[Nettime-bold] September 11...(8)

[radtimes <resist@best.com>]

"Samuel Johnson's saying that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels 
has some truth in it, but not nearly enough. Patriotism, in truth, is the 
great nursery of scoundrels, and its annual output is probably greater that 
of even religion. Its chief glories are the demagogue, the military bully, 
and the spreader of libels and false history. Its philosophy rests firmly 
on the doctrine that the end justifies the means - that any blow, whether 
above or below the belt, is fair against dissenters from its wholesale 
denial of plain facts." -- H.L. Mencken

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[multiple items]
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Violence Doesn't Work

<http://www.commondreams.org/views01/0915-02.htm>

by Howard Zinn
September 14, 2001

People on fire leaping to their deaths from a hundred stories up. People in 
panic and fear racing from the scene in clouds of dust and smoke.

We knew that there must be thousands of human beings buried alive, but soon 
dead under a mountain of debris. We can only imagine the terror among the 
passengers of the hijacked planes as they contemplated the crash, the fire, 
the end. Those scenes horrified and sickened me.

Then our political leaders came on television, and I was horrified and 
sickened again. They spoke of retaliation, of vengeance, of punishment.

We are at war, they said. And I thought: they have learned nothing, 
absolutely nothing, from the history of the twentieth century, from a 
hundred years of retaliation, vengeance, war, a hundred years of terrorism 
and counter-terrorism, of violence met with violence in an unending cycle 
of stupidity.

We can all feel a terrible ange! r at whoever, in their insane idea that 
this would help their cause, killed thousands of innocent people. But what 
do we do with that anger? Do we react with panic, strike out violently and 
blindly just to show how tough we are? "We shall make no distinction," the 
President proclaimed, "between terrorists and countries that harbor 
terrorists." Will we now bomb Afghanistan, and inevitably kill innocent 
people, because it is in the nature of bombing to be indiscriminate, to 
"make no distinction"? Will we then be committing terrorism in order to 
"send a message" to terrorists?

We have done that before. It is the old way of thinking, the old way of 
acting. It has never worked. Reagan bombed Libya, and Bush made war on 
Iraq, and Clinton bombed Afghanistan and also a pharmaceutical plant in the 
Sudan, to "send a message" to terrorists. And then comes this horror in New 
York and Washington. Isn't it clear by now that sending a message to 
terrorists through violence doesn't wor! k, only leads to more terrorism?

Haven't we learned anything from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Car bombs planted by Palestinians bring air attacks and tanks by the 
Israeli government. That has been going on for years. It doesn't work.

And innocent people die on both sides.

Yes, it is an old way of thinking, and we need new ways. We need to think 
about the resentment all over the world felt by people who have been the 
victims of American military action. In Vietnam, where we carried out 
terrorizing bombing attacks, using napalm and cluster bombs,on peasant 
villages. In Latin America, where we supported dictators and death squads 
in Chile and El Salvador and other countries. In Iraq, where a million 
people have died as a result of our economic sanctions, And, perhaps most 
important for understanding the current situation, in the occupied 
territories of the West Bank and Gaza, where a million and more 
Palestinians live under a cruel military occup! ation, while our government 
supplies Israel with high-tech weapons.

We need to imagine that the awful scenes of death and suffering we are now 
witnessing on our television screens have been going on in other parts of 
the world for a long time, and only now can we begin to know what people 
have gone through, often as a result of our policies. We need to understand 
how some of those people will go beyond quiet anger to acts of terrorism.

We need new ways of thinking. A $300 billion dollar military budget has not 
given us security. Military bases all over the world, our warships on every 
ocean, have not given us security. Land mines and a "missile defense 
shield" will not give us security. We need to rethink our position in the 
world. We need to stop sending weapons to countries that oppress other 
people or their own people. We need to decide that we will not go to war, 
whatever reason is conjured up by the politicians of the media, because war 
in our time is always! indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war 
against children. War is terrorism, magnified a hundred times.

Our security can only come by using our national wealth, not for guns, 
planes, bombs, but for the health and welfare of our people - for free 
medical care for everyone, education and housing guaranteed decent wages 
and a clean environment for all. We can not be secure by limiting our 
liberties, as some of our political leaders are demanding, but only by 
expanding them.

We should take our example not from our military and political leaders 
shouting "retaliate" and "war" but from the doctors and nurses and medical 
students and firemen and policemen who have been saving lives in the midst 
of mayhem, whose first thoughts are not violence, but healing, not 
vengeance but compassion.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An Afghan-American speaks

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/14/afghanistan/

You can't bomb us back into the Stone Age. We're already there. But you
can start a new world war, and that's exactly what Osama bin Laden
wants.

By Tamim Ansary

Sept. 14, 2001 -- I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing
Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on San Francisco's KGO
Talk Radio, conceded today that this would mean killing innocent people,
people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we
have to accept collateral damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I
heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what
must be done."

And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am
from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived in the United States for 35
years I've never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell
anyone who will listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.


I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. There is no
doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in
New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.

But the Taliban and bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics
who took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal
with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think bin
Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan"
think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only that the
Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the first
victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if someone would come in
there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats' nest of
international thugs holed up in their country.

Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The
answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A
few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000
disabled orphans in Afghanistan -- a country with no economy, no food.
There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these
widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the
farms were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons
why the Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone
Age. Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already.
Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses?
Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their
hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from
medicine and healthcare? Too late. Someone already did all that. New
bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least
get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban
eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide.
Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans; they don't
move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul
and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who
did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause
with the Taliban -- by raping once again the people they've been raping
all this time.

So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with
true fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there
with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what
needs to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill
as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about
killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's
actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some
Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin
Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks. Because to get any
troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let
us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first. Will
other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going. We're
flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.

And guess what: That's bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he
wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's
all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the West. It might
seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam
and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a
holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to
lose; that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably
wrong -- in the end the West would win, whatever that would mean -- but
the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but
ours.

Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
----------
About the writer:
Tamim Ansary is a writer in San Francisco, and the son of a former
Afghani politician

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CIA's Covert War on Bin Laden

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28094-2001Sep13.html?referer=email

By Bob Woodward and Vernon Loeb

The CIA has been authorized since 1998 to use covert means to disrupt and 
preempt terrorist operations planned abroad by Saudi extremist Osama bin 
Laden under a directive signed by President Bill Clinton and reaffirmed by 
President Bush this year, according to government sources.

U.S. intelligence has observed the elusive multimillionaire, thought to be 
hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan, several times this year, one source 
said, adding that this holds out the prospect that military strikes could 
be directed against him.

But reliable intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden, who was fingered 
yesterday by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell as a prime suspect in 
Tuesday's suicide attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 
has been rare, despite what one source called a "rich and active" 
surveillance program.

"We have a hell of a targeting problem," the source said, noting that 
Pentagon analysts are attempting to match current intelligence with 
military capabilities contained in contingency plans for striking terrorist 
groups. Those analysts, the source said, are trying to determine whether to 
attempt to strike bin Laden directly, or to target military action against 
his aides, training camps, or the broader global network known as al Qaeda, 
which has connections to other Middle East terrorist groups.

One well-placed source said last night that intelligence gathered since 
Tuesday's attacks indicates that bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, and his 
other training centers throughout the Middle East, are now virtually empty. 
In addition, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has moved military equipment 
this week, as he frequently does when he anticipates U.S. military action, 
the source said.

The new information on bin Laden comes as the Pentagon reviews plans for 
what Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz described yesterday as a 
"broad and sustained" campaign against those responsible for Tuesday's 
attacks and any government found to have provided them sanctuary.

"I think one has to say it's not just simply a matter of capturing people 
and holding them accountable, but removing the sanctuaries, removing the 
support systems, ending states who sponsor terrorism," Wolfowitz said. "And 
that's why it has to be a broad and sustained campaign. I think one thing 
is clear -- you don't do it with just a single military strike, no matter 
how dramatic. You don't do it with just military forces alone, you do it 
with the full resources of the U.S. government."

The 1998 intelligence directives, known formally as presidential findings, 
were issued after terrorists linked by U.S. officials to bin Laden bombed 
U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. They were 
designed to give CIA agents maximum capability to stop attacks planned by 
bin Laden's al Qaeda network against additional American targets, which 
agency officers succeeded in doing several times, the sources said.

The highly classified directives adhered to a legal ban on the 
assassination of foreign leaders but authorized lethal force for 
self-defense, which was used by the CIA in several cases when armed 
terrorists were stopped moments before they initiated attacks, sources 
said. Since 1998, CIA counterterrorist officers, working with "liaison" 
partners from foreign intelligence organizations, have succeeded in 
preempting al Qaeda attacks in Jordan, Egypt, Kenya and the Balkans, 
sources said.

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow declined comment yesterday on any aspect of the 
agency's counterterrorist operations.

Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, Wolfowitz said that military forces 
would receive a "significant" portion of a $40 billion supplemental 
appropriation now before Congress to pay for "some huge requirements to 
build up our military for the next year, maybe longer." Much of the 
supplemental funds, he said, are necessary "to prepare our armed forces for 
whatever the president may ask them to do. The costs mount rapidly, and 
they will mount more rapidly as this campaign develops."

