Bu-lat-lat (boo-lat-lat) verb: to search, probe, investigate, inquire; to unearth facts Issue No. 34 October 7 - 13, 2001 Quezon City, Philippines |
13 Questions for Bush about America's Anti-terrorism Crusade BY
MARTIN A. LEE Back to Bulatlat.com Alternative Reader Index Mainstream
journalists in the United States often function more like a fourth branch of
government than a feisty fourth estate. If anything, the patterns of media bias
that characterize sycophantic reporting in "peacetime" are amplified
during a war or a national security crisis. Since
the tragic events of September 11, the separation between press and state has
dwindled nearly to the vanishing point. If we had an aggressive, independent
press corps, our national conversation about the terrorist attacks that
demolished the World Trade Center towers in New York and damaged the Pentagon
would be far more probing and informative. Here are some examples of questions
that reporters ought to be asking President Bush: 1.
Before the attacks in New York and Washington, your administration quietly
tolerated Saudi Arabian and Pakistani military and financial aid for the Taliban
regime, even though it harbored terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden. But now
you say fighting terrorism will be the main focus of your administration. By
making counter-terrorism the top priority in bilateral relations, aren't you
signaling to abusive governments in Sudan, Indonesia, Turkey, and elsewhere that
they need not worry much about their human rights performance as long as they
join America's anti-terrorist crusade? Will you barter human rights violations
like corporations trade pollution credits? Will you condone, for example, the
brutalization of Chechnya in exchange for Russian participation in the "war
against terrorism"? Or will you send a message loud and clear to America's
allies that they must not use the fight against terrorism as a cover for waging
repressive campaigns that smother democratic aspirations in their own countries? 2.
Terrorists finance their operations by laundering money through offshore banks
and other hot money outlets. Yet your administration has undermined
international efforts to crack down on tax havens. Last May, you withdrew
support for a comprehensive initiative launched by the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), which sought greater transparency in tax and
banking practices. In
the wake of the September 11 massacre, will you reassess this decision and
support the OECD proposal, even if it means displeasing wealthy Americans and
campaign contributors who avoid paying taxes by hiding money in offshore
accounts? 3.
Four months ago, U.S. officials announced that Washington was giving $43 million
to the Taliban for its role in reducing the cultivation of opium poppies,
despite the Taliban's heinous human rights record and its sheltering of Islamic
terrorists of many nationalities. Doesn't this make the U.S. government guilty
of supporting a country that harbors terrorists? Do you think your obsession
with the "war on drugs" has distorted U.S. foreign policy in Southwest
Asia and other regions? 4.
According to U.S., German, and Russian intelligence sources, Osama bin Laden's
operatives have been trying to acquire enriched uranium and other weapons-grade
radioactive materials for a nuclear bomb. There are reports that in 1993 bin
Laden's well-financed organization tried to buy enriched uranium from poorly
maintained Russian facilities that lacked sufficient controls. Why has your
administration proposed cutting funds for a program to help safeguard nuclear
materials in the former Soviet Union? 5.
On September 23rd , you announced plans to make public a detailed analysis of
the evidence gathered by U.S intelligence and police agencies, which proves that
Osama bin Laden and his cohorts are guilty of the terrorist attacks in New York
and the Pentagon. But the next day your administration backpedaled. "As we
look through [the evidence]," explained Secretary of State Colin Powell,
"we can find areas that are unclassified and it will allow us to share this
information with the public... But most of it is classified." Please
explain this sudden flip-flop. How can we believe what you say about fighting
terrorism if your administration can't make its case publicly with sufficient
evidence? How do you expect to win the support of governments and people who
otherwise might suspect Washington's motives, particularly some Muslim and Arab
nations? 6.
Exactly who is a terrorist, and who is not? When
the CIA was busy doling out an estimated $2 billion to support the Afghan
mujahadeen in the 1980s, Osama bin Laden and his colleagues were hailed as
anti-communist freedom fighters. During the cold war, U.S. national security
strategists, many of whom are riding top saddle once again in your
administration, didn't view bin Laden's fanatical religious beliefs as
diametrically opposed to western civilization. But now bin Laden and his ilk are
unabashed terrorists. Definitions
of what constitutes terror and terrorism seem to change with the times. Before
he became vice president, Dick Cheney and the U.S. State Department denounced
Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, as a terrorist. Today
Mandela, South Africa's president emeritus, is considered a great and dignified
statesman. And what about Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon, who bears
significant responsibility for the 1982 massacre of 1,800 innocents at the Sabra
and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon. What role will Sharon play in your crusade
against international terrorism? 7.
