---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 21:52:02 -0700
From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
Subject: Antiwar News...(# 12)
Quote:
"The man who can face vilification and disgrace, who can stand up against
the popular current, even against his friends and his country when he knows
he is right, who can defy those in authority over him, who can take
punishment and prison and remain steadfast -- that is a man of courage. The
fellow whom you taunt as a "slacker" because he refuses to turn murderer --
he needs courage. But do you need much courage just to obey orders, to do
as you are told and to fall in line with thousands of others to the tune of
general approval and the 'Star Spangled Banner'? -- Alexander Berkman
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[multiple items]
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(Anti-war links/resources at the end.)
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Police Photographing & Profiling Peace Activists
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1015-08.htm
by Seth Sandronsky
Published on Monday, October 15, 2001
As a peace activist calling for a nonviolent resolution
to the horrific events of Sept. 11, I know that Big
Brother is watching me. How, you ask? Well, I've seen
him (and her) taking my photos recently.
The first time a female in a new green van pulled up
across from us as we stood on a sidewalk in downtown
Sacramento. We held signs that said "Violence only
begets violence," and "World court, not world war."
The woman in the van looked directly at us. My eyes and
hers met for a second. She then quickly photographed my
fellow protesters and me, and sped off.
"Did you get her license plate?" my wife queried.
"No," I replied.
"We should call the police," my wife responded.
"She is the police," I answered. "What's the point?"
Our daughter stood by our side. Her attention was
elsewhere at the time.
Later, I told a fellow protester about the stealth
photographer.
"What a waste of time photographing peaceful
protesters," she remarked.
Maybe, maybe not.
Being photographed by the authorities was the last
thing on my mind as I walked our dog on Columbus Day.
The feel of fall was wonderful. As I waited to cross a
busy street while people were driving to work, a new
gold sedan drove from my right to left. It pulled over
a block away and across the street from me.
I saw the car stop and wondered what the driver was
going to do. I soon found out.
He (I could see that the driver was a male) made a
half-turn, stopped with his window down and took my
photo with a flash. He then sped off, driving from my
left to right, directly in front of me.
Daunted? Yes. Deterred? No?
"Now it's happening to everyone," a Middle Eastern
friend said when I told him about being photographed
twice in six days. Now I know what it feels like, in
small part, to be profiled by the authorities. Not on
the basis of my skin color, but on my politics that
avenging the loss of innocent victims by inflicting
violence on equally innocent people is wrong.
Skin color profiling, of course, was a daily reality
for many people of color in America before the Sept. 11
tragedy. Since then, consider the criminal actions in
California against Middle Eastern and South Asian
people (or those so misidentified), according to
preliminary data from the state attorney general's
office, reported Oct. 11 by the Associated Press.
"Between Sept. 11 and Sept. 30, the Los Angeles police
and sheriff's departments reported 167 hate crimes
aimed at those groups; San Francisco police, 43; San
Jose police, 41; San Diego police, 40; and the
Sacramento sheriff's department five."
To what end are the authorities profiling peace
activists? To harass and intimidate? To stifle
independent thought? Ultimately, to control public
opinion?
In relatively free societies such as the U.S.,
controlling the flow of information is what elites do
to mobilize the public to back the military agenda.
Simplified repetition about good and evil from the
official sources is a main method of journalistic
persuasion. This has cast more fog than light on our
complex and confusing world.
Then there's official omission, perhaps the leading
form of thought control. Take The Sacramento Bee
newspaper in my hometown, which failed to write a
single word about the Sept. 29 anti-war rally attended
by 10,000 - 15,000 people in nearby San Francisco.
That's an effective way to keep people's dissent out of
the public mind.
Some people can resist war propaganda. They organize
with others. Together they work for peaceful solutions.
Try to find a mention of this in mainstream history
books.
Elites know that the American public is frightened by
the murderous attacks of Sept. 11. Count me as one of
the fearful, for sure. I and many like me, however,
aren't prepared to respond by sacrificing our civil
liberties on the altar of national unity.
During the Second World War, my grandfather worked in
defense plants and my father served overseas in the
army to defeat fascism. Today I continue their struggle
for freedom. I demand that the blood of no more
innocent victims flows here or abroad.
Where's the democracy when those calling for an end to
violence on all sides are subject to government
surveillance? Congress is currently considering
anti-terrorism legislation to send to the president to
be signed into law. How will this bill affect the
profiling of peace activists?
What is democracy without the ability to ask public
questions about the current crisis? Can there be
democracy without legal dissent?
Well, one thing is certain. All people of good
conscience must stand up now and speak out for peace
with justice, while we still have the chance.
--------
Seth Sandronsky is an editor with Because People
Matter, Sacramento's progressive newspaper. E-mail:
ssandron@hotmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-U.S. rampage kills hundreds
<http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/africa/10/14/gen.nigeria.protests/index.html>
October 14, 2001
LAGOS, Nigeria (CNN) -- Hundreds of people have been killed in religious
clashes after anti-U.S. protests turned violent, sources have told CNN.
