Can the "bomb them back to the Stone Age" Americans get over their
cowardly chauvinism enough to soberly consider and understand the
historic cause-and-effect factors and forces which shed lights on why
this horrific event happened? ...consider and understand them enough
to prevent it from happening again? Isn't that the only real hope for
greater U.S. security?
I'm really sick of reporters who write as if this assault came out of nowhere.
Of course, what do you expect from an ahistorical consumerist
culture? IT DID NOT COME OUT OF NOWHERE MY AHISTORICAL AMERICAN
FRIENDS!
Here's an example from a Dangerously Ignorant typically American
Miami Herald reporter. His article was written as a letter to the
terrorists:
"You don't know my people. You don't know what we're capable of. You
don't know what you just started. But you're about to learn."
Is this not the exact same language which goes through the mind of
every terrorist who has come out of brutalized race and culture? How
is this guy's thinking any better than bin Laden? If I didn't inform
you that it came from a Miami Herald reporter, you might think it was
part of a warning message sent by the terrorists before they struck
the World Trade Center towers.
Will America stop acting like its terrorist shadow self and, in
addition to prosecuting the trade center murderer's, end the violence
where it begins... from the U.S. State Department, the CIA, the U.S.
military, and the global corporations who put their guys into the
seats of command in order to fund and massively arm "friendly to U.S.
interests" regimes?
Did we as a nation not learn *anything* from the Iran-Contra affair?
Is it not mass national insanity that Americans let the major mass
media get away with presenting U.S. terrorist Oliver North as an
honest expert and defender *against* terrorism?
How ironic that these allegedly foreign terrorists who likely reacted
from being terrorized, will now be terrorized once again by the U.S.
in the name of preserving Western Civilization, Democracy and the
Rule of Law and Justice. And Americans want to put all the blame on
these, the initial victims. Remember, whenever you point your finger,
three fingers are pointing back at yourself.
It shows how brutal and barbaric a people we can really be that we
will all too readily shoot missiles and carpet bomb Islamic
civilians, killing legions of innocent Afghanis or Arabs, to get back
at bin Laden? And we'll do this instead of making somewhat of an
effort to read a couple of on history and foreign policy to learn
what we are obliviously allowing to be done with our tax dollars...
understanding how we initiate and fuel these terrorists (who after
all, are most often people who *are* acting in retaliation for
terrorism done against them), and democratically take responsibility
for changing our militarist foreign policy?
Of course, if Congress and the Bush administration didn't bluster on
about retaliation, about threats to Western Civilization and
Democracy, about a War against Evil, then they wouldn't be able to so
easily distract attention away from their primary culpability in
creating global terrorism, and in the financing of these terrorists.
When these terrorists work for our corporate ends, they are called
"Freedom Fighters." When they turn around they become "terrorists."
That's the only difference. Killing civilians has nothing to do with
any of this.
Is anybody really going to feel any safer after the U.S. bombs bin
Laden or some other Arab or Islamic targets?
But what a great way to create a martyr (or martyrs) and spur 1,000
more people just like them?
And will the Cowardly American express equal outrage, and stand up
united, against the assaults now occurring against their fellow
Americans (by other Americans) because of their Arabic race or
Islamic choice of religion?
I feel great sorrow and horror for those killed, for those close to
them and for all compassionate people who are now sucked up into this
inhumanity and sickened by it all. But I also grieve for the
civilians that U.S. taxpayers killed via these very same guys when
they were our terrorists. When they were cowardly American terrorists.
For truth and justice,
Andy Caffrey
*********************
No one yet has uttered on TV that perhaps we should reevaluate our
foreign policy. The Internet is the direct opposite.
Brian Downing Quig
1) Noam Chomsky: On the Bombings
2) Robert Fisk; The Chief Suspect (on meeting Osama bin Laden)
3) William Mandel on historic significance of Sept 11 attacks
4) Miami Herald reporter: The Steel in Us
5) War Resisters League: Statement on September 11 Attack
6) Richard Clark: Enemy Wanted
*********************
#1
On the Bombings
New version
Noam Chomsky
The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not
reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the
Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical
supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because
the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it).
Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that
this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as
usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It
is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other
poor and oppressed people. It is also likely to lead to harsh
security controls, with many possible ramifications for undermining
civil liberties and internal freedom.
The events reveal, dramatically, the foolishness of the project
of "missile defense." As has been obvious all along, and pointed out
repeatedly by strategic analysts, if anyone wants to cause immense
damage in the US, including weapons of mass destruction, they are
highly unlikely to launch a missile attack, thus guaranteeing their
immediate destruction. There are innumerable easier ways that are
basically unstoppable. But today's events will, very likely, be
exploited to increase the pressure to develop these systems and put
them into place. "Defense" is a thin cover for plans for
militarization of space, and with good PR, even the flimsiest
arguments will carry some weight among a frightened public.
In short, the crime is a gift to the hard jingoist right, those who
hope to use force to control their domains. That is even putting
aside the likely US actions, and what they will trigger -- possibly
more attacks like this one, or worse. The prospects ahead are even
more ominous than they appeared to be before the latest atrocities.
As to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified
horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes,
which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely
perpetrators. If we choose the latter course, we can do no better, I
think, than to listen to the words of Robert Fisk, whose direct
knowledge and insight into affairs of the region is unmatched after
many years of distinguished reporting. Describing "The wickedness and
awesome cruelty of a crushed and humiliated people," he writes
that "this is not the war of democracy versus terror that the world
will be asked to believe in the coming days. It is also about
American missiles smashing into Palestinian homes and US helicopters
firing missiles into a Lebanese ambulance in 1996 and American shells
crashing into a village called Qana and about a Lebanese militia -
paid and uniformed by America's Israeli ally - hacking and raping and
murdering their way through refugee camps." And much more. Again, we
have a choice: we may try to understand, or refuse to do so,
contributing to the likelihood that much worse lies ahead.
*********************
#2
Atrocities may be designed to provoke America into costly military adventure
The Chief Suspect
By Robert Fisk
Independent 12 September 2001
I can imagine how Osama bin Laden received the news of the atrocities in
the United States. In all, I must have spent five hours listening to him in
Sudan and then in the vastness of the Afghan mountains, as he described the
inevitable collapse of the United States, just as he and his comrades in
the Afghan war helped to destroy the power of the Red Army.
He will have watched satellite television, he will have sat in the corner
of his room, brushing his teeth as he always did, with a mishwak stick,
thinking for up to a minute before speaking; he is one of the few Arabs who
doesn't feel embarrassed to think before he speaks. He once told me with
pride how his own men had attacked the Americans in Somalia. He
acknowledged that he knew personally two of the Saudis executed for bombing
an American military base in Riyadh. Could he have been behind yesterday's
mass slaughter in America?
Of course, we need a health warning here. If Mr bin Laden was really guilty
of all the things he has been blamed for, he would need an army of 10,000.
And there is something deeply disturbing about the world's habit of turning
to the latest hate figure whenever blood is shed. But when events of this
momentous scale take place, there is a new legitimacy in casting one's eyes
at those who have constantly threatened America.
Mr bin Laden had a kind of religious experience during the Afghan war. A
Russian shell had fallen at his feet and, in the seconds as he waited for
it to explode, he said he had a sudden, religious feeling of calmness. The
shell and Americans may come to wish the opposite happened. [It] never
exploded. The United States must leave the Gulf, he would say every 10
minutes. America must stop all sanctions against the Iraqi people. America
must stop using Israel to oppress Palestinians. It was his constant theme,
untouched by doubt or the real complexities of the Middle East. He was not
fighting an anti-colonial war, but a religious one. In the Arabia that he
would govern, there would be more, not less, head chopping, more severe
punishments, no Western-style democracy.
