Where are We Headed?
by Brian Wood
9/23/01
* Brian, a CCMEP member, has been living in the West Bank since May of this year. To read all his columns, go to: www.ccmep.org/brianwood/main.html
A nation mourns while preparing to strike back at those who caused the injury. The US military is being shifted and mobilized in preparation to attack, someone or something. According to President Bush, the US will attack, "those we feel are responsible" for these attacks. Such language makes the link doubtful between those the US intends to invade and the perpetrators of the attack.
Pakistan is in uproar since many citizens of the country do not agree with their government's decision to cooperate with the US. Surely if Pakistan had not been crippled financially by US sanctions over the last three years they would not be so easily purchased by the US now. For improved economic conditions, promised by the US government in exchange for Pakistan's cooperation, the civil fabric of the country is unraveling. The US may acquire important assistance from Pakistan; though in the same breath will increase anger inside Pakistan towards the US.
In Afghanistan, one of the most impoverished nations on the earth and in the midst of civil war, most foreign aid workers have left due to anticipated attacks by the US. 5.5 million Afghanis depend on food given by these international agencies. Their supplies will be gone any day now. Maybe the US will apprehend or assassinate their suspect in military strikes, but average Afghani people who don't starve to death will surely be more angry at the US for the humanitarian crisis we are creating.
US officials are now saying that Iraq is linked to the attacks. Through sanctions on Iraq, 7000 children die every month for lack of food and medical supplies. 1.5 million Iraqi citizens have died for these reasons and the continued monthly bombing campaign by US and British warplanes since the Gulf war ended. It is imaginable that because of these factors, positive sentiment towards the US is not high. Attacking Iraq will not improve this feeling or the humanitarian crisis we have created there.
Since President Bush came into office, the Palestinians have been urgently pleading with him and his administration for help in resisting the brutal and dehumanizing Israeli occupation. Bush has chosen to defer the situation to the Israelis and Palestinians themselves. Due to enormous power gaps, this translates into the 60-plus assassinations of Palestinian political leaders, the killing of over 700 Palestinians-mostly civilians-and 35,000 Palestinian injuries, just in the last year. Now that Bush is trying to build a coalition to "fight terrorism" he needs Arab governments to be involved. They remind him that his government gives more than $3 billion a year to Israel, who is using that money to destroy Palestinian society. As self-interest in the Palestinian question no consumes President Bush, suddenly he gets involved and Israeli tanks withdraw from Palestinian-controlled areas. Such hypocrisy will not create positive sentiment in Palestine towards the US.
Top officials at the Pentagon have made their intentions clear that they want "entire states who sponsor terrorism" wiped from the map. Congress has played their part, voting nearly unanimously to give the President their full backing for whatever actions he decides are appropriate. Let us offer a warning now, that such rhetoric, if acted upon, will constitute a state-ordered act of terrorism much worse that what took place in the US.
These are a few examples of how we have made problems for ourselves. If we continue to fail to consider economic sanctions and political ostracization as equal to the attacks in the US, we will continue to create the rage that produced these attacks.
Many people in the US wonder-amidst calls for violent military retaliation against someone-why these attacks have occurred. For these people, the attacks stand as a warning to end their indifference to US foreign policy and the usage of their tax dollars. Citizens of the US must begin to see that it is often our tax dollars that act as hijacked places that crash into buildings full of people, causing huge losses of life around the world.