Letters to the Editor
bloomsbury
Published Letters: 406 Editor's Choice: 5
-
it's a winning formula
[Read the article: Bush and Musharraf's grand illusion]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You ask, Rahmat, why Professor Cole refuses to face what really went on that autumn day in New York in 2001. Well, it's really very simple. To face the facts of American involvement in the 9/11 attacks is like looking over a precipice and it's a very long way down. On this one thing at least there is bipartisanship. Because the fact is both sides of politics have used this formula to achieve political objectives. The 9/11 attacks are just the most spectacular example of behaviour that has a long history. The Nazis burned the Reichstag so that they could blame it on the Communists, which allowed them to launch a purge of communists. The first people they put in concentration camps were communists, socialists, unionists, dissidents, journalists, editors. Dangerous leftwing elements. All of it done with the acquiesence of the public who were afraid that the communists would attack and destroy democracy and law and order. In fact Hitler passed legislation very like the Patriot Act which destroyed democracy and law and order so the communists didn't need to bother. President Lyndon Johnson falsely claimed that American ships had been attacked by the Vietnamese so the US could invade Vietnam. He also conspired with the Israelis to sink the USS Liberty so that America could blame the Egyptians and fight with Israel in the Israel/Egypt war in the sixties. That all went wrong because the ship didn't sink and there were American sailors who survived - and smelled a rat. Churchill and Roosevelt both knew that an attack on Pearl Harbour was planned by the Japanese because they had cracked the Japanese code which revealed when and where the attack would take place. Roosevelt wanted to involve America in the Second World War and so did Churchill but the American public was deeply opposed. After Pearl Harbour the public was enraged and America was in the war.
Vladimir Putin used the FSB (formerly KGB) to bomb apartment buildings in Moscow so that he could blame the Chechnyans and invade Chechnya to conduct a barbaric war on its citizens, who had made the mistake of humiliating Russia by defeating it in a war and winning a peace treaty that favoured them. To Putin this was a scandal. Chechnya was part of Russia and must be forced to submit. Unfortunately at the scene of one of the Moscow bombings two of the culprits were arrested. They turned out to be FSB/KGB officers. Putin launched a disinformation campaign and the officers were never jailed. The Russian public,like the American public, simply couldn't believe that their government and their secret service would attack
and kill fellow citizens in such an obvious way. Unfortunately, they were wrong. How wrong should have become apparent when Putin had former FSB agent Litvinenko poisoned with radioactive material in a cup of tea in London. History proves governments and their secret service hirelings will kill their own citizens if they think they can get away with it. The real 'shock and awe' didn't start when the US army invaded Iraq. It began on 9/11 2001. As for Musharraf: bear in mind that the Pakistani secret service (the ISI) is a close ally of the CIA and it was the ISI that created the Taliban. Far from being a man who is fighting the war on terror Musharraf's role is dubious to say the least. However he is a fascist which makes him the ideal leader as far as the CIA and the Bush administration are concerned. The bombing of Ms Bhutto's truck was almost certainly planned and carried out by the ISI, with Musharraf's full knowledge. She didn't die so now Musharraf has the army out in the streets beating up lawyers and, like Hitler, he has suspended the constitution. He even put Imran Khan, the ex-cricketer, under house arrest but Imran slipped away. When a leader is beating up lawyers and imprisoning cricketers you know he's on the way out. Ms Bhutto is meeting Musharraf today to demand that he restore the constitution. She'll need a big broom to clean out the filth currently ruling her country. Especially since they serve the American government.
-
stupidity is in the eye of the beholder
[Read the article: The Internet is making us stupid]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the internet really made people stupid the right would have passed a law by now making it compulsory to use the internet. The problem is exactly the opposite: the internet informs people in an unfiltered way and makes them question the political status quo. That's the problem conservatives have with it. Having spent about 200 years forming a tame, bland, dysfunctional media that's wedded to the right, they now find an empty barn and a horse that's bolted. Sometimes I watch 'Today' on TV for about 5 minutes and then I think 'Why an I doing this to myself?' and turn it off. The amount of money that's spent on a show that sets out never to inform anyone about anything is scandalous. Yes, if you want to find a medium that really makes people stupid try 'current affairs' TV. It takes all my self control not to hurl a very large hammer at the screen as they babble about the perfect barbecue and what shape handbag everyone will have this spring. And then some conservative stooge comes on and lies his or her head off and you sit there thinking, 'What's wrong with these people,don't they know we know they're lying?' Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.