After
Boston, Washington's Next Moves will be Telling (La Jornada,
Mexico)
"It is pertinent to recall that after the 9-11 attacks, the White House focused on terrorist threats from foreign organizations, mainly Islamic ones, as well as on governments that it deemed to be politically hostile, like the one headed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq - even if that Arab country had never launched an attack on American targets. Thus, Washington provided an answer to its own question 'Why do they hate us,' leaving in its wake devastation in Afghanistan and Iraq, and vast and fully justified anti-American resentment."
American terrorist Timothy McVeigh: A right-wing activist who sought revenge against the federal government for its handling of the Waco Siege, which ended in the deaths of 76 people, as well as for the Ruby Ridge incident in 1992, he detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The bombing killed 168 people and wounded 800.
According to the available information, the explosions
that occurred on Monday at the site of Boston Marathon, which resulted in the tragic
deaths of at least three people and wounded dozens, were produced by devices
that were deliberately placed. They were therefore part of a terrorist plot that
can be considered nothing other than reprehensible. Soon later, President
Barack Obama spoke at a press conference about those responsible, but
acknowledged that his government still didn't know who did it or why. Such
doubts bring to mind a question raised by his predecessor George W. Bush after
the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington: "Why do they
hate us?"
While we await additional information, the event again
raises the issue of U.S. domestic security, in the name of which successive administrations
have defined a foreign policy both bellicose and catastrophic,
limited civil liberties, and justified the spending of billions of dollars that
has failed to translate into greater security for superpower's inhabitants.
It is pertinent here to recall that after the 9-11 attacks on
New York and Washington, the White House focused on terrorist threats from
foreign organizations, mainly Islamic ones, as well as on governments that it
deemed to be politically hostile, like the one headed by Saddam Hussein in Iraq
- even if that Arab country had never launched an attack on American targets. Thus,
Washington provided an answer to its own question, leaving in its wake devastation
in Afghanistan and Iraq, and vast and fully justified anti-American resentment.
Another consequence of the security policy adopted after 9-11
- which was in fact a strategic repositioning of Washington in Central Asia and
the Middle East - was to forget the multi-faceted and prolific history of
domestic terrorism in the United States, formed by a mixture ofWhite supremacists, ultra right wing groups,
fundamentalist Christians and even radical formations of environmentalists and
animal rights activists. In fact, up until 9-11, the worst terrorist attack
within the continental United States had been the blowing up of Alfred P.
Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, in
which 168 people died and some 700 were wounded. This act was perpetrated
almost 18 years ago (April 19, 1995) by a small group of ultra right wing
conspirators headed by Timothy McVeigh, a decorated soldier who had fought in
the first U.S.-led war against Iraq in 1991.
From another perspective, the always-ambiguous
relationship of the U.S. authorities toward terrorism includes the direct use
of the practice in its state terrorism form, or in its advocacy against regimes
that Washington considers hostile or potentially dangerous. Recall, for
example, the long history of terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Central
Intelligence Agency in Guatemala, Cuba and Nicaragua, or the bloody bombing of
civilian targets in various parts of the world and at various times by the U.S.
Air Force and Navy.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
It would be desirable for the authorities of our neighbor
to keep the points mentioned here clearly in mind as they look for who is
behind the reprehensible attack on Boston, and determine the motives for which
they were perpetrated.
