Noam Chomsky discusses our so-called WAR ON TERROR at the Palestine Chronicle. I'm trying to be a good patriot by saying it in all caps for two reasons: (1) it's more frightening that way, and (2) if it's said loudly enough, it might come true. I like to think that King George would be proud of me; I know what speech is 'responsible' and what isn't.
It's amazing how when you look at the facts of the WAR ON TERROR it reveals itself to be incoherent many times over. Chomsky discusses, among other things, the first WOT and how by any American or international definition of 'terrorism' the United States is itself a leading terrorist state--both then (the Reagan years) and now (the Chimperor years). Furthermore we're left with the U.S. waging a War on Terror the intent of which cannot possibly be to reduce terrorism. This even if you accept the principle (the real principle to be gleaned from Nuremberg, incidentally) that we get to define ourselves as non-terrorists and our enemies as terrorists! Our actions do not make the western world safer from Islamic terrorism, and this was known way back in advance without the benefit of hindsight. Seriously, just go read the whole Chomsky lecture.
But speaking of our actions not making us safer from terrorism, even if we faultily define terrorism according to the rules of the corporate media shills and governmental neocons running this country: William S. Lind has this piece up at Counterpunch arguing that we're in the process of causing the "fall of Pakistan to militant Islam," which "will be a strategic disaster greater than anything possible in Iraq, even losing an army." I'm not an expert on Pakistani affairs (but then, none of us are: the blogger pundits, the television pundits like Bill 'Papa Bear' O'Reilly, we all comment far beyond our bases of knowledge), but Lind's argument seems plausible and well-supported to me.
This is a really interesting post at several levels. The problem of Pakistan is real. Yet because the conversation on terrorism at home is all about the Arab world and Iran, most Americans are blissfully unaware of the Pakistani ticking bomb (a nuclear one at that). Indeed Musharraf, a wily survivor, can play his fine balancing act of keeping on the good side of the terrorists at home on one hand and Uncle Sam on the other, only for so long. Sooner or later, he would have to take that plane to Texas or ironically enough for Delhi, his birthplace. Although India has been the target of Musharraf's mischief for a long time, he will find safer harbor there than anywhere in the Islamic world. I had a post about the precarious nature of Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terror a while ago at:
http://accidentalblogger.typepad.com/accidental_blogger/2006/01/war_on_terroris.html
Posted by: Ruchira Paul | February 25, 2006 at 11:12 AM