HINT: THIS IS NO ACTION OF THE EFF! WE LINK TO THE EFF BECAUSE THIS IS
THE FIRST ORGANIZATION WHICH SUPPORTS DEMOCRACY IN THE NET!
This page in German - click
here.
Stop the War - Tell the Truth!
Our call for a digital demonstration
against the Iraq-War.
You may very easily take part of this
action:
- copy this page an put it online instead of your homepage
-
let us briefly know via EMail under
which URL your page could be seen online. We will publish here a list with all URLs that support
this action
- tell as many people as possible about this action an try to
convince them to take part, too. It costs very little effort to do so.
- keep
the page online til the war ends.
- if you speak a foreign language please
translate the page, put your translation online and let us know
about.
Letter to president Bush
By Dr.
Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, (retired).
Mr. President, you did
not tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of
terrorism. You said that we are the target because we stand for democracy,
freedom, and human rights in the world.
Baloney! We are the target of
terrorist because we stand for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in
the world. We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are
hated because our government has done hateful things."
We are not hated
because we practice democracy, freedom, and human rights. We are hated because
our government denies these things to people in third world countries whose
resources are coveted by our multinational corporations. And that hatred we have
sown has come back to haunt us in the form of terrorism, and in the future,
nuclear terrorism."
A FEW YEARS AGO, terrorists destroyed two U.S.
embassies. President Clinton retaliated against suspected facilities of Osama
bin Laden. In his television address, the President told the American people
that we were the targets of terrorism because we stood for democracy, freedom,
and human rights in the world.
On that occasion, I wrote: "Tell people
the truth, Mr. President ... about terrorism, not about poor Monica. If your
lies about terrorism go unchallenged, then the terror war you have unleashed
will likely continue until it destroys us.
The threat of nuclear
terrorism is closing in upon us. Chemical terrorism is at hand, and biological
terrorism is a future danger. None of our thousands of nuclear weapons can
protect us from these threats. These idols of plutonium, titanium, and steel are
impotent. Our worship of them for over five decades has not brought us security,
only greater danger. No 'Star Wars' system ... no matter how technically
advanced, no matter how many trillions of dollars was poured into it ... can
protect us from even a single terrorist bomb. Not one weapon in our vast arsenal
can shield us from a nuclear weapon delivered in a sailboat or a Piper Cub or a
suitcase or a Ryder rental truck.
Not a penny of the 273 billion dollars
a year we spend on so-called defense can actually defend us against a terrorist
bomb. Nothing in our enormous military establishment can actually give us one
whit of security. That is a military fact.
Mr. President, you did not
tell the American people the truth about why we are the targets of terrorism.
You said that we are the target because we stand for democracy, freedom, and
human rights in the world.
Baloney! We are the target of terrorists
because we stand for dictatorship, bondage, and human exploitation in the world.
We are the target of terrorists because we are hated. And we are hated because
our government has done hateful things.
In how many countries have we
deposed popularly elected leaders and replaced them with puppet military
dictators who were willing to sell out their own people to American
multinational corporations?
We did it in Iran when we deposed Mossadegh
because he wanted to nationalize the oil industry. We replaced him with the
Shah, and trained, armed, and paid his hated Savak national guard, which
enslaved and brutalized the people of Iran. All to protect the financial
interests of our oil companies. Is it any wonder there are people in Iran who
hate us?
We did it in Chile when we deposed Allende, democratically
elected by the people to introduce socialism. We replaced him with the brutal
right-wing military dictator, General Pinochet. Chile has still not recovered.
We did it in Vietnam when we thwarted democratic elections in the South
which would have united the country under Ho Chi Minh. We replaced him with a
series of ineffectual puppet crooks who invited us to comein and slaughter their
people, and we did. (I flew 101 combat missions in that war which you properly
opposed.)
We did it in Iraq, where we killed a quarter of a million
civilians in a failed attempt to topple Saddam Hussein, and where we have killed
a million since then with our sanctions. About half of these innocent victims
have been children under the age of five.
And, of course, how many times
have we done it in Nicaragua and all the other banana republics of Latin
America? Time after time we have ousted popular leaders who wanted the riches of
the land to be shared by the people who worked it. We replaced them with
murderous tyrants who would sell out and control their own people so that the
wealth of the land could be taken out by Domino Sugar, the United Fruit Company,
Folgers, and Chiquita Banana.
In country after country, our government
has thwarted democracy, stifled freedom, and trampled human rights. That's why
we are hated around the world.
And that's why we are the target of
terrorists.
People in Canada enjoy better democracy, more freedom, and
greater human rights than we do. So do the people of Norway and Sweden. Have you
heard of Canadian embassies being bombed? Or Norwegian embassies? Or Swedish
embassies. No. We are not hated because we practice democracy, freedom, and
human rights.
We are hated because our government denies these things to
people in third world countries whose resources are coveted by our multinational
corporations. And that hatred we have sown has come back to haunt us in the form
of terrorism, and in the future, nuclear terrorism.
Once the truth about
why the threat exists is understood, the solution becomes obvious. We must
change our government's ways.
Instead of sending our sons and daughters
around the world to kill Arabs so the oil companies can sell the oil under their
sand, we must send them to rebuild their infrastructure, supply clean water, and
feed starving children.