Some of that funding could be used to call up more than 40,000 reservists 
to active duty, a proposal under consideration, according to a senior 
military official. Several thousand reservists with "specialized skills" 
could be called up in the next few days, the official said.

Many of the extra personnel are necessary to support combat air patrols 
over major metropolitan areas instituted this week by filling out the ranks 
of pilots, aviation maintenance crews and military air traffic controllers, 
the official said.

State authorities have enlisted about 10,000 National Guard troops to 
assist in civil recovery efforts in Washington and New York. But the 
Pentagon move represents the first significant federal call-up. Major U.S. 
military actions almost invariably require reservists to supplement regular 
troops.

Pentagon planners are focusing on starting any military campaign with 
sustained bombing raids, first against bin Laden sites in Afghanistan, a 
senior U.S. official said yesterday. If that proves ineffective, the plan 
would call for the bombing of targets associated with Afghanistan's ruling 
Taliban militia, which has harbored bin Laden for the past five years, the 
official said.

"That was what the president meant when he said the U.S. was prepared to 
retaliate against both those responsible for terrorism and those who harbor 
them," the official said.

U.S. attempts to negotiate with the Taliban earlier this year to have it 
expel bin Laden failed, another official said, adding: "We have moved past 
there. Now we are trying to affect their intentions."

Several military officers said the Pentagon is also considering an array of 
special forces operations aimed at suspected terrorist redoubts in 
Afghanistan, Yemen, Sudan, Pakistan and Algeria. The Pentagon also is 
considering flying unmanned drones capable of lingering over terrorist 
camps for extended periods to provide almost continuous surveillance, one 
officer said.

"Things are different this time," another senior officer added. "I don't 
think the American people expect a light response."

One factor restraining previous military action was an emphasis on zero 
casualties, which has tended to constrain the Pentagon from employing 
ground troops and has led to a reliance on sea- or air-launched cruise 
missiles. Following the embassy bombings in 1998, the United States 
launched cruise missiles against sites in Afghanistan and Sudan thought to 
have ties to bin Laden. The attacks were criticized as largely ineffectual.

Bush and his advisers appear ready to consider the use of ground troops, 
particularly special forces, military officers said. "If you regard what 
happened as an act of war, as the president has said, your standard of 
application for what you do about it is different," said a four-star officer.

At the same time, military officials knowledgeable about the extent of 
Pentagon preparations characterized the planning as still in the early 
stage. They said no specific targets had been selected and no forces yet 
earmarked for action.

"It's really embryonic at this point," the four-star officer said.

Former CIA director R. James Woolsey said that Iraq would have multiple 
targets for military planners if it is conclusively demonstrated that Iraq 
"had a substantial hand" in Tuesday's attacks.

Should such evidence materialize, Woolsey said, "all instruments of power 
to the Iraqi state should be destroyed: the Republican Guard, everything 
associated with Saddam Hussein, everything associated with their weapons of 
mass destruction program."

Woolsey said he believes there is evidence suggesting that Ramzi Ahmed 
Yousef, the convicted mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 
was an Iraqi intelligence agent. "If Iraq is behind the '93 attack, it's 
never really paid any price for that -- and we can start right there," he 
said. "But if it's behind the '93 attack, there's a good chance it's behind 
this one."

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Time to use the nuclear option

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20010914-87723680.htm

by Thomas Woodrow
Washington Times

The time has come for the United States to make good on its past pledges 
that it will use all military capabilities at its disposal to defend U.S. 
soil by delivering nuclear strikes against the instigators and perpetrators 
of the attacks against the nation's political capital and the nation's 
financial capital.

At a bare minimum, tactical nuclear capabilities should be used against the 
bin Laden camps in the desert of Afghanistan. To do less would be rightly 
seen by the poisoned minds that orchestrated these attacks as cowardice on 
the part of the United States and the current administration.

To consider use of the nation's nuclear forces, in the present 
circumstances, cannot be brushed aside as an overly emotional response to 
the unknown face of terrorism. To begin with, we know who that face belongs 
to, and we know where a goodly portion of his logistical and training 
capabilities are located. A series of low-level, tactical nuclear strikes 
in the Afghanistan desert would pose no risk to large population centers 
and would carry little risk of fallout spreading to populated areas.

Also, our nuclear capabilities were designed to include just such a 
mission, and they are capable of fulfilling such a mission.

Lastly, the use of nuclear weapons against the bin Laden groups and his 
supporters will rightly shock the world, but it will also shock those 
nations that have been disposed for a variety of reasons to back the 
terrorist groups with economic and political support. The United States 
will, in effect, have raised the bar against future such acts from 
occurring. If we, as a nation, show the willingness to use the ultimate 
weapon in the current situation, there can be no doubt anywhere in the 
globe that the United States will make good on its past pledges to defend 
its sovereign territory with such weapons.

The attacks that occurred this week have been classified both as acts of 
war and as a second Pearl Harbor, but these designations ennoble the acts 
in Washington and New York. An act of war is constituted when one 
nation-state uses military force against another. Pearl Harbor was used by 
Japan to attack U.S. military targets to begin such an act of war. The bin 
Laden groups are not nations or states, and they have primarily targeted 
civilian populations. In fact, the use of so-called Islamic fundamentalist 
terrorism on a global scale is a new phenomena, a product of the modern 
age. In centuries past, civilized nations would conduct "punitive" 
expeditions against pirate regimes, but those actions were strictly local 
in scope and the protagonists could not approach the sophistication shown 
by the bin Laden groups. As we have seen from such "punitive" actions by 
the previous administration, those actions achieved next to nothing.

The fight against the bin Laden groups will be a fight to the death, and 
this is another valid reason to make use of our nation's nuclear forces. 
Unlike the more limited goals of wars between nations -- territory, formal 
surrender, etc. -- bin Laden's goals are the elimination of the United 
States as the global leader for progressive political, economic and 
cultural change. Should, God forbid, the United States withdraw from the 
Middle East and Persian Gulf, the terrorists will raise their sights to 
eliminate our influence elsewhere in the world. For a vision of what these 
groups see as their ultimate objective, we need look no further than the 
Taliban regime in Afghanistan, where women are beaten in the street for 
walking in public, owners of television sets are sent to prison or shot and 
ancient Buddhist monuments to universal peace and understanding are reduced 
to rubble.

No, the bin Laden groups must be exterminated completely before they become 
more powerful in their efforts to exterminate us. We should use our nuclear 
capabilities to help achieve this. We must, as a nation, take the firmest 
action possible against this growing evil in the world, before its poison 
spreads even further. If not the United States, who? If not now, under 
these circumstances, when?
---------
Thomas Woodrow, a 22-year veteran intelligence officer, resigned from the 
Defense Intelligence Agency in May.

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pull quote:
"We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to 
Christianity."

This is war

<http://www.townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/ac20010914.shtml>

by Ann Coulter
September 14, 2001

Barbara Olson kept her cool. In the hysteria and terror of hijackers 
herding passengers to the rear of the plane, she retrieved her cell phone 
and called her husband, Ted, the solicitor general of the United States. 
She informed him that he had better call the FBI, the plane had been 
hijacked. According to reports, Barbara was still on the phone with Ted 
when her plane plunged in a fiery explosion directly into the Pentagon.
Barbara risked having her neck slit to warn the country of a terrorist 
attack. She was a patriot to the very end.
This is not to engage in the media's typical hallucinatory overstatement 
about anyone who is the victim of a horrible tragedy. The furtive cell 
phone call was an act of incredible daring and panache. If it were not, 
we'd be hearing reports of a hundred more cell phone calls. (Even people 
who swear to hate cell phones carry them for commercial air travel.)
The last time I saw Barbara in person was about three weeks ago. She 
generously praised one of my recent columns and told me I had really found 
my niche. Ted, she said, had taken to reading my columns aloud to her over 
breakfast.
I mention that to say three things about Barbara. First, she was really 
nice. A lot of people on TV seem nice, but aren't. (And some who don't seem 
nice, are.) But Barbara was always her charming, graceful, ebullient self. 
"Nice" is an amazingly rare quality among writers. In the opinion business, 
bitter, jealous hatred is the norm. Barbara had reason to be secure.
Second, it was actually easy to imagine Ted reading political columns aloud 
to Barbara at the breakfast table.  Theirs was a relationship that could 
only be cheaply imitated by Bill and Hillary, the latter being a subject of 
Barbara's appropriately biting best seller, "Hell to Pay."
Hillary claimed preposterously in the Talk magazine interview that she 
discussed policy with Bill while cutting his grapefruit in the morning. Ted 
and Barbara really did talk politics, and really did have breakfast together.
It's "Ted and Barbara" just like it's Fred and Ginger, and George and 
Gracie. They were so perfect together, so obvious, that their friends were 
as happy they were on their wedding day. This is more than the death of a 
great person and patriotic American. It's a human amputation.
Third, since Barbara's compliment, I've been writing my columns for Ted and 
Barbara. I'm always writing to someone in my head. Now I don't know who to 
write to. Ted and Barbara were a good muse.
Apart from hearing that this beautiful light has been extinguished from the 
world, only one other news flash broke beyond the numbingly omnipresent 
horror of the entire day. That evening, CNN reported that bombs were 
dropping in Afghanistan -- and then updated the report to say they weren't 
our bombs.
They should have been ours. I want them to be ours.
This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals 
directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible 
include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response to the 
annihilation of patriots like Barbara Olson.
We don't need long investigations of the forensic evidence to determine 
with scientific accuracy the person or persons who ordered this specific 
attack. We don't need an "international coalition." We don't need a study 
on "terrorism." We certainly didn't need a congressional resolution 
condemning the attack this week.
The nation has been invaded by a fanatical, murderous cult. And we welcome 
them. We are so good and so pure we would never engage in discriminatory 
racial or "religious" profiling.
People who want our country destroyed live here, work for our airlines, and 
are submitted to the exact same airport shakedown as a lumberman from 
Idaho. This would be like having the Wehrmacht immigrate to America and 
work for our airlines during World War II. Except the Wehrmacht was not so 
bloodthirsty.
"All of our lives" don't need to change, as they keep prattling on TV. 
Every single time there is a terrorist attack, or a plane crashes because 
of pilot error
Americans allow their rights to be contracted for no purpose whatsoever.
The airport kabuki theater of magnetometers, asinine questions about 
whether passengers "packed their own bags," and the hostile, lumpen 
mesomorphs ripping open our luggage somehow allowed over a dozen armed 
hijackers to board four American planes almost simultaneously on Bloody 
Tuesday. (Did those fabulous security procedures stop a single hijacker 
anyplace in America that day?)
Airports scrupulously apply the same laughably ineffective airport 
harassment to Suzy Chapstick as to Muslim hijackers. It is preposterous to 
assume every passenger is a potential crazed homicidal maniac. We know who 
the homicidal maniacs are. They are the ones cheering and dancing right now.
We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to 
Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only 
Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed 
civilians. That's war.  And this is war.

