Interesting e-mail from a friend

[moe.ron]

It has been over a month since the attack and after the adreneline rush, I'm now able logically think about the course of action that we have taken. The first week I was all for bombing the crap out of Afghanistan because of emotional ties with WTC. I have many high school friends who work there, a couple brothers from my chapter and my sister work across the street. But I have also been blessed by being in another continent and being able to see the whole event from the outside. So here is an e-mail from a friend who is from Ghana:

HANDY GUIDE TO DIFFERENCES BETWEEN TERRORISTS AND US GOVERNMENT

Confused? Having difficulty telling the good guys from the bad guys?
Use this handy guide to discern differences between Terrorists and the U.S. Government:

TERRORISTS: Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful
politician, from extremely wealthy oil family

US GOVERNMENT: Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful politician, from extremely wealthy oil family

TERRORISTS: Leader has declared a holy war ('Jihad') against his
'enemies'; believes any nation not with him is against him; believes God is on his side, and that any means are justified.

US GOVERNMENT: Leader has declared a holy war ('Crusade') against his 'enemies'; believes any nation not with him is against him; believes God is on his side, and that any means are justified.

TERRORISTS: Supported by extreme fundamentalist religious leaders who preach hatred, intolerance, subjugation of women, and persecution of non-believers

US GOVERNMENT: Supported by extreme fundamentalist religious leaders who preach hatred, intolerance, subjugation of women, and persecution of non-believers

TERRORISTS: Leadership was not elected by a majority of the people in a free and fair democratic election

US GOVERNMENT: Leadership was not elected by a majority of the people in a free and fair democratic election

TERRORISTS: Kills thousands of innocent civilians, some of them
children, in cold blooded bombings

US GOVERNMENT: Kills (tens of) thousands of innocent civilians, some of them children, in cold blooded bombings

TERRORISTS: Operates through clandestine organization (al Qaeda) with agents in many countries; uses bombing, assassination, other terrorist tactics

US GOVERNMENT: Operates through clandestine organization (CIA) with agents in many countries; uses bombing, assassination, other terrorist tactics

TERRORISTS: Using war as pretext to clamp down on dissent and
undermine civil liberties

US GOVERNMENT: Using war as pretext to clamp down on dissent and undermine civil liberties

* * *

Very significant differences lie NOT in the ideological plane, but
elsewhere:

Bin Laden's active combatant force numbers in the hundreds if not
thousands. Many are willing to sacrifice themselves for what they
believe in, and they are armed with essentially black market
equipment, homemade weapons and whatever they can capture and use against those whom they view as the enemy.

The US Government's active combatant force numbers in the millions. By and large --especially at the top-- they are not willing to die for what they believe in, they are only willing to kill for what they believe in. They are armed with every weapon of murder, mayhem and genocide ever invented in the entire history of the human race and have a very convincing record of a willingness to use them, not just in one spectacular action but with the humdrum ruthless efficiency of a soulless bureaucracy that handles "tasking" the annihilation of what turns out to be a peaceful rural hamlet as one more piece of paperwork. They view any number of civilian casualties and any amount of misery visited upon a nation's population as the merely inevitable, acceptable "collateral damage" inflicted by the Fates of War.

These are, in turn, expressions of different social classes.

The U.S. Government's side is an expression of the imperialist
system. I assume everyone here agrees on that. All the folderol about Western Civilization and Modernity and all that is either
tautological -- because current "modernity" is imperialist modernity, there is no other world system -- or an attempt to cover up the reality and responsibility of this single world system for what it has wrought on a world scale.

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