Anatomy of a Karachi Bomb Blast

Re: # 31

Re:14

hamidmia........that was Chowk Classic......it is historic and it seriously competes with Plato`s dialogues...................only if imbeciles like Masadi had your sense of humour??

Pardon this extra space I am taking, those not interested can pass over it

The Terrorism Hype
By Michael Parenti


The U.S. national security state and its faithful lackeys in the news media have pretty much the same double standard re-garding the question of ``terrorism.`` They designate as ``terrorist`` those individual acts committed by dissident political or nationalist groups that operate against any of the major industrial powers. But they never use the term to describe the acts of massive repression and destruction perpetrated against whole populations by U.S. forces or by the armies of CIA-supported client states, such as in the aerial assaults on working class neighborhoods in Panama City, or the bombing of civilian populations in Baghdad, or the burning of 660 villages in Guatemala, or the roundup and mass executions of democratic supporters in Chile, Indonesia, Afghanistan, South Yemen, and dozens of other countries.

State-supported, right-wing terrorism, as practiced by U.S. client states, is never defined as terrorism, though it is conducted on a far greater scale than the isolated bombings carried out by any Basque, Arab, or Irish Republican Army group. Also left uncounted is the massive terrorism perpetrated by U.S. supported ``guerrilla`` mercenaries, as in Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua (against Sandinista rule) and several other countries, in which the countryside was devastated and massive numbers of people slaughtered by these mercenary forces.


The Larger Terrorism
As critics of U.S. interventionism have pointed out, what is reported as ``terrorism`` in the press is ``retail terrorism.`` What goes unnoted is ``wholesale terrorism,`` the massive U.S.-backed, state-supported kind. By any measure other than the peculiar one used by Washington policymakers and propagandists, the U.S. national security state is the greatest purveyor of terrorism in the world today and has been so for some time.

Estimating only the casualties inflicted by U.S. armed forces or U.S.-backed surrogate forces around the world, the death toll is estimated as follows: 3,000,000 in Vietnam, 1,000,000 in Cambodia, 1,000,000 in Mozambique, 500,000 to 1,000,000 in Indonesia, 600,000 in Angola, 300,000 in Laos, 250,000 in East Timor, 200,000 in Iraq, 200,000 in Afghanistan, 150,000 in Guatemala, 100,000 in Nicaragua, 90,000 in El Salvador, and tens of thousands in Chile, Argentina, Zaire, Iran (under the Shah), Colombia, Bolivia, Brazil, Panama, Somalia, South Yemen, Western Sahara, and dozens of other countries.*

Against the blowing up of a building or an airliner, how do we measure this U.S.-sponsored terrorism? To be sure, we must not dismiss or make light of individual acts of terror. Yet we might wonder why they are just about the only ones that receive condemnation from official circles. The wholesale terrorism of aerial massacres, death squads, mass arrests, mass executions, torture and intimidation, is a function of a rational and deliberate counterinsurgency policy orchestrated by the U.S. national security state. But it is not treated as news. Indeed, its very existence goes unrecognized by mainstream policymakers and media.

Even on those rare occasions when atrocities are reported, the corporate-owned media never make the link between such horrific events and the policies of intervention and repression directed from Washington. The question is never asked: ``Why do successive U.S. governments support this kind of terrorism? What interests are bolstered and what interests retarded when a whole village of men, women and children are slaughtered by a military that is supplied and financed by the U.S. government, trained and equipped at U.S. military bases, and directed by U.S. military ``advisors`` in the field?

Such mass atrocities are not even defined as terrorism, the term being reserved for the lone gunman or small circle of conspirators who plant a bomb. Even these latter isolated acts are subjected to a highly slanted mode of reportage. Consider the time the White House charged Libya with orchestrating the destruction of the Pan Am 103 in 1988 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people. Without benefit of supporting evidence, U.S. officials and news organizations treated this accusation as true-thereby demonstrating that they are not unalterably opposed to conspiracy theories about assassinations. They may beat up on Jim Garrison and Oliver Stone for seeing an assassination plot in the killing of President John Kennedy, but they themselves eagerly embrace any conspiracy theory or fantasy that emanates from the White House regarding nation-states and leaders who have been designated persona non grata.

