No Shortage of Suspects
By international syndicated columnist
& broadcaster Eric Margolis
Aug. 13, 1998
ZURICH - The terror bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania this week
horrified Americans, and left them feeling they were once again innocent
victims of evil terrorism that was as mindless it was abominable.
While certainly abominable, the attacks were hardly mindless: they were clearly
designed to punish the US, though innocent Africans mostly paid the price. So
far, the culprits remain unknown, though Mideast underground groups are clearly
leading suspects.
Most Americans simply don't understand how deeply their nation is involved in
the turmoils of Asia and Africa. Nor that the United States has fully inherited
the role of world imperial power played by Great Britain last century. As the
British discovered with notorious Victorian malefactors, like Sudan's Mahdi,
Somalia's `Mad Mullah,' or China's Boxers, the restless natives occasionally
bite back.
The US hardly lacks enemies abroad, thus suspects in the bombing.
At present, the US openly admits to seeking to overthrow the governments of
four nations: Libya, Iraq, Sudan, and Iran - the last democratically elected.
The US has repeatedly tried to assassinate the leaders of Libya and Iraq for
impudently challenging US-British hegemony in the Mideast.
Israel, with enemies galore, is seen in the Mideast as either an extension of
the United States, or the United States an extension of Israel. By the warped
logic of the region, attacking the US equals attacking Israel. This week's
embassy bombings were very similar to an earlier - and still unsolved - terror
attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires.
US agents are conducting a secret war, including abduction or assassination,
against numerous Palestinian and Arab groups, such as Hamas, the PFLP and Saudi
mujihadin. CIA, FBI and US military intelligence are extremely active in Egypt,
Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf in protecting the undemocratic rulers of these
nations from being overthrown by their own citizens.
Defending the status quo brings the US into head-on collision with underground
groups across the Mideast - like the shadowy Saudi, Osma Bin Laden - whose aim
is to replace the region's oil kings and sheiks by popular Islamic and/or even
democratic governments.
Radical underground groups in North Africa, Egypt, Jordan, `Holy' Saudi Arabia,
and the Gulf claim their nations have been turned into virtual American
colonies, under US military occupation. They say Arab `puppet' rulers give away
their oil to the US and Britain in exchange for protection. American `occupiers'
are thus fair game, such as the bombing two years ago, of US military garrison
at El-Khobar, Saudi Arabia.
Other somewhat less likely suspects: US-trained Afghans who fought the Soviet
Union, were later branded `terrorists' by Washington,' and are now hunted by US
and Pakistani agents.
Marxist Kurds of the PKK, who see the US as the main support of their blood
enemy, Turkey.
Serbs, to distract Washington from their ethnic cleansing in Kosova.
Chechens, to punish the Clinton Administration for financing Russia's
destruction of their tiny nation, and slaughter of 100,000 people.
Colombian, Mexican or Peruvian drug lords - angry over the US led war against
their business.
Congolese, for revenge against the US-orchestrated overthrow of their late
leader President Mobutu.
Angola's UNITA movement -an old ally ditched and lately besieged by the US,
which now backs Angola's communist regime for reasons of petropolitics.
The embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam suffered damage roughly equivalent to
a hit by a 2,000-lb bomb or 16-in naval shell - just what the US liberally
dropped on Libya and Iraq, or fired at Lebanon. Or supplied to Iraq, to drop
on Iran. And supplied to Israel to drop on various Arab targets.
In other words, the attack was either payback time or a bloody step in driving
the US out of its Mideast Oil Raj. Mindless, it was not. Expect more.
Copyright: Eric Margolis, 1998