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Many Arabs condemn rejoice at U.S. attacks

By DONNA BRYSON, Associated Press
CAIRO, Egypt

http://chblue.com/home.pl?&&frameurl=http%3A%2F%2Finterestalert.com%2Fbrand%2Fsiteia.shtml%3FStory%3Dst%2Fsn%2F09120002aaa01374.nand%26amp%3BSys%3Dchblue%26amp%3BType%3DNews%26amp%3BFilter%3DReligion

(September 12, 2001 03:16 p.m. EDT ) - Viewing the explosions, the fires, 
the frightened and the fleeing in television images from New York and 
Washington, Arabs were reminded of their own wars - and some said they 
rejoiced that the United States was learning a lesson in suffering.

Others condemned the celebrations in refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan 
and the coffee shops of Iraq and Egypt, where revelers fired rifles in the 
air and distributed soft drinks at news of Tuesday's attacks.

"We have to reflect on why we, as Arabs and Muslims, have sunk so low as to 
glorify violence and destruction," said Ahmed Bishara, a Kuwaiti political 
activist. "Yes, we can differ with U.S. policy. Yes, the U.S. way of life 
may differ. But there's no way for me as a human being to accept violence."

Others say it is America that should take notice.

"If American policy-makers are wise, they are going to try to get to the 
bottom of this ... American indifference," said Gamal Nkrumah, a writer 
living in Cairo. "A lot of people feel that the U.S. couldn't care less 
about the suffering of three-quarters of mankind."

Few Americans would recognize the portrait of their country in places like 
Ein el-Hilweh, a Palestinian refugee camp gripped by poverty and factional 
fighting in south Lebanon.

Ein el-Hilweh's 70,000 residents blame America's military and diplomatic 
support of Israel for preventing them from returning to homes they or their 
parents fled when the Jewish state was founded in 1948.

"I felt sorry for the victims of the New York attacks but, regrettably, 
America feels no sorrow for those who are killed with U.S. weapons," said 
Ebtissam Shaaban, a 27-year-old hair stylist in Ein el-Hilweh.

While Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat condemned the attacks Tuesday, when 
news of the catastrophe broke in the West Bank town of Nablus, about 4,000 
people poured into the streets chanting "God is Great."

Still, even nations long at odds with the United States - Libya, Syria, 
Sudan and Iran - denounced the attacks.

"Irrespective of the conflict with America, it is a human duty to show 
sympathy with the American people, and be with them at these horrifying and 
awesome events, which are bound to awaken human conscience," Libyan leader 
Moammar Gadhafi said.

Sudan's Foreign Ministry expressed its regret in a statement issued 
Wednesday and "reaffirmed its rejection of all kinds of violence."

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami "expressed deep regret and sympathy with 
the victims" and said "it is an international duty to try to undermine 
terrorism."

That contrasted sharply with the conservative Tehran Times newspaper, which 
juxtaposed a photo of the World Trade Center reduced to rubble with one of 
Mohammed al-Dura, the 12-year-old whose death in his father's arms during a 
gunbattle with Israeli troops in October turned him into a Palestinian 
symbol of martyrdom.

America is the terrorist, wrote an editorialist in Iraq, which has been 
crippled by U.S.-backed U.N. sanctions imposed to punish it for invading 
Kuwait in 1990.

Such anger only sporadically translates into armed attacks on the United 
States. Even attempts to hit America economically - such as boycotts 
against such icons as McDonald's restaurants or Coke - are short-lived, 
reflecting a love-hate element in Arabs' image of the United States.

By celebrating an attack on America, "we are violating our own cultural 
edicts," said Bishara, head of Kuwait's National Democratic Movement. "We 
are not Muslims anymore if we do this. There are norms and rules for 
fighting your enemy and getting your rights."

Many Muslim clerics agreed.

"The killing of innocent people is a despicable and heinous act that is 
accepted by neither religion nor human sensibility," said Grand Sheik 
Mohammed Sayed Tantawi of Cairo's Al-Azhar, Islam's oldest and most 
prominent religious institution.

Months or years from now, investigators may conclude that no Arab was 
behind the attacks. But Americans who watched Arabs applauding terrorism 
may nonetheless conclude they are the enemy, worried Egyptian political 
analyst Gehad Auda.

Auda recalled the 1991 Gulf War - when Palestinians rallied round Iraq - 
and its attempt to turn its invasion of Kuwait into a confrontation with 
Israel. The Palestinians ended up isolated.

"The Palestinians are making the same mistake in not controlling their 
emotions. Celebration at the moment of grief is wrong, uncalled for. And 
it's unwise," Auda said. "America before was undecided. Now America will be 
decided - for the Israelis."

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Secrecy, democracy and national security

http://www.onlinejournal.com/

September 12, 2001
By Carla Binion <CarlaBin@aol.com>

I wrote the bulk of the following article on government secrecy and
democracy before the tragic terrorist strikes on New York and Washington, DC.
However, I've updated it to include some facts relevant to terrorism,
including the well-supported fact that our own government has sold weapons to
terrorists on a massive scale.

The magnitude of the loss of human life on September 11 has taken the
nation's breath away, and our first concern should be taking care of the
injured. At the same time, we have to think clearly and pay attention to
facts and reason. Now is the worst possible time for the American people to
fly off the handle in irrational rage or reactive fear.

Political opportunists might try to use this sad moment in our nation's
history to prey on American's lowest instincts, anger and fear, in order to
manipulate public opinion to rally around bloating the military budget. They
might also take advantage of this tragedy by trying to frighten already
terrified Americans into giving up many of the civil liberties our ancestors
fought so hard to win, in the name of "national security."

While watching news coverage on September 11, I noticed a number of
commentators said that from that day forward everything had changed; that
it's now a whole different world. They said we should rally around Bush and
other "leaders." Some, including, for example, former Vice President Dan
Quayle, said we might now have to relinquish a number of our civil liberties.
However, this would be a bad time for Americans to turn their backs on the
very civil liberties America is really all about. As Ben Franklin once said,
those people willing to sacrifice freedom for security deserve neither.

In addition, many things haven't changed in this country since the terrorist
attacks. For example, the fact remains that certain U. S. officials have for
years allowed our nation to sell massive amounts of weapons to potential
terrorists (examples to follow.) Instead of rallying around politicians, who
may or may not have our best interests at heart, we should focus on rallying
around our fellow Americans. This is no time to let ourselves be manipulated
into allying ourselves with those politicians who have consistently lied to
us.

On September 12, on a Fox Network morning program, Caspar Weinberger, defense
secretary under Ronald Reagan, took advantage of the terrorist strikes to
argue that we lost military capability during the Clinton years, because the
military was "under funded." He said that due to the recent terrorist
attacks, we now need total war and more military funding.

On the same program, Weinberger also hearkened back to the mid-1970s and
criticized a congressional investigating body, the Church committee, claiming
that committee's almost 30-year old investigation of U. S. intelligence
agency misdeeds had discouraged democracies from employing necessary "spies."
He said a democracy needs spies in order to protect national security.