Regarding the Pan Am bombing, there were strong signs pointing to terrorist groups in Syria and Iran. No matter, the country Washington wanted to target was Libya. Two Libyan ``intelligence agents`` were named in the U.S. media as having committed the act of terrorism. In fact, all we really knew about them was that they were Libyan airline employees, yet they were repeatedly identified as ``secret agents.`` The New York Times ran an editorial demanding that they be brought to justice and that the Libyan government, particularly its leader Muammar el-Qaddafi, be held accountable. The Libyans understandably refused to hand over the two men because no evidence was ever presented linking any Libyan to the Pan Am bombing.



Everybody, Here Come the Assassins
Libya has been targeted on other occasions. In 1981, U.S. planes attacked that country and shot down two Libyan training jets. In 1985, U.S. planes bombed two cities, killing a number of people including Qaddafi`s young daughter. (They were aiming for Qaddafi.)

Another incident of terrorism hype directed against Libya and now forgotten by most people-though it had the U.S. press all hot and bothered for the better part of two months-occurred in late 1981 when the U.S. government announced that a Libyan team of assassins, assisted by ``East German terror experts,`` under orders from Colonel Qaddafi, had entered the United States. Supposedly armed with surface-to-air missiles, they were intending to kill President Reagan and ten or so top officials, including the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense.

The media`s response to this wacko story was to treat it as solid fact. On ABC-TV evening news (November 26, 1981) Frank Reynolds stated that it was ``known`` that Libyan agents were ``in this country for the purpose of assassinating the highest officials in the U.S. government.`` CBS anchor Dan Rather announced on December 4, ``A squad of terrorists infiltrated the United States on a mission to kill the President and his top aides. It sounds like the stuff of a suspense novel . . . but American security officials tonight are taking the word of an informant seriously.``

That same evening, NBC began its report by asking, ``Is it true?`` and then promptly treated it as if it were. An NBC correspondent asked President Reagan if he was ``worried about the assassination plot.`` ``Yes, of course,`` said Reagan. The camera cut to Secret Service men leaping out of cars and racing around the president`s limousine-an image which itself suggested that the president was under imminent attack.

ABC`s ``Nightline`` (December 4, 1981) presented a special on the ``Libyan Assassination Plot,`` featuring Ray Cline, a former deputy director of the CIA, who claimed that Libyan terrorist groups were organized ``basically and initially by the Soviet Union,`` and that our ``open society`` made our officials ``sitting ducks`` because ``we have been busy handcuffing the CIA and FBI for a number of years, and only President Reagan is trying to turn them loose a bit to deal with these threats.``

For the sake of balance and diversity of opinion, the right-wing Cline was joined by right-wing journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave, introduced as a ``terrorism expert.`` He, too, assured viewers that the Libyans were working for the Soviet Union and that Qaddafi, whom de Borchgrave claimed to have interviewed ``five times in my life,`` was a ``pathological liar.``

For added political diversity, the panel included the right-winger Marvin Zonis, a Likud cheerleader described as a ``Mideast expert,`` who said that ``Colonel Qaddafi had a conversation with another leader of a Middle Eastern country in which he discussed very coolly and in a rational way how he intended to go about assassinating President Reagan.`` No one questioned Zonis about his source nor asked how it was possible that a leader of one nation would openly discuss his plans to assassinate the U.S. president with the leader of another nation who might impart this information to others. No one appeared on the show to inject a cautionary note or question the remarkable statements made by these three cold warriors.

