"From approximately the early 1980s until about 1986," he began, "the Libyan leader, whom nearly everyone likes to write off as a crazy, vicious supporter of international terrorism, had, according to Amnesty International, been responsible for the deaths of fourteen individuals, most of whom were Libyan dissidents. Yet, in the same period of time - 1980 to 1986, according, again, to Amnesty International, the government of El Salvador murdered nearly fifty thousand of its people, while the authorities in near-by Guatemala exterminated about seventy thousand of its citizens.

"The difference between, on the one hand, Libya and, on the other hand, Guatemala and El Salvador is simple. Guatemala and El Salvador are now, and have been for many years, client states of the United States, while Libya is the naughty, delinquent, petulant child that not only refuses to take direction from, and serve, US interests in Africa and the Middle East, but often actively seeks to undermine, or oppose, US strategic efforts in the region.

"The armies and police forces in Guatemala and El Salvador are trained, equipped and supported by both the US military and intelligence communities. Libya is not.

"Consequently, the US is prepared to look the other way while one hundred and twenty thousand Latin Americans are massacred. However, the same United States becomes morally outraged with the slaying of fourteen people by the Libyan government, referring to it as exhibit number one with respect to states that are sponsors of world-wide terrorism.

"All murder is repugnant, whether one is talking about one person, fourteen people or one hundred and twenty thousand people. Nonetheless, these acts do not give expression to the same degree of evil.

"The United States and its client states have far, far more blood on their hands than Libya does. Yet, Libya is considered to be one of the world's worst terrorist states, and the United States is all innocence and goodness, at least as far as Americans are concerned, because of the manipulation of public opinion which is being effected by organizations like the Bettinger Foundation.

"In the mid-1980s, Israeli bombers were sent to Tunis to bomb PLO headquarters there. More than fifty Palestinians and some twenty Tunisians died as a result of the attack.

"Interestingly, the United States had requested the Tunisian government - supposedly one of our allies - to allow the PLO to set up its headquarters in Tunis after that organization had been expelled from Lebanon by the Israeli invasion. Even more interestingly, the United States did not warn Tunisia about the impending Israeli attack despite the fact that the US Sixth Fleet, which was in the Mediterranean Sea at the time, had been tracking the movements of the Israeli bombers during the latter's flight to Tunis, including the refueling of these planes.

"The strike was said to be in retaliation for the murder of three Israelis in Larnaca, Cyprus. However, the Israelis knew, and later admitted, that the evidence surrounding the Cyprus killings pointed in the direction of Syria, not Tunis.

"In April of 1986, US planes bombed the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi in Libya, killing about one hundred people. The raid was said to be in retaliation for the December, 1985 attacks at airports in both Vienna and Rome, as well as for the bombing of the La Belle discotheque in West Berlin on April 5th, 1986, in which several US soldiers were killed.

"The only problem with this is that Libya had nothing to do with either the airport attacks or the nightclub bombing. The evidence all suggested a Syrian connection.

"The US military and intelligence community knew this. Unfortunately, for the one hundred Libyans who died, the United States had another agenda for which the truth was an inconvenience.

"The attack on Libya, like the Israeli bombing of Tunis, was a terrorist attack in violation of all international law. Yet, in America, most people were of the opinion that not only was the United States acting responsibly, prudently and in defense of democratic freedoms, but that Libya got what it so richly deserved.

"Many Americans have these opinions because organizations like the Bettinger Foundation are incessant in their efforts to make sure the American public is fed a steady diet of such misinformation and disinformation. Once we have become accustomed to this diet, then we tend to find that if the occasional tidbit of truth finds its way onto our plates, we consider the experience to be quite distasteful and often are inclined to spit out this morsel of truth immediately."

A whistling sound from the kitchen indicated that the water for the tea was ready. Ken responded to the signal and went into the kitchen.

A few moments later he entered the living room with a tray filled with a pot, two cups, several spoons, some napkins, containers of sugar and milk, as well as a plate containing an assortment of cookies. Ken placed the tray on the 'coffee' table between our chairs.

As we each went about fixing our respective cups of tea, Ken said: "Let's consider another example. For instance, take the case of the second Gulf war involving Iraq.

"Many, perhaps most, Americans cheered the alleged role of the US in defending Kuwait against a belligerent, invading aggressor. This role conforms to the myth, that organizations such as the Bettinger Foundation have created, in which the United States stands like a lonely beacon of freedom against the invasive forces of darkness.

"In reality, Desert Storm is merely a continuation of a self-serving policy that is often dressed up, for purposes of propaganda, in the guise of a courageous defender of freedom and democracy. In truth, whether the United States will permit an invasion, or will act against it, depends entirely on circumstances and the implications which those circumstances have for its various political, military and business interests.

"Issues of democracy, rights, freedoms and so on are purely for public consumption. The real motivations are always about power, control, possession, exploitation, money, resources and influence.

"The United States did not interfere when Iraq invaded Iran in the first Gulf war because certain people of prominence feared the spread of an Iranian version of Islamic fundamentalism might undermine their control of the area and its resources. Similarly, the United States has permitted Turkey to deal brutally with the Kurdish people because Turkey serves US interests in a variety of ways and because the nationalist aspirations of some twenty million Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria constitute a potential threat to US aspirations in the area.

"America not only permitted Israel to invade Lebanon, but gave logistical support to the latter because Israel was serving the United States' need for a countervailing presence in the Middle East with respect to left-leaning Arab nationalism, Palestinian unrest, and, Islamic fundamentalism. Furthermore, Syria's invasion of Lebanon was allowed to go unchecked by America as long as the attack was directed against Palestinians who were considered to be a destabilizing element as far as US interests in the Middle East were concerned.

"The United States did not object to Indonesia's invasion of East Timor and the slaughter of some two hundred thousand civilians in order to permit Indonesia, among other things, to gain access to the latter's substantial oil deposits. America backed Morocco's invasion of the resource-rich Western Sahara for similar reasons, although with far less loss of life to the inhabitants of that region.

"In each of these cases, US interests were being served. Indonesia and Morocco were both being armed and supported by America because these countries would permit the United States a share in, and some degree of control over, the resources, once the latter had been secured.

"America looked the other way during the '70s and '80s when apartheid-oriented South Africa, directly or through surrogate forces such as the terrorist groups UNITA in Angola and RENAMO in Mozambique, attacked a variety of neighboring states holding political views to which the United States was opposed. At the same time, and much less passively, America financed, armed and gave logistical support to the Contras as they conducted numerous operations against various civilian targets in Nicaragua, ranging from peasant farmers to religious workers to health care professionals to students to union organizers and community workers."

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