On August 20th President Clinton launched scores of Tomahawk cruise missiles against alleged terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan. Without congressional consultation or approval, the president made his move. Officials in the Administration said that the bombing was necessary since they believed more embassies were going to be hit by terrorist bombs in the near future. None of the evidence for that belief was shared in the public announcement. The terrorist facilities hit were allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden, a Saudi who they suspect of financing major terrorist operations around the world and who is linked, administration officials claim, to the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. While the reasonableness of the U.S. attack may be acknowleged by many governments in regards to the terrorist base in the mountains of its host country, the U.S. action against a pharmaceutical company in Sudan has raised the anger of most nations in the region.
This facility hit by U.S. forces was the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant located in northeast Khartoum in Sudan. When the Shifa Company for Pharmaceutical Industries opened, the country's health minister, Ihsan el Ghabsawi, heralded it as a lifesaver. Two local businessmen put up the funding to build the North Khartoum complex which was valued at $27 million. It was capable of purifying and distilling water, producing drugs that fight tuberculosis, and manufacturing different types of medicines for humans and animals. In his remarks the health minister said this factory would help this struggling Third World country produce seventy percent of the country's needs of drugs. That remark was made before U.S. missiles razed the complex to the ground.
The United Nations confirmed that it had contracted the Al-Shifa plant to supply 100,000 liters of veterinary pharmaceuticals for Iraq under the oil-for-food program. U.N. officials stated that the pharmaceuticals were never delivered. Now they never will be.
American officials did not know for sure what the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant had produced, but national security officials believed that the plant was capable of producing more harmful agents. Administration officials did not point out that any chemical plant on earth has the capacity to produce more harmful agents. This statement, as it appears to many, was made to help create public opinion in favor of the attack, even though no substantial evidence was presented that the plant was producing any of these so-called harmful agents.
The Washington Times reported this morning that National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger stated:
"we have physical evidence" linking the pharmaceuticals plant that U.S. cruise missiles destroyed in Sudan to chemical weapons. "There is no question in my mind ... that factory was used to create a chemical that was used in the manufacture of VX nerve gas," he said on CNN's "Late Edition." "We have physical evidence of that fact," which is highly classified, "but we are not going to release it," he said.
In an interview on CNN, Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail denied that the factory was involved in the production of chemical-weapons components and invited a commission of inquiry to visit Khartoum and investigate the matter.
"We don't even mind that an American delegation comes with a respected personality like President Carter or a delegation from Congress," he said.
"We want the American people and the American administration also, if they are in doubt, to come.
Sudan's president Omar el-Bashir strongly protested this act of terrorism perpetrated by Americans on the sovereign state of Sudan. He is pressing hard to show the world that the only thing America took out was a pharmaceutical factory that produced half of the country's medicine supply. Its main products were drugs used to combat malaria and tuberculosis. The president went on to say that Sudan would launch a complaint with the United Nations since the U.S. violated international law in its attack on a sovereign nation.
Others were equally outraged. Scores of Sudanese prayed at the city's mosques. The American flag was burned and Clinton was burned in effigy. The crowds that surrounded the embassy in Sudan chanted, "Down, down USA." "Clinton and America will have to pay," said el-Bashir. "We will not be bullied by Americans." The president of Sudan stated he would be opening all training camps for volunteers in the national militia. This move is reminiscent of the actions taken by American militias in the wake of the Waco attack by government agents.
Shortly after Thursday's attack, Sudanese demonstrators stormed the empty U.S. Embassy compound in Khartoum, pulling down the American flag to protest the attack. An unnamed woman who worked at the plant stated, "Are these people crazy? Do you think this is really a weapons factory? A large group of other women protested outside the factory gate shouting, "America should be destroyed!" A small number of Sudanese men demonstrated as well shouting, "Oh, Clinton, you coward!"
Sudanese government officials said at least seven workers at the factory were injured and some workers still were unaccounted for and could be beneath the rubble. It was reported that this would include the janitor and his family.
President Yeltsin was outraged at this "act of terrorism." He spoke from the Arctic city of Murmansk when he said, "My attitude is indeed negative as it would be to any act of terrorism, military interference, failure to solve a problem through talks. I am outraged and I denounce this." His anger was also leveled at Clinton's unilateral aggression without any counsel or agreement from him or any other country. Clinton was also criticized in Congress for his actions without any congressional approval or even rudimentary consultation. It is becoming more and more evident to some that Mr. Clinton sees himself in the role of a dictator--one in whom no outside counsel is required or desired.
