| by Pearl Thevanayagam
For years, reporters have known about stricken people prevented from getting life-saving treatment, or shot dead when they've tried to reach a clinic for chemotherapy treatment. One elderly lady with a walking stick was murdered in this way - a bullet in her back.
When I put the facts of this crime to Dori Gold, a senior adviser to the Israeli prime minister, he said, "Unfortunately in every kind of warfare there are cases of civilians who are accidentally killed. But the case you cite was not terrorism. Terrorism means putting the cross-hairs of the sniper's rifle on a civilian deliberately."
I replied, "That's exactly what happened."
This extract is adapted from John Pilger's Edward Said Memorial Lecture, delivered in Adelaide, Australia, on 11 September 2014.
(September 18, 2014, Bradford UK, Sri Lanka Guardian ) This is what John Pilger, the intrepid world renowned journalist and documentary maker from Australia had to say. He has the sophistry to tear apart imperialism and challenge super powers as to their invasion into countries for the sole purpose of exploiting their natural resources or their strategic locations to extend their hegemony in the world order. He also tears apart to shreds UK’s unnecessary intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan at the behest of big brother US.
It was at World Affairs Council meeting in Monterey, California in 1993 following Bill Clinton’s inauguration as President of the United States, the Malaysian economist Martin Kohr declared the world’s 80 percent resources were enjoyed by 20 percent of the population and he received a standing ovation of no less than three minutes. The conference was packed with world leaders such as Helmut Schmidt and Schultz among others.
US would drop bombs and food parcels both yellow in colour which the Afghan children could not differentiate from one or the other as a result of which they were maimed or killed. The West invents terrorists who it feels pose a threat to their capital hegemony. Its intervention in the Middle East has nothing to do with human rights but everything to do with their own interests.
The mess the West left Afghanistan and the Middle East with would haunt them to this very day and it has nothing to do with ISIS, its pet obsession with Al Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. Saddam Hussein was no saint but he did not deserve the fate in which manner he was killed by the US. Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were trained by the US in combat as is well known.
The US aversion to Islamism begs belief and the puppet President Barack Obama who is an avatar of the Republicans masquerades as a Democrat who has no real power in the White House.
He is a token Black showcase President who has no real clout in US politics whatsoever. US is run by corporate America as is proved by John Pilger that Condolezza Rice and Colin Powell have vested business interests over and above their apparent projection they would seek redress to impoverished and marginalised Blacks.
US has been governed by John F. Kennedy who courted Marilyn Monroe while his brother Robert too was having sexual liaisons with her. US has the honour of third rate cowboy Hollywood actor Ronald Reagan and philanderer Bill Clinton who seduced his White House intern Monica Lewinsky and who committed perjury when he proclaimed, I did not touch that woman.
Watch the movie DW and you will get an inkling of what US politics is all about. George W. Bush seems a saint compared to Obama and Clinton. At least he has the intellect to leave all his thinking to his minions while he went his merry way playing golf, enjoying himself buying baseball teams. Dubya could not be arsed with knowing the names of leaders of the world since he has 51 states to take care of. Why bother is his motto. Would the world come to an end if he cannot name the leader of Burkino Faso or Mombhasa?
Dubya went to Yale and eased himself out of war conscription thanks to his daddy, Senior Bush. Dubya’s cerebral prowess of which he was sadly bereft had nothing to do with his admission to the prestigious Yale University and everything to do with daddy’s influence.
Michael Moore in his book, Stupid White Men, has this to say about Dubya; It was amazing I won. I was running against peace, prosperity and incumbency. On June 14, 2001 George W. Bush was speaking to Swedish Prime Minister Goran person, unaware that a live television was rolling.
We have similar jokers in our cabinet; not the least is the President’s son who is bandied about as a human rights lawyer. The blighter would not know human rights if it hit him between the eyes.
Hey, ho this is Sri Lanka the gay paradise and everything is possible as long as you have thaththi for a president.
(The writer has been a journalist for 25 years and worked in national newspapers as sub-editor, news reporter and news editor. She was Colombo Correspondent for Times of India and has contributed to Wall Street Journal where she was on work experience from The Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley, California. Currently residing in UK she is also co-founder of EJN (Exiled Journalists Network) UK in 2005 the membership of which is 200 from 40 countries. She can be reached at pearltheva@hotmail.com)
