By Ekow Mensah
Four devout
Christians woke up on a Sunday morning, took their bath, put on their best
apparel and headed to the Temple of Pastor T. B Joshua in Accra.
They were sure that the prayerful words of the bushy haired
Joshua would bring the bountiful mercies and grace of God and his only begotten
son on them.
What they expected
did not include death and pain. It could not have included poverty and general
misery. These four Christians could not have believed that the icy hands of
death were actually lurking in the Temple of Salvation.
All four and indeed thousands of Christians who thronged
that church on that fateful Sunday believed that after T.B. Joshua had
re-established his personal contact with God the Almighty all their problems
would be over.
These problems could include joblessness, inability to make
more money, failure to find wives and husbands, rejection of applications for
visas to wonderlands such as the USA and France and how to escape prosecution
for corruption.
Some may even have gone there to seek God’s blessings for
successful exportation of narcotic drugs and dipping their long hands into
state coffers.
In the end four of
the congregants got death. Many others had various degrees of injury and sorrow
and confusion filled the Temple of T.B Joshua.
Interestingly, when
the calamity occurred T.B. Joshua did not invite God through his holy son Jesus
the Christ to deal with it.
He or his church
called the Ghana Police Service.
By the way, where had
Prophet Joshua’s prophetic powers gone that Sunday? Why could he not see the
Calamity? And why couldn’t he prevent it.
Isn’t it strange that
the Prophet of God could not prevent the death of four people who had absolute
faith in him in his own temple?
As a friend of mine
said last Sunday, this is obviously a case of death in the search of salvation.
Editorial
AFRICAN UNITY
The
unity of Africa states is an imperative because without it Africa will remain
in the chains of neo-colonial exploitation.
Currently, many
African States are non-viable because of the size of the land they occupy and
population.
The fragmentation of
Africa has also led to a situation in which, the continent is unable to speak
with one voice on major issues which confront our people.
Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah Ghana’s first President and the
leading advocate of the unity Africa States, makes the point that poverty on
the continent has its roots in the balkanization of Africa.
On page 150 of his
book “Africa Must Unite” Nkrumah writes “Africa, it is frequently maintained,
is poor”. Yet it is widely acknowledged that its potentials provide tremendous
possibilities for the wealthy growth of the continent, already known to contain
vast mineral and power resources.
The economic weakness of new African states has been
inherited from the colonial background, which subordinated their development to
the needs of colonial powers.
To reverse the position and bring Africa into the realm of
highly productive modern nations, calls for a gigantic self-help programme.
Such a programme can only be produced and implemented by integrated planning
within an over-all policy decided by a continental authority.
We couldn’t agree with Nkrumah.
However, the Insight
recognized that the current crop of neo-colonial puppets who present themselves
as African leaders cannot bring about unification of the continent.
It is not in their
interest to do so because if they did their burdensome privileges would be wipe
out.
The Insight calls on all mass and popular organizations in
Africa to mobilize for the removal of neo-colonial puppets from power to create
favorable conditions for the unification of Africa.
International community kills Niger with humanitarian
aid
 |
| Men carry humanitarian aid |
By Sergei
Vasilenko
West
African Niger ranks last in terms of development among African countries.
Information about mass famine in Niger appears every year. Eighty percent of
the state is taken by Sahara, however, not all neighboring states that are
situated in similar conditions are as miserable as Niger. What are the real
causes of what is happening in the African country?
Niger
is a country in West Africa that borders on Nigeria, Algeria, Libya, Benin and
Burkina Faso. The territory of Niger is a territory of the Sahel region that
lies on both Sahara and southern fertile lands. This is the driest area of the African continent, with average
daily temperatures of 25 degrees above zero Centigrade. In addition to Niger,
the region includes other "rogue" states such as Mali, Senegal and
Sudan.
In
1958, Niger gained independence. Before that, the country was a French colony.
Niger's population currently stands at nearly 16 million. According to various
sources, citizens of Niger suffer from hunger every year.
After
1960, the biggest food crisis in the country occurred in 1968-1973. It was
caused with severe drought and the loss of livestock and crops. Famine killed
100,000 people at that time. Since 2005, the threat of hunger looms over the
country almost every year. International news agencies regularly report on
different measures that other countries of the world take to provide
humanitarian aid to Niger. In 2005, a third of the population of Niger was
suffering from hunger. According to the BBC, 7.5 million people were in need of
food in 2010. "Worse than in 2005", headlines were saying.
