Who’s the terrorist?

While U.S. newspapers report Israel’s renewed “war on terror”, Democracy Now! reports that Switzerland opened an investigation into whether Israel is violating the Geneva conventions.

<q> … The meeting of nations that have signed the 1949 treaties on the conduct of war is expected to conclude that Israel is breaching the accords, and to call on Israel to respect the agreement on the treatment of civilians in occupied territory and allow independent observers to monitor the situation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The United States is boycotting the meeting, claiming it is “counterproductive.” … U.S. papers also seem to be boycotting the meeting — there is no mention of it in today’s New York Times, Washington Post, L.A. Times or Chicago Tribune.</q>

I hope no one fell out of their chair in shock that the U.S. is not attending the meeting.

John Pilger reports that the U.S. administration is reportedly dithering on who the next prime target is going to be in aa November 23, 2001 article. Vice Presidnet Cheney has been quoted as saying “that America could take action against 40 to 50 countries”. It appears that Somalia is the front-runner right now, ahead of even Iraq.

<q>However, as the Wall Street Journal reports, Iraq presents a “dilemma”, because “few targets remain”. “We’re down to the last outhouse,” said a US official, referring to the almost daily bombing of Iraq that is not news.</q>

One gets the distinct impression that some members of the administration are almost breathing a sigh of relief at the return to war. Or at least they are relieved that, once again, an ambiguous enemy has made itself available to be used as a cudgel to keep the world doing what America needs it to be doing. Cheney talks of war “that may not end in our lifetimes”. A constant state of war is exactly what Orwell pointed out was necessary for a totalitarian regime to hold power. And here we are, having milked the Communist cow dry over a decade ago, with the fresh 21st Century ‘terrorist’ to fight against. The irony of the pot calling the kettle black is completely lost on most of the media and the U.S. public.

<q>Richard Falk, professor of international politics at Princeton, has explained this. Western foreign policy, he says, is propagated in the media “through a self-righteous, one-way moral/legal screen [with] positive images of western values and innocence portrayed as threatened, validating a campaign of unrestricted political violence”.</q>