Most of us agree a democracy needs to gather intelligence in sane, useful
ways. But Weinberger misrepresented the Church committee's position. In
reality, the Church committee investigated the fact that the CIA had violated
its charter and broken the law by spying on American citizens who
non-violently protested the Vietnam War or participated, non-violently, in
the civil rights movement.

The committee learned that the FBI had spied on and seriously harassed Martin
Luther King and other peaceful demonstrators. The Church committee also found
that the bureau had systematically disseminated anti-leftist propaganda to
the public and tried to create conflict between members of protest groups in
order to break up their movements.

During the mid-'70s, both houses of Congress looked into massive FBI and CIA
corruption and illegalities, including our then secret, arguably immoral
foreign policy. The Church committee didn't conclude that America couldn't
use spies, as Weinberger opportunistically implied on the day after the
terrorist strikes.

Instead, the committee said we need government oversight in order to prevent
spies from abusing their power, and to keep them from mistreating American
citizens and innocent people of other countries in the process of doing their
work. In other words, the Church committee called for our intelligence
agencies and other government officials to do their jobs in a moral and
decent manner, and Weinberger knows that.

Government secrecy is often bad for democracy and for the public's safety and
security. In Blank Check, a book based on journalist Tim Weiner's Pulitzer
Prize-winning newspaper series about the Pentagon's secret budget, Weiner
writes: "In 1987, the CIA's director of covert action, Clair George,
testified to a kind of mania that grips men empowered by secrecy: 'If you
were ever on any given day to know all the plans that were being made inside
the American government on all the subjects, you would be so terrified you
would leave,' the spymaster said."

Weiner again quotes Clair George, saying that behind the cloak of government
secrecy is "a business that works outside the law . . . a business that is
very hard to define by legal terms because we are not working within the
American legal system."

"A system that works outside the law breeds lawlessness . . . Secrecy
conceals the costs, and suffocates criticism" of potential government
misdeeds, says Weiner.

In Challenging the Secret Government, (The University of North Carolina
Press, 1996) Kathryn S. Olmsted writes that when Dick Cheney was Gerald
Ford's deputy chief of staff, Cheney outlined options for dealing with
Seymour Hersh after the journalist revealed information the government wanted
suppressed.

The Cheney options included "discussing" Hersh with his employer, the New
York Times; a possible FBI investigation of the Times and Hersh; seeking
grand jury indictments; and "getting a search warrant to go through Hersh's
papers in his apartment." The White House decided not to prosecute Hersh
because it didn't want to call further attention to his reports. It also
feared the pursuit would win public sympathy for the journalist. (Olmsted's
sources are notes and memos Cheney exchanged with other Ford administration
staff members in May 1975.)

While Cheney and Weinberger may be fans of government secrecy, it's important
to remember that secrecy allowed Iran-Contra. As Tim Weiner notes, "The
secret funding of the arms shipments to the Iranians and the contras cheated
the Constitution's checks." Under the veil of secrecy, says Weiner, "Reagan .
. . put his men to work cutting deals for the contras with dictators and
communists, enemies and allies alike."

In January 1986, Ronald Reagan signed a presidential finding authorizing CIA
Director William Casey to hide Iranian arms shipments from congressional
oversight committees. According to a memo from Iran-Contra principle and
National Security Adviser Admiral John Poindexter, George H. W. Bush
witnessed the finding. (From National Security Archive, referenced in Angus
Mackenzie's Secrets: The CIA's War at Home, University of California Press,
1997.)

Much of the money that funds the CIA and the National Security Agency (NSA)
comes from the Pentagon's black budget. Tim Weiner points out that starting
with Reagan's administration, the black budget mushroomed, and the Pentagon
began hiding the costs of its most expensive weapons.

The "version of the military budget made available for public consumption,"
says Weiner, showed that during the Reagan years the budget "doubled to
roughly $300 billion, or a billion dollars a day, save Sundays and holidays."
The Pentagon budget, notes Weiner is "the largest pool of public capital in
the world."

It has funded not only national defense, but also such things as "the
National Security Council's gunrunning schemes" and "shipping half a billion
dollars' worth of weapons halfway around the world to a murderous commando
who revered the late Ayatollah Khomeini," Weiner writes.

According to William D. Hartung (And Weapons for All, HarperCollins, 1994),
the George H. W. Bush administration talked publicly of reining in weapons
trading. But in practice secretly, the administration "concluded deals for
the sale of more than $23 billion in U. S. arms to the Middle East alone"
over a two-year period.

Instead of trying to scale down the U. S. weapons trade in keeping with
post-Cold War era realities, the Bush administration, says Hartung, expanded
and refined the arms dealing "to levels that would have amazed even the most
hard-line members of the Reagan administration."

Hartung adds that the late Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez found direct
evidence that the George H. W. Bush administration organized a cover-up of
its military technology assistance to Saddam Hussein—a cover-up also
involving the State Department.

Gonzalez charged that the Bush administration was trying to hide "the true
responsibility for the transfer of United States technology to the Iraqi war
machine," which lies, "with the White House and the State Department, because
they set technology transfer policy." Gonzalez added that the White House and
National Security Council devised the cover-up in order to "mislead the
Congress and the public . . . about the military nature of the transfers to
Iraq."

Hartung points out that, to this day, high government officials haven't been
held accountable for the recent arms sales scandals. Congress has done
nothing to remedy this and government investigations have been "derailed
indefinitely."

Governments sometimes justify secrecy by claiming certain covert actions are
a matter of national security when, in fact, the secrecy is merely a cover-up
for politicians' wrongdoing. "Secret powers naturally expand when unchecked,"
writes Tim Weiner regarding the cover-up of the extent of our nation's
weapons build-up. "Two bombs became nearly 25,000 in less than twenty years .
. . We have found no way down yet from the Everest of warheads we built."

In Fortress America (Perseus Books Group, 1998), journalist Bill Greider says
the arms industry is irrational in that it is "grossly too large" and far too
costly to taxpayers. He talks about military waste. For example, the Pentagon
has been dumping old tanks, sinking 100 Sherman M- 60s into Mobile Bay off
the Alabama coast, giving 45 tanks free to Bosnia, shipping 91 to Brazil and
30 to Bahrain under a no-cost five-year lease. "One way or another, the Army
has disposed of nearly six thousand older tanks during the last six years,"
Greider writes.

He also notes that the Air Force "has so many long-range bombers it can't
even afford to keep them in the air­and it still wants to build more." When
budget constraints force the armed forces to choose between soldiers and
weapons, they usually choose the weapons, says Greider—meaning they close
bases and discharge soldiers while continuing to purchase arms.

"For nearly fifty years," writes Tim Weiner, "the idea of national security
has been expressed by nuclear weapons and covert actions. The world is
changing in ways that make that definition self-defeating . . . We have
chosen weapons over human needs: are we safer? We have fought scores of
secret wars: are we more secure?"

Admiral Eugene Carroll, U. S. Navy (Ret.), Director of the Center for Defense
Information, says "We continue to spend nearly $300 billion a year for forces
to fight in regional conflicts at the same time we are the world's leading
seller of the arms which fuel those conflicts." (From William D. Hartung's
And Weapons for All.)

According to the 1998 Project Censored, "1998 Censored Foreign Policy News
Stories," (Peter Phillips and the Project Censored group, Seven Stories
Press): "[T]he last five times U. S. troops were sent into conflict, they
found themselves facing adversaries who had previously received U. S.
weapons, military technology or training."

Tim Weiner points out in Blank Check that after the Soviets invaded
Afghanistan in December 1979, the CIA "bought an immense arsenal for the
Afghan rebels." During the 1980s, the CIA spent around $3 billion smuggling
weapons to the so-called holy warriors of the Afghan resistance. Weiner says
the operation "started small: $30 million of weaponry a year in 1980. It grew
to $100 million, then $500 million, then $700 million a year."

Weiner continues, "The CIA's arms shipments to Afghanistan became the biggest
covert operation in history, save its wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
twenty years ago." Eventually, says Weiner, "the CIA's pipeline leaked. It
leaked badly. It spilled huge quantities of weapons all over one of the
world's most anarchic areas."

A dozen or more of the CIA's Stinger anti-aircraft missiles "would up in the
hands of Iran's Revolutionary Guards," writes Weiner, and on October 8, 1987,
"Revolutionary Guards on an Iranian gunboat fired one of those Stingers at
American helicopters patrolling the Persian Gulf. American weapons, shipped
abroad by the CIA, were aimed back at American soldiers."

A secure nation is one not plagued by fear or danger, Tim Weiner concludes.
When politicians claim our "national security" depends on government secrecy,
do they define security in those terms? Or are they claiming security is
based on covert arms trading—a lucrative practice for the arms traders, but
both an economic drain and safety risk for U. S. soldiers and for average
Americans?

As Weiner suggests, our leaders can drain our nation's treasury for weapons.
But they can't do so in secret and still claim we have an open democracy.

In Fortress America, Bill Greider writes that we need an alternative view of
national security. He says our current vision "sets up the nation as global
cop, scurrying from one bonfire to another . . . inevitably collecting
resentment and enemies, inviting a moment of miscalculation when things go
terribly wrong and America gets scapegoated as the arrogant bully."