Nowadays,
in May 2013, Niger stands on the verge of hunger again. As many as 80,000
people are in a critical situation already; 800,000 more are at risk. Many of
these people are forced to eat tree leaves. The harvest time comes in 3 months.
At the
same time, food safety issues are discussed very year at conferences and
summits of powerful international groups, such as G8 and G20. The UN and the
United States endlessly help the hungry.
Photos
of the children of Niger with their swollen bellies and wrinkled arms are
horrifying. One can look at such photos for a very long time without even
thinking about the causes that are hidden behind deadly African famine.
The
first reason for the food problem, according to analysts of international
organizations, is periodic droughts and floods. In February of 2012, UN
coordinators Helen Clark and Valerie Amos visited Niger to draw attention to
the problem of the food crisis. They noted that one-third of the population
suffers from malnutrition, whereas 330,000 children are at risk of famine.
However, the solution that was put forward was not new at all - the provision
of humanitarian assistance. Nothing else has ever been said on the top level
regarding the problem. "We can not control droughts, but we can control
hunger," said Valerie Amos. In addition, the influx of immigrants from
Mali exacerbates the situation. In 2012, there were thousands of them coming to
Niger.
The
uncontrolled population growth is also a reason, international experts say. At
the beginning of the 2000s, Niger was a home to 12 million people. By 2013,
the population increased to 16 million. Niger ranks first in the world in
terms of the population growth. However, if one looks at the situation soberly,
these circumstances only make the situation worse. The roots of the problem are
much deeper.
Nigeris
a very young, independent state. In Niger's case, gaining independence after a
long period of French colonization did not bring expected positive results. On
the contrary, the production of agricultural products dropped even more, the
economic development of the country did not take place, infrastructure remained
at a low level. These factors would be the key to the development of the impoverished
state, taking into account its life conditions. Only a few percent of all its
land is suitable for planting agricultural products.
Niger's
mineral resources are used irrationally (uranium, iron ore, phosphates, coal,
tin, tungsten, tantalum, molybdenum, gold, manganese). Mainly foreign companies
extract these natural resources. Agricultural products are produced by small
farms who can hardly feed themselves. There is no irrigation, modern
technologies and fertilizers are not used. A lot of the country's land has long
been unusable and require remediation. Purchasing prices on food are low, while
market selling prices are high.
The
literacy rate in Niger is less than 30 percent. What kind of development can we
talk about if there are no competent professionals in the country? This can
only be an index of general degradation.
In
addition, foreign businesses rent a lot of the country's land. That is, the
country has nothing to use for the improvement of agriculture and
production.
Thus,
having become an independent state, Niger lost much more than it gained. Being
accustomed to help from the outside, the country was unable to develop and
maintain its own economy. Foreign organizations, in their turn, only use
Niger's resources.
The
country also suffers from the problems of political instability, corruption and
fraud in the government. Here is a fresh fact. In February 2013, the
authorities of Niger arrested officials of the country's Healthcare Ministry on
charges of embezzlement of $2 million from donations to vaccination that Niger
had received from the World Health Organization, the World Bank and the Gates
Foundation.
The
healthcare system of the country is in a deplorable condition too. Few people
say that many people in Niger die from measles, pneumonia, whooping cough and
typhoid fever, let alone hunger.
The
country's leaders, as it seems, are not fully aware of the complexity of the
situation. In 2005, then-president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja, was trying hard to
conceal the facts of hunger in the country. The president said that reports
about hunger in Niger were nothing but "foreign propaganda." The
president also said that "people were well fed."
Every
year, Niger requests enormous financial assistance. This year, for example, the
country requested 354 million dollars (last year - $200 million). About $200
million has been received in 2013. In comparison with resources, which Niger
gives away to foreigners, this is only a drop in the ocean. Grain and food
prices continue to grow, and Niger, just like other African states, does not
receive the above-mentioned amounts of financial assistance.
It is
highly unlikely that officials from civilized countries do not understand all
that. They prefer to simply feed Niger a little instead of building irrigation
systems and restoring land. For the United Nations, long-term assistance is
nothing but donations and grants.
In
March of this year, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) developed a new
project to assess the "scale" of hunger in different countries. The
project was called "Voices of the Hungry." This is a new pilot
project; its details have not been exposed to the public yet. The project will
be launched in the poorest African countries, in particular, Niger. This may
only mean that bureaucracy flourishes internationally. Obvious facts are not
enough - they need more assessments and surveys.