The networks did their share to keep the White House`s conspiracy fantasy alive, running no less than twenty-four evening news reports about the hit teams in one month. Viewers were told there were three, five, ten, twelve, or thirteen hit men, depending on what network and what evening you watched. The assassins had entered the U.S. from Canada (ABC, CBS), from Mexico (CBS), and not from Mexico (ABC). The hit squads-there were now allegedly two of them-were composed of three Libyans (ABC, NBC), three Iranians (CBS, NBC), two Iranians (ABC), and three Syrians (NBC). All three networks agreed that there was one Palestinian, one Lebanese, and one East German. Never before had a team of assassins received such advanced billing. It should have been enough to deter all but the wildest publicity hounds among them.

The national media were filled with accounts of FBI agents fanning out across the country to hunt the assassins and heavily armed security teams roosting on the White House roof. In addition, there was film footage of Libyan soldiers firing ``Soviet missile launchers`` to shoot down helicopters ``such as the one the president used.`` Police composite sketches of six would-be assassins, looking like sinister comic-book Third-World characters, were carried by newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post and the New York Times and flashed repeatedly across the TV screen.

The sketches were allegedly composed from descriptions provided by an unidentified informant, who somehow was privy to the whole plot and endowed with an exceptional memory for facial detail. They were distributed to the media by columnist Jack Anderson, who later regretted doing it and wrote that he had been set up by an unnamed ``intelligence agency.``

Needless to say, the nonexistent hit team never materialized. It remained for TV Guide (June 12, 1986) to admit, in a cover story entitled ``Why American TV is So Vulnerable to Foreign Propaganda,`` that the ``assassination plot`` consisted of nothing but wild conjectures. TV Guide then disinformed its millions of readers by asserting that the whole incident was probably evidence of a KGB campaign to use alarmist rumors ``to destabilize public opinion in the West.`` Or perhaps the story was planted by Qaddafi himself, who ``is no madman`` but ``a shrewd Bedouin`` ``who is sitting back and laughing over this.`` Thus TV Guide accused Qaddafi of deliberately planting stories that implicated him in assassination plots against the president of the United States, presumably so that he might give U.S. leaders an excuse to deliver a murderous military retaliation upon him and his country.

In our ``open society,`` continued TV Guide, where ``anything can get reported,`` the press should be more wary of the false stories floated by ``Soviet intelligence sources.`` This assertion was as outlandish as the original story itself. It ignored the fact that the assassination-team fairy tale emanated from the White House rather than from any foreign source. Indeed the press had been once again easily duped-by Washington, not Moscow.

The White House learned some things after it floated the ``assassination plot`` story of 1981. In regard to the Pan Am bombing, it came up with the names of two specific Libyan ``agents,`` Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Fhimah, so that no embarrassment need be suffered when imaginary assassins fail to materialize. The White House also learned that it can inflict more durable pain and punishment with economic sanctions than with a few air strikes. So Libya has been repeatedly hit with sanctions.

Qaddafi`s Real Sins
Still we might ask what motivates all this hostility against Libya? Why has a country of three million inhabitants with a ragtag army of 55,000 been singled out by U.S. leaders and media as a major threat to U.S. national security? And why is Libya still targeted today with oil and trade embargoes? Is it because U.S. Policy is just stupid or mean? More likely, the attacks have been motivated by Washington`s concern that Libya is one of those renegade countries that refuses client-state status, not unlike Nicaragua (under the Sandinistas), Islamic Iran, nationalist Iraq, and communist Cuba and North Korea.

There are countries that do not want to be an integrated part of the global free market system. They do not want to open their land, labor, markets, and natural resources to U.S. investors, saying in effect, ``Come on in, it`s all yours. There are no occupational safety laws, no corporate taxes, no environmental standards, no limit to what you can carve out of our land at outrageously low prices, no minimum wage, no real labor unions. And if the workers or peasants get out of line, our police and military, who are trained and equipped by your military, will take care of them, for there are no constitutional protections either. You give us ruling oligarchs a generous cut and the rest is all yours. You make this society safe for the likes of us, and we will open it completely to you.`` The nations that refuse this contract with America run the risk of being targeted as ``terrorist states.``

After Qaddafi took power in the 1969 colonel`s rebellion, he nationalized Libya`s oil industry and set about transforming a country that resembled Saudi Arabia into a more egalitarian society, using a larger portion of its capital and labor for public needs rather than corporate greed, building health clinics, schools, and public housing, and implementing massive reforestation programs.

