jim writes: "Terrorism and the Struggle for Peace

Manning Marable

It is still mourning time here in New York City. It has
been weeks since the terrorist attack destroying the
World Trade Center towers, but the real tragedy remains
brutally fresh and terribly real to millions of
residents in this over-crowded metropolis. The horrific
sights of thousands of human beings incinerated in less
than one hundred minutes, of screaming people free
falling more than one thousand feet plummeting to their
deaths, is nearly impossible for anyone to comprehend
or even to explain.



The criminals who obliterated the World Trade Center
and part of the Pentagon attempted to make a symbolic
political statement about the links between
transnational capitalism and U.S. militarism. But by
initiating acts of mass murder, any shred of political
credibility that those who plotted and carried out
these crimes was totally destroyed. There can be no
justification, excuse or rationale for the deliberate
use of deadly force and unprovoked violence against any
civilian population. This was not essentially an act of
war, but a criminal act, a crime against not only the
American people, but all of humanity. Those who
committed these crimes must be apprehended and brought
to justice under international law and courts.

jim writes: Immanuel Wallerstein's latest commentary is worth a read:



The United States is a hegemonic power in decline. I have been expressing this viewpoint since at least 1980.(1) This statement is meant to be analytic and not prescriptive. I have found that nonetheless it evokes not only disbelief but anger, and that such a reaction occurs on all sides of the political spectrum, and all around the world. Persons on the right take the statement to be false, or rather they take it to be true only insofar as the superpower has insufficiently asserted its strength. Furthermore, they seem to assume that, by my making such an analysis, I am creating a defeatist attitude that is self-fulfilling. These persons have a strange degree of belief in the power of the word, or at least of my word.



Persons on the left are often incredulous, telling me that it is obvious that the United States dominates the world scene and imposes itself around the world, and that in evil ways. So how can I talk of U.S. being in decline? Am I not thereby deflecting people from meaningful action? And persons in the center seem to be offended by the very idea that appropriate intelligent action on the part of those in power will not, cannot, eventually remedy any limitations on U.S. virtuous action.



What does it mean to be a hegemonic power? It means that normally one defines the rules of the geopolitical game, and that one gets one way almost all of the time simply by political pressure, and without having to resort to the actual use of force. The story of how one gets to be a hegemonic power and why it is that hegemony never lasts is not my subject here.(2) The question rather is what evidence do I have that U.S. hegemony is on the wane.



Check out Immanuel Wallerstein's site to read the rest of this article...

http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,69 03,582222,00.html



The Observer (UK), Sunday October 28, 2001

Anthrax attacks 'work of neo-Nazis'

By Ed Vulliamy in New York

Neo-Nazi extremists within the US are behind the deadly wave of anthrax
attacks against America, according to latest briefings from the security
services and Justice Department.



Experts on 'survivalist' groups and extreme-right 'Aryan' militants have
been drafted into the investigation as the focus shifts away from possible
links with the 11 September terrorists or even possible state backers such
as Iraq.

"The French newspaper Le Figaro is reporting that Osama bin Laden, who has been called by President Bush “terrorist No.
1,” underwent a medical check-in an American hospital this past July in Dubai. It is there
that he reportedly met with a CIA agent. Le Figaro cites a reliable source
in the hospital administration, where the Saudi millionaire came to treat
his kidney disorder. The newspaper also says that a day after bin Laden’s
departure for Kweta, the American intelligent officer was urgently summoned
to Washington.
The above information presents in a completely new light the nature of the
September terrorist attacks in the USA and, correspondingly, the present-day
aggression by the USA and Great Britain against Afghanistan. More than this,
it seems relevant here to return to the versions implying that those
terrorist attacks were in the interests of secret services and the US
military industrial complex, which PRAVDA.Ru has written about immediately
after the attacks. Anyway, Mr. Bush Jr.’s administration, which may have
sanctioned the meeting of bin Laden with a CIA agent, will have to explain
its behaviour. And not only to the American people.


article in french available here

http://english.pravda.ru/main/2001/10/31/19716.htm l"

nomadlab writes: "Read a nice piece in the Nation on the new information clampdown

One after another, federal agencies are removing public data from their websites or restricting access to their public reading rooms. Caution is understandable, but OMB Watch and Investigative Reporters and Editors have both documented egregious examples that seem at best tangentially related to terrorism and more likely designed as butt-coverage for mid-level bureaucrats. The Energy Department has removed information from its web-posted Occurrence Reporting Program, which provides news of events that could adversely affect public health or worker safety. The EPA removed information from its site about the dangers of chemical accidents and how to prevent them, information the FBI says carries no threat of terrorism. More relevant than Al Qaeda, it appears, was hard lobbying by the chemical industry, which found the site an annoyance. The FAA pulled the plug on long-available lists of its security sanctions against airports around the country--depriving reporters of their only tool for evaluating the agency's considerable failures to enforce its own public safety findings. At the Pentagon, news has been reduced to a trickle far more constricted than anything during Kosovo, which in turn was more restrictive than during the Gulf War. So comprehensive is the shutdown that on October 13, presidents of twenty major journalists' organizations declared in a joint statement that "these restrictions pose dangers to American democracy and prevent American citizens from obtaining the information they need."

