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Posted December 13, 2001
Zimbabwe Democracy Bill 2001
I am very much impressed by the articles I read on Antiwar.com and they have helped me of knowledge on American foreign policy.
I am a Zimbabwean citizen and maybe one would expect little or no interest in American affairs from one who lives so far away; but recently, the American Congress passed the above-mentioned bill by a huge majority, with only 11 Representatives voting against it. It now awaits president Bush's signature for it to become law. The bill clearly states that the US would like to see democratic change in Zimbabwe, the implication being that the present president, Mugabe, should quit – or else. Incidentally, there is an opposition party whose name is Movement For Democratic Change (MDC), whose officials helped in the drafting of the said bill. The bill has provisions to support these opposition groups with a view towards removing Mugabe from power. It also seeks to stop or at least slow Zimbabwe's land reform programme in which the government is deliberately targeting the black majority to have a share of the country's land resources. Before the land reform, about 4,500 white farmers, most of whom are of British ancestry and some of whose still hold British passports, owned more than sixty percent of the arable land in Zimbabwe, with the rest being occupied by no less than eight million blacks. The British premier, Tony, had a 'Blair Witch Project' in which he equated Mugabe to Osama bin Laden after 9/11, in an apparent smear campaign. ...The bottom line of the bill is that it is an economic sanctions bill which will bring untold suffering to the ordinary people of Zimbabwe, just like sanctions have done in Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Cuba, to name just a few, and as such it must be condemned.
~ Munjira Mutambwa, Harare, Zimbabwe
Camel Dung
Antiwar.com is my favorite website, and Robert Fisk is a reporter whose work I usually respect. But his latest dispatch ("My beating by refugees is a symbol of the hatred and fury of this filthy war") shows me that he's turned into a sad, Graham Greene burnt-out case who needs to be withdrawn from the field and made Gardening Editor or something for the next 55 years. His puling self-loathing, his blind refusal to consider the necessity of the American campaign, his prissy unwillingness to accept the fact that in most places, at most times, throughout history, government systems only change through the shedding of blood – all combine to make me root for the Afghans who were pelting him with pebbles. They should have been throwing camel dung.
~ John Zmirak, Astoria, New York
Justin Raimondo replies:
I couldn't disagree more. I'll bet if you had been bombed, and forced to flee Astoria, New York, and were being kept out of New Jersey, corralled in a refugee camp, you'd be angry at anyone who looked like one of the bombers. It's too bad a great reporter and a brave man like Robert Fisk had to bear some of the consequences of this rotten war. Unlike his critics, and very much unlike our laptop bombardiers, he put himself in the front lines of the battle, and is to be commended, not condemned.
What Do They Know?
After looking at your site and all it has to offer all I can say is, Wow! Imagine my surprise to learn all the world's governments are in on this war crusade and only you guys can see or know the truth!
All of your headlines scream almost opposite the "free" press. They with their high-paid correspondents, what do they know?
The "Backtalk" editor replies:
If you clicked the headlines you would find that they link to stories in the free press – dozens every day.
Holiness
I like ... [Justin Raimondo's] columns, even though sometimes I think y'all go after us lefties a wee bit much (granted some of us deserve it). But I do agree with your assessment of some lefties' total condemnation of our country. To label our founders as racist and genocidal bigots is simplistic idiocy. One can be critical of American history and its business without going to such nauseating extremes.
...My feeling has always been that a decent nation-state (which is under attack by extreme "capitalism" and other similar fundamentalisms) is the only thing we've got to keep capitalism from degenerating into what we've got now. I've always felt that Holy Righteous Socialism was just as bad as Holy Righteous "Capitalism." The messiness and compromise needed to run a democratic republic tends to keep the Holiness at bay. Keeps the sodium and chloride together (salt) instead of pure (poison).
Mossad
I'm sure you all read the story in Ha'aretz about the 5 Israeli men arrested for "puzzling behavior" some four hours after the attack on the Twin Towers while filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their company's building. I really didn't know what to make of it until I recently read in Gideon's Spies : The Secret History of the Mossad by Gordon Thomas that the Israeli security service was aware of the planned truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 and even tracked the movement of the truck right into the barracks without alerting the Americans. Might it be that the arrested men were Mossad agents performing a similar role in New York?
New Technology
One should be suspect of the "recently discovered videos" in Afghanistan because it has been recently reported that such videos can be made with new technology and made to look absolutely authentic.
Justin Raimondo replies:
So what does this mean? That we can't believe any such evidence pointing to bin Laden's guilt? And who is playing the part of bin Laden in this "faked" video – a bin Laden "double"? I don't think so.
Rodney King Treatment
One of your transmissions led to a Newsweek story that Walker was questioned by Spann after Spann's colleague kicked Walker in the stomach. Then Spann told Walker, according to Newsweek's rendition of a videotape, "Talk or die."
This was the L.A. police treatment of Rodney King exported to Afghanistan. I looked for editorial comment about this over the weekend, and found nothing. Perhaps an appropriate story might be generated?
~ Daniel F., California