His supporters, Algerians, Kuwaitis, Egyptians and Gulf Arabs, would
gather round him in his tent with the awe of men listening to a messiah. I
watched them one night in Afghanistan in a mountain camp so cold that I
woke to find ice in my hair. They were obedient to him, not the kind of
obedience of schoolchildren but the sort of adherence you find among people
whose minds are made up. And the words they listened to were fearful in
their implications. American civilians would no more be spared than
military targets. This was not a man who would hesitate to carry out his
promises if he could. He was a man who would have appreciated the appalling
irony of creating a missile defence shield against "rogue states' but
unable to prevent men crashing domestic airliners into the centre of
America's financial and military power.
Yet I also remember one night when Mr bin Laden saw a pile of newspapers in
my bag and seized upon them. By a sputtering oil lamp, he read them page by
page in the corner of his tent, clearly unaware of the world around him,
reading aloud of an Iranian Foreign Minister's visit to Saudi Arabia. Was
this really a man who could damage America, who would have laughed when he
heard that the United States had placed a $5m (#3.3m) reward on his head?
Was it not America, I wondered then, which was turning Mr bin Laden into
the face of "world terror?' Was he really so powerful and so deadly?
If, and we must keep repeating this word if, the shadow of the Middle
East falls over yesterday's destruction, then who else in the region could
produce such meticulously timed assaults on the world's only superpower?
The rag-tag and corrupt Palestinian nationalist groups that used to favour
hijacking are unlikely to be able to produce a single suicide bomber. Hamas
and Islamic Jihad have neither the capability nor the money that this
assault needed. Perhaps the old satellite groups that moved close to the
Lebanese Hezbollah in the 1980s, before the organisation became a solely
resistance movement, could plan something like this. The bombing of the US
Marines in 1983 needed precision, timing and infinite planning. But Iran,
which supported these groups, has changed out of recognition since then,
now more involved in its internal struggles than in the long-dead
aspiration to "export' a religious revolution. Iraq lies broken, its
agents more intent on torturing their own people than striking at the
country that defeated it so suddenly in 1991.
So the mountains of Afghanistan will be photographed from satellite and
high-altitude aircraft in the coming days, Mr bin Laden's old training
camps and perhaps a few new ones highlighted on the overhead projectors
in the Pentagon. But to what end? When America last tried to strike at Mr
bin Laden, it destroyed an innocent pharmaceuticals plant in Sudan and a
few of Mr bin Laden's Muslim followers in Afghanistan. For if this is a war
between the Saudi millionaire and President Bush's America, it cannot be
fought like other wars. Indeed, can it be fought at all without some costly
military adventure overseas.
Or is that what Mr bin Laden seeks above all else?
2001 Independent Digital (UK)
*********************
#3
William Mandel
Oakland, California
9/11/00 5:36 PM
The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center
are the most important event in world history since
the collapse of the Soviet Union. The disappearance of
the USSR ended a half century in which two powers
dominated the world. The casualties in New York,
Washington, and in the skies made an end to the belief
that the United States could continue waging wars
costing us no blood, whether in no-fly zones over
Iraq, in Kosovo, or anywhere else on any continent.
For fifty-six years Washington has successfully
conducted mass murders of noncombatant civilians from
the air with no fear of retaliation. In 1945, when
Japan could no longer strike back, there was
Hiroshima, 75,000 killed. Then Nagasaki, 40,000
killed. The Korean War cost that country, with no
possible means of harming the United States, 4,000,000
dead [Encyclopedia Brittanica] versus 34,000
Americans, or more than 100
Koreans per American. Most of the Korean deaths were
caused by American carpet bombing (white phosphorus,
napalm, explosives) to break the will to resist, and
therefore were predominantly civilian.
The numbers in the Vietnam War were of the same orders
of magnitude. "Desert Storm" has slaughtered Iraqi
children in immense numbers since the end of the
fighting, due to the embargo against necessities.
Until now the vast majority of Americans have clucked
their tongues over these things and gone about their
business. No more. The deaths in the collapsed New
York towers may approach the number in Nagasaki, as
the people normally employed and visiting has been
given as 50,000. The super-expensive, space and
information age espionage technology of the National
Security Agency, as well as the more conventional
activities of the CIA and FBI are now the laughing
stock of the world. As to the Defense Intelligence
Agency in the Pentagon, I wonder if it was accidental
that the plane striking that building hit exactly the
section where that agency was housed.
