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July 24, 2005 You may think that the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel, along with most of continental Europe, share the same Western ideals of democracy and order. You may think that they are partners in the great Judeo-Christian traditions that are the backbone of Western civilization. You may feel that the Holy Land and the Bible are the rightful legacy of the whole Western world. You may feel that Christianity and Judaism are religions of brotherly love and good will. You may feel that Muslims—whether Arab, Iranian, Afghan, Pakistani or other—are extremists, fundamentalists, fanatics, terrorists and barbarians. You may feel that Mohammad was an impostor and that Islam is a religion of violence, vengeance and hatred. You may feel that the Islamic way of life is alien and contemptible. You may feel that Islamic rulers are tyrants and that Islamic law is inhuman. All those considerations, whether true or false—and they’re mostly false—do not change the fact that the United States, the United Kingdom and Israel are intruders in the Islamic world. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, first Britain and France and then the US have been playing an unwanted role in the affairs of the Islamic world, what with Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt, the Anglo-French commandeering of Egyptian slave labor for the construction of the Suez Canal, British rule in Iraq and Egypt, the imposition of Israel on Palestine, and now the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, among other offenses. The US has been a stalwart supporter of the Zionist invasion of Palestine, having provided over $100,000,000,000—one hundred billion dollars—in direct aid to Israel since its establishment in 1948, more than has been given to any other country. Even that huge figure is misleading. According to some observers, the foundation and perpetuation of the Zionist state have cost the US more than $1,000,000,000,000—one trillion dollars—a figure which also includes private giving, discounts on armaments, appraised value of technology and intelligence shared with or stolen by Israel, loan guarantees and other assistance. You can deny all this, you can justify it, you can claim that it’s nobody’s business but our own that we support Israel, but your denials, excuses and lies will not change the fact that Muslims are aware of all this and feel they are the aggrieved party. It was Muslims whose lands have been invaded, occupied and ransacked, and without a shred of justification. No one invaded the US or the UK. If their response has at times been to resort to terrorism, who is ultimately to blame? If somebody defends himself from an assailant, who is the offender—the assailant or the victim? Who has the right to decide how the victim should defend himself? Naturally, if Islamic countries had arsenals of WMD and trillion-dollar budgets, they might have responded to Western incursions by more conventional military action, sending armies to the shores of America. Be glad that their economies don’t allow them to invade the US head-on, limiting them instead to sporadic terroristic attacks. It won’t do anyone any good to argue with me or try to prove that I am crazy or foolish. Proving Thomas Keyes crazy or foolish won’t change the fact that unless the US and its satellites withdraw from Islamic lands and something is done to redress Palestinians’ grievances, terrorism will continue throughout the 21st century. It won’t disappear this year or next, or in five years or ten. It will undoubtedly last for a hundred years. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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