Instead of continuing to kill thousands of Iraqi
children every day with our sanctions, we must help them rebuild their electric
powerplants, their water treatment facilities, their hospitals; all the things
we destroyed in our war against them and prevented them from rebuilding with our
sanctions.
Instead of seeking to be king of the hill, we must become a
responsible member of the family of nations. Instead of stationing hundreds of
thousands of troops around the world to protect the financial interests of our
multinational corporations, we must bring them home and expand the Peace Corps.
Instead of training terrorists and death squads in the techniques of
torture and assassination, we must close the School of the Americas (no matter
what name they use). Instead of supporting military dictatorships, we must
support true democracy; the right of the people to choose their own leaders.
Instead of supporting insurrection, destabilization, assassination, and terror
around the world, we must abolish the CIA and give the money to relief agencies.
In short, we do good instead of evil. We become the good guys, once
again.
The threat of terrorism would vanish. That is the truth, Mr.
President. That is what the American people need to hear. We are good people. We
only need to be told the truth and given the vision. You can do it, Mr.
President. Stop the killing. Stop the justifying. Stop the retaliating. Put
people first.
Tell them the truth.
Needless to say, he didn't
... and neither has George W. Bush. Well, the seeds our policies have planted
have borne their bitter fruit. The World Trade Center is gone. The Pentagon is
damaged. And thousands of Americans have died. Almost every TV pundit is crying
for massive military retaliation against whoever might have done it (assumedly
the same Osama bin Laden) and against whoever harbors or aids theterrorists
(most notably the Taliban government of Afghanistan). Steve Dunleavy of the New
York Post screams "Kill the bastards! Train assassins, hire mercenaries, put a
couple of million bucks up for bounty hunters to get them dead or alive,
preferably dead. As for cities or countries that host these worms, bomb them
into basketball courts." It's tempting to agree. I have no sympathy for the
psychopaths that killed thousands of our people. There is no excuse for such
acts. If I was recalled to active duty, I would go in a heartbeat. At the same
time, all my military experience and knowledge tells me that retaliation hasn't
rid us of the problem in the past, and won't this time.
By far the
world's best anti-terrorist apparatus is Israel's. Measured in military terms,
it has been phenomenally successful. Yet Israel still suffers more attacks than
all other nations combined. If retaliation worked, Israelis would be the world's
most secure people.
Only one thing has ever ended a terrorist campaign
-- denying the terrorist organization the support of the larger community it
represents. And the only way to do that is to listen to and alleviate the
legitimate grievances of the people. If indeed Osama bin Laden was behind the
four hijackings and subsequent carnage, that means addressing the concerns of
the Arabs and Muslims in general and of the Palestinians in particular. It does
NOT mean abandoning Israel. But it may very well mean withdrawing financial and
military support until they abandon the settlements in occupied territory and
return to 1967 borders. It may also mean allowing Arab countries to have leaders
of their own choosing, not hand-picked, CIA-installed dictators willing to
cooperate with Western oil companies.
Chester Gillings has said it very
well: "How do we fight back against bin Laden? The first thing we must ask
ourselves is what is it we hope to achieve -- security or revenge? The two are
mutually exclusive; seek revenge and we WILL reduce our security. If it is
security we seek, then we must begin to answer the tough questions -- what are
the grievances of the Palestinians and the Arab world against the United States,
and what is our real culpability for those grievances? Where we find legitimate
culpability, we must be prepared to cure the grievance wherever possible. Where
we cannot find culpability or a cure, we must communicate honestly our positions
directly to the Arab people. In short, our best course of action is to remove
ourselves as a combatant in the disputes of the region.
To kill bin
Laden now would be to make him an eternal martyr. Thousands would rise up to
take his place. In another year, we would face another round of terrorism,
probably much worse even than this one. Yet there is another way.
In the
short term, we must protect ourselves from those who already hate us. This means
increased security and better intelligence. I proposed to members of Congress in
March that we should deny any funds for "Star Wars" until such time as the
Executive Branch could show that they are doing all possible research on the
detection and interception of weapons of mass destruction entering the country
clandestinely (a far greater threat than ballistic missiles). There are lots of
steps which can be taken to increase security without detracting from civil
rights. But in the long term, we must change our policies to stop causing the
fear and hatred which creates new terrorists. Becoming independent of foreign
oil through conservation, energy efficiency, production of energy from renewable
sources, and a transition to non-polluting transportation will allow us to adopt
a more rational policy toward the Middle East.
The vast majority of
Arabs and Muslims are good, peaceful people. But enough of them, in their
desperation and anger and fear, have turned first to Arafat and now to bin Laden
to relieve their misery. Remove the desperation, give them some hope, and
support for terrorism will evaporate. At that point Bin Laden will be forced to
abandon terrorism (as has Arafat) or be treated like a common criminal. Either
way, he and his money cease to be a threat. We CAN have security ... or we can
have revenge. We cannot have both.
Dr. Robert Bowman was leading all
the "Star Wars"-programms under President Ford and President Carter. He was a
pilot and flew 101 attacks in Vietnam. He wrote a dissertation in aeronautic and
nuclear technology at Caltech. He is President of the Institute of Space and
Safety Studies and Chief Archbishop of the United Catholic Church.