Yes Mr. Bush we are 'democratic terrorists' - come get us!

We need not go for 'training' to some rustic Talibans or Al-Qaeda 'camp' in far off Afghanistan to put us all into this 'terrorist' frame of mind - for it is our so-called 'leaders' who routinely play catechism of a roulette game called 'democracy', that have made 'terrorist' out of every man, women and child in Bangladesh. Rest easy folks, the Talibans and Al-Qaeda 'may' use Bangladesh to 're-train' their skills to kill - and not vice versa.

Yes Mr. Bush we are 'democratic terrorists' - come get us!

Circa 1971:

Forget for a moment events of the year when we fought a bitter nine months long guerrilla war to dislodge the Pakistani killing machine set on a systematic reign of genocide on defenseless Bengalees - or that the men of infamy were backed by non else but the US. Forget for a moment that 'propping up' the 'ruling council' of collaborators on the ground, a bunch of marauding mullahs, and political opportunist found most anywhere in the world was non else but the American administration again. Forget for a moment, that in the dying days of what was then East Pakistan, an alliance of Mukti Bahini guerillas and Indian Armed Forces besieged Dhaka, and were imminently poised for mass slaughter of the enemy if they did not surrender.

Forget COMPLETELY that the US was at the Bay of Bengal, ready to intervene militarily to upset the freedom aspirations of the people of Bangladesh. A chilling Vietnam was avoided in South Asia at the nick of time, had it not, a millennium headline would have paralleled:

'US intervention in Afghanistan to save besieged Taliban regime from Northern Alliance terrorist'!

If anybody looks up the archive of news matters of 1971, the 'ruling council' used the words 'terrorist' to evoke hatred for, and on the flip side 'miscreants' - to rubbish the heroic aspirations of the guerillas - indeed of all Bengalees.

Those were times when we lived in a bi-polar world, where the Soviets had a say about our destiny, and what we considered 'oppression' of the Pakistani-US 'imperialist', was passé, and 'justified' also was our right to an armed resistance. We cared a fig as to implications of the word 'terrorist' in our objectives to set ourselves free from shackles of Pakistani colonialism.

The world then had two EARS- and a 'sympathetic ear' to those that had a dire need for one. The world then also had two EYES - and no need for eye patches - as diseased they might have been, there were no damaged retinas to contend with, nor jaundiced views to accept without question.

The world then also had 'grey matters' in the shell, between the two eyes and ears! The world was certainly a better place - because one could be free, when one wanted to be free, and on its own terms. Freedom per se could not be contained with generic abuse of the term 'terrorist' or 'terrorism'.

On hindsight the word 'terrorist' in Bengal's history evokes images of desperate and disparate men and women, who took that extra step to hammer the last nails into the British imperialist coffin prior to the 1947 independence of the subcontinent, after 200 years of subjugation.

Men like Titumir, Khudiram Bose, Surya Sen, who perished in their messianic last stands, lived on in our folklore, to be remembered with gratitude for their sacrifices in the years to come. The nail they drove in and caused the gangrene of the inevitable colonial defeat was - 'terrorism'.

The word 'terror' or 'terrorist' had a capacity to strike terror in the human psyche and was used succinctly to undermine and criminalize aspirations of those who chose to challenge the status quo of oppressors, and it mattered little what the mainstream thoughts on the issue was. The mainstream 'educated' thought process then as is now, was to remain willing captives to 'tycoons' of idiot boxes and print machines - and that is yet another 'terrorism' made an acceptable world icon, by non else but the Nazi Minister Goebell!

A deviant came along to smother the stigma off the term - the word we conjoined half appropriately was 'freedom fighter' and together the by now overused parallel: 'one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter'. How remarkably naïve!

The term 'freedom fighter' after all had a 'heroic' ring to it, as much as 'liberators' and can only be used if, and only IF, one achieves victory. History has never been fair to the vanquished. It is the term of the genteel appropriating respectable credibility and a grandiose patronization of your deeds (or is it misdeeds?), once the battle is over and 'terrorists' disarmed and 'rehabilitated' into civility, and had only reminiscences of their exploits to live with. A tongue in the cheek 'you had your say, bad man - now shut up' - while we inject some 'spirit' into our so-called liberation.

Spirit - as in ghosts?

'Freedom' can be said to have been achieved, when 'terror' of the construed 'state' was overthrown - and when justifiably 'thorns were removed with thorns' regardless of the size of the thorns. 'Terror' albeit was an irritating pinprick to the sole of a mindless elephant: a modern day 'poor mans F16'! Do not talk foolishly about 'violence begetting violence' - or 'new 'terror' replacing 'state terror' which brings us to shocking realities of present times.