"This is unlikely to change much," says Greider, "until American political
leaders find the courage to confront these big questions and begin describing
a genuinely different framework for national—that is, global—security."

As part of that new framework, we need to construct "international security
forces and mechanisms for conflict resolution that everyone can trust,"
Greider concludes. Trust is the operative word.

Greider adds that it would help if America would "devote its diplomatic power
(and sense of invention) to creating new institutions and strengthening old
ones like the United Nations."

In addition, people around the world, including our own American citizens,
might trust the U. S. government more if our political leaders would take the
lead in committing to making the global economic system work on behalf of
everyone, and not just for the benefit of the very wealthy. Creating trust is
essential for our nation's future security.

We also need to bolster our international image of trustworthiness by
honoring such agreements as the chemical and biological weapons treaty, the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the
moratorium on testing nuclear weapons—all treaties and moratoriums the Bush
administration has rejected.

Would more money spent on a missile defense system or nuclear weapons have
prevented the terrorism of September 11? Would the kind of government secrecy
advocated by Caspar Weinberger, the kind that includes spying on innocent,
non-violent dissenting Americans, have prevented that tragedy?

If anything, our massive weapons sales to potential terrorists have
endangered America, not made us more secure. Our often pugnacious foreign
policy, rejection of treaties other nations have accepted, and refusal to
embrace a more diplomatic, cooperative paradigm have arguably endangered us
instead of making us more secure.

We need to address terrorism by considering all those issues, not by reacting
from our lowest instincts of rage, fear and greed—the very instincts behind
the out-of-control weapons trade and the effort toward excessive government
secrecy. Those instincts got us where we are today.

Yes, we need security, but we won't get it through the old, outmoded, base
instinct way of running this country and participating in the world. Our way
of thinking about democracy and government secrecy needs to move to higher
ground. We need to realize this country can be both powerful and consistently
ethical at the same time.

At this perilous moment, we should come together around that higher way of
thinking and a new, more civilized political paradigm, appropriate to
Twenty-First Century realities. Instead of rallying around just any
politicians, we need to rally around our own higher human instincts, around
our fellow citizens and around policies that can really work to give us a
safer, more loving world.

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Senate OKs FBI Net Spying

http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,46852,00.html

By Declan McCullagh
Sep. 14, 2001

WASHINGTON -- FBI agents soon may be able to spy on Internet users legally
without a court order.

On Thursday evening, two days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S.
history, the Senate approved the "Combating Terrorism Act of 2001," which
enhances police wiretap powers and permits monitoring in more situations.

The measure, proposed by Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Dianne Feinstein
(D-California), says any U.S. attorney or state attorney general can order
the installation of the FBI's Carnivore surveillance system. Previously,
there were stiffer restrictions on Carnivore and other Internet surveillance
techniques.

Its bipartisan sponsors argue that such laws are necessary to thwart
terrorism. "It is essential that we give our law enforcement authorities
every possible tool to search out and bring to justice those individuals who
have brought such indiscriminate death into our backyard," Hatch said during
the debate on the Senate floor.

Thursday's vote comes as the nation's capital is reeling from the
catastrophes at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and politicians are
vowing to do whatever is necessary to preserve the safety of Americans.

This week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-New Hampshire) called for restrictions on
privacy-protecting encryption products, and Carnivore's use appears on the
rise. In England, government officials have asked phone companies and
Internet providers to collect and record all their users' communications --
in case the massive accumulation of data might yield clues about Tuesday's
terrorist attacks.

Under the Combating Terrorism Act, prosecutors could authorize surveillance
for 48-hour periods without a judge's approval.

Warrantless surveillance appears to be limited to the addresses of websites
visited, the names and addresses of e-mail correspondents, and so on, and is
not intended to include the contents of communications. But the legislation
would cover URLs, which include information such as what Web pages you're
visiting and what terms you type in when visiting search engines.

Circumstances that don't require court orders include an "immediate threat
to the national security interests of the United States, (an) immediate
threat to public health or safety or an attack on the integrity or
availability of a protected computer." That covers most computer hacking
offenses.

During Thursday's floor debate, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), head of the
Judiciary committee, suggested that the bill went far beyond merely
thwarting terrorism and could endanger Americans' privacy. He also said he
had a chance to read the Combating Terrorism Act just 30 minutes before the
floor debate began.

"Maybe the Senate wants to just go ahead and adopt new abilities to wiretap
our citizens," Leahy said. "Maybe they want to adopt new abilities to go
into people's computers. Maybe that will make us feel safer. Maybe. And
maybe what the terrorists have done made us a little bit less safe. Maybe
they have increased Big Brother in this country."

By voice vote, the Senate attached the Combating Terrorism Act to an annual
spending bill that funds the Commerce, Justice and State departments for the
fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, then unanimously approved it. Since the House
has not reviewed this version of the appropriations bill, a conference
committee will be created to work out the differences.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Arizona), one of the co-sponsors, said the Combating
Terrorism Act would give former FBI Director Louis Freeh what he had lobbied
for years ago: "These are the kinds of things that law enforcement has asked
us for. This combination is relatively modest in comparison with the kind of
terrorist attack we have just suffered."

"Experts in terrorism have been telling us for a long time and the director
of the FBI has been telling us (to make) a few changes in the law that make
it easier for our law enforcement people to do their job," Kyl said.

It's unclear what day-to-day effects the Combating Terrorism Act would have
on prosecutors and Internet users. Some Carnivore installations apparently
already take place under emergency wiretap authority, and some civil
liberties experts say part of this measure would give that practice stronger
legal footing.

"One of the key issues that have surrounded the use of Carnivore is being
addressed by the Senate in a late-night session during a national
emergency," says David Sobel, general counsel of the Electronic Privacy
Information Center.

A source close to the Senate Judiciary committee pointed out that the
wording of the Combating Terrorism Act is so loose -- the
no-court-order-required language covers "routing" and "addressing" data --
that it's unclear what its drafters intended. The Justice Department had
requested similar legislation last year.

"Nobody really knows what routing and addressing information is.... If
you're putting in addressing information and routing information, you may
not just get (From: lines of e-mail messages), you might also get content,"
the source said.

The Combating Terrorism Act also expands the list of criminal offenses for
which traditional, court-ordered wiretaps can be sought to explicitly
include terrorism and computer hacking.

Other portions include assessing how prepared the National Guard is to
respond to weapons of mass destruction, handing the CIA more flexibility in
recruiting informants and improving the storage of U.S. "biological
pathogens."

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September 14, 2001

IN THE WAKE OF THE TERROR ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11TH, 2001

A statement from the Campaign for Labor Rights, based largely on a statement
issued September 13 by the Black Radical Congress (BRC).

Terror Attacks of September 11, 2001

During this intensely sad and traumatic time, we extend our sincere and
heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those who lost
their life on September 11th. We also wish for the speedy and full recovery
of those who were injured, and we hope that in the aftermath of the attacks,
rescue crews can find as many people still alive as possible.

Campaign for Labor Rights condemns the horrific terrorist attacks of
September 11th, 2001 in New York and Washington, D.C. The brazen murder of
countless thousands of civilians cannot be supported or condoned.  An
unknown number of our union sisters and brothers have been lost to the
combined attacks--Campaign for Labor Rights will rally support, beginning in
Washington, D.C. this weekend, for their families.

Here in Washington, D.C., we are experiencing something like nothing we've
ever felt before.  It's as if the fabric of our community has been torn, and
the smaller tasks of normal day-to-day life no longer seem important.  From
talking with some of you from across the country and around the world, we
know that many of you feel similarly.  Yet we are sending this Labor Alert
to let you know that we see hope and potential in these painful moments.  We
know that sitting on the subway or walking around on the streets, we have
something deeply in common with people we may never have spoken to before.
This newfound common ground provides an opportunity to reach out to each
other, and to forge real, human connections with our neighbors and fellow
community members.

We also understand that there are many ways in which the tears in our
communities can be sewn back together.  Our communities could be put back
together in reactionary ways, demanding a violent response from the US
government.  Communities could rebuild themselves exactly as they existed
before, largely unquestioning of the way the US interacts with (and acts
upon) the rest of the world.  Or we could stitch the fabric of our
communities back together in a way that pulls us all closer together.  We
could build something out of this moment.  We could talk to our neighbors
and community members about how they're feeling, and we could create
something from this moment that won't allow us to simply fall back into
"business as usual."

It is without question that US imperialism has brought genocidal levels of
death and destruction to people around the world. Whether one looks at the
situation in Iraq with the continual blockade and air bombardments, the
situation in Palestine where the US continues to give virtually uncritical
support to the Israelis in their national oppression of the Palestinians, or
the low-intensity economic warfare against the vast majority of Central
America or any number of other places which perpetuates labor exploitation,
one clearly sees the callousness and evil intent with which US imperialism
treats the lives and property of others, especially non-white peoples around
the globe.