There is simply nothing Washington can do to restore
the situation existing before this morning. Even if it
decides to blame Saddam Hussein, and nukes Baghdad off
the fact of the earth, it will accomplish nothing in
a world of suicide bombers and underground
organizations capable of working in complete secrecy
and with perfect coordination.
The astonishing secrecy and coordination of the
attacks make the National Security Agency, the CIA,
the FBI, and American military intelligence the
laughing stock of the world. Undoubtedly
U.S."intelligence"(?!) operations will be multiplied.
That guarantees absolutely nothing.
The Korean War was accompanied by the rise of
McCarthyism. It is possible that today's events may
bring similar hysteria and suppression of civil
liberties. Not only would that further diminish the
civil liberties that are one of this country's
proudest achievements, but by so doing it would reduce
the ability of the citizenry to ask the necessary
questions about the policies responsible for the
hatred of the United States expressed in this
catastrophe.
The time has come to realize that the motivation that
brought about our Revolutionary War in 1776 is the
strongest single force active in the world today.
Peoples will be independent, no matter what Washington,
Wall Street, and Silicon Valley want to do with and in
their countries. The United States must either adapt
to that or suffer the fate of ancient Rome.
William Mandel, Oakland, California
(37 years [1958-1995] on Pacifica Radio stations
*********************
#4
This is the piece referred to above written by a reporter from the
Miami Herald.
We'll go forward from this moment...
It's my job to have something to say. They pay me to provide words
that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in
this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes,
the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit,
must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.
You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard. What lesson did you
hope to teach us by your coward's attack on our World Trade Center,
our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it
was, please know that you failed.
Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause.
Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve.
Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.
Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome
family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class
division, but a family nonetheless. We're frivolous, yes, capable of
expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae -- a
singer's revealing dress, a ball team's misfortune, a cartoon mouse.
We're wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and
material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with
a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent,
though -- peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the
right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of
us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.
Some people -- you, perhaps -- think that any or all of this makes us
weak. You're mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways
that cannot be measured by arsenals.
IN PAIN
Yes, we're in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We're
still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still
working to make ourselves understand that this isn't a special effect
from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn't the plot development from a
Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition
and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down
as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States
and, probably, the history of the world. You've bloodied us as we
have never been bloodied before.
But there's a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making
us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the
last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us
such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our
outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of
barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any
length, in the pursuit of justice. I tell you this without fear of
contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know
reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.
In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation,
fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen
and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will
be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms.
We'll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But
determined, too. Unimaginably determined.
THE STEEL IN US
You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect
of our character is seldom understood by people who don't know us
well. On this day, the family's bickering is put on hold. As
Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans,
we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.
So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me
that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If
that's the case, consider the message received. And take this message
in exchange: You don't know my people. You don't know what we're
capable of. You don't know what you just started.
But you're about to learn.
*********************
#5
Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2001 16:45:11 -0400
From: War Resisters League {wrl@igc.org}
Subject: Statement on September 11 Attack
New York, New York
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 11, 2001
Statement on September 11 Attack
As we write, Manhattan feels under siege, with all bridges, tunnels, and
subways closed, and tens of thousands of people walking slowly north from
Lower Manhattan. As we sit in our offices here at War Resisters League,
our most immediate thoughts are of the hundreds if not thousands of New
Yorkers who have lost their lives in the collapse of the World Trade
Center. The day is clear, the sky is blue, but vast clouds billow over
the ruins where so many have died, including a great many rescue workers
who were there when the final collapse occurred.
Of course we know that our friends and co-workers in Washington, D.C. have
similar thoughts about the ordinary people who have been trapped in the
parts of the Pentagon which were also struck by a jet. And we think of
the innocent passengers on the hi-jacked jets who were carried to their
doom on this day.
