Ramzy Baroud
Will the American killing- machine ever be satisfied? How long must the entire world remain hostage to the American ambition for supremacy and its reckless quest for power? Even the dreaded monster in children’s fairy-tales retreats to his cave once he has kidnapped a child from a nearby village. Why has the American monster remained unleashed, stalking from one country to another, always looking for more children without ever returning to his cave?
White House press secretary Joe Lockhart has assured us that the situation in Kosova is much better than it was before NATO’s bombing campaign, and as usual CNN and the rest of America’s mainstream media have accepted these claims unquestioningly. Yet, on the contrary, the devastation experienced by Albanian Muslims has increased as a result of the bombings. Reports clearly show that most of the massacres committed by the barbarous Serb army took place after NATO launched its bombing campaign. In other words, Milosevic used the ineffective air raids as an umbrella to cover his criminal activities.
There is no doubt that Milosevic and his henchmen began their bloodthirsty performances before the air strikes were launched, but it is also clear that the intensity and magnitude of the atrocities increased massively at the outset of the bombing and were allowed to continue unhindered by NATO for most of its 11-week air campaign. Hurrah to NATO! The war criminals are brought to justice and the world is once again a happy place? No, not exactly...
No matter how bloodthirsty and cold-blooded the crimes committed by Milosevic and his gangsters in Bosnia and Kosova, they remain but sheepish students on the American scale of war crimes and bloody slaughters. And there’s no need to go back to the dark past of America’s early history, to the extermination of America’s ‘Indians’ and the inhumanities of the slave-trade; suffice it to look to everyday events in Iraq, where the United States’ crimes have become as routine as the sports and weather bulletins.
Examining the war record of US president Bill Clinton alone (who has been presented as an anti-war candidate during his presidential campaigns), we see that any perception of this man as a liberating hero can only be quite absurd. The UN’s International Tribunal, which indicted Milosevic for war crimes, would have found far more evidence had it chosen to investigate the activities of Clinton, US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, and national security adviser Sandy Berger as well.
While the United States appeared to the world through its clownish media as a superman restoring peace and prosperity to Kosova, its constant bombing of Iraq did not let up for one single day, raiding Iraqi targets of every kind, and killing and injuring scores of civilians in the process. While Clinton has vowed to stop the Serbs’ illegal and inhumane acts, the US continues its medical and economic sanctions on Iraq, which have caused the death of thousands of children every month.
And while Milosevic has persecuted the Muslims of Kosova in every possible way over the last ten years, the United States military has illegally attacked numerous of sovereign countries, holding no regard for international law, human life or values. The human anguish caused by the American bombs and economic warfare - in guise of ‘international sanctions’ - prove that the United States fights its war for the sake of brutality and barbarism. More than half the world has felt the negative impact of US economic sanctions at some stage or another.
It is as simple as this: America has weapons and America must use them. Farsighted Americans may justify their wars in the future by citing the increase in world population: “the US government, as responsible and altruistic as always, has decided to eliminate such growth, by wiping out an entire generation of Iraqis”.
If Clinton were truly concerned with human suffering, he would have reacted the same way to Israel, especially after its recent bombardment in Lebanon, as he is dealing with the “potential risk” caused by Iraq. For nearly 10 years, Iraqis have been dying from systematic genocide. Yet Iraq has never resorted to the use of any illegal weapons (which the US claims Iraq conceals) even though it could rationally claim to be using them in self-defense.
The real danger lies with those who are already known to have such weapons, have a record of aggression against other countries, and have no qualms about using them whenever and wherever they see fit. I am talking of course, about Israel and the United States, who could monopolize the world’s daily news with their endless bombardment of peaceful towns and villages, if the media chose to report them. These double standards, which punish the innocent weak and reward the aggressive strong, are the dominant feature of the New World Order which former American president, George Bush, arrogantly declared after his war against Iraq in 1991.
In the meantime, with millions caught in the fire lines, and with fallen victim of the west’s savage wars around the world, the west was only moved when a few Iranian Jews where held by the Iranian government for espionage. And while thousands of Kosovars return to their destroyed homes to face the dangers of land-mines, poverty and homelessness, the US pleads with the KLA to protect the 40 Jews living in Kosova, of whom only 13 reside in Pristina! Little wonder that Muslims recognise the relative value that the west places on their lives and those of others.
America’s immorality and lack of decency have been felt by millions of those who were victimized by US brutality. The end of the task in Kosova means continuing the slow slaughter of Iraqis. Meanwhile, CNN shall always enjoy the luxury of having a grand-stand view of the atrocities committed by the United States government - CNN is American after all. “This is CNN, ladies and gentlemen... the war in Kosova has ended. We apologize for the brief interruption. Now we shall resume our regular programming of killing as many Iraqis as the Pentagon can afford....”
Muslimedia: July 16-31, 1999
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