Turkey
reacted more or less reasonably to what is happening in Africa. Back in 2005,
the Turkish Agency for International Cooperation and Development (TIKA) began to
take part in the development of agriculture in Africa. In Niger, wells were
drilled to supply water to farmers. In Somalia and Mali, farmers are taught
methods of cultivation of tomatoes and potatoes. It is planned to assist in the
development of cattle breeding and fishery.
Famine
is a global problem, and it is a political, rather than an economic issue. The
presence of hunger speaks of imperfections of social order. Unfortunately, the
final settlement of the problem in Niger is not coming soon.
Would you marry an atheist?
By Anna Prokofieva
and Vyacheslav Shpakovsky
The
question of whether to believe in god in a democratic society can be solved
easily. The right for the freedom of conscience is stated in constitutions of
different countries. However, public opinion is extremely important as well for
it always has a subtle reaction to the attitude to religion in this or that
country. This attitude may very often dictate its own norms of conduct and
adequate morals.
It
does not really matter what a person has in their soul. It is much more
important what a person says out loud, because the words from one individual
can form an opinion of a great deal of people or even of the whole nation.
At the
end of last century, there was an opinion conducted in the USA to study
people's attitude to contracting marriage with atheists. The results of the
poll showed that 46 percent of respondents were not happy about such an
initiative. When the same question was asked about contracting marriage with
African Americans, only 27,2 percent of respondents said no to it. As many as
33,5 percent said that they disapproved marriage with Muslims, whereas 18,5
percent of respondent said that they shared a negative attitude to marriage
with natives of Asia and people of Hispanic descent.
Then
there was another interesting question: "Which groups do not share your
vision of the American society?" Even homosexuals and lesbians enjoy a
better situation against such a background. Twenty-two percent of respondents
voted for them. The Americans believe that even Muslims are more loyal to the
American way of life than atheists are. At any rate, the followers of prophet
Muhammad received 26,3 percent of votes. In other words, the non-acceptance of
atheists is obvious.
What
about Russia? Students of the Penza University asked similar questions to over
100 respondents in the city. This is not a lot, of course, but still it can
give us an understanding of the situation. The results of the poll showed that
76 percent of Russian respondents were indifferent to whether a person was
going to contract marriage with an atheist. Thirty-five percent of the polled
said that they were not going to approve their child's marriage with an
atheist.
Eighty-seven
percent of the polled said that they were against the initiative to contract
marriage with people of African descent. The majority of Russians do not
welcome interracial marriage. When asked "Do you consider yourself an
Orthodox believer and do you approve your child's wish to contract marriage
with a Muslim?" 59 percent of the polled responded negatively. Only five
percent said yes, which means that the Russian society does not approve
inter-confessional marriage. Marriage with Asians and Latin Americans was
disproved by 61 respondents. Thirty-eight said "yes" and 16 said
"I don't know."
When
asked "Which groups of people in the Russian Federation do you consider
most loyal to the traditional Russian lifestyle?" nearly a half of
respondents - 49 people - said that they did not know what the traditional
Russian lifestyle was. The majority of respondents were between 18 and 30 years
of age - the most active part of the Russian population.
When
asked which groups of the Russian society do not share your vision of the
society (the list contained such answers as conservatives, people from the
Caucasus, Koreans, Chinese, pensioners, Nazis, people of untraditional sexual
orientation, Jews, unemployed, wealthy people, parents), the opinions were as
follows: 44 respondents said that people from the Caucasus did not share their
vision of the Russian society. Thirty-four people said that they could not
answer the question. Twelve others referred to those with untraditional sexual
orientation. Six respondents said that Korean and Chinese nationals could not
share Russian people's vision of he Russian society.
The
conclusion from all this is obvious and not a very positive one. The Russian
society still carries the burden of the patriarchal mindset, although we are
living in the 21st, not in the 19th century. If we do not change in the near
future, then Russian atheists will have to baptize their children so that those
children, as they grow, could have a chance to tie the knot with the ones they
love.
A common currency comes with undeniable benefits. It reduces transaction costs, makes bureaucracy and economic everyday life easier, it eliminates the cost of currency exchanges and the risk of changes in currency exchange rates, thus fostering transnational trade as well as investment. In addition, a common currency might be seen as a soft coercion to improve the economic productivity of a specific region or a country.