The demonstrations against the U.S.-led missile strikes on Afghanistan
began peacefully on Friday but spiralled into a killing spree during
Saturday, CNN's Lagos bureau chief Jeff Koinange said.
Some of the unrest in the mainly Muslim city of Kano in northern Nigeria
was attributed to traditional Muslim-Christian tensions, he added.
Most of the slaughtered were Christians, with many more injured.
Non-Muslims fled to police stations and army barracks, where they huddled
for safety after dozens of churches were set on fire.
Some residents were being ferried in buses under military escort to Sabon
Gari where most non-Muslim immigrants live.
Community leaders said rioters killed at least six female secondary school
students who were on their way to sit university entrance exams.
A curfew had been in effect from 7 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time on Saturday,
and police have been ordered to shoot-to-kill any curfew
violators. Military tanks were patrolling the streets.
Koinange said: "The death toll is in the hundreds, officials say, despite a
curfew, which people have ignored."
He added the military were overwhelmed, seemingly unable to control the
rampage.
More soldiers were being sent to the city, but it mirrored a similar
incident last week when the army delayed sending any forces in the belief
that they could control the situation.
A Sabon Gari resident speaking by telephone told Reuters news agency: "As I
speak with you now, I can see a body burning in the street.
"He appears to be a Muslim who strayed into Sabon Gari."
Koinange said it was unclear what had sparked the killings, but added
Muslims had been "agitated" for several weeks.
Nigeria's population of about 120 million is split almost evenly between
Muslims and Christians.
Although Saturday's violence was linked to the bombardment of Afghanistan,
it followed a familiar pattern of deadly religious clashes that have rocked
Nigeria over the past two years, killing thousands.
The introduction of Islamic sharia law in some northern states triggered
Muslim-Christian fighting in cities in the region.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THOUSANDS IN EUROPE PROTEST BOMBING
By Simone Weichselbaum
[Associated Press, 13 October, LONDON]: An estimated
20,000 people marched through central London in the largest of
several demonstrations in Europe on Saturday against the military
strikes in Afghanistan.
Some sang, others chanted, a few attempted to burn American and
British flags, but police said the march, on an unseasonably warm
day, was peaceful.
The organizers, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
welcomed the large turnout, saying they hope to a create a broad
coalition with protesters abroad.
"It is just remarkable of the high level of interest,"
said Nigel Chamberlain, spokesman of CND. "We might be in a minority in public
opinion, but we are here to show that there are thousands of people
against the war."
London police estimated that 20,000 people joined the
march from Hyde Park, Piccadilly and Trafalagar Square. Police intervened
to stop attempts to burn an American flag and a paper or cardboard Union
Jack flag of Britain.
In Germany, more than 25,000 peace protesters took to the
streets. The largest turnout was in the capital, Berlin, where some
15,000 protesters held a protest in the central Gendarmenmarkt square,
police said. The rally was preceded by several peace marches held
throughout the city under the motto "No War Stand Up for Peace."
Demonstrators from peace, church and student groups, as
well as some unions, called for an immediate halt to the attacks,
warning of an escalation of violence in Afghanistan and neighboring
Pakistan. They also called on world leaders to encourage development in the
region as a way to "root out terrorism at its base."
The U.S.-led coalition began its military campaign against
Afghanistan on Oct. 7 after the ruling Taliban refused to hand over Osama
bin Laden and his lieutenants to the United States. Bin Laden, a Saudi
exile, is the prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington
in which about 6,000 people were killed.
In the southern German city of Stuttgart, about 10,000
peace protesters called on the United States to leave Afghanistan and for
Germans to stand together against the war.
"This war threatens to spread a fire of hatred," Sybille
Stamm, local head of the giant ver.di service union told a crowd gathered
for a rally in downtown Stuttgart. Stamm criticized the government for
increasing spending on state security, at the cost of social
programs.
Before the rally, police said about 80 people took part in
a protest vigil near the barracks where the U.S. military's headquarters
for Europe are stationed. No incidents were reported.
In Sweden, several thousand people marched peacefully in
the country's three biggest cities Saturday to protest the bombings.
"It's absolutely unacceptable that the world's richest
country bombs the world's poorest people," said Ann-Cathrin Jarl of the
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
In Italy, youths demonstrated peacefully in Rome, Naples
and several smaller cities. The biggest turnout was in Naples, with
about 2,000 people. Many of the protesters were preparing to head on
Sunday to Umbria, in central Italy, for a peace march organizers
predict will draw tens of thousands of people.
In Glasgow, Scotland, around 1,500 people gathered in
George Square for an anti-war protest.
Thousands of people across Australia rallied Saturday for
peace. The demonstrations in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide
had been planned for more than a year to protest the militarization
of space, but became forums to oppose the military offensive in
Afghanistan.
"No one supports the Sept. 11 attacks but no one supports
what's happening now in Afghanistan, either. The way to remember
the dead of Sept. 11 is not by building another mound of innocent
people's bodies," said Denis Doherty, a rally organizer.