Yet, even with a firm understanding of the causes of the desperation, fury,
and hatred of US imperialism, turning to terrorism to fight global
oppression and exploitation is not an acceptable strategy. A clear and
unambiguous distinction must be made between radical/revolutionary political
action on the one hand, and terrorism on the other, regardless of whether
the causes that *appeared* to inspire the terrorist action(s) are just. Open
and unmitigated attacks on civilian targets do not advance
radical/revolutionary causes and must be repudiated. Rather, such attacks
inevitably antagonize the populace, weaken any existing popular support, and
help legitimize heightened levels of repression by the imperialist state
against *all* progressive/radical/revolutionary political activity,
including increased restrictions on the civil rights of the people.

We already hear, in the voices of those in power, calls for war and
vengeance. War and vengeance without a precise target, but striking out
blindly against civilians, is nothing more than self-serving egoism, and it
is exactly what has just happened in New York and Washington, D.C.

Given the track record of the US, this vengeance could include
indiscriminate bombings or missile attacks, such as the attack against the
Sudanese pharmaceutical laboratory two years ago, which was later found
*not* to have been connected with any sort of terrorist activity.

The dangers presented by the September 11th terrorist acts do not restrict
themselves to the external threat. We hear on television and radio calls for
changing the laws and regulations in order to make it easier to conduct
surveillance and to carry-out covert operations against potential opponents
of the US. Rather than accomplishing anything in terms of reducing the
threat of terrorism, such steps will eliminate basic civil liberties and
strengthen the existing tendency toward a racist and classist police state.
The police are already out of control and on the rampage in communities
across the country. We cannot afford to further unleash their undemocratic
and frequently racist and murderous behavior in the name of national
security.

We should add here that the terrorist attacks have also brought potential
damage to the growing anti-capitalist globalization movement. The ruling
class has been making noise for months about the demonstrations that
accompany the gatherings of capitalist globalizers. They have inferred that
these demonstrations will get increasingly out of control.

There is no question that the events of September 11th will be used as a
pretext to both discourage activity, as well as to clamp down on any and all
popular outrage with neo-liberal globalization.  Campaign for Labor Rights
has heard that this crisis will be used to push forward that neo-liberal
agenda.  Specifically, we have heard that Republican leaders intend to pass
a "broad economic stimulus package," which will most likely include some
form of Fast Track, giving President Bush the authority to negotiate trade
deals with other countries with nearly no input from congress.

This is undoubtedly a crucial moment.  We must not let the atrocities that
have already occurred to continue.  We must demand that there be no violent
retaliation on the part of the US, and also that there be no violent,
undemocratic legislation pushed through in the haste to get "back on track."


It is also critical in moments such as these that we as human beings fight
and resist popular impulses toward
scape-goating and racism. From almost the moment of the first attack on the
World Trade Center, there has been an assumption floated within the media
that Arabs or Muslim fundamentalists were behind the attacks. The reaction
to the attacks is reminiscent of what we witnessed immediately after the
Oklahoma City bombings. There was a widespread assumption that Arabs or
Muslims were behind the attack on the Federal Office building. Few
establishment observers expected, or led any of the public to expect, that
the terrorist could be -- and was -- a homegrown, white American
right-winger.

Therefore, it is important to reserve judgment until a more thorough
investigation is conducted. This is particularly important given the
anti-Palestinian/anti-Arab/anti-Muslim bias of the media. The automatic
assumption of the US media is that Palestinians specifically, and Arabs
generally, are animals, or at best, fanatics with no concern for human life.
The just Palestinian cause is rarely given credible time, and when offered,
generally dismissed by allegedly objective (but really pro-Israeli)
commentators.
Therefore, in the current situation of horror following these criminal acts,
we must actively oppose any and all "witch-hunting" and stereotyping which
is bound to emerge.

Yet another danger we currently face will be xenophobia and, general
anti-immigrant sentiment. This will almost inevitably be directed at
immigrants of color and particularly those who "look" like they might be of
Middle Eastern (North African) origin. The attacks on immigrants and the
condemnation of entire communities must be stopped before they escalate out
of control. We already see some of this happening with numerous reports of
anonymous death threats sent to Arab and Muslim institutions, as well as the
spray painting of racist slogans and direct, personal threats and attacks on
individuals who are assumed to be from the Middle East (North Africa). We
call on all clear-thinking people to be especially vigilant at this time in
making sure that in the aftermath of this tragedy, another tragedy born of
pain, anger, and hatred does not occur. True anti-racism may require us to
put ourselves at risk physically in order to defend Arabs and Muslims from
unwarranted attacks.

Lastly, we must not condone or be indifferent to the horrendous loss of
human life resulting from this tragedy, nor can we allow these horrific acts
to be used as an excuse to further repress Arab-Americans, Muslims, or those
perceived to be opponents of capitalist globalization.
As labor rights supporters, we understand the bloody history of the labor
movement in the US, and we understand that violent repression of workers and
organizers around the world persists today.  Because we understand this
suffering, some of us more directly than others, we must show our full and
unqualified support and compassion for all those suffering as a result of
this horrible tragedy.

In Solidarity,

Daisy Pitkin and Zakiyyah Jackson
Campaign for Labor Rights

~please send any comments or feedback on this statement to: CLRDC@afgj.org

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EARLY WARNING

State Department memo warned of terrorist threat

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/14/MN92245.DTL

by Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Friday, September 14, 2001

      Former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz said yesterday that he
was "startled" by a little-noticed State Department memo that
      was issued a week ago and warned that Americans "may be the target
of a terrorist threat."

      The memo, issued just four days before the attacks on New York and
Washington, identified the threat as coming from
      "extremist groups with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
organization."

      "I have not idea what intelligence lies behind the warning," Shultz
said, ''but they put this out because they had some sort of
      intelligence."

      Shultz, who served as secretary of state under President Reagan,
said he received a copy of the Sept. 7 "worldwide warning" in
      his San Francisco office on the day before the fatal attacks. The
memo addressed concerns for Americans overseas and made no
      mention of any possible attack on U.S. soil.

      Reached last night, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein said this was the
first she had heard anything about the State Department
      warnings.

      "Everyone should have been (alerted), but then you would have to
ask whether they would have known what to look out for,"
      Feinstein said.

      "Of course," Feinstein said, "today is a different world, and I
think a lot of things are going to change.

      "Bin Laden's people had made statements three weeks ago carried in
the Arab press in Great Britain that they were preparing to
      carry out unprecedented attacks in the U.S.," she said. "Whether
that was the derivation of this (State Department ) bulletin, I
      don't know."

      The warning dealt primarily with military bases in Japan and Korea.

      But as Shultz pointed out, the mere fact that a warning was issued
indicates that "something was cooking."

      And indeed, in the one-page alert, the State Department said it had
received information in May 2001 "that American citizens
      may be the target of a terrorist threat from extremist groups with
links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda organization."

      "Such individuals have not distinguished between official and
civilian targets," the report said, adding, "As always, we take this
      information seriously. U.S. Government facilities worldwide remain
on heightened alert."

      "They had some sort of rumbling of something," Shultz said, "even
if they didn't pinpoint it in the right direction."

      U.S. State Department representative Julie Reside in Washington
downplayed the significance of the bulletin yesterday, saying
      it was only the latest in a series of "periodically" issued public
warnings by the department.

      Reside said warnings are available to media organizations and on
the state department's Web page.

      "If it was based on intelligence, we cannot, of course, provide any
details, " Reside said.

      It's not the first time this year that the bin Laden organization
was mentioned in a "worldwide caution." The first warning came in
      May, and was later updated on Sept. 7 to include the threats to
U.S. military personnel in Asia.

      Officials at San Francisco International Airport said they weren't
aware of the State Department warning - but someone in the
      airport security section knew of it and passed word of the warning
onto Mayor Willie Brown when he called to check on the
      status of flight he was planning to take to New York.

      "I didn't give it much thought at the time," Brown said. "It wasn't
until after the attacks that I even remembered the call."

      Whether U.S. military installations around the world were aware of
the memo and took extra precautions is a bit unclear.
      Department of Defense spokesman Glenn Flood said his agency would
have received a copy of the bulletin. But, he added,
      "There was no order from the Pentagon for every base to go on
heightened alert, because that's up to the commands in each
      theater, and some are on alert anyway."

      State Department spokesman Richard Boucher made mention of the
bulletin at a routine -- and sparsely attended -- media briefing
      last Friday. He explained that the department was revising a June
22 notice to include warnings about threats to the military in
      Japan and Korea and "to ensure that the general American public is
aware of this potential danger to their safety."

      Boucher declined to say whether the threat in Asia was directly
linked to bin Laden.
-------------------
      E-mail Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross at
matierandross@sfchronicle.com.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9/13/01

Across America Tonight ...

Dear Friends,

I am on the road tonight, the only way to get out of L.A. and back home to 
our daughter and our friends in New York City. Oddly enough, I have never 
driven across this vast country. My wife and I have now stopped in 
Flagstaff for a few hours sleep before moving on.

The sorrow and anger builds across America. Talk radio tonight was filled 
with calls for carpet-bombing every Arab country. Many want revenge, blood. 
But a surprising number of people have called for us to not add to the 
killing of more innocent humans. The rest stops and the convenience stores 
along the way were filled with quiet, solemn people, many of whom, like us, 
can get home no other way than by this four-day trip.