Independent, reform-minded Third World leaders like Qaddafi have a chancy future in the New World Order. They do not have the right politics. They do not represent the right class interests. For that reason we, the American people, ought to get to know more about what they are doing and find out how we too can produce leaders who do not worship at the altar of global free-market corporate capitalism, ``dangerous`` leaders who put public need before private greed.

Meanwhile we are not likely to see a swift end to the terrorism hype. Indeed, in 1996, President Clinton sponsored the ``Effective Death Penalty and Public Safety Act.`` Among other things, the bill authorized the president to unilaterally designate as ``terrorist`` any group anywhere in the world-without offering a shred of evidence. Any challenge to the president`s declaration will be a criminal offense. Any donation of money or aid or other kind of support to the ``terrorist group`` will be punishable with ten years in prison and a $50,000 fine. The bill would also allow the FBI to infiltrate, wiretap, and investigate groups and individuals with no previous proof of criminal activity.

With the overthrow of most communist states, U.S. leaders face a shortage of adversaries needed to justify U.S. global interventionism. ``Fighting terrorism`` now takes the place of ``fighting communism`` as the rationale for a huge military state and a repressive national security apparatus at home and abroad, the real function of which is to keep the world safe for those who own it. The real danger we face is not from terrorism but from what is being done in the pretense of fighting it.

*For details and documentation on the U.S.-imposed, post-war holocaust in the Third World, see Michael Parenti, The Sword and the Dollar (New York: St. Martin`s Press, 1989); Edward Herman, The Real Terror Network (Boston: South End Press, 1982); William Blum, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995).

-This article is excerpted from Michael Parenti`s Dirty Truths, a collection of his writings recently published by City Lights Books.

re: Swarrier # 24

Even by hamidm`s stratospheric standards, #14 was a classic. And comparing classics is always a dicey affair :)

Re: # 26
True , true but it`s a matter of personal taste and I liked the musical theme Now if this had Gabby, Moroni and his band of Angels delicately harmonising in the background....... Who knows... ``Mecca on my mind``.........``Utah on my mind...`` .... endless possibilities.

#14 hamidm:
Absolutely genius!!!! Your first post I read was on ``Who wants to marry a millionaire dog board``. It was your earlier Avatar (hamidm). I declare and accept you as a new Hindu god (number 100, 000,000,01.) .......

#hamidm2

I would like your permission to post your post on another group. Sheer genius!!

#19 Kulharee writes <<< Don’t you? I think you waste too much time looking elsewhere because the reasons might be right under your nose. Why do you think that ills inflicted on the Muslim world are not a result of their own doings? >>>>

Moronically jumping from thread to thread and repeating your nonsense does not make your argument true. You know why it is not because Muslims aren`t a monolith, and even when the factors of the Mullah that you refer to are present, even then when social circumstance is different it does not produce the same result.

I already told you this on the other thread. The connection between the condition of African Americans in the US was repeated in the same context and to show your hypocrisy. Both points were well made. Now go ahead repeat the same BS one more time.

Hi,
#20 ...
Man! You should start writing satire! I almost died laughing as i read on ..that al-lah-gab thing!

If this site can tolerate this, there is hope for paki land yet!
Asadi and ed...catch up on your reading please..
people are having doubts already!
Jayen

#17, hamidm2, you`re an sob and a damn fool and thank you for proving that to all of us here.

Re: # 16

masadi,

..... as al-lah says in post #14, he wants you to renounce violence, period ........ stop making excuses and angling for virgins .............

