U.S. Military Overseas Foments Terrorism Against Americans

--paul prior webmaster@globalcircle.net http://globalcircle.net

	Most supporters and opponents of the war have no
idea what's behind Islamic militancy and terrorism. It's
U.S. military domination of the Middle East, the very
presence of our armed forces in their countries.  I've
listed below several Islamic sources that state this
categorically.  That may be the single most crucial message
the movement can carry to the public.

	It's the constant theme Islamic militants use to
inflame anti-American passions -- the U.S. domination of
their homelands, their resources, and their puppet
governments. This drive to control their resources comes
with a very high price tag. The six thousand dead in New
York was only a downpayment.  Without constantly interfering
where we don't belong, taking what doesn't belong to us,
militants would have precious little to inflame their people
against us. Those countries would never harbor terrorists
against us.

	Those who insist the military must dominate the
whole world to protect "U.S. interests" are the ones
exposing Americans to the risk of terorism.  We should ask
Congress: is cheap oil worth sacrificing the lives of
innocent Americans? And what about the true cost of Bush's
war--the gutted budget items for the most helpless and
vulnerable in our own country.  And what would the grieving
families and WTC survivors say if they knew Bush's "war on
terrorism" is more about controling the oil of Central Asia
and lining the pockets of the Carlyle Group?  -- From
"Making A Killing--War Good Business For Top Elite", my
sources compiled from the Internet at
http://globalcircle.net/1gnn1014kg.htm and "It's About
Oil--Not Protecting Us Against Terrorism" at
http://globalcircle.net/1gnn0926oil.htm

	We will keep exposing our people at home to
terrorism if we keep up the policy of running the world for
"U.S. interests". And the U.S. military is the most visible
and most hated symbol of it. No "war on terrorism" can
protect us. True patriots will see the root cause and demand
realistic steps to stop terrorism at its real source. It's
not about "giving in to terrorist demands"; there's no
taking of hostages, no ransom demands. It's about allowing
the democracy and freedom for other countries that most
Americans claim to believe in.

	Some antiwar groups oppose the U.S. military machine
on principle, and the forward deployments on every
continent. To its credit, G/GPUSA stands among them.

	But the big protest movements always focus on the
current war, whevever it is, while the war machine itself is
left in place all over the world to start the next war. It
happened after Vietnam; it happens after every war.  Here's
an example: EPIC Altert - "NO MORE VICTIMS: a NATIONAL
CALL-IN to END the WAR" (EPIC - Education for Peace in Iraq
Center http://saveageneration.org/ ) calls for ending the
war and rebuilding Afghanistan, and ending the sanctions
against Iraq, but oddly makes no call to simply pull all
U.S. military forces out of the region. And the Alert is
endorsed by "the National Coalition for Peace & Justice
(NCPJ), which includes Peace Action, War Resisters League,
Fellowship of Reconciliation, American Friends Service
Committee, Pax Christi, Women's Association for Nuclear
Disarmament, the Education for Peace in Iraq Center and
other national peace & justice groups".

	Most Americans, and probably most activists, have no
idea how completely the U.S. military dominates the
world. There are eye-popping charts and maps showing the
U.S. military all over the world, at the Federation of
American Scientists site (FAS)
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/geopolitics.htm . Another
revealing page shows current and past world conflicts at
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/ops/war/index.html .  The
Middle East is covered by Centcom
http://www.centcom.mil/aorinfo/intro.htm

	"The United States and the Iran-Iraq War" is a
footnoted, comprehensive study of the 20th Century history
of oil and U.S. interventions, by Stephen R. Shalom. at
ZMag, http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/ShalomIranIraq.html

	A more positive and realistic vision of the
U.S. role in the 21st Century is laid out by Nancy Oden,
Maris Abelson, Lisa Thurman, and Mitch Cohen in "Just and
Positive Alternatives: Green Party USA Statement on the
Disasters" .  http://www.greenparty.org/911.html

	Timid calls for the U.S. military to to bomb more
carefully or just stop the current war, miss the ever
present cause of terrorism. The U.S. is playing into the
hands of Islamic militants by its very presence in the
Middle East. To answer the question, "What grievances fuel
hatred for the U.S. in the Middle East?" Michael Albert and
Stephen Shalom argue bin Laden is an astute judge of what
issues inflame people: "America, he warned, "will not live
in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all
the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad...."  From
"Talking Points: 47 Questions and Answers, and additional
links for further Information", By Michael Albert and
Stephen R. Shalom, Oct 14, 2001,
http://www.zmag.org/55qa.htm#3. What grievances fuel hatred
for the U.S.