Interior Minister Abdul Rahim Mohammed Hussein told CNN in a telephone interview that the privately owned pharmaceutical firm had "nothing to do with chemical weapons." "We have no chemical weapons factory in our country."
A large number of people worldwide suspect that Clinton took the action to divert public attention from his most recent scandals. A statement coming from the Sudanese Embassy in Nairobi said, "The timing was chosen to serve the wish of a sexual pervert and maniac to divert attention away from his crumbling credibility and reputation."
In New York, the Sudanese ambassador said Sudan will ask the Security Council to hold informal consultations on the missile strikes which Khartoum has called a breach of international law.
The American government is being perceived as more and more unstable in the light of scandal and unjust reprisals. Some wonder if the president's "terrible misjudgment " is moving into the political realm. Americans more and more are being guided by emotion and passion rather than sound judgment and Clinton seems well suited to lead that sort of mentality.
President Clinton lashed out in his righteous cause last week when he stated, "Let our actions today send this message loud and clear, there are no expendable American targets....There will be no sanctuary for terrorists. We will defend our people, our interests and our values." The president did not specify what those values were that he was protecting, neither did he specify which interests were being protected. The most recent activities regarding the president in the White House are the values the president is protecting, or so it seems to the Sudanese. The Sudanese do not consider current American values worth protecting if the president is a representative of those values.
So as not to alarm Muslims awake, Clinton was quick to make the point that his unilateral attack was not against Islam. He said, "Our actions today were not aimed at Islam," he said. "No religion condones the murder of innocent men, women and children." No mention was made concerning the killing of innocent men, women and children that may have died in the American attack on Sudan.
Earlier Sudan's Information Minister, Ghazi Salah-Eddin, said the U.S. attack on a pharmaceutical plant in the capital was "a criminal act" against the country. Indeed, this is an accurate charge since international law was broken. Not only did the president break national law in regards to his court deposition, he is breaking national and international law in regards to his private war. While the media is supportive and broadly spreads that opinion around, many individuals have grave concerns for the stability of the "lawless one." When men avoid the rule of law, they are capable of any atrocity. Clinton has shown himself quite able in making wicked deeds seem reasonable enough. This frightens many who have learned from the past. If the president of the United States shows himself insensitive to human beings around the world by his indiscriminate use of force and when he shows himself immoral and unlawful in his own nation, how is it that he can require the honor and integrity of his own citizens? How can he lay a charge against Timothy McVeigh or the Unabomber when he is perceived as doing the same things to others around the world? If the citizens of the United States operated on the same principles as the President of the United States, they would be imprisioned immediately for life or suffer the death penalty. He has stated so himself many times, one should not take the law into his own hands. It is evident that this is precisely and increasingly what Mr. Clinton is doing.
The outrage from this attack is reminiscent of the outrage expressed over the bombing of an Iraqi bomb shelter in Baghdad by American planes during the Gulf War. Administration officials at the time charged that the bomb shelter was a secret weapons facility. The American government has lost credibility in recent years for its many so-called mistakes. Most recently there was a good deal of noise concerning Saddam's weapons of mass destruction stored in his palaces. None were found. It is amazing with all of our modern detection methods and spy satellites we cannot find where these folks hide all of their weapons of mass destruction. If they cannot be found, how could they ever be used?
In regards to the raid in Sudan the Foreign Minister stated, "We will keep the place (factory) as it is. It is very, very important that the international community, the American, European and Sudanese people know whether the American claims are right or wrong." Some are not so willing to concede that this will prove anything, however, since the Clinton crowd will claim the Sudanese snuck away with the weapons of mass destruction before anyone inspected the remains of the building. The fear being engendered in national policy is that the Middle East has huge quantities of weapons of mass destruction secreted away in palaces and tents. It's just that nobody knows where they are.
National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger reports that he has evidence but he will not show it. That is analogous to finding a murder weapon but not showing it to anyone. Sudan has been arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced but the evidence for the crime is being kept secret. This scenario would never hold in a court of law. American intelligence has not been seen as particularly honest in recent years. Was the evidence that no one will show faked? And if the evidence could be shown to be genuine, how would that justify a missile attack on a sovereign state without a state of war existing and without congressional approval? Would not the process of law be used by civilized societies? The other question that arises is concerning the chemical itself. Is this alleged chemical, which is being kept secret, produced in any other country in the world? Were any of these other countries subjected to a missile attack?