We have taken on the fashionable Western analogy of talking about terror in terms most demeaning, without realizing that it was indeed the use of 'terror' that led to the bloody birth of Bangladesh, and ensured the removal of tyrants in 1971. As if in a fall back to dementia we have also forgotten that all our so-called democratic movements of recent years were fashioned and executed on 'terror tactics' learnt, practiced, perfected and executed in removing Bangladesh off the despot General H.M.Ershad in 1990.

We learnt to terrorize our mass by taking them hostage and keeping them captives at their homes with threats of 'democratic terrorism' - that ensures success of general strikes we call 'hartal'.

We have learnt to manufacture and use crude home made bombs to hurl at security forces on days we make 'clarion calls' for hartal. We have learnt to strip naked men and women who venture out for the sake of a mere existence in such strikes, and invite lensmen to capture the insults for circulation on front page of newspapers, to earn cheap political capital or is it profit?

As if that is not enough we have created veritable cottage industries of inaccurate yet deadly sawed-off 303 rifles and pipe-guns in each and every neighborhood, to be used at the right opportunity. Per capita, the number of illegal weapons and explosive available in Bangladesh is certainly higher than those available to 'terrorist' marauding US forces in Iraq today - and that is not a security concern at all?

We need not go for 'training' to some rustic Talibans or Al-Qaeda 'camp' in far off Afghanistan to put us into this 'terrorist' frame of mind for it is our so-called 'leaders' who routinely play catechism of a roulette game called 'democracy', that have made 'terrorist' out of every man, women and child in Bangladesh. Rest easy folks, the Talibans and Al-Qaeda 'may' use Bangladesh to 're-train' their skills to kill - and not vice versa.

We credit ourselves for not having a military coup in the last so many years - which is a fair assessment. It was far too easy then, for any aspiring leader wannabe in uniform or out of it to attempt such misadventures.

All one needed were committed (or brain washed) individuals prepared to capture the Radio and TV station, kill men who were foolish enough to offer resistance, lay siege to the ports and other key facilities, and you could be 'king' of the 56,126 square mile of geographical territory called Bangladesh. Piece of cake!

Removing that alluring pie somewhere down the line was thought of and the West offered our military 'outsourced' jobs that they could not or would not do, and we could not resist refusing. Peacekeeping operations in countries that are no less 'un-peaceful' than the prodigal motherland, and our men in uniform not only performed splendidly, they are among the finest peacekeepers on offer anywhere in the world.

Other than the fine reputation (to the extent that Sierra Leone enamored at their performance declared Bengalee an 'official' language) the UN mission ensured that our men in uniform stay off politics at home, and desist from practicing routine change of Governments all at tax payer's expense - which again was no business of theirs (the military) in the first place.

So tempting are these sojourns to exotic locales in Africa or where have you that our men find return to their native land a real bother. While the US forces in Iraq groan about their postings extended to no less that one full year - our men delighted in mercenary like glee when the UN announced that they will be asked to serve a full year in Liberia, after their one year posting in Sierra Leone ends. Bravo!

The West meantime discovered a feasible, less susceptible to 'international attention' alternative in men and women in the business of 'democratic terrorism' in Bangladesh.

Out of the post democratic 'terrorist' we created full time professional's whose job it was to ensure that political merchant succeeded when everything else failed. Our 'democratic movements' and takeover of state power in the last 13 years have been replete with examples that would shame military adventurist of our past.

If one wants to seize power in Bangladesh, all they need to do is call a series of 'hartal', keep every citizen hostage at home, and get some killed. The next day condemn and blame the deaths on 'terrorist'. There will come a time when the media Goebells will term this 'organized terrorism against the mass' - a 'mass movement' leading on to sham 'students revolt' - meaning the 'educated' urban, and vulnerable middle class will scream, 'oppression'. Last if not the least, if you can somehow get the bureaucrats to stop going to office - chances are strong of your 'seizing power democratically'. Piece of cake!

When terror and terrorist contribute to so-called democratic state craft in Bangladesh, when rights of individual citizens are compromised on a daily basis by terrorist who do not necessarily belong to any political party but are components of a large nation wide mercenary Mafia - hired guns ready for the kill - the success of 'democratic terrorism' also depends to a fair degree as to which way the CIA or the RAW station chiefs in Dhaka are looking at any given time.

Yes Mr.Bush, if anybody has been whispering into your ears about 'terrorist' in Bangladesh, they have not been lying. We are 'democratic terrorists' - come get us.

