KSM: Your blood is not made of gold

US President Obama

Letter To Editor Criticism against America is coming from within and outside. Former President Jimmy Carter’s latest tirade against the Obama administration is worth mentioning. “The United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.” Carter added: “Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended.” Drone use, detention policies and investigative tactics were also attacked by Carter, who leveled similar charges at the Bush administration. He also criticized the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which Obama has unsuccessfully sought to close.

A similar statement came from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM), the alleged mastermind of 9/11 attacks during a court hearing at Guantanamo on Oct 17 that America has wantonly used national security as a pretext to murder and torture. “Obama can take someone and throw him in the sea under the name of national security,” he said in a reference to the OBL killing. “Don’t get affected by crocodile tears, because your blood is not made of gold and ours is made of water. We are all human beings,” he warned. KSM is a terrorist but Carter is not. However, the truth is that Obama, close to elections, has not fulfilled his promise of closing camp X-Ray, or early winding up of deadly mission in Afghanistan.

There are hundred and one examples and quotes of the renowned critics of American policies abroad. The latest is none else but the New York Times. In its October 13 editorial it advised Obama that Afghanistan is not a war of necessity and “it is time for United States forces to leave Afghanistan [because]… the US will not achieve even President Obama’s narrowing goals, and prolonging the war will only do more harm.”

Clearly the time is changing; more bloodshed, coercive tactics, diplomatic or military push on Pakistan to go for operation in North Waziristan, or else would not help as the accurate calculations of Great Games also fail before the bigger Schemes of Nature.

Eschmall Sardar, Hayatabad, Peshawar