By Syed M.Aslam
Dec 03 - 09 , 2001
*** "IF YOU DON'T support the power, you
are not considered intellectual ...Terrorism is a weapon of the weak,
but mostly used by the strong ... The number of victims of US savagery
are huge right upto the present moment."
(Dissident US intellectual Noam Chomsky saying that
only pro-establishment intellectuals are called the wise men. He
accused the US and Britain of abusing power and being above the
international law to use 'unlawful force in their so-called fight
against terrorism')
*** "BUSH IS enjoying 90 per cent
popularity, his 15 minutes of fame ... He likes to stand tall. The
taller you stand the more likely you are to get hit by a kamikaze
pilot."
(Outspoken US writer Gore Vidal denouncing
Washington for waging 'a perpetual war for perpetual peace' saying
that American aggression was only nurturing fresh hatrets)
*** "Sacrifice? When giant corporations
are being thrown billions? Sacrifice, when car dealers are telling us
it is 'economic patriotism' to buy another new gas-guzzler? Sacrifice
our common sense, maybe. Sacrifice our expectation that our government
makes sense. No, Mr. Cheney, that's not my definition of patriotic
sacrifice."
(Letter published in Time magazine sarcastically
criticizing US Vice President Dick Cheney for asking Americans to
'accept a new reality of sacrifice')
*** "THE AMERICANS have their views, and
I have mine. What the Americans want is unimportant. It's my decision
that counts."
(Uzbek warlord and leader of the US-backed Northern
Alliance, Rashid Dostum, saying that presence of US military observers
does not undermine his decision-making power)
*** "THE MEDIA should have said: we make
the decisions."
(Former star reporter of CNN television, Peter
Arnett, criticizing US media coverage of the Afghanistan war accusing
it of having sold itself out)
*** "SURE, HE'S STILL ALIVE ... Isn't
that miracle-enough, when the mightiest nation on earth is trying to
kill him?"
(Taliban fighter's response to a question by a
journalist if 'Supreme Leader Mullah Omar has performed any miracles
lately?')
*** "PAKISTAN is unknown to me and I
have no feelings for it. But my parents still want to live their last
days in Pakistan."
(Javed Alam, a twenty-three-year-old son of one of
thousands of pro-Pakistani slum-dwelling Bihari refugees, opting to
stay in Bangladesh — former East Pakistan — instead of going to
Pakistan as campaigned by his parents for last three decades)
*** "I REGRET I have to put my hands up
fully and say no, it was indeed my spelling that was at fault."
(British Prime Minister Tony Blair confirming press
reports that he can't spell 'tomorrow' adding that he spelt it 'toomorrow'
not once but three times in a hand written message to a candidate of
his Labour Party)
*** "THEY ANNOUNCED that women are free,
but it is not freedom to throw off our veils. That is not the liberty
we want."
(Teenage Afghani girl, Nafeesa, expressing disgust
at increased incidents of abuses against women in post-Taliban Kabul)
*** "I WILL NEVER SAY it was my fault.
Never. Alas torture does serve a purpose. And today I would do the
same thing ..."
(Eighty-three-year-old ex-French general Paul
Aussaresses justifying killing hundreds of people during Algeria's
freedom movement against France)
*** "IT IS SO POWERFUL that we're having
a hard time figuring out how to open it and still preserve the
evidence."
(US Senator Patrick Leahy talking about an
anthrax-spiked letter mailed to him that was so lethal that it could
have killed 100,000 people had it been opened)
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