News outlets everywhere are reporting that air strikes have begun in Kabul and Kandahar. First reports are that the targets are "terrorist bases" and anti-aircraft instalations.

Please post any updates and commentary by clicking the post comments link below.

we first put this up on 9/18. With the war having started today, I thought it was important enough to repost to the front page.--nomadlab

THE MYSTERIOUS RAMSEY CLARK:
STALINIST DUPE OR DEEP-COVER SPOOK?

By Manny Goldstein

Take a close look and there is something downright suspicious about former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, now the darling of certain sectors of the radical left. His journey has taken him from the heights of federal power to outer orbits of the political fringe. In the process, he has seemingly transformed from a shill for the most corrupt elements of the US elites to a shill for any foreign despot who claims to oppose the US elites. Who is Ramsey Clark really working for?

CESR writes:

"The Center for Economic and Social Rights (CESR) has produced two emergency fact sheets that provide a summary of current conditions for the general Afghan population and a brief history of Afghanistan, including the US' past involvement. The fact sheets are available on the CESR website in PDF, MS WORD and JPEG formats."

The London Guardian has a good piece called The Algebra Of Infinite Justice" by

Arundhati Roy



In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an American newscaster said: "Good and
Evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People
who we don't know, massacred people who we do. And they did so with
contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept.
Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know (because
they don't appear much on TV). Before it has properly identified or even
begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a
rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an
"International Coalition Against Terror", mobilised its army, its airforce,
its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.

Thanks to veve@netcabo.pt and A-Infos for "Six Questions to Noam Chomsky"

We have also received a story about an essay Christopher Hitchens wrote in the Nation where he attacked Noam Chomsky and others.

Here, Chomsky replies...

I have been asked to respond to recent articles by Christopher Hitchens
(webpage, Sept. 24; _Nation_, Oct. 8), and after refusing several times,
will do so, though only partially, and reluctantly. The reason for the
reluctance is that Hitchens cannot mean what he is saying. For that
reason
alone -- there are others that should be obvious -- this is no proper
context for addressing serious issues relating to the Sept. 11
atrocities.

"Many American Right-Wing Racial Extremists Applaud Sept. 11 Attacks



By JIM NESBITT c.2001 Newhouse News Service 



With the towers of the World Trade Center fatally damaged but still standing, a leader in one of the many splinter groups of the Far Right fringe of American politics posted a Web site message praising the "Islamic freedom fighters" and hoping the terrorist attacks were the first shots in a racial holy war that would topple the U.S. government.



"May the WAR be started," wrote August Kreis, webmaster of the neo-Nazi Sheriff's Posse Comitatus group, based in Ulysses, Pa. "DEATH to His (God's) enemies, may the World Trade Center BURN TO THE GROUND! ... We can blame no others than ourselves for our problems due to the fact that we allow ... Satan's children, called jews today, to have dominion over our lives."

Check out these amazing photographic juxtapositions:

http://www.emperors-clothes.com/1/rem.htm

Talban has lost all support, they will lose power very soon.

By
Farooq Tariq (25-09-2001)



[A special interview with Adil, leader of Afghanistan Labour
Revolutionary Organization Adil is leader of a small left wing
organization based in Afghanistan. He is himself in exile. He was in
Jilalabad for three days from 16 to 19th September to see the mood and
to instruct his party men for the future strategy. It was an illegal
entry to Afghanistan. Here is a special report on the present situation
in Afghanistan based on his interview with Farooq Tariq taken at Lahore
on 24th September. Farooq Tariq General secretary of the Labour Party
Pakistan (see: www.labourpakistan.org)]

* Talban has lost all support, they will loose power very soon

* Asama has at least 25000 Islamic militants

* Left and Right unite to support former King Zahir Shah,

* Every one who has enough money for travel to Pakistan is leaving.




I traveled to Afghanistan on 16th September and reached Jilalabad. The
town was in absolute shock conditions. Everyone from there was talking
to leave Afghanistan as soon as possible. To reach to Peshawar, you
need at least 200,000 Afghanis ($2). Then you need another $5 to bribe
the Pakistan official at the border to cross. So any one who has this
amount is leaving. An average wage of an Afghani government clerk for
instance at present is around 300,000 Afghanis ($3) per month. A daily
worker in Jilalabad would get around Afghani 10,000 to 20,000 ($0.10
to$0.20) per day. So there is tremendous poverty in all parts of
Afghanistan. Wages are not normally paid up to 6 months. People are
sick and tired of Talban regime. They can not say it openly but now are
very sure the regime is going to go away. Most of the shops and the
trading companies were closed in Jilalabad. No one wants to do any
business in the city. It is more like a deserted city. Read more.

Anonymous Comrade writes: "This article is from todays newsday... a long island activist has been charged with terrorism, stemming from bullshit charges in relation to the Earth Liberation Front actions on the island... this is obvious a desperate attempt by the state to prevent the rising tide of radical youth activism on long island!

===========================

More info from the Long Island Radical Activist Community to be posted soon!

Click on the link for the article from Newsday

How can the US bomb this tragic people?
By Robert Fisk



We are witnessing this weekend one of the most epic events since the
Second World War, certainly since Vietnam. I am not talking about the
ruins of the World Trade Centre in New York and the grotesque physical
scenes which we watched on 11 September, an atrocity which I described
last week as a crime against humanity (of which more later). No, I am
referring to the extraordinary, almost unbelievable preparations now
under way for the most powerful nation ever to have existed on God's
Earth to bomb the most devastated, ravaged, starvation-haunted and
tragic country in the world. Afghanistan, raped and eviscerated by the
Russian army for 10 years, abandoned by its friends - us, of course -
once the Russians had fled, is about to be attacked by the surviving
superpower.