There are other things which are occurring to some observers internationally. The head of the Sudanese Student's Federation Hamdi Hassan said, "America's Arab friends and the head of the snake, Israel, are deceiving Clinton and the Americans into becoming enemies of Muslims." Whether Clinton is deceived or not remains to be seen. He may know very well what he is up to, but the perception worldwide by many is that something other than terrorism is the reason for Clinton's aggression against Muslims. The Muslim religion is seen as fundamental and world forces are working to break all fundamental religions including Christianity. Sunday, August 23rd, 60 Minutes presented a segment which focused primarily on the degradation of Islamic beliefs in Afghanistan -- at least those beliefs as practiced by fundamentalists. Another segment presented the image of the Palestinian suicide bombers. All of this contributed to the fact that there is a national information war on against the Muslim religion. This is denied as so many government policies are these days but, nonetheless, this policy is real.
Some charge that Israeli influence is behind the work of causing both Muslim and Christian nations to attack and destroy each other, therefore, taking care of the problem on both sides. Some sources even blame the current struggles between Christians in Northern Ireland as being agitated by outside forces for the purpose of bringing religious fundamentalists to their knees.
As the facts continue to emerge, serious questions are arising. Salah-Eddin called the missile strike "a criminal and telling act" because "the American government was not able to prove who carried out the attacks on its embassies." This charge is not without basis. The Associated Press quoted FBI Director Louis Freeh as saying he had come to "no final conclusions" about who bombed two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Freeh curtailed his visit a day after U.S. strikes on targets in Afghanistan and Sudan that Clinton administration officials said were linked to Saudi militant Osama bin Laden. They did not specify what those links were. It is evident that whatever Osama bin Laden benevolently donated money to is being treated as a link. It is not yet explained how the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation has the authority to raid a relief agency in Nairobi. FBI agents and Kenyan police raided the Nairobi offices of a Saudi Arabian charity, the Mercy International Relief Agency, yesterday, hauling away documents, computers and cash, an employee said. Perhaps this raiding of charities and relief agencies is more descriptive of American action around the world than protecting the people.
It seems odd to some observers that America would attack a pharmaceutical company in Sudan when they did not really know for sure who it was that bombed the two embassies last week. It would seem before a nation would break international law and risk the lives of innocent men, women and children, it would find out who really did the deed and then present this to the nation in question for legal action. Would America appreciate an attack on Johnson & Johnson by Mexico because Mexico suspected that company had the capability to produce more toxic substances than baby oil?
More and more in Muslim circles the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are being promulgated. This certainly raises the ire of Israel and the Jewish cause, generally, since this document is often referred to as coming from them. This document is roundly discredited by American media, but those suffering under U.S. pressures cannot be unconvinced of the validity of them. The reasoning is evident. From the Protocols:
Our State, marching along the path of peaceful conquest, has the right to replace the horrors of war by less noticeable and more satisfactory sentences of death, necessary to maintain the terror which tends to produce blind submission. Just but merciless severity is the greatest factor of strength in the State: not only for the sake of gain but also in the name of duty, for the sake of victory, we must keep to the programme of violence and make-believe. The doctrine of squaring accounts is precisely as strong as the means of which it makes use. Therefore it is not so much by the means themselves as by the doctrine of severity that we shall triumph and bring all governments into subjection to our super-government. It is enough for them to know that we are too merciless for all disobedience to cease.
As the facts emerge, dangerous omens are appearing everywhere. Why is it that America seems to court the rage of the Muslims? Do current administration officials and their sponsors want to enrage passions to the point that war in the Middle East is inevitable? Is this act being concocted so that the Arab and Muslim resistance can be eliminated in world affairs? Many Western and Jewish forces openly agitate for a temple to be built on the spot where the Muslims' holy shrine is located called the Dome of the Rock. Do certain Americans and the Jewish interests need to eradicate those they consider are in the way of this project? Are they considering fomenting a war in which the less technological nations in the Middle East could not possibly win? Are these crazy assumptions? For some these are logical conclusions to such irrational acts as have been currently displayed.
Administration officials are loudly warning of more Muslim attacks. These warnings almost seem on the verge of wishful thinking. Americans would do well to be warned, but it does not appear to some that the Muslims are the ones we need to be warned against.
Osama bin Laden responded to the U.S. attacks in Afghanistan and Sudan by saying, "The war has just started." Clinton also has warned of a long and protracted war against "terrorists." For a long time Christians have been predicting the Battle of Armageddon. Little do most Americans suspect that they are on the wrong side of this conflict. God has never been on the side of sexual perverts and liars. With the president and those who think as he does as our leaders, our nation stands in great danger. This is the time to consider the jump our president is asking Americans to make. This jump comes with no parachute.
"The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death." Rev 21:8.
Written 08/24/98