In the short run, the Cone of Silence did most damage at the Centers for Disease Control. Could the two (at this writing) Washington, DC, postal workers who died of inhalation anthrax have been protected by earlier treatment? Did any of the CDC's doctors or scientists recommend a course of antibiotics for postal workers along the trajectory of anthrax-laden letters? Who knows? With the CDC's staff muzzled, the public and postal workers alike were left with politicians as the conduits for contradictory and inadequate information about the risk.

read the entire article on the nations website."

Robert Mahaney writes: "On November 7 at 7pm. at the Barbara Fortino Room at the Pueblo Community College Campus the Green Party of Pueblo presents three speakers on the issues raised by the events of the past few months -- How did we get here and what is next?

Phil DeCaro of the Colorado Springs American Civil Liberties Union will address the recently passed anti-terrorism legislation -- that includes provisions for widely increased police powers such as the ability to search a person's home without notifying them -- and the other effects on civil liberties of the 9/11 attacks. Do we have to sacrifice our civil rights and hard won freedoms for security?

Ron Forthofer of the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center will discuss past U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, giving an eyewitness account of effects of sanctions on the people of Iraq, realities that have not been examined honestly by the mainstream media.

Bob Kinsey , Chair of the Rocky Mountain Conference UCC Peace and Justice Task Force, will discuss the complicated and distressing twist and turns of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What does it mean and how can these conflicts be resolved?"

Autonomedia writes: "Bush's War on International Terrorism Fixes The
Zapatistas in Its Sights

John Ross


SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS CASAS (Oct. 9th) - The Indians stood bunched
together outside the shinny appliance store on the narrow main drag
of this old colonial city, transfixed by banks of television monitors
upon which jumbo jets kept plowing into crumbling skyscrapers."They
thought it was a movie at first" recalls the young clerk of that
black Tuesday morning, "they were talking in Tzotzil and I could not
understand."



Indian responses to traumatic events, even those as close to home as
the seven year-long uprising of the largely Mayan Zapatista Army of
National Liberation (EZLN), are often heavily veiled here in this
chronically-impoverished, deeply indigenous southern state.
"We were at a meeting of women and they told us that the North
Americans had been bombed. We did not understand this at first
because it is always the North Americans who bomb other people"
remembers "Irene", a member of an artisans collective in the
Zapatista highland autonomous municipality of Aldama. Back in 1994,
during the first days of the Mexican military's campaign against the
Zapatista rebels, U.S.- manufactured helicopters dropped several
bombs and Swiss jet fighters pumped U.S.-made missiles into and
around rebel villages.

Louis Lingg writes: "The Bush administration pointedly avoided including HAMAS and Islamic Jihad in their released list of terrorist organizations. This due perhaps to their recognition that neither directly threatens American citizens nor interests, or to the recognition that the cooperration of both is required to resolve the Palestinian issue.

Middle East News Wire has posted an interview with Ghazi Hamad from 'Palestinian Report.' Hamad is an HAMAS affiliate and editor of the Islamist publication Al Risala.

An excerpt: Palestinian Report: What are the differences between Hamas and Islamic Jihad?

Hamad: The ideology of
Hamas is more widespread, because they are a part of the Muslim Brotherhood all over the
world and they get experience from different countries. They are more involved in political
issues, political experiments.

Perhaps because its leaders are many and its institutions form a kind of school of philosophy
and because they have been willing to build a relationship with the [Palestinian] Authority, I think Hamas
tends to be more pragmatic and can create a kind of common understanding with the Authority.
These days, they can be closer to each other, they can understand each other. Islamic Jihad
keeps away from this political game because it feels that the armed struggle is the only way to
achieve their goals."

Louis Lingg writes: "The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has recently released a special report on the threat of famine in Afghanistan and the tightening of food supplies in neighboring countries.

An excerpt: A decade-long destructive war with the Soviet Union and the subsequent civil strife for nearly 13 years have devastated infrastructure in agriculture and other sectors of Afghanistan's economy.
The irrigation systems are in complete ruin, while agricultural services are virtually non-existent and farmers have little access to necessary agricultural input supplies. Thousands of hectares of
prime agricultural land have been taken out of production due mainly to lack of irrigation and the presence of millions of land mines. Many communities have been cut off from the rest of the
country due to the destruction of roads, bridges and other communication facilities. Fruit trees and forests, once a major source of foreign exchange, have virtually disappeared. Livestock
production, another major export item and source of food as well as farm power, has been severely reduced. During the past three years, the country has witnessed a devastating drought which
compounded the impact of years of conflict and brought a large section of the population to the brink of starvation. The 2001 cereal output, estimated at about 2 million tonnes, is about one-half
of the production in 1998."

Chuck Morse writes: "Report from Anarchist Movement in Buenos Aires (Anti-War Organizing & in General)

Buenos Aires

27th October

The local setting:

Greater Buenos Aires is the home of at least twelve million people, 90% of whom have been suffering the consequences of a severe economic depression for five or more years now. The current administration of
Fernando de la Rúa continues with the economic policies of 1) fixing the value of the Argentinean Peso to that of the Dollar, 2) privatizing anything that can have a buyer found for it and 3) insisting on financial self-sustenance of any institution which to date has received State subsidies. These policies were introduced by the administration of ex-president Menem, who de la Rúa opposed in the last presidential elections. The country's population at large feels insulted by and angry with this government, which, clearly, is far more preoccupied by the dictates of the IMF and the World Bank than it is with the needs and desires of the people who placed it in power through the mechanism of representative democracy.