Reagan, in the roots of terrorism

President Bush, on 8/1/05, congratulating King Abdallah on assuming the Saudi throne:

“On behalf of the United States, I congratulate my friend, King Abdallah bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, on assuming the Saudi throne and the position of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. We wish Saudi Arabia peace and prosperity under his leadership. I have spoken today to the new King, and the United States looks forward to continuing the close partnership between our two countries.” [Emphasis added]

But “close partnership” is an understatement; Professor Juan Cole places the Saudi-American relationship in a historical context.

 

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Noam Chomsky: We must act now to prevent another Hiroshima – or worse

The explosions in London are a reminder of how the cycle of attack and response could escalate

The recent explosions and casualties in London are yet another reminder of how the cycle of attack and response could escalate, unpredictably, even to a point horrifically worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

The world’s reigning power accords itself the right to wage war at will, under a doctrine of “anticipatory self-defence” that covers any contingency it chooses. The means of destruction are to be unlimited.

[…]

The world “came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear disaster”, recalls Robert McNamara, Kennedy’s defence secretary, who also attended the retrospective. In the May-June issue of the magazine Foreign Policy, he accompanies this reminder with a renewed warning of “apocalypse soon”.

[Listen to my interview with Noam Chomsky]

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