Excerpts from 'Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter'

[barbara100 at jps.net]

Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter 
Why America must stop the war now. 
By Arundhati Roy 
Guardian Unlimited
Tuesday October 23, 2001

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4283081,00.html

[ ]
Unknowingly, ordinary people in both countries share a common bond - they have to live with the phenomenon of blind, unpredictable terror. Each batch of bombs that is dropped on Afghanistan is matched by a corresponding escalation of mass hysteria in America about anthrax, more hijackings and other terrorist acts.

There is no easy way out of the spiralling morass of terror and brutality that confronts the world today. It is time now for the human race to hold still, to delve into its wells of collective wisdom, both ancient and modern. What happened on September 11 changed the world forever. 

Freedom, progress, wealth, technology, war - these words have taken on new meaning.

Governments have to acknowledge this transformation, and approach their new tasks with a modicum of honesty and humility. Unfortunately, up to now, there has been no sign of any introspection from the leaders of the International Coalition. Or the Taliban.

When he announced the air strikes, President George Bush said: "We're a peaceful nation." America¹s favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds the portfolio of prime minister of the UK), echoed him: "We're a peaceful people."

So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War is peace.
Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later, President Bush said: "This is our calling. This is the calling of the United States of America. The most free nation in the world. A nation built on fundamental values that reject hate, reject violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We will not tire."

Here is a list of the countries that America has been at war with- and bombed - since the second world war: China (1945-46,1950-53), Korea (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69),Indonesia (1958), Cuba (1959-60), the Belgian Congo (1964),Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73), Cambodia(1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El Salvador (1980s),Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989), Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia(1995), Sudan (1998), Yugoslavia (1999). And now Afghanistan.

Certainly it does not tire - this, the most free nation in the world.
What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders, the freedoms of speech, religion, thoughtof artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary, wonderful things. 

[ ]

Turkmenistan, which borders the north-west of Afghanistan, holds the world's third largest gas reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing country's energy requirements for a couple of centuries.)America has always viewed oil as a security consideration, and protected it by any means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its military presence in the Gulf has little to do with its concern for human rights and almost entirely to do with its strategic interest in oil.
Oil and gas from the Caspian region currently moves northward to European markets. Geographically and politically, Iran and Russia are major impediments to American interests. In 1998,Dick Cheney - then CEO of Halliburton, a major player in the oil industry - said, "I can't think of a time when we've had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian. It's almost as if the opportunities have arisen overnight." True enough.

For some years now, an American oil giant called Unocal has been negotiating with the Taliban for permission to construct an oil pipeline through Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to the Arabian sea. From here, Unocal hopes to access the lucrative "emerging markets" in south and south-east Asia. In December1997, a delegation of Taliban mullahs traveled to America and even met US state department officials and Unocal executives in Houston. At that time the Taliban's taste for public executions and its treatment of Afghan women were not made out to be the crimes against humanity that they are now.

[ ]




















--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://mail2web.com/ .