived up to our ideals and
treated people justly would eliminate terrorism.
All the security measures and macho rhetoric in the world
can't and won't eliminate it.
[Posted 08/17/98 6:16 PM EST]
