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Posted August 28, 2002
Defending America in Saudi Arabia
I found your site through a news link from Yahoo.
I just wanted to say that I love your [Justin Raimondo's] articles. You totally hit home regarding the events in the Mideast and I love your opinions.
I am an American woman married to a Saudi. I've been living in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for 6 years. Prior to getting married I lived in Cairo for 2 years.
I've forwarded a lot of your articles to my husband while he's at work and he forwards them to his friends. I'm really glad to read what you write. Simply because it shows that not all Americans agree with Bush's policies towards Israel. Right now its hard to be an American in Saudi. I love my country and am constantly having to defend it. By my husband forwarding your articles, it helps these people understand that not all Americans agree with the government's policies towards Israel.
I am not "anti-Jew" just "anti-Zionist." I try to remain neutral but when I hear first hand how the Palestinian people have suffered at the hands of people like Sharon (and Arafat for that matter) it's hard not to take sides.
Hypocritical Fingers
Regarding "When Puppies Die":
Great article, point well made. We have a lot of people living in glass houses pointing their hypocritical fingers in the wrong direction.
Acceptable Risks
I have been an avid reader of Antiwar.com's articles for about 6 months. Having said that, I have arrived at the conclusion that the U.S. must attack not only Iraq, but Saudi Arabia, Iran, Syria, and Egypt immediately! Hell, let's take out Kuwait and Qatar as well.
Here's my plan:
I have worked in hazardous occupations all my adult life, and as a foreman, I would never have a subordinate do something I wouldn't do myself. So I propose that Dubya ,with his flying experience, lead the first wave with a commando force consisting of Ann Coulter, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Franklin Graham. Armed with Bibles, they will be "inserted" directly in to Baghdad to convert the heathens to Christianity. Their bibles should have sturdy covers so that they could be used as weapons to beat the wicked Islamists over the head.
A second wave will be a full frontal assault lead by Tom Delay (he's reported to be good at killing stuff ), Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz will be instructed to capture Saddam alive at all costs. Upon Saddam being captured, a tag-team of Rumsfeld and Cheney will attempt to "knock the stuffing" out of the tyrant!
This plan is somewhat risky, but I'm sure most will agree that while we may incur casualties, the risks are acceptable!
The Evil Ones
The reason that most of our Allies are not supporting an invasion into Iraq is their perception of why America wishes to invade. America is trying to establish a "beach head" in most every country in the Middle East under the vestige of national security. The truth is that our government wants to take over these countries for their oil. The government of Israel is happy to cheer us on because then all of their Arab neighbors will become occupied countries by the USA.
The simplicity of this plan is only overshadowed by its stupidity. We will go the way of ancient Rome and other empires. Indefinite occupation of other countries doesn't work, just ask the British, who ironically are the only ones backing us besides the Israelis.
Why not work for peace and establish energy needs closer to home? Why is this not even being debated? The only evil ones I see are those who desire war!
Reasons
I am a simple Brazilian who outlooks general politics. I totally agree with you when you say that if the US attacks Iraq without consulting your allies you will experience an even stronger anti-American feeling worldwide.
Here in Latin America we are getting anti-American more and more. In the last years the US lost a benign image that took many years to construct. Everybody is getting against the US. Reasons are many: the Kyoto protocol abandoned by the US, the protection of the American market for importation of goods produced by developing countries, the arrogance of Mr. Sharon, the arrogance of president Bush and his pet Tony Blair, ALCA, etc.
You are right to discuss American policies abroad.
Parallel War
There's a key fact that is being missed in the overall critique of the terrorism in America: the terrorist bombing campaign in Russia in 1999. ...
These attacks have been ignored by all the critics of the official "911" story, but they are very helpful in understanding what is going on. The current US imperial expansion is a consequence of the collapse of Russia's empire. The US is moving into areas it couldn't previously get into -- the Middle East, the Balkans, the Caspian Basin. At the same time Russia is trying to hang on to as much control of its former satellites as it can. It was Russia that first staged terror attacks for this purpose, soon followed by the US. As I write this, Russia is extending its own "war on terror" into Georgia, to US displeasure. Behind the united front against terrorism is a struggle over the rich pickings from the collapse of an empire, with terrorism used as the justification for invasion, and also for military occupation of countries around the the ones that are actually being attacked. One advantage of drawing attention to Russia's parallel terror war is that, since it is obviously the work of their "security services", and the western media were themselves talking about this fact, it undermines the compulsory unthinkableness of the truth about the US equivalent.