But a common currency area also has costs. These arise from the different levels of competitiveness in the regions the area integrates. The most important consequence of monetary integration is, for any country, that it has to abandon the option to devaluate its own currency.
Generally speaking, devaluation is a sort of buffer used to protect a less competitive economy against superior competitors, because devaluing a currency means that one has to pay more of this currency to buy goods priced in another currency. Thus such goods - import goods - became more expensive. And the other way around, goods from a devaluing economy - as export goods - are now cheaper, as they are paid with money from a non-devaluing (in effect revaluating) country.
Devaluation doesn’t come without a price. First, this mechanism makes competition in a devaluing country less intense, hence rising prices and lowering the quality of its supply in general. And at the end of the day, compensating a gap of international competitiveness by a devaluation causes costs for all consumers in the devaluing country. Normally, a small devaluation is likely to be accepted by the two groups of relevant actors, consumers at home and non devaluing trade partners abroad.
The first experience devaluation as a more or less modest rise in prices. This inflationary effect adds to normal inflation and happens with a time lag. These two characteristics make the social consequences of devaluation mostly invisible. In other words: opposition at home against devaluation is unlikely.
The second relevant group - non devaluing trade partners, foreign export oriented firms and their employees - on the other hand, have to tolerate the disadvantages that this loss of competitiveness causes for them. If the negative effects are too strong, these actors might try to convince their respective government to respond to a devaluation abroad with a devaluation at home, in effect blowing out all effects of the initial devaluation. In this case, the danger of a "devaluation race" appears. Taking these elements into account, devaluations clearly appear far from being a patent medicine.
In a world of intense international trade, permanent devaluations make a country poorer and poorer, as it reduces the import of goods and impedes the import of capital (investments of all kinds). In order to reach its intended effects, a devaluation has to be modest, it has to be carried out by one county and tolerated by all others, and it has to be used only seldom.
II.
At the beginning of the Euro the expectation was indeed that the common currency will force less competitive countries to improve their productivity. And for seven or eight years data on income per capita suggested a backlog boom of the less productive Euromembers.
But it remained hidden for a long time that the new affluence in the south was built on debt. Lasting and even increasing trade deficits were compensated by the import of cheap money. This import can be seen as an implicit transfer - with the illusion of getting it back. This illusion broke down in the course of the international debt crisis originating from some US banks. The trust of investors in their debtors, be they private persons or sovereign states, vanished over night.
These losses of trust caused a self-fulfilling prophecy and led to the thread of bank crashs (with Lehman Brothers in New York as the most famous example). The thread of bank crashes forced states to bail banks out. In some countries it added to already high public debts, in others it led to exploding debts. This in turn caused austerity policies and led to high unemployment, hence spurring migration.
That’s where we are. The Eurozone was and is far from being an optimal currency area. The costs per labour/unit within the Eurozone differ widely, and so does competitiveness. And what is more, in all southern Eurocountries the costs per labour/unit increased between 2000 and 2009. This endangers international competitiveness, hence exports - as far as price competition counts. But it must be noticed that in most southern countries since 2010 labour costs per unit decrease: this has already led to an amelioration of their export/import ratios. Nevertheless, two caveats must be made: first, deficits of the balances of trade are shrinking, but this is less due to expanding exports than to decreasing imports. And second, public debts are shrinking too, but GDPs are shrinking even faster. And this so far very limited success of austerity policies comes at the costs of high unemployment and excessive youth unemployment.
III.
At this point one can easily see that abandoning the currency exchange mechanism has a social impact. Creating a common currency area means replacing indifference by cooperation and conflict. As states became guarantors, taxpayers money and taxpayers interests became involved into the Eurocrisis. As a result, we observe a transnationalisation of distributional conflict. It does not replace the national distributional conflicts, but it adds to them. Thus, a complex conflict constellation appeared.
This complex conflict constellation is perfectly mirrored by an unclear discourse constellation. In particular, as far as opposition to the common currency is concerned, we observe surprising similarities and irritating alliances between hardly compatible political orientations. Let us take the example of an article published on openDemocracy. Ann Pettifor passionately argues in favour of a break up (or of a radical shrinking - this is not really clear) of the Eurozone. This proposal is based on illusions about a golden past, it doesn’t offer any serious diagnosis but just mentions some symptoms of the Eurocrisis, and – what’s worst - replaces an analysis of the consequences of a break up by vague promises.
