Dear Editor
We have amazing technology today. We can - with satellite technology - not only know or see what’s happening anywhere in the world in an instant and at the instant it’s happening, we also become a part of it as it happens, in our very homes.
This technology makes us ‘virtual’ participants in every event of celebration, sadness, tragedy and terror. The same technology has the most frightening and unbelievable capability of ‘drone warfare’ - an acronym for ‘terror at the behest of a joystick’ – enacted by highly militarized states which licences themselves to terrorise and kill thousands of innocent civilians all in the name of war.
The former US President Jimmy Carter has criticized the use of ‘Unmanned Aerial Vehicles’ (military drones): "We don't know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks…this would have been unthinkable in previous times."
Terror is terror and it has to be condemned in whatever form it appears – be it in Beirut, Paris, Baghdad or Mali. The recent tragic events of terror in Paris have captivated the attention of the world media and its followers to the horrors of terrorism yet an amnesia pervades of all events which led to it and all post-World War II events that have led to and given us the world as we know today.
The volumes of post-World War II histories are filled with incidences of terror and unprovoked aggression - not for justice or defence - but for the sake of licensed bullying, a show of power and military might, theft of resources - be it precious metals, oil or even water - and theft of land by occupation.
At which point is war ‘war’ and terror ‘terror’?
Amongst the many injustices - what is the state of the world?
Syria - completely destabilised and plagued by groups and factions that have sprung up as a consequence of the invasion of Iraq by western powers – an invasion triggered by the lie upon lie of a Colin Powell in the UN and the subsequent timeline of more lies and deception to invade Iraq.
We have the laughable apology of a Tony Blair on the ‘mistakes’ of the 2003 invasion of Iraq on the behalf of Britain, a nation which precipitated the occupation of Palestine - whose people are killed and terrorised on a daily basis with neither coverage, alarm nor shock expressed in the mainstream media.
Afghanistan - which has been invaded by the British, raped by the Soviet Union and devastated by the US and NATO. We have Yemen, Chechnya, Myanmar, Kashmir, Kosova, Bosnia, Lebanon, Vietnam, Libya… the list goes on.
The next time you hear of a ‘militant terror attack’ research its origins and reflect on how, why and where it all started.
Wednesday, 25 November 2015
Sent to: Daily News, The Mercury, Independent on Saturday, Witness, Star, The Times, Sunday Times, Cape Times, Cape Argus, Citizen
Darul Ihsan Media Desk
Published: Daily News, Thursday 26 November 2015
