Saturday, January 31, 2009

Pierre Sprey And Marilyn Young On Bill Moyers Journal

Pierre Sprey and Marilyn Young were guests on Bill Moyers Journal this week. What a great interview.

I am disappointed and saddened that Barack Obama has decided it is OK to bomb citizens in other countries.

From Transcript: January 30, 2009 here is Bill Moyers:

Very often in the White House, the most momentous decisions are, at the time, the least dramatic, the least discussed. And they don't make news, or history, until much later, when their consequences bubble to the surface downstream. There are observers who think that could prove to be the case with a decision made within hours of Barack Obama's swearing in last week.

It started as a few lines in wire reports - a bit of buzz on the web - then a story here and there in the weekend papers. Unmanned American drones like this one, called Predators, honing in on villages in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, striking like silent intruders in the night, against suspected terrorists.

Early accounts of casualties varied from a dozen to more than 20 dead and wounded. One Pakistani security official told THE WASHINGTON POST that perhaps ten insurgents had been killed, maybe even a high value target, a senior member of al Qaeda or the Taliban. Then the TIMES of London quoted locals who said "... three children lost their lives" when the missiles destroyed several homes.

Since last August, 38 suspected U.S. missile strikes have killed at least 132 people in Pakistan, where allegedly we are not at war.
Read more here. There is an excellent discussion about how constantly bombing people only strengthens their resolve and solidifies them as your enemies. Winston Churchill and the German bombing of England during World War II and the bombing of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War are given as examples of this. Also, the point is made that the problems of the Middle East are of a political nature, and that trying to solve them militarily is futile.

Later in the program Pierre Sprey said something about 9/11 and its aftermath that I have been saying for years. From the transcript:
PIERRE SPREY: 9/11 was not an act of war.

BILL MOYERS: What was it?

PIERRE SPREY: It was a criminal act. It was a simple.

MARILYN YOUNG: Right.

PIERRE SPREY: Criminal act by a bunch of lunatic fanatic violent people who needed to be tracked down and apprehended and tried exactly as you would with any other lunatic violent person, like we do with our own domestic terrorists, like the guy who bombed the Oklahoma federal building.

BILL MOYERS: Federal building. Right.

PIERRE SPREY: You know? Exactly the same thing we did to him is what we should have launched on a huge basis, of course, on a huge international police basis and not called it.

MARILYN YOUNG: And there would have been totally international support.

PIERRE SPREY: It's not a war.

MARILYN YOUNG: Right.

PIERRE SPREY: We, by calling it a war, we have glorified al Qaeda. We have glorified the cause of violent radical Islam. All that tiny minority have become heroes. And we made them heroes. We made their propaganda. We made their case for them.
It’s nice (if that's the right word) to hear someone saying this on television. I wonder how many others share our point of view?


2 comments - Post a comment :

Anonymous said...

Sprey was half right - 9/11 was a criminal act but it was not by Muslim terrorists, it was by American and Zionist terrorists - those hell bent on infinite war with a loosely defined non state apparatus named Al Queda (the CIA Duh!). Three steel framed highrise office buildings - two demolished with enough explosive power to melt steel to liquid - and WTC7 imploded in absolute perfection. Not the work of muslim moles, but definite work of demolition experts. Why is it that intelligent men like Sprey still offer stupid tag lines to the lies of 9/11. All one has to do is watch the twin towers explode their way to oblivion to know this was not a case of 767's and kerosene fuel. Its time for 9/11 truth or we will be forever enslaved to those who pitch these grandiose lies.

Anonymous said...

I know Pierre personally. He is a charming interesting fellow to have conversations with. He strikes me as having some personal, perhaps genetic, affection for Israel and would have enormous difficulty admitting their culpabilities in 911 even if he were privy to inside info, which despite his career within the military - industrial complex, he likely holds few secrets of import in his heart.

That is why an intelligent man like Sprey sings the "ragheads did it" song. He has dual loyalties.

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