Sir,
Hilary Clinton’s bafflement on hearing of the death of Chris Stevens in Benghazi – “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate in a city we helped save from destruction?” – is put in perspective by the latest NATO atrocity as reported in the Irish Times (17 Sept.) where eight women were killed and seven injured including a 10-year old girl.
It is horrific crimes like these that are the real cause of anger in the Muslim world.
The mis-named ‘war on terror’, soon approaching its 12th year, has seen mass killing, torture, illegal detention and immense suffering of so many civilians. The US-led NATO intervention in Libya last year, disguised as humanitarian, was nothing more than the west – the US in particular – attempting to gain influence in the Arab uprisings in order to secure the flow of cheap oil and continue its hegemony in the region.
The US Government can easily respond to the justified anger of Muslims by closing Guantanamo detention centre, withdrawing its military from Afghanistan, ending the sanctions on Iran and ceasing to support the despotic regimes of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia that continue to brutalise their own citizens who are protesting for the freedoms that the US Government proclaims to defend.
What better time for such change than on the 30th anniversary of the bloody massacre of 1700 Palestinian civilians at the Sabra & Chatila refugee camps for which the US, in its total support for Israel who facilitated the massacre, must bear much responsibility?
Chris Stevens, along with the eight dead women in Afghanistan, has paid the ultimate price for Clinton’s and her Government’s aggressive foreign policy.
Yours etc.
JIM ROCHE,
PRO Steering Committee,
Irish Anti War Movement,
Sir,
Hilary Clinton’s bafflement on hearing of the death of Chris Stevens in Benghazi – “How could this happen in a country we helped liberate in a city we helped save from destruction?” – is put in perspective by the latest NATO atrocity as reported in the Irish Times (17 Sept.) where eight women were killed and seven injured including a 10-year old girl.
It is horrific crimes like these that are the real cause of anger in the Muslim world.
The mis-named ‘war on terror’, soon approaching its 12th year, has seen mass killing, torture, illegal detention and immense suffering of so many civilians. The US-led NATO intervention in Libya last year, disguised as humanitarian, was nothing more than the west – the US in particular – attempting to gain influence in the Arab uprisings in order to secure the flow of cheap oil and continue its hegemony in the region.
The US Government can easily respond to the justified anger of Muslims by closing Guantanamo detention centre, withdrawing its military from Afghanistan, ending the sanctions on Iran and ceasing to support the despotic regimes of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia that continue to brutalise their own citizens who are protesting for the freedoms that the US Government proclaims to defend.
What better time for such change than on the 30th anniversary of the bloody massacre of 1700 Palestinian civilians at the Sabra & Chatila refugee camps for which the US, in its total support for Israel who facilitated the massacre, must bear much responsibility?
Chris Stevens, along with the eight dead women in Afghanistan, has paid the ultimate price for Clinton’s and her Government’s aggressive foreign policy.
Yours etc.
JIM ROCHE,
PRO Steering Committee,
Irish Anti War Movement,
PO Box 9260,
Dublin 1.
Tel. 087 6472737
Sir,
the reasons for the deaths of four diplomats in the US Embassy in Benghazi implied in Hilary Clinton’s initial statement and now being propagated by much of the western media – that people in the Middle East are not ready for ‘western style’ liberal democracy and are almost genetically prone to fanatic, violent surges of religious anger and inexplicable hatred towards the west – is misplaced.
The attacks on US Embassies throughout the region may have been sparked by a hatred inciting film, but they must be understood in the broader context of the 11 year old, misnamed ‘war on terror’ whose latest atrocity, committed by NATO last Sunday, killed eight and injured seven women including a 10-year old girl. It is crimes like these that are the real cause of anger in the Muslim world.
The US Government and its apologists should confront the obvious reasons why so many people of the Muslim faith in the Middle East and beyond might be angry with it. The memory of Chris Stevens and the eight dead women in Afghanistan deserves no less.
Yours etc.
JIM ROCHE,
PRO Steering Committee,
Irish Anti War Movement,
PO Box 9260,
Dublin 1.
Tel. 087 6472737
