Response to Does the Irish Anti-War Movement condemn terrorist attacks enough?
No, in my humble opinion, I do not think that the Irish Anti-War movement does condemn terrorist attacks enough. However, I would presume that if they profess to aspire to offer human rights protection for all, they simply need to say more in way of outright and unreserved condemnation of all terrorism. If I felt that this movement did not follow this line, I for one would have nothing to do with it.
That said, there are so many vested interests and hidden agendas perpetuating the cycle of violence, not least the slavish US support of Israel and their own obsession with war, and remember war is good for business. The money that Israel gets goes straight back into the pockets of Lockheed Martin etc, who's directors fund the US administrations. If that US funding to the IDF was withdrawn, I'm sure that we would see a different approach to negotiations around the creation of a viable Palestinian state and thus address some bitter motives behind some of the terrorism.
Don't get me wrong, the last thing that I want to do is in any way, condone the actions of any terrorists. I personally think that an extremely effective method of resisting Israel’s expansion and aggression would be a Ghandi or Chico Mendes campaign of total non-co-operation and withdrawal of labour. However, that's unlikely to happen with thousands of battle hardened, highly trained and now extremely well organised network of Muslim extremists. Bin Laden and most of senior al-Qaeda were trained in Afghanistan in bomb making and covert ops, by the US, at a cost of at least $3bn to the US tax payer. The US it appears wanted to provide Russia with "it's own Vietnam" and the second the war was over, they were out in a flash. Surely if you fail to demobilise thousands of battle hardened Muslim fighters and provide them with new homes and skills, there is a strong possibility that they may turn and bite the hand they fed them. These people were given expert training, by the US, in bomb making and terrorism, remember the Muajideen had to fight by necessity, the Russian army, as guerrillas. Add to that the extensive building of US bases in Saudi Arabia, the alliance between US and the house of Saud, and the Palestinian issue and you have one very angry, clever and intelligent leader who gradually comes to the conclusion that he needs to fight back in the only way he’s been taught, terror.
Of course, the above still sounds like justification, which it's certainly not intended to be but to understand some of the background might help in a future solution. The US has managed to convince the world that we all should be in a "war frame of mind" or we're against the side of "good". The side of "good" (eh, the US) has made a fortune (thousands of billions of dollars) from war since WWI and in the process has created an imperial state that to justify it's very existence has to either be at war, or convince everyone that it is or should be at war. Keep your citizens in total fear, and they’ll consume more.
In my opinion, NO terrorism against innocent civilians is acceptable under any circumstances and must be condemned in no uncertain terms. However, greed, hate, jealousy, distrust and lots of other negatives are human emotions and are easily stirred up to serve the vested interests. Terrorism is in no way justifiable BUT so is the failure to act on warnings about impending attacks and surely the person who fails to help prevent an attack is just as guilty, if they have strong evidence, as in the attacks in Bali and Kenya. Probably most alarming of all is the appointment of the person entasked with investigating whether the intelligence agencies were culpable and criminally negligent (or even complicit?) in September 11th. Who did they pick for this task, I mean please, I could not believe it, who did they pick?
The joker man himself....................Dr Henry K
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