Mumbai terror attack shows how US exempts itself from the rules it applies to others.

A Tale of Two Terror Attacks

By Dave Lindorff


Before the odor of burned gunpowder has left the air of the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, the US is lecturing India not to go off half-cocked and attack Pakistan, simply because all of the attackers in the terrorist assaults in that city arrived by boat, apparently from neighboring Pakistan. US officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, are calling on India to engage in a "transparent" and "thorough" investigation into the attacks to establish who was responsible.

How different this is from the American government's response to the 9-11 attacks in the US!

Instead of a "transparent" investigation, we got secret sessions of the Congressional intelligence committees, closed-door interviews of key officials, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney by the 9-11 Commission, and of course the secret round of thousands of mostly Islamic people living in the US, many of whom were held for months incommunicado and without charge, some of whom were subjected to torture, and many others of whom were deported to likely arrest, torture and even death.

Instead of a calm assessment of what had happened and who was responsible, the Bush Administration rounded up Saudi members of the Bin Laden family, and others connected to the regime in Saudi Arabia, whence came most of the people reportedly involved in the hijacking of the four planes used in the attacks, and, with no attempt at interrogation, flew them home to Saudi Arabia. Then, again with only minimal evidence, the US launched an all-out war within days upon Afghanistan, with the goal of ousting and destroying the Taliban government of that country (which reportedly had offered to hand over Bin Laden and his merry men). Shortly after that aggressive move, the Bush/Cheney administration shifted its focus and launched an even larger all-out war against Iraq, a nation that had no connection whatsoever with the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

So much for transparency and measured responses.

Here again, we have an example of the US expecting one mode of behavior for the rest of the world, and another for itself.

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