It might be a splendid idea to bring an addition to the cacophonic soundscape. Meanwhile an African who speaks Bengalee with a Swahili twang?

We haven't found one yet!

Footnotes: Did George Bush surrender to Bin Laden on 9/11?

Immediately after the attacks on New York - and because the killers appeared out of the deep blue yonder which the US thought it had God ordained supremacy, the first and natural thing to do was shut down the airspace, ground all commercial and other flights - and as we watched on TV the American skyline viewed from Air Traffic Control radars while otherwise abuzz at any given time with dots as if in an ants colony - simmered down and cleared out. While we heaved a sigh of relief - the white lies from the White House commenced at this point.

Did George Bush surrender to Bin Laden on 9/11?

No he did not would be a standard conjecture depending on which side of the fence you live in, or the realms of thinking you have decided to 'fence' yourself in, and ideally what this vague word WORLD really means to you.

For a start if you are somebody fitting the profile of an ordinary human being, happy with your lot, minding your own business, not reading a newspaper or watching TV, chances are 9/11 is a set of numbers that correlates to thousands of individuals of varied nationalities, religion and gender whose lives were brutally cut short in New York in 2001 by psychopaths who we ironically have not been able to positively ID.

These are basic bullet points for you if we may, and it might all be very worthwhile to add a footnote to your mind's database that the dead killers whose photographs we splashed all across the world were Muslims, who ascribe to a religion called Islam.

Add another footnote that when George Bush declared 'war on terror', it was not a war meant against the religion per se, but selectively on a small band of brigands whose motives remain as thoroughly confusing to all of us, if not to the mighty US.

To make things simpler it is a small matter reflecting the blatant pettiness of Bush and his coterie of personal friends and construed enemies in the business of peddling HATE. No religion preaches hate, it is a religion in itself, imminently saleable if you can package it for a world market, and have high profile megalomaniacs in roles of modern day theologians-cum-salesman-cum-distributor-cum-'world leaders' propagating the same through a media designed for the explicit purpose.

The world in any case is devoid of role models in this new millennium that can teach us the lofty ideals of compassion, of Love.

Little does it matter that many among the alleged hijackers who carried out the suicide attacks and should have been killed, inexplicably and miraculously survived and sent out desperate WAA (We are Alive) messages from right around the world!

News worthy as those stories may have been, they were not loud enough for 'world opinion leaders' (manipulators) like the BBC or CNN to catch on. As of now they remain stories, consigned, confined and condemned to domains of the new parlance 'conspiracy theories'. We have even been denied the luxury of a 'sexed up' version - whatever that means.

Conspiracy theories are talks and thoughts on events that may or may not be true and reasonable human beings ought to shun them for there are grave risks attached. These are events that transpired behind our backs and giving credence to them surrealistically traps us, and in the process conjures demons to appear right in front of our eyes, when it would have been much better if they were left were they were in the first place - BEHIND.

Confronting them on the other hand would be more than a passing nightmare of maybe or maybe not's - or turn out to be a sickening obsession that have all ingredients for others to term you delusional, paranoid, hallucinatory - plain English CRAZEEEE.

Not ofcourse if you are member of the elite Bin Laden family, who declared war on the US long before 9/11 or before the great shaman George Bush accepted his challenge and declared retaliation?

Immediately after the attacks on New York - and because the killers appeared out of the deep blue yonder which the US thought it had God ordained supremacy, the first and natural thing to do was shut down the airspace, ground all commercial and other flights - and as we watched on TV the American skyline viewed from Air Traffic Control radars while otherwise abuzz at any given time with dots as if in an ants colony - simmered down and cleared out.

While we heaved a sigh of relief - the white lies from the White House commenced at this point.

The first of them: there were a few 'ants' yet visible and we were told those were US Air force jets now in command of the holy skies. The Hollywood-ish aberration that the US has come around once again to save the 'world' at the very last minute again came true ….Walla!

Delete from your memory for the time being the fact that 'our' brave Commander In Chief was thousands of miles above ground fearful that this is the start of a nuclear strike on the US while we were stuck to our TV screens watching 'controlled feeds' from air radar screens and video loops of the burning towers?

We were however left with no doubts that if ever there is a (God forbid) nuclear strike for REAL the only person in the 'world' who has the strongest chance of survival is…. you have guessed right……..

Then just a week before 9/11/03 came another behind our back 'conspiracy theory' UP FRONT.