We do not know at this time from what source the attack came. We do know
that Yasser Arafat has condemned the bombing. We hesitate to make an
extended analysis until more information is available but some things are
clear. For the Bush Administration to talk of spending hundreds of
billions on Star Wars is clearly the sham it was from the beginning, when
terrorism can so easily strike through more routine means.
We urge Congress and George Bush that whatever response or policy the U.S.
develops it will be clear that this nation will no longer target
civilians, or accept any policy by any nation which targets
civilians. This would mean an end to the sanctions against Iraq, which
have caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would
mean not only a condemnation of terrorism by Palestinians but also the
policy of assassination against the Palestinian leadership by Israel, and
the ruthless repression of the Palestinian population and the continuing
occupation by Israel of the West Bank and Gaza.
The policies of militarism pursued by the United States have resulted in
millions of deaths, from the historic tragedy of the Indochina war,
through the funding of death squads in Central America and Colombia, to
the sanctions and air strikes against Iraq. This nation is the largest
supplier of "conventional weapons" in the world and those weapons fuel the
starkest kind of terrorism from Indonesia to Africa. The early policy
support for armed resistance in Afghanistan resulted in the victory of the
Taliban and the creation of Osama Bin Laden.
Other nations have also engaged in these policies. We have, in years
past, condemned the actions of the Russian government in areas such as
Chechnya, the violence on both sides in the Middle East, and in the
Balkans. But our nation must take responsibility for its own actions. Up
until now we have felt safe within our borders. To wake on a clear day to
find our largest city under siege reminds us that in a violent world, none
are safe.
Let us seek an end of the militarism that has characterized this nation
for decades. Let us seek a world in which security is gained through
disarmament, international cooperation, and social justice not through
escalation and retaliation. We condemn without reservation attacks such
as those which occurred today, which strike at thousands of civilians. May
these profound tragedies remind us of the impact U.S. policies have had on
other civilians in other lands. We also condemn reflexive hostility
against people of Arab descent living in this country and urge that
Americans recall the part of our heritage that opposes bigotry in all forms.
We are one world. We shall live in a state of fear and terror or we shall
move toward a future in which we seek peaceful alternatives to violence,
and a more just distribution of the world's resources. As we mourn the
many lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge.
****************
This is not an official statement of the War Resisters League but was
drafted immediately after the tragic events occurred. Signed and issued
by members of the staff and Executive Committee of War Resisters League at
the national office, September 11, 2001.
Contact: David McReynolds, 212-674-7268
Joanne Sheehan, 860-889-5337
War Resisters League, 212-228-0450, wrl@igc.org
*********************
#6
To: Bush coup group {bushcoup2000@yahoogroups.com}
From: Richard Clark {richard_clark@mindspring.com}
Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2001 06:25:34 -0700
ENEMY WANTED. Serious enemy needed to justify Pentagon budget
increase. Defense contractors desperate. Interested enemies send
letter and photo or video (threatening, ok) to Enemy Search
Committee, Priorities Campaign, 1350 Broadway, NY, NY, 10018.
Here's the deal: We know our politicians have their work cut out for
them. They need to find an enemy to justify maintaining the Pentagon
budget as if the Cold War never ended. But the pool of credible
enemies is evaporating. North Korea is even going diplomatic. The
Soviets took themselves out of the running years ago. And countries
like Iraq -- or tough looking trading partners like China -- don't
make the cut.
So, I am distributing a job description as widely as possible to help
our politicians find the enemy they seek. Even with the help of
defense contractors -- who spend $50 million on lobbyists annually --
our politicians do not possess the creativity to find the right
adversary. It's clear that the old concept of enemy doesn't work
anymore.
The trouble is the Defense Department needs to find an enemy in a
hurry. The Bush Administration has proposed to increase Pentagon
spending by $33 billion, the largest defense increase since the Cold
War.
** EARTH DAY 2002 IN DETROIT** Mark your calendar!!
NO MORE SUVS! No More Cars built with less than 70mpg - RETOOL NOW!
First International Day of Outrage Against Climate Destabilization
Evil flourishes when good people do nothing
http://efmedia.org/climate/detroit.html
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