~ Charles Lewis, UK
Kwangju Massacres
Mr. Piston's objections to Raimondo's characterization of the Kwangju massacres of 1980 are inaccurate with regard to several points.
First is his assertion that the Timothy Shorrock article illustrated "repeated efforts on the U.S.'s part to urge the Korean government to use an absolute minimum force", when in fact, Mr. Shorrock writes:
"On February 27, 1996, in a front-page article in The Journal of Commerce, I reported that newly declassified US government documents showed that top officials in the Carter administration gave prior approval to South Korean contingency plans to use military units against the huge student and labor protests that rocked South Korea in the late spring of 1980.
"Senior officials in the Carter administration approved South Korean plans to use military troops against pro-democracy demonstrations ten days before former General Chun Doo Hwan seized control of the country in a May 17, 1980, military coup, according to newly released US government documents."
It was State Department official, not Mr. Shorrock himself, who offered face-saving explanations about the US's effort to urge the Korean government to use an absolute minimum force in resolving the situation in Kwangju. This same official exonerates US's part for unleashing the Korean crack troops on pro-democracy protesters by saying
"documents describing movements of the Special Forces 'would not have raised a red flag' within the Carter administration because the use of military troops to control against student demonstrations was considered the norm in South Korea. Even acts of brutality, such as beatings or use of CS gas, were not considered unusual, he said. 'The way they handled law and order was rough,' the official said. 'But we had a way of tolerating it by that time. This was not an aberration or a sudden departure from the norm. It was the norm.' However, nobody in the Carter administration could have anticipated that such actions would lead to the brutality displayed in Kwangju, the official said." (Tim Shorrock , "The US Role in Korea in 1979 and 1980")
It's like saying 'it's OK for Saddam Hussein to gas Kurds, because that's just the way law and order is maintained in that part of the country.' Fine, let law and order come first, liberty and democracy take a back seat. But if Mr. Piston is going to take that line of defense, then I hardly find the Soviet suppression in Budapest any more reprehensible. True, the Soviets never trained a crack regiment of Hungarians to do their dirty bidding the way Americans did with the ROK army, but in both cases, several hundred civilians were left dead and thousands wounded, sentenced, and imprisoned. But just as the US generals were paranoid of how this city of largely peaceful, pro-democracy protesters might turn into a leftist and anti-American sore and resorted to nipping this burgeoning movement in the bud, the Soviets feared an anti-Communist regime right on its borders was taking shape, and the Soviets only intervened after the Hungarian Communist government failed to control the situation.
Finally, I take exception to Mr. Piston's characterization of the pro-democracy movement in Kwangju as just an 'internal (and some extent armed) uprising'. All of the Korean and American as well as other East-Asian analyses I'm aware of characterize the mass movement in Kwangju as wholly nonviolent and peaceful and in tune with the rest of popular sentiment in South Korea. It was a broad movement involving students, laborers, Christian ministers and Catholic priests, and intellectuals. President Kim Daejung, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, was heavily involved. The Kwangju and Cholla-do people only resorted to armed self-defense after South Korean paratroopers resorted to severe and bloody intervention. Even in the most nonviolent civil disobedience movements, it is rare that a few among the masses will not fight back or lash out against brutal police and army tactics; the demand for 100% uniform passiveness is an unrealistic one which Kwangju, a city of several hundred-thousand at the time, nonetheless carried out superbly. (Just as a side note for the Libertarians here, according to my Cholla-do friend, the people of Kwangju actually succeeded for a year in not paying taxes and dues to the Korean central government and managed a self-sufficient economy of sorts under South Korean army siege.) ...
Thank you Raimondo for mentioning an injustice swept underneath the rug and given so little publicity in the US media, but so well known among all South Koreans. Keep up the strong work and pursue the course against injustice and tyranny wherever it may be.
~ K. Park