"....Many people seem to believe the military action was aimed at diverting US attention away from an embarrassing sex scandal. After lying to the public for seven months, Mr Clinton finally admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

"White House leaders know they can capitalise on the American public's admiration for the US role as the world's policeman. It is not surprising that while the world condemns the US military action, the American public supports it..."
Editorial from Krungthep Turakij, Bangkok Post, 25 August, 1998

"... A senior Labour MP yesterday challenged the Government to demand hard evidence from Washington that the Sudanese factory bombed by United States cruise missiles was involved in the production of chemical weapons.

"As Sudan insisted that the Khartoum plant produced innocent pharmaceuticals, Donald Anderson, the chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee, said the US had a duty to provide the Government with the evidence it claimed it had.

"`Since the Government went out on a limb in supporting the US action it is surely reasonable that the evidence should be passed to us," he said. "That has not yet been done.'..."

"...Alastair Hay, a chemical pathologist at Leeds University, said last night that if there was no restricted access at the plant, as had been suggested, then Sudan seemed to have a good case....

"...He pointed out that for years the US had insisted that the Soviet Union and North Vietnam had used "yellow rain" chemicals during the Vietnam war, only to discover that the product contained pollen from indigenous trees and the `rain' was bee excrement."
Richard Norton-Taylor, the Guardian[London], 25 August, 1998

A scant five days after Secretary of State Madeline Albright and other members of the United States national security establishment announced that U.S. allies had been consulted about the missile strikes in Afghanistan and Sudan, the world community is questioning both the wisdom and results of the attacks. Especially as regards the attacks in Sudan, there is a growing sense of suspicion throughout the world as to U.S. motivation and U.S. claims of "compelling evidence."

While most nations are quick to applaud any action against international terrorism, few seem to believe either what the United States says about this particular military initiative or agree that there was any urgency for it.

As the editorial writer from Thailand points out, the American people have been indoctrinated by years of jingoistic homilies to support any military action by their government, to "rally 'round the flag," no matter how wrong-headed or sadistic it might be.

It is an article of faith for Senators like Orrin Hatch, for example, that whenever military action occurs he must appear on some television camera somewhere to remind the American people to support the President and the Armed Forces as soon as the planes, ships or missiles are launched. And as the world well knows, it is just this kind of misguided, knee-jerk "patriotism" which was behind so many horrible years of death, torture and rapine committed by the United States in Southeast Asia only two decades ago.

Vietnam, and especially Laos and Cambodia, still bear the scars of that bloody unwillingness of the American people to question the military actions of their government.

To combine two concepts used by Howard Zinn in A People's History of the United States, "...Those upper classes, to rule, need to make concessions to the middle class, without damage to their own wealth and power... This bought loyalty. And to bind that loyalty with something more powerful even than material advantage, the ruling group found, in the 1760's and 1770's, a wonderfully useful device. That device was the language of liberty and equality.... This was to become a critically important rhetotical device for the rule of the few, who would speak to the many of `our' liberty, `our' property, `our' country..."[Emphasis mine.]

In the black community, we have referred to this manipulation of reality as Tricknology. This government, for over two hundred years, has had a Ph.D. in Tricknology. It is not surprising the rest of the world should be dubious of U.S. claims.

When the President's situation is factored into the equation... well.

This Writer thinks that we should bear something in mind when considering world opinion. Recall the Native American Vietnam veteran who testified before Congress, weeping as he reminded this government that it is the same one which cynically and repeatedly --- under every President from Andrew Jackson forward to Ulysses Grant --- made treaties with indigenous nations that it said would last "as long as the grass grows and the rivers run."

While much is being made in our media today about the credibility of this particular President, very little is being made about the shameful record on the credibility of this government. In fact, if you believed the Mouthpiece Media, you would imagine that the United States government has NO credibility problem. And that just isn't so. It isn't so if you ask Native Americans, if you ask African Americans who were intentionally injected with syphillis, if you ask citizens of Nevada who were told there would be no radiation damage to them by nuclear bomb testing in their state, if you ask Cambodians assured that the Vietnam conflict wouldn't spill over into their country, if you ask the rest of the world community; it just isn't so.

Considering the record of lies given bald-faced by the United States government, why should anyone in the world believe that the "compelling evidence" behind this latest bombing of innocents in Afghanistan(bleeding over to waste a few Pakistanis) and the Sudan(those were civilians on those stretchers on CNN last week, kids) didn't go something like this:

"That's right, sir. The polls say a missile strike now would divert the attention of the press for a while."