In this article, I wanted to highlight examples of the double standards of Western Governments regarding war and terrorism, most specifically, statements made by presidents and prime ministers regarding the war. These events have happened a long time ago and have been added to the pages of history, but the devastation, murder and massacres of innocent people deserves to be brought to attention, these are events that most people will not know of, but hopefully it will open our eyes to the agenda of these western governments, the narrative of the media, and our own silence, inaction and ignorance as to the truth as to what is happening in the world.
Let us start with the infamous Tony Blair speech in 2003 regarding the need for military action in Iraq, in which he stated, and I quote ‘’ the purpose of terrorism lies not just in the violent act itself; it is in producing terror. It sets out to inflame, to divide, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror’’. The irony in this statement is baffling, based on his own words, the result of the war in Iraq was an act of terrorism, this violent act resulted in over two hundred thousand civilian casualties ((that have been reported, but we all know the US and UK governments have a history of not reporting true civilian casualty numbers), did it produce terror, they named the initial destruction of Baghdad Shock and Awe, a city of five million people, how many of them were innocent men, women, and children, and for three weeks they sent a barrage of bombs on to the city, the first attack involved 320 Tomahawk cruise missiles, that is one attack, in one go, so imagine how many were dropped over the period of three weeks, and lastly, to produce consequences which they then use to justify further terror, the consequence of killing innocent people, leaving children orphans, fathers who’s families have been decimated in a moment, is they will want revenge, they will fight back, you’ll then call them terrorists, and there you have your reason to continue your terror.
Moving on to the previous President of the USA Barack Obama, who condemned an individual as a dangerous terrorist due to his assumption that he was calling on individuals to kill innocent men, women, and children to advance a murderous agenda, an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki. Anwar was murdered in a drone strike conducted by the US government, based on the notion that his words were inspiring terrorism which in turn was leading to breeding terrorists. But on the other hand, you have the UK and US who are knowingly supplying the Saudi government with weapons which have been and are slaughtering Yemini civilians, so their involvement in the killings of innocent people is direct and evidenced, Awlakis involvement is based on assumptions and words. I do need to mention that at no point am I condoning anything that Awlaki may have said, the point is as an American citizen was not given the opportunity to defend himself, nor did the US justice system prove beyond reasonable doubt that he was involved in the acts that the US were accusing him of, yet they murdered him, his family, children included, based on no proven evidence, ironically enough, the memo that was submitted for authorization for the killing of a US citizen without the process of law was released but the evidence that proved he had gone from propaganda to planning attacks was redacted.
But let us speak on Obama, the one whose decisions were so morally and ethically correct, who thought it correct to condemn an individual for calling upon individuals to kill innocent people, authorised around 500 drone strikes, which killed around 391 civilians (that have been reported, numbers usually conflict with the Governments reported by the country they are attacking). One of these drone strikes, murdered Awlakis son Abdul-Rahman Awlaki and six other civilians, US army said it was after an Al Qaeda leader, but intel ‘’later’’ showed he was many miles away, what is most suspicious is that US was not at war in Yemen at all, so why did Obama authorise a drone strike in Yemen.
I was reading through a list of drone strikes just in Pakistan alone, the list has how many people died in the strike, the overwhelming majority of them involve women and children deaths, and when it mentions killing militants, it always has the word ‘reportedly’ or ‘potentially’, truth is they made Pakistan their drone playground, if they suspected a militant to be there, then they fired, whether there were and are innocent beings in the area, did not and does not matter.
Maybe that is what inspired Donald Trump who in 2015 stated that ‘’when you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families’’. That is a damning statement to make, if I’m not mistaken, it sounds as though he is not only condoning to people that it is acceptable for innocent people to be murdered in order to capture terrorists, but encouraging the murder of innocent men, women and children, and some would say the intentions behind these wars committed by the UK and American Governments have been a ‘’murderous agenda’’, if you believe that is an unfair statement, then let me just mention the lies that were told by these Governments when they invaded Iraq under the premise of ‘’weapons of mass destruction’’.
Maybe that is why Trump authorised a ‘’counter terrorism’ operation which led to the murder of up to twenty-four civilians, including a newborn baby and the eight-year-old daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, Nawar al-Awlaki who was an American citizen, who was shot by American forces in the neck and died two hours later.
If you were to go back and read the speech that Tony Blair gave in 2003 on the Iraq war, in there you will find double standards littered throughout his speech. One statement he made was the ‘’the death and torture camps, the barbaric prisons for political opponents, the routine beatings for anyone or their families suspects of disloyalty’’, whilst discussing the camps in Iraq. But is it chosen ignorance or the highest level of arrogance to make that statement knowing your allies have a camp in Guantanamo Bay which is based in Cuba just so they could torture without laws preventing them, where you could be indefinitely detained without trial, a place where nine people died whilst in custody (it was found that there were inconsistencies in data reporting regarding deaths), consistent reports of sexual degradation, forced drugging, religious persecution, beatings, torture, routine sleep deprivation, eye gouging and who knows what other inhumane torture methods they used. In 2004 it was reported of the six hundred detainees, less than two dozen were linked to Al-Qaeda, which is around 570 innocent people who were tortured for no reason apart from the fact the US wanted to. Then there is the Abu Ghraib scandal which I am sure some of you remember, a horrific scandal which as an individual you must be borderline if not fully insane to put humans through, but the point being, the US army was everything they said they were fighting against, and if the UK was not involved, where was Blairs speech condemning the US torture camps.
These are but a few of the events, double standards, acts of terrorism committed by Western governments that have occurred not only during the Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan war, but throughout history. As I delve deeper into these stories, the reality is even more shocking than I thought it was, there are so many stories which show the hidden agendas of these governments, the lies that were told, the innocent lives that were claimed, and the benefits that the Western governments gained.
Many lessons can be learnt from these moments in time or periods in our history, but for now there is only one question I would like to raise. These Western governments attack, invade, steal, destroy and leave countries in total disarray, but they do it under the premise of being peace makers, as a government whose intentions are to free the people from tyranny and oppression. The question is, at what point were these governments given the right to murder innocent people in order to achieve their goal, and at what point do we as the tax payers that fund these wars, say enough is enough, we do not want our money to be used to spill the blood of the innocent, and at what point do we choose to stop being ignorant to the injustice that is being committed by western governments, and at what point are we going to do something about the fact that as times are getting harder, we are having to work harder to make ends meet, the taxes are going up, but at the same time the yearly budget for military defence is increasing, so in reality, the harder you work, the more they take, and the more they spend for their own murderous agenda, which in turn is lining their own pockets. The game of chess that is being played by these governments is astounding, we can choose to be pawns, or we can choose to be knights for the oppressed, it really is our choice.