Our daughter is fine, mostly frightened by my desire to fly home to her 
rather than drive. Once again, I was outvoted 2 to 1. This is nothing new.

We have learned of more people we know who have lost their lives. Bill 
Weems, who worked as a line producer for us this year, was on the flight 
from Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center. He was such a sweet 
and decent soul. Such senseless madness.

The children of New York who are orphaned tonight ... what do we say or do? 
I will do my part -- anything, something -- as soon as I get to New York. 
But it will never be enough.

The firefighters of New York: they are on every other block, every day, and 
they are your best neighbors. Sitting out on the sidewalks in front of the 
fire stations, a good word and a kind smile to all who pass ... now, 350+ 
of them gone, having risked their lives to save the victims of a carnage 
they soon became part of.

A good friend from Flint is a clerical worker at the Pentagon. I have heard 
no word about her condition. I have tried contacting her family to no 
avail. Her son, Malcolm, worked on our show. I cannot find him. I keep 
getting tears in my eyes. Once she gave me a tour of the Pentagon, took me 
everywhere, and got such a kick out of taking me around this building I 
used to march on. Will our mutual friends who know Barbara, and know how 
she is, please write me? Please.

The man who occupies the White House cried today. Good. Keep crying, Mr. 
Bush. The more you cry, the less you will go to that dark side in all 
humans where anger rages to a point where we want to blindly kill. Your 
dad's and Reagan's old cronies -- Eagleberger, Baker, Schultz -- are all 
calling for you to bomb first and ask questions later. You must NOT do 
this. If only because you do not want to stoop to these mass murderers' 
level. Yes, find out who did it. Yes, see that they NEVER do it again.

But GET A GRIP, man. "Declare war?" War against whom? One guy in the desert 
whom we can never seem to find? Are our leaders telling us that the most 
powerful country on earth cannot dispose of one sick evil f---wad of a guy? 
Because if that is what you are telling us, then we are truly screwed. If 
you are unable to take out this lone ZZ Top wannabe, what on earth would 
you do for us if we were attacked by a nation of millions? For chrissakes, 
call the Israelis and have them do that thing they do when they want to get 
their man! We pay them enough billions each year, I am SURE they would be 
happy to accommodate your request.

But I beg you, Mr. Bush, stay with the tears. Go today to comfort the 
wounded of New York. Tell the mayor, a guy most of us have not liked, that 
he is doing an incredible job, keeping the spirits of everyone up as high 
as they can be at this moment. Being there for a city I believe he loves, 
his own cancer still with him, he goes beyond the call of duty.

But do not declare war and massacre more innocents. After bin Laden's 
previous act of terror, our last elected president went and bombed what he 
said was "bin Laden's camp" in Afghanistan -- but instead just killed 
civilians. Then he bombed a factory in the Sudan, saying it was "making 
chemical weapons." It turned out to be making aspirin. Innocent people 
murdered by our Air Force.

Back in May, you gave the Taliban in Afghanistan $48 million dollars of our 
tax money. No free nation on earth would give them a cent, but you gave 
them a gift of $48 million because they said they had "banned all drugs."

Because your drug war was more important than the actual war the Taliban 
had inflicted on its own people, you helped to fund the regime who had 
given refuge to the very man you now say is responsible for killing my 
friend on that plane and for killing the friends of families of thousands 
and thousands of people. How dare you talk about more killing now! Shame! 
Shame! Shame! Explain your actions in support of the Taliban! Tell us why 
your father and his partner Mr. Reagan trained Mr. bin Laden in how to be a 
terrorist!

Am I angry? You bet I am. I am an American citizen, and my leaders have 
taken my money to fund mass murder. And now my friends have paid the price 
with their lives.

Keep crying, Mr. Bush. Keep running to Omaha or wherever it is you go while 
others die, just as you ran during Vietnam while claiming to be "on duty" 
in the Air National Guard. Nine boys from my high school died in that 
miserable war. And now you are asking for "unity" so you can start another 
one? Do not insult me or my country like this!

Yes, I, too, will be in church at noon today, on this national day of 
mourning. I will pray for you, and us, and the children of New York, and 
the children of this sad and ugly world ...

Yours,

Michael Moore
mmlfint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anti-Arab passions sweep the U.S.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/13/backlash/index.html

Despite Bush's calls for tolerance, firebombings, shootings and other acts
of violence strike Islamic worshippers.

By Janelle Brown
Sept. 13, 2001

In San Francisco, a bag of blood was thrown at an immigration office that
serves Arabs. An anonymous caller told a paralegal that he had left a
package "for your brother Osama bin Laden."

In Bridgeview, Ill., outside Chicago, 300 angry Americans marched on a
mosque, waving flags and shouting "USA! USA!" before being turned back by
police.

In Suffolk County, N.Y., a man who screamed that he was "doing this for my
country" tried to run down a Pakistani woman with his car.

In Gary, Ind., a man in a ski mask fired an assault rifle at a gas station
worker of Yemeni descent.

Three days after the terror attacks on New York and Washington, the
newswires are filled with reports of assaults and harassment against
Arab-Americans, Muslims and others who simply look Middle Eastern --
including non-Muslim Sikhs wearing turbans.

Within hours of the destruction of the World Trade Center, the Net was
flooded with hysterical anti-Arab sentiment.. It did not take much longer
for the attacks on the streets to begin. On Wednesday alone, the American
Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee confirmed 30 reports of violent
harassment; and wires reported racial incidents as far away as Australia and
Canada.

Meanwhile, even as government officials begged for tolerance, conservative
pundits stoked the flames of religious hatred. In her syndicated column, Ann
Coulter penned these words: "We know who the homicidal maniacs are. They are
the ones cheering and dancing right now. We should invade their countries,
kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

With blame for Tuesday's atrocities falling increasingly on Islamic
extremist Osama bin Laden and his accomplices in the Muslim world, and the
U.S. military going on a wartime footing, anti-Arab tensions are bound to
keep rising. "Obviously people are venting their understandable rage -- rage
that we feel also, as there were hundreds of Arabs in the buildings too,"
said Hussein Ibish, communications director for the American Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee, adding that he's personally received dozens
of death threats, including some delivered during live radio interviews.
"But some people have misguidedly turned that rage against fellow citizens
of Arab descent and Muslim faith. It's a backlash. It's not astonishing, but
it's very frightening -- the incidents have been very severe."

Dozens of individual attacks were reported across the country -- cab drivers
were pulled from their vehicles and beaten up, office workers threatened on
the street, and women in Muslim garb verbally harassed. A mosque in Denton,
Texas, sustained thousands of dollars of damage after an unknown assailant
pitched a Molotov cocktail at the building. Another firebomb exploded at an
Arab-American community center in Chicago. In Irving, Texas, six shots were
fired into a window of the Islamic Center. Bricks were thrown through the
windows of Arabic bookstores in several locations; and Muslim businesses in
Maryland were the targets of suspicious fires.

All across the country, mosques, Arab and Muslim organizations received bomb
threats; many now require police protection. The American Civil Liberties
Union, concerned about racial profiling, has set up a phone line for
Arab-Americans to report any civil liberties violations.

Meanwhile, Arab Americans stayed home in droves. According to Ibrahim Hooper
of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, many Muslims have opted to not
wear traditional garments like purdah, and many Muslim women are staying in
their homes. Many mosques have canceled their obligatory Friday prayers; a
move which Hooper called "unprecedented."

As the attacks escalated, government officials tried to curb anti-Arab
American passions. President Bush, in a televised phone conversation with
New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and New York Gov. George Pataki on Thursday
said, "Our nation must be mindful that there are thousands of Arab-Americans
in New York City who love the American flag as much as you and I do." And in
his Thursday press conference Attorney General John Ashcroft made a similar
plea: "We must not descend to the level of those who perpetrated Tuesday's
violence by targeting individuals based on their race, their religion, or
their national origin. Such reports of violence and threats are in direct
opposition to the very principles and laws of the United States and will not
be tolerated."

"There's a counter-backlash going on, with public officials making
statements; we're very glad they've been doing so," said Ibish. "They all
deserve praise for having urged the country in its time of anguish and grief
and rage, to remain a tolerant, compassionate society.

But official calls for tolerance failed to sway some popular media
personalities. Radio host Howard Stern, for example, filled his show on
Wednesday with jokes about "rag heads." This type of bigotry was also on
glaring display on the Internet. Online bulletin boards were filled with
anti-Arab venom. "If you see any of these (Arab) piss-ant's from now on,
lets strip off their head-wear, men and women and spit on their faces. They
should leave this country. Now," wrote one poster on the normally liberal
Craig's List bulletin board. At the conservative Free Republic, a poster
demanded that the United States "revoke the green cards and student visas of
all residents of middle-eastern countries immediately."

Not everyone online is jumping on the mad vengeance bandwagon. "We must
remember that we are all Americans, that our country was founded upon
freedom and the rights of people to seek liberty and happiness," wrote a
reader named Danita O'Neill to Salon. "The majority of Muslims in this
country are here because they were run out of Saudi Arabia and other
suppressed countries for their beliefs in justice and humanity and equal
treatment for all."