#15 Kulharee writes << Let me tell you what is really going on >>

You don`t have a clue hypocrite. Let us hear you condemn the US killings in Iraq. Let us hear you condemn the fact that African American men in several regions in the US, living in the wealthiest country in the world, have a lower life expectency than males in Bangladesh. Let us hear you condemn that before you talk about literacy rates in poor countries. If there is anyone screwing the world it is first and foremost the US elite, all others are mere pawns that fall in their specialized slot once the clockwork is sent into motion.

Re: # 16

Asadi Sahib, I really don’t know what the connection of Black brothers is to the bomb that went off in Karachi which killed three innocent Pakistanis. You apply 6 degrees of separation to everything. Don’t you? I think you waste too much time looking elsewhere because the reasons might be right under your nose. Why do you think that ills inflicted on the Muslim world are not a result of their own doings? Why is it always Zionists’ fault?

Re: # 19

kulharee,

``Why is it always Zionists’ fault? `` ...... because it says so in the ``protocols of zion`` - the only other book that asadi has read in addition to the koran ....

Very in-depth (there’s another term to describe it as well) analysis. Sure, it is all India’s and Jews fault. We can never produce terrorists. Sure, a country where dictatorship is a way of political life is a result of the society in which such morons thrive in.

Let me tell you what is really going on. It’s a joke that when rallies and protests are held over stupid cartoons while there is no protests over real issues (like the yearly Mecca stampede). Why are there no protest over lack of Jobs, lack of basic enmities? Lack of decent affordable healthcare? Lack of literacy rates? Lack of gender equality? Lack of democracy? Treatment of religious minorities? Because, Mullah is well fed and sends his sons to the West for education and healthcare and other peoples’ kids to fight his holy war. That’s why. Mullha and the Dictators are together in screwing the country. Enjoy it while it lasts.

how to stop the bombing (and other bad things) ............... a conversation between al-lah and gabby

(as usual, al-lah and his favorite angel gabby are sitting are sitting on cushions of fluffy clouds eating peyote pakoras and sipping date wine made from the famous dates of mecca that gabby collects on his now infrequent trips to the desert …… actually he hasn’t been down there for the past fifteen hundred years – not since he went down to talk to mo of the quraish )

gabby (preening his wings with his beak) : al-lah mian why do you look so morose ?............ what’s with the long face? ............. are you okay – i hope these pakoras are not making you sick; you look kind of peaked; maybe it is the wine – it is almost fifteen hundred years old and I think it is time to brew a fresh batch ........... can I go to mecca .......please, oh, please ...........

al-lah (sighing): gabby, you are such a fool – all you think about is wine and pakoras ........ there are so many bigger things to worry about in all these parallel universes that even i can’t keep track of them ............ by the way which universe is earth on ?

gabby : jesus christ ! you are getting old ! ....... it is on u371a ......... why, what is the matter ?

al-lah: hey ! don’t take my son’s name in vain unless you want a good whipping ...........

gabby (sheepishly): sorry ....... i just worry about you … is there anything i can do ?

al-lah: i need to find out who set off that bomb in karachi – these suicide bombers are giving me a bad name ........... did we order these people to go out and kill and maim in my name ?

gabby (fluttering his wings in exasperation): ............ actually we did !....... look al-lah mian, no offense, but we have had this conversation many times before ............. let me remind you that i told you that we should have reigned in muhammad when he went on the war path against the folks in mecca and khyber and anyone else who didn’t listen to your message .......... i know, i know.......... it was all for a good cause and the bleeding bedouins needed to be dissuaded from burying their daughters and marrying their mothers, but we set a bad precedent ................ i told you to send down a verse or two on brotherly (and sisterly) love and understanding instead of urging mo to go on a holy war path against your enemies ........... bad move – all this would never have happened if you had told his followers that killing was bad, period ..............

al-lah : bad move ? ! .......... my dear gabby, i think you forget that a couple of hundred years earlier i had sent down my own son with a message of love and peace – telling people to turn the other cheek and love their fellow man like a brother …… and do you know what happened ?

gabby: they got the message – at least in san francisco !

