The biggest scaremongers regarding the threat from terrorism are themselves promoting terrorism.
Don't believe me?
Well, Pulitzer-prize winning investigative reporter Seymour Hersh says that the Bush administration (and especially Dick Cheney) helped to fund groups which the U.S. claims are terrorists (see confirming articles here and here).
And as the New York Times, Washington Post and others are reporting, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former national security adviser Fran Townsend and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey - who all said that the terrorists were going to get us if we didn't jettison the liberties granted under the Bill of Rights - are now supporting terrorists in Iran.
If you've forgotten how shrill these folks were, here's some background on Giulani (and see this), Ridge, Townsend and Mukasey (and see this and this).
As Raw Story reports today:
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former national security adviser Fran Townsend and former Attorney General Michael Mukasey all attended a forum organized by supporters of Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK).
The MEK is a communist group that helped Saddam Hussein carry out attacks against Iraq's Shiite population in the 1990s. The group attacked Americans in Iran in the 1980s and helped with the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran.
The US designated the MEK a foreign terrorist organization in January 2009.
Giuliani and the former Bush officials, however, sided with the group due to their opposition to the current Iranian regime.
"Appeasement of dictators leads to war, destruction and the loss of human lives," Giuliani told the forum. "For your organization to be described as a terrorist organization is just really a disgrace."
"The United States should not just be on your side," he said. "It should be enthusiastically on your side. You want the same things we want."
"If the United States truly wants to put pressure on the Iranian regime, it takes more than talk and it takes more than sanctions," Townsend declared.
Georgetown University law professor and attorney David Cole believes that under US law, the group of conservatives may have gone too far.
"The problem is that the United States government has labeled the Mujahedeen Khalq a 'foreign terrorist organization,' making it a crime to provide it, directly or indirectly, with any material support," he wrote in Monday's edition of the New York Times. "It is therefore a felony, the government has argued, to file an amicus brief on behalf of a 'terrorist' group, to engage in public advocacy to challenge a group’s 'terrorist' designation or even to encourage peaceful avenues for redress of grievances."
The Supreme Court has ruled that any "advocacy performed in coordination with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist organization" is a crime.
And see this.
Does American exceptionalism mean that terrorism is okay when we promote it? Some in government have been acting as if they believe so.
In 1965 MEK was formed by a group of Iranian college students as an Islamic political movement. Grounded in the democratic tradition
ReplyDeleteThe MEK is in favour of," Iran’s Constitutional Revolution, the ideals of Premier Mohammed Mossadeq, and the pro-democracy protests of the 1960s, the organization held a liberal interpretation of Islam.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_Mujahedin_of_Iran
In other words, The MEK is NOT a communist group.
This may be a case where "the enemy of my enemy is my friend", albeit indirectly.
ReplyDeleteIn international politics, things are not black and white, and definitely do not conform well to absolute principles. Still a bit of a stretch to say that by supporting the Saudi government, the United States is supporting the terrorists against whom we're currently engaged.
Does American exceptionalism mean that terrorism is okay when we promote it?
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure how you have the right to even ask this question, you are either with Amerika or you're one of them. Hell even the surpemes are on board as they should be if they know what good for them.
Sad but nothing will become of this because with the new repugs in office, demodogs slaves of the corp. empire and o reading up on ronnie-ray-gunn the good ship Amerika is going down. It will be taking the teabaggers and the neoleft with it and the hell with the citizens of this nation and others that feel the effect of the fall of the empire.
George Washington was a terrorist.
ReplyDelete