	Bin Laden's latest taped interview made it all too
clear: "If America wants terrorism to end, it should
withdraw its forces from the Gulf and end its partisanship
in Palestine"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1560000/1560202.stm

	Bin Laden told Esquire magazine three years ago that
his first priority was to get the US military out of Saudi
Arabia.  http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_422522.html

	Islamic militants did not invent anti-Americanism;
they just know how to exploit it, as Dr. Maher Hathout,
senior advisor to the Muslim Public Affairs Council in Los
Angeles explained. "Anger over U.S. support of Israel and a
perception that America disregards Palestinian suffering are
rampant in Arab-Muslim communities around the globe".
“He knows the Palestinian issue is so dear, so all of a
sudden he uses it... Bin Laden also tapped Arab-world
frustration about other U.S. policies during the speech,
including sanctions against Iraq, the presence of
U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and U.S. alliances with some
Arab governments, which bin Laden called “puppets" "
... “A better response is for the administration to try
to understand what is so appealing to the masses about bin
Laden’s message,” says Hathout. “They must understand
what sentiments he’s exploiting. Bin Laden didn’t create
these sentiments.” Newsweek on MSNBC
http://www.msnbc.com/news/641689.asp?cp1=1

	"A spokesman for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network
warned Muslims in Britain and the US to avoid skyscrapers
and planes. ..Sulaiman Abu Ghaith warned in the videotaped
statement broadcast on the Arabic satellite station
al-Jazeera, that non-Muslims should leave the Arabian
peninsula: Al-Qaida organisation orders the Americans and
the infidels in the Arabian peninsula, particularly the
Americans and the British, to leave the Arabian peninsula."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4277238,00.html

	"On 23 February 1998, at a meeting in the original
Khost camp, all the groups associated with Al Qaeda issued a
manifesto under the aegis of "The International Islamic
Front for Jihad against Jews and Crusaders." The manifesto
stated "for more than seven years the US has been occupying
the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian
peninsular, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers,
humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbours, and
turning its bases in the peninsular into a spearhead through
which to fight the neighbouring Muslim peoples." "  "The
Public i", at http://www.public-i.org/excerpts_01_091301.htm

	"In fact, it is the presence of the American
military on the holy soil of Islam that (by his own
admission) has so enraged Bin Laden... "In an interview with
Robert Fisk from the Nation in 1998, Bin Laden made clear
his displeasure. "When the American troops entered Saudi
Arabia [after Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait], the land of the
two holy places [Mecca and Medina], there was strong protest
from the ulema [religious authorities] and from students of
the Shariah law all over the country against the
interference of American troops," bin Laden said to Fisk in
a meeting in Afghanistan in 1996. "This big mistake by the
Saudi regime of inviting the American troops revealed their
deception. They had given their support to nations that were
fighting against Muslims. They [the Saudis] helped Yemen
communists against the southern Yemeni Muslims and helped
Arafat’s regime fight against Hamas. After it had insulted
and jailed the ulema . . . the Saudi regime lost its
legitimacy." And so began the fatwa against the United
States — in deadly earnest."

	"It’s the oil, and it’s the meddling in the internal
affairs of the indigenous people of the region to ensure
that said oil stays in the hands of the privileged few that
has led to an enraged underground movement of terrorists in
these lands. ABC is tied to Texaco, NBC to British
Petroleum, Time Warner to Mobil Oil, as revealed in the
marvelous media-watchdog flier Censored Alert in the summer
of 2000. And now the oil industry is entrenched as America's
No. 1 player with Bush and Cheney, two oil men (one failed,
one successful) in command... Eliminate the oil, and the
American presence ends in the area; the resentment aimed at
our land and our people also ends.,, I don’t see them
terrorizing Monaco or flying jets into the side of the
Eiffel Tower. The simple fact is, our armies piss them off
as colonial enforcers, much in the way our forefathers
loathed Hessians in the American Revolution."

	From "It's the Oil, Stupid", LA Weekly
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/01/44/cover-angel.shtml

	Mumia explains: "When the Soviets were whipped, and
the war ended, the insurgents looked around and saw, not
Soviet, but U.S. dominance in the region. They saw the
U.S. military presence in the Islamic holy places in Saudi
Arabia, its backing of anti-democratic client states, its
ravaging of Iraq, and its one-sided support of Israel at the
expense of the beleaguered Palestinians, and as they examine
the U.S., they see the imperial similarities to the
Soviets."
http://www.peacenowar.net/Sep%2021%2001--Mumia.htm

==========================

"War is a racket; possibly the oldest, easily the most
profitable, surely the most vicious... Out of war a few
people make huge fortunes. Nations acquire additional
territory (which is promptly exploited by the few for their
own benefit), and the general public shoulders the bill - a
bill that renders a horrible accounting of newly placed
gravestones, mangled bodies, shattered minds, broken hearts
and homes, economic instability, and back-breaking taxation
of the many for generations and generations."

--General Smedley Butler