The basic problem of her plea is that she ignores the risk of a chain reaction of subsequent and excessive devaluations, hence a devaluation race, causing a giant negative sum game for all participants. All in all: citing one of the world’s most successful speculator against a national currency - George Soros - to argue for a renationalization of currencies, that’s certainly something.
The people of Europe are much more cautious. There is widespread protest in the south against austerity policy, but much less against the Euro as such; and there is a lot of reluctance in the north to bail out banks and support corrupt politicians, but much more willingness for redistribution than generally assumed. Such attitudes seem to be rather rational: nobody can predict the economic and political dynamics of a breakup of the Eurozone, and any kind of practical test would happen in the case of an emergency.
This is the reason why there is going back. In Greece, the only party clearly in favour of leaving the Euro is the neo-fascist Golden Dawn. Left wing Syriza advocates better conditions for Greece, but by no means an exit from the Euro. In Germany, it is almost exclusively embodied by a handful of conservative-liberal economists who recently founded a new party named Alternative ¼r Deutschland, plus some people like the controversial former German "Centralbanker" Thilo Sarrazin, who advocated a partial or a total renationalization of the currency system in Europe.
One can easily see that in the case of the Eurocrisis the distinction between right and left hardly provides any useful orientation. Indeed, it is a big problem that there is currently no critical theory of European integration in sight: a genuine intellectual perspective to criticise European integration and the Eurozone is still missing. In the meantime, Grexit as a patent remedy is all but convincing. Pettifor reports that in an Open letter to the People of Greece she proposed that Greece should exit the Eurozone. But the advice was not taken. Surprise.
IV.
The meagreness of the arguments of radical Eurosceptics as well as the ambivalent attitudes of the majority of the people in Europe towards European integration and the Euro are strong signs that the common currency is more or less irreversible. There is no doubt that the common currency in its present represents a textbook example of incomplete institutionalization (article in German), causing severe social problems and putting European integration as a whole under stress. But much more likely than its winding up are processes of supplementary institutionalization, contributing to the social construction of the European society.
Mundell's theory of optimal currency areas might be used in order to predict some likely outcomes of the crisis.
1) The economies of the southern Euro countries will improve, simply because they have no other choice. Basically, a transformation is required similar to the one which eastern EU members have undergone after 1989. This analogy reveals that this will take time and needs external financial support.
2) Migration will intensify. This is already taking place: the Goethe-Institut reports a growing interest in their German language classes. Governments in Germany and Austria explicitly recommend people to apply for jobs. At present the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) starts a program aiming at the improvement of international employability of young academics from southern Europe. Of course these are drops in the bucket, but the initiatives point towards transnational cooperation and institutionalization.
3) As austerity turns out to be inadequate, different forms of transnational transfers within the Eurozone will develop. Eurobonds will be back on the agenda. Credits will be prolonged and a part of them will finally be written down.
V.
Is the common currency a steps towards a genuine European society? This actually depends on what we understand as the term society. By asking this question we immediately approach a very demanding sociological problem. In the course of its first 100 years Sociology has offered many definitions of society. But I do not think that it makes that much sense to build a definition first and then use it as a check-list in order to find out whether something is a society or not.
We should rather observe what people are doing and thinking. In other words: Sociologists are obliged to restrict themselves to second order observation. We observe observations. And if we do this we at least are able to see strong signs for a European society in the making. At present we see power differentials, a lot of social tensions and complex conflicts. But for the ongoing social construction of a European society it is not important whether there is conflict or harmony. The crucial point is that these new conflicts refer to a transnational, European frame.
Georg Simmel in the famous chapter Der Streit (the quarrel) of his 1908 Soziologie monography analyzed several effects of social conflict for social integration. Simmel sees indifference as the opposite of both conflict and cooperation, and he states that quarrel is an important step from mutual ignorance to social entanglement. This is exactly what happened by introducing the common currency: abandoning the currency exchange mechanism replaces indifference by conflict and cooperation.
But Simmel also emphasises that the integrative impact of quarrel can only happen within a commonly shared and consented frame. It is not totally clear whether in the case of the Eurozone and the EU in general such a common frame exists. Simmel primarily referred to a consent of values and beliefs, rather than institutions.