There's been a lot of talk lately about unshackling the CIA and lifting the
alleged ban on CIA assassinations. Many U.S. officials attribute the CIA's
inability to thwart the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington to rules
that supposedly have prohibited the CIA from utilizing gangsters, death squad
leaders, and other "unsavory" characters as sources and assets. Why
don't you set the record straight, Mr. President, and acknowledge there were
always gaping loopholes in these rules, which allowed such activity to continue
unabated? It's
precisely this sort of dubious activity -- enlisting unsavory characters to
advance U.S. foreign policy objectives -- that set the stage for tragic events
on September 11th. It's hardly a secret that the CIA trained and financed
Islamic extremists to topple the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan. Some of
the same extremists supported by the CIA, most notably bin Laden, have since
turned their psychotic wrath against the United States. Instead
of rewarding the CIA with billions of additional dollars to fight terrorism,
shouldn't you hold accountable those shortsighted and perilously naive U.S.
intelligence officials who ran the covert operation in Afghanistan that got us
into this mess? 8.
John Negroponte, the new U.S. ambassador the United Nations, says he intends to
build an international anti-terrorist coalition. During the mid-1980s,
Negroponte was involved in covering up right-wing death squad activity and other
human rights abuses in Honduras when he served as ambassador to that country.
Doesn't Negroponte's role in aiding and abetting state terrorism in Central
America undermine the moral authority of the United States as it embarks upon a
crusade against international terrorism? 9.
The attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought home the
frightening extent to which U.S. citizens and installations are vulnerable to
terrorist attacks. If terrorists hit a nuclear power plant, it could result in
an enormous public health disaster. In the interest of protecting national
security, why haven't you ordered the immediate phase-out of the 103 nuclear
power plants that are currently operating in the United States? Why doesn't your
administration emphasize safe, renewable energy alternatives, such as solar and
wind power, which would not invite terrorism? 10.
After years of successful lobbying against rigorous safety procedures, the heads
of the airline industry will receive a multibillion-dollar taxpayer bailout for
their ailing companies. Given your support for the airline rescue package, do
you now agree that letting the free market run its course won't resolve all our
economic and social problems? (That's what anti-globalization activists have
been saying all along.) And if airlines deserve a bail-out, how about a
multibillion-dollar rescue package for human needs like health and education?
Why aren't we bailing out our under-funded public schools, our insolvent
hospitals, our national railroads, and other elements of our dilapidated social
infrastructure? 11.
September 11th will be remembered as a day of infamy in the United States
because of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In Chile, September
11th is also remembered as the day when a U.S.-back coup toppled the
democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in 1973, initiating a
reign of terror by General Augusto Pinochet. Given your administration's avowed
stance against terrorism, will you cooperate with the various international
legal cases that are honing in on ex-Secretary of State Henry Kissinger for
colluding with Pinochet's murderous regime? 12.
If the killing of innocent people in New York and Washington is indefensible,
and surely it is, then why do U.S. officials defend American air strikes that
kill innocent civilians in Iraq, Sudan, Serbia, and Afghanistan? More than
500,000 Iraqi children under age 5 have died as a result of the 1990 Gulf War,
subsequent economic sanctions, and ongoing U.S. bombing raids against Iraq. Will
your planned actions lead to a similar fate for the children of Afghanistan? 13.
What will you accomplish if you bomb Afghanistan? Wouldn't this galvanize
Islamic fundamentalist movements that are already powerful in Algeria, Egypt,
Pakistan, Sudan, the oil-rich Arab monarchies, and the Balkans? Wouldn't a
U.S.-led military onslaught against Afghanistan be the fastest way to create a
new generation of terrorists? Adept
at manipulating real grievances, terrorist networks breed on poverty, despair,
and social injustice. Do you think you can wipe out or even reduce this scourge,
Mr. President, without seriously and systematically addressing the root causes
of terrorism?
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