Other online sites have been flooded with posts calling for peace and
understanding and the racist responses are being compared to the
anti-Japanese sentiment that erupted in the wake of Pearl Harbor, leading to
the internment of thousands of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

"There's a struggle between two Americas -- the America of rage and blind
fury that is lashing out against Muslims, and the compassionate America,"
said Ibish, who pointed out that the American Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee has received more supportive calls than threatening ones.. "I'm
glad to say the better angels of our nature are winning right now. Once
people get the message that you can't blame people because of religion or
ethnicity we'll be able to direct our anger at those who are to blame for
this tragedy."
--------
About the writer: Janelle Brown is a senior writer for Salon Technology.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1998 Frontline interview with Osama bin Laden

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html

    "The Western regimes and the government of the United States
    of America bear the blame for what might happen. If their
    people do not wish to be harmed inside their very own countries,
    they should seek to elect governments that are truly
    representative of them and that can protect their interests."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When Will We Learn? - Part II

     by Harry Browne

My article last Tuesday "When Will We Learn?"
provoked more controversy than anything I've ever
written. In case there was any misunderstanding,
here is what I believe:

1. The terrorist attack was a horrible tragedy
and I feel enormous sympathy for those who were
personally affected by it. I wrote my article
hoping that, however unlikely, it might be
possible to prevent such a thing from ever
happening again.

2. I hope anyone responsible for the attack who
didn't die in it will be found, tried, and
punished appropriately.

3. Terrorism by definition is the killing of
innocent people in order to bring about some
political or social change.

4. Terrorism may cause some changes in the short
term, but it never leads to a conclusive victory,
because it provokes a never-ending cycle of
escalating violence on both sides.

5. The U.S. government has engaged in acts of
terrorism over the past few decades -- bombing and
starving innocent people in foreign countries,
supposedly to force their leaders to make changes
the U.S. government desires. Terrorism doesn't
become "policing" or "justice" merely because it
is our government doing it.

6. All Iraqis are not Saddam Hussein; all Serbs
aren't Slobodan Milosevic; all Afghanis (or
Saudis) are not Osama Bin Laden.

7. Killing innocent people in retaliation for the
sins of other people isn't justice; it is
terrorism. The terrorists were wrong to kill
Americans to satisfy their grievances against
American foreign policy. And to react to them by
killing innocent foreigners would also be
terrorism.

8. You can't make productive decisions at a time
when your mind is clouded by anger, resentment, or
thoughts of revenge.

The reactions I've received have been roughly
50-50 regarding my article.

Here are some of the objections people have made
against my position . . .

     Timing

   "This was a bad time for you to say, 'I told you
so' in such a poor fashion."

I'm not saying, "I told you so." I'm trying to
stop future madness -- against Americans and
against foreigners. Should I wait until after our
military invades Afghanistan before speaking out?

   "Now, of all times, is the time when we must
support one another for the best."

That doesn't mean supporting the ill-conceived
policies that led to this event.

   "It is time for our people to pull together
against these sick terrorists. We could use your
help too."

To do what? Encourage our politicians to continue
doing the very things that led to this?

You're demonstrating why I had to write the
article. If we stand behind our leaders now,
letting them speak for us "as one voice," nothing
will change. We will continue to see more acts by
our government that will lead to more terrorist
attacks on the U.S.

   "Don't tell me to 'stop the hysteria'. This
event merits hysteria, anger, sadness, and fear. I
will be hysterical because it is the only thing I
can do to show my countrymen that I mourn them."

Hysteria creates lynch mobs and more killing of
innocent people. Grief, anger, and resentment are
all natural reactions to what happened. But
letting your emotions make bad decisions is not a
productive reaction.

   "What's done is done and now we're in the middle
of this terrible mess. Maybe you're right, maybe
we should not be surprised that something was
bound to happen. But, now what? We don't need
people criticizing our past mistakes at this
moment. Save that for later. Right now we need
immediate action."

If we don't understand the past mistakes, the
"immediate action" taken will simply repeat those
mistakes. Is that what you want?

     My Motives

   "You have lost my support by your political
posturing in a time of crisis."

Political posturing? Do you really think I
expected to receive adulation for writing an
article that goes so sharply against current
public opinion?

   "It sickens me that you would use this tragedy
this way."

In what way? To try to stop it from happening
again? To try to stop our politicians from running
off and bombing more innocent people?

As a normally public voice, should I sit quietly
by and not point out that our politicians are
continually putting innocent Americans in harm's
way by terrorizing innocent foreigners?

I understand your outrage and emotional reaction,
but we must hold our own politicians accountable
for the anger they are causing around the world
with their careless, dangerous, show-off tactics.

   "Please leave the United States. You do not
deserve to remain here with this type of
un-American diatribe which only serves to support
the voices of moderation."

I thought this supposed to be a free country in
which everyone was allowed to speak his mind. I
guess I misunderstood. I didn't realize it was a
crime to try to stop a lynching.

     The Libertarian Party

   "Using this event as a means to bolster the
Libertarian party is despicable and it is
disgusting."

It appears that standing up for what one believes
isn't a way to bolster the popularity of the
Libertarian Party. But that's what Libertarians
often do -- especially when no one else will.

   "You have forever ended any chance of my
supporting the Libertarian party, unless you
resign from any and all leadership positions
immediately."

You'll be pleased to know I don't hold any
leadership position in the Libertarian Party. I am
a private citizen who grieves for what the
politicians have done to my country and to the
innocents who die in America and abroad.

Many Libertarians disagree with my position, so
you shouldn't judge the Libertarian Party by me.

     Retaliation

   "We must deter the next attack with the fiery
sword of vengeance, not some limp, liberal,
why-can't-we-be-let-alone weak response."

We have done that already -- bombing Libya,
invading Panama, bombing a perfume factory in the
Sudan, bombing Afghanistan. Did those "fiery
sword[s] of vengeance" deter the next attack?

   "Bomb Kabul into oblivion."

As I recall, Kabul is the capital of Afghanistan,
which is run by the same "Freedom Fighters" to
whom our government gave so much money and
military hardware in the 1980s. Before we run off
bombing innocent people (or is every Afghani
guilty of the World Trade Center bombing?),
shouldn't we question the American foreign policy
that put those people in power in Afghanistan? Or
is it bad timing to bring that up now?

   "Once you know the face of your enemy, destroy
him completely and you will never need fight him
again. America is at _war_. To win a war it must
be fought in totality."

A war against whom? Against people like the one
million Iraqis who have died of starvation or
disease because of the American blockade? Against
people like the innocents who died in the bombings
of the Sudan and Afghanistan?

Everytime our leaders say, "We must make sure this
will never happen again," they do something to
assure that it _will_ happen again. I wrote my
article in the vain hope it might help people to
think twice before demanding the wrong action.

   "Do you think these terrorists can really be
reasoned with?"

I didn't say they could. I said we shouldn't give
them legitimate reasons to direct their misguided
zeal at the U.S.

   "Don't you think a soft response would just
encourage more terrorism?"

I hope the people who were involved are found,
tried, and punished. I don't consider that a soft
response. But I don't want any more innocent
people hurt -- Americans or foreigners.

   "This is _not_ the time to run and bury our
heads in the sand. Someone has to stand up to
BULLIES wherever they are! Like the Nazis; the
only good Religious Fundamentalist is one that is
in HEAVEN! Not only IS it a time for the U.S. to
take action but to OCCUPY ALL ARAB LANDS, since
their Religious leaders 'preach' the Jihad."

Did I mention that there's a lot of hysteria and a
lynch-mob sentiment right now?

   "You totally lost your credibility with me when
you suggest that any military response will
basically serve no purpose."

The U.S. went to Vietnam to stop the Communist
dominos from falling, and the entire region fell
to the Communists. The U.S. invaded Panama,
supposedly to end drug-dealing there, and today
Panama is more overrun with the drug trade than
ever. After years of arming Saddam Hussein, the
U.S. invaded Iraq to get rid of him, but he is
still held up as a terrible threat to the world.
The U.S. bombed Libya to teach terrorists a
lesson; so the terrorists hijacked the Pan
American plane over Scotland.

Perhaps you could give me an example of where U.S.
military response in the past several decades has
achieved any purpose.

Obviously, the individuals involved in the attacks
should be found, prosecuted, and punished. But
going to war against another country or some vague
conspiracy will solve no more than the examples I
just gave.

   "At this time, past wrongful deeds committed by
Americans should not play a role in our reaction
to this horrible event. We have to retaliate once
we confirm who is responsible. Otherwise, even
more horrific events are sure to occur in the
future."

We _have_ retaliated in the past, and still
horrific events followed. What I'm hoping for is a
different kind of reaction this time -- one that
will actually change American policy so that we
never again suffer what happened this week.

     Corrections & Caution

   "I would like to point out that the airliner
destroyed over Scotland was a PanAm plane, not
TWA."

You are right. In my haste to get the article
finished, I was careless in relying on my
imperfect memory and not looking it up.

   "I put my Harry Browne for President stickers
back up in my dorm room yesterday."

Please -- take them down before you get lynched.

More to come . . .


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