History, however, has shown that institutions are at least partially able to replace consent. The Euro is already a consolidated set of institutions, and it is about to be supplemented by additional institution building. In this sense one might state that far from disrupting the European project the common currency is a further step towards a European society.
Is Kissing a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” a “Terrorist Act”?
In the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, George W. Bush stated
in no uncertain terms that “State sponsors of terrorism” would be
considered as “terrorists”.
“We
will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and
those who harbor them”.
But
there is always an “Exception that the Proves the Rule” and that is
George W. Bush himself.
When
George W. Bush respectfully kisses King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, does this
mean that Dubya could –by some stretch of the imagination– be considered a
“suspected terrorist”, who should never have been elected president of the
United States of America?
The
answer is negative: Kissing “State sponsors of terrorism” on the mouth is
not defined by the FBI as “suspicious behavior”.
The
Global War on Terrorism’s “New Normal“: “Good
Guy” Terrorists
Establishing
political ties with “State sponsors of terrorism” is now considered to be
part of a “New Normal”, a humanitarian endeavor intent upon spreading
American democracy Worldwide.
John Kerry concurs: financial aid to Syria’s Al Nusra, an affiliate of Al Qaeda is part of an R2P mandate.
There are now “‘good guy terrorists” and “bad guy terrorists”.
Financial aid is channeled to Al Qaeda “good guy terrorists” to protect Syrians against the terrorists (New York Times, April 20, 2013)
 |
| Al Nusra "Good Guy Terrorists" supported by John Kerry |
Now let us turn our attention to the Bin Laden Family.
The Bushes and bin Ladens are long-time friends.
We know that the late Osama bin Laden was a “bad guy”: “Enemy Number One”.
He is a disgrace to members of the bin Laden family, who reluctantly provided him with “pocket money”, which was used to develop Al Qaeda (The Base). He is referred to as a “Black Sheep”.
There is nothing wrong, therefore, in socializing and doing business with family members of terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, including the late Salem bin Laden and Shafiq bin Laden of the Carlyle Group.
Its all part of a “good guys project” of going after Osama, the “Black Sheep”, and waging the “Global War on Terrorism”.
Confirmed by the Washington Post, “fellow investors” of the Carlyle Group Osama’s brother Shafiq bin Laden and former President H.G.W. Bush met at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel one day before 9/11 (see image below):
It
didn’t help that as the World Trade Center burned on Sept. 11, 2001, the news
interrupted a Carlyle business conference at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel here
attended by a brother of Osama bin Laden [Shafiq bin Laden]. Former president
Bush [senior, seem image above], a fellow investor, had been with him at the
conference the previous day. (Greg Schneider, Pairing the Powerful With the
Rich, Washington Post, March 16, 2003)
 |
| Shafiq Bin Laden, Osama's brother meets George H. W. Bush |
On the evening of September 11, 2001, president George W. Bush pronounced a historic speech in which he defined the relationship between “terrorists’ and “state sponsors of terrorism”:
The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.
In a subsequent address to the joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate on September 20, 2001:
“We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest. And we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. (Applause.) From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime [state sponsor of terrorism].
“Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.” - President George W. Bush, 20 September 2001
Now let us pause and reflect
Bush seems to be caught up in the contradictions of his own political rhetoric, the “either you are with us or you are with the terrorists” conundrum:
“I am with myself and I am also with the terrorists”
The House of Saud provides financial aid to the terrorists. And so does the bin Laden family. Worst Case scenario: There may be a “conflict of interest”.
According to The Washington based CATO Institute (November 2001) Saudi Arabia is a “prime sponsor of terrorism”
The U.S. government has warned that it will treat regimes that harbor or assist terrorist organizations the same way that it treats the organizations themselves. Yet if Washington is serious about that policy, it ought to regard Saudi Arabia as a prime sponsor of international terrorism. Indeed, that country should have been included for years on the U.S. State Department’s annual list of governments guilty of sponsoring terrorism.
What is ultimately involved is that the US government is the ultimate “state sponsor” of those who sponsor terrorism.
The US government supports the House of Saud. In turn, the Saudi monarchy supports Al Qaeda.
It follows pari passu: the US government is a “State sponsor of Terrorism”. QED.
“Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.”
Bear in mind Dubya is asking the question.
And now we are asking you, our readers, the question:
Is Dubya “with us”, or “with the terrorists.” either/or, both or neither?
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