al-lah: ha, ha! ......... very funny !....... no they did not … as a matter of fact the imbeciles nailed my kid to a crucifix and then went out to kill and maim for the next thousand years …............remember the inquisition ?...... I don’t remember telling my son to go out and burn people who did not believe in him as their savior ........... actually i don’t even remember telling him that he was the savior - the poor kid could barley take care of himself with the jews clamoring for his blood and that spineless man pontius refusing to stand up to these horrible people ............

gabby: okay, okay........... i get your point ........... but what are we going to do about these mad mullahs going on a rampage, blowing up cars and killing people just because they think you told them it is okay to do so ..........

al-lah (throwing up his arms) : i never said any such thing ......... the verses in the koran were time and instance specific – everyone know that ..........

gabby: no they don’t – only tahmed knows it and nobody listens to him ............

al-lah: who the heck is tahmed – i thought we were not sending down any more prophets .............. have you been talking to people without my permission ?

gabby (looking a little guilty) : you know, i would never do that ........... i know better; i don’t want to end up like cousin iblees – it is hot down there and they only serve vegetarian food ............... tahmed is just one of many sensible people that mo’s followers don’t listen too because you made such a mess out of the book – and may i remind you again that i told you this would happen .........now you have people like masadi and mullah omar and osama who are running away with the message and blowing up people because they think that’s what you want ...........

al-lah (looking tired): so what do we do now ?............. and how come they haven’t caught that rascal osama yet – i thought the americans can see a pimple on a gnat’s behind from fifty miles up in space ...........

gabby: if you want him caught, why don’t you?........... you can do anything you want ...... i don’t have to remind you that you are the big kahuna and omnieverything ..............

al-lah (smiling): don’t be silly – you know we decided a long time ago not to interfere with free will and freedom of choice ............. and besides, i don’t have the time to mess around with one little planet circling one little star among billions and billions of stars in one little galaxy among billions and billions of galaxies .......

gabby (happily munching on a pakora): you sound like carl sagan ..........

al-lah (quizzical) : who the heck is carl sagan? ........ was he a prophet ?........ hey, this peyote is pretty darn good – i think you should go down to mexico and get some more before the dea goes out and sprays the desert and kills this wonderful stuff that I have created – you know, i am tired of people killing what took me billions and billions of years to create .............

gabby (sighing): are we back to the bombing in karachi ......... if you want, we can sent down another prophet to tell these imbeciles to stop it ..........

al-lah: no, no ........ we can’t do that .......... remember the last time we tried to do it with joseph smith and mirza ghulam ahmed ?

gabby : well, the mormons turned out okay even though you sent that slacker moroni instead of me ............

al-lah (looking at gabby with a twinkle in his eye): you were sick, remember? ....... but you are right, the mormons did turn out okay even though they killed poor joe and his brother.........

gabby: aw shucks! ....don’t feel guilty – they are doing fine ........ we gave them a hundred and forty virgins each instead of the usual seventy virgin quota for martyrs ........... al-lah mian, that reminds me, we are running out of virgins .............

al-lah (frowning as if in deep thought): you know, my dear gabby, maybe we should repeal the virgin law …… i think that will cut down on the killing and mayhem ...........

gabby (looking a little under the influence): but how do we do that without sending down another prophet now that you have banned theophanies of all type ...........

al-lah: think, gabby, think ......... all you do is sit around, drink wine and complain ........... we must do something to stop these people from killing each other ......... poor muhammad is feeling really bad about this – he feels that he is responsible, even though i keep on telling him that it is not really his fault – osman is the real culprit for not hiring the right scribes ............ even emma did a better job for joe when that rascal harris ran off with the script ...............

gabby (suddenly brightening up): i know what we can do !........ we can put out a public service announcement on al-jazeerah, geo, ary, indus and al-arabia telling the people that god wants them to stop blowing up things ...........

al-lah (affectionately throwing is arms around gabby): gabby, you are brilliant !............ let’s do it !

Re: # 14

hamidm2: That was too good. I am still laughing. Thanks.