It now seems that one of the dots on our collective screen was apparently a US airliner and to quote SKYNEWS of 3rd September 2003 :

'Members of Osama bin Laden's family were allowed to fly out of the US shortly after the September 11 terror attacks, a senior official said. Even though American airspace had been shut down, the Bush administration allowed a jet to fly around the US picking up family members from 10 cities, including Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston and Houston. Some 140 high ranking Saudi officials were also on the plane'
As of now we do not know why and who authorized this evacuation and other than the number 140 we have no further details of the passenger or cargo manifest of the flight. Were they terrorists, did the cargo hold bullions and where in the 10 cities in the US did these 140 individual live? Do we know their neighbors, do we have any idea where they went shopping, and - and horror of horrors - have they all come back post 9/11?

By the way has anybody seen a passengers list of either aircraft's that struck the WTC or the one that parked itself on the Pentagon?

Other than the Arabs Al-Qaeda's our guess is we have seen none. Nobody for instance has a clue as to the name of the pilots of those aircraft's. There could well be more questions but they are best not asked.

The 'shady war' on terror goes on and we in the rest in the world see mindless 'poor mans' replications of the same. We are conjuring up terrorist in fake encounters, fake shootings, fake base camps, fake arms and ammunition retrieval, fake bombings only to supplant the US status quo. We would 'ape' the US in every sphere of our life - to imagine that we will not 'ape' a worldwide hoax authorized by the White House is un-stretching our imagination a bit too far.

We Daisy Cutter-ed to smithereens the mud huts of the poor in Afghanistan's mountains and promised to 'smoke 'em out'. Our 'smoke' unfortunately did not reach the foxholes of the Talibans who are making a resurgent come back.

Not to forget that Bin Laden and his Deputy (as also his in-law) Ayman Al-Zawahri were once again displayed on our TV screens, sauntering in the woods, replete with their AK-47's and ammunition belts in mountainous terrain's that could well be anywhere in Afghanistan, Pakistan or even the US?

We never managed to capture Bin Laden and we never will dead or alive. His survival will ensure the continuity on this so-called War, which we are no part of and so it goes on.

We Tomahawked Baghdad and put up scintillating fireworks display as we chose targets 'harder' than Afghanistan. We bombed palaces, tall building, army command and control centers, houses, tested all our hardware's and software's, and to every US dead we made sure that a few hundred Iraqis died as well, mostly unarmed and civilians all in the name of freedom.

We never managed to get the WMD's that was cause enough to 'justify' the war in the first place - but we managed to drop enough napalm and radioactive materials so that thousands upon thousand will continue to die in peace times and be counted as mere numbers. For all practical purpose our worst nightmares are being played out real time on TV and we have been asked to shut out our paranoia and agree that this is the 'real thing', and this is how things will be for a very long time - and that is about it?

Meanwhile Saddam Hussein lives and will continue to live - or are we going to be proven wrong?

As for who is sponsoring the war - it might make quite an impressive list - but to top it off in all likelihood would be the Bush and Bin Laden family, and Dick Cheney's Halliburton Empire. The 'world' as we know it today, belongs not to any of us - they belong to these modern days Pharaohs, and we are mere mortals that can only 'yes sir' them even while we mull over chucking out Yassir from the Promised Land. Any bets there?

Some extended footnotes before we close.

George Bush abandoned the US and the world as he disappeared several thousand miles up in the sky and on his return found himself in a secret ant hole several miles beneath the grounds, ashen faced, fearful of a nuclear attack. All the while, without our knowing and by all available accounts he also authorized the evacuation of the Bin Laden family from the US.

Question: Was he forced to comply with Bin Laden's wishes as a term of surrender?

Where we that close to an all out Armageddon, which could have been achieved had the 9/11 attackers crashed the hijacked aircraft's with the ease they did on the WTC or the Pentagon into one among hundreds of US nuclear facilities?

We have no answers.

When Bush says the 'US will prevail' he does so with a smirk in his lips. Take heed from what Bush Senior taught us many years back, when he said 'read my lips' in evaluating the performance of Junior. A deaf among us will tell you those quivering hate laced lips are no threats to any 'terrorist', but a master terrorist reminding us 'Let US trample upon you with ease - or we seal your lips forever'

Pharaoh-nic?

Let us commemorate the death of our ability to find answers to haunting questions together with the death of our fellow humans: nationalities, religion, and gender notwithstanding. Add a condolence note to spice the death of our 'freedom' to remain free outside the Bushonian doctrine of open 'War on Terror' conspiracy theories.

And don't forget to buy dead flowers for the death of our collective imagination when the Brain Bashing Center (BBC) or the Canine's News Network (CNN) commands us to do so.

Sit!