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US admits lethal blunders
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,573864,00.html
Village is wiped out as 2,000lb of Allied explosives miss Taliban target
by Jason Burke in Peshawar
Sunday October 14, 2001
The Observer
Serious blunders by American warplanes may have killed at least 100
civilians in Afghanistan, according to eye-witness accounts obtained by The
Observer .
Two US jets, they said, had bombed a village in eastern Afghanistan, killing
more than 100 people. And the Pentagon yesterday admitted that a 2,000lb
bomb missed its Taliban military target at Kabul airport on Friday night,
and apparently struck a residential area.
The Taliban claim US and British military strikes have killed 300 or more
civilians, including four workers who died earlier last week when an errant
cruise missile was believed to have hit a building used by the United
Nations for mine-clearing operations.
Until now Western politicians have been quick to dismiss the claims as
propaganda. Britain's International Development Secretary, Clare Short, said
'there had not been so many civilian casualties'. Now apparent confirmation
of serious casualties among non-combatants is beginning to emerge.
If the evidence is accurate, an attack on Karam village, 18 miles west of
Jalalabad, last Thursday was the most lethal blunder yet by the Allied
forces, and will seriously shake the increasingly fragile coalition built by
President Bush and Tony Blair.
Reports of between 50 and 150 deaths there provoked rage and grief
throughout Afghanistan and throughout the Muslim world.
Yesterday - as air strikes continued after a pause for Friday, the Muslim
holy day - the Taliban rejected Bush's offer of a 'second chance' to hand
over Osama bin Laden, the prime suspect for the 11 September attacks on New
York and Washington.
The supreme leader of Afghanistan's Taliban militia ruled out handing over
Bin Laden and appealed again to Muslims everywhere to help defend his
country, the Afghan Islamic Press reported Saturday. 'We have not agreed
with America to hand over anyone,' Mullah Mohamed Omar said in a statement
issued in Kandahar. 'The only sin we have committed is we have enforced
Islamic laws in our country and we have provided peace to the oppressed. But
ordinary Muslims are being targeted.'
If confirmed, the destruction of Karam will harden support in Afghanistan
behind the Taliban. Previously it was hoped that moderates within the
movement, or wavering individual commanders, could be split off from
hardliners and persuaded to defect.
'Any civilian casualties make the Afghan people, and therefore the Taliban,
look like victims,' said one Peshawar-based Afghan military commander.
There were no reports yesterday of armed demonstrations against Americans in
Jalalabad, previously a city where support for the Taliban was thin.
Aiman Malai, a shopkeeper in the eastern Afghan village of Milka Khel, told
The Observer that he was finishing his morning prayers at 3.45am on Thursday
when he saw two jets approaching Karam from the north 'like two black darts
shooting through the air'.
>From his hilltop village, Malai watched the two jets swoop low over Karam,
three miles away across a valley.
'They came low over it and then there was a huge explosion and flames
reaching high into the air. There was more explosive in these bombs than the
ones the Russians used.'
Lal Jand, 30, a farmer who was in Karam, said the planes circled for two
more attacks on the village. Jand, whose hand was wounded, telephoned his
uncle, Haji Awal Khan Nasr, later after going to hospital for treatment. His
wife and two of his sons had been killed.
'My nephew told me the planes came in the first time and only a few people
were injured. Many of the men outside were able to run away, but the planes
came back two more times. All the women and children were still in the
houses. They had no chance. I believe maybe more than 100 have died,' Nasr
said yesterday.
Nasr listed the men he knew had died. The oldest man in the village,
60-year-old Haji Ghami, perished along with all but his youngest son,
Surgul, who was away, Nasr said.
'The Americans are educated people. They can see that these are not
terrorists.Why do they target them?'
On Friday, villagers 'were still digging bodies out of the rubble', said
Zadra Azam, the region's deputy governor. The village, its population
swollen by refugees, had been thought safe by many local people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nader Blasts Bush's War at S.F. Rally
By Jonathan Nack
October 12, 2001
SAN FRANCISCO - Former Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader
roundly criticized the Bush Administration's war on terrorism in a speech
before an enthusiastic paying audience of approximately 2,500 at the San
Francisco Masonic Center last night. Nader called for a democratic
debate over the Administration's policies saying, "the mindless bombing
of Afghanistan's infrastructure will not end well for Afghanistan and, I fear,
it will not end well for us." "We are entitled to ask what this war will
cost:
what it will cost Afghans, what it will cost our rights and democracy here,
and what the huge shift of money into the military and corporate bailouts
will cost our domestic programs?"
Nader called for, "sobriety in these moments of impetuousness, restraint,
and to move forward under international law to apprehend the criminals."
"This is an international crime and we've got to find ways to bring these
criminals to justice."
Nader said that, "grief and mourning for the victims must eventually
give way to honoring their memory," and quoted a statement by President
George W. Bush that the terrorists, "hate our freedoms: our freedom of
religion, our freedom to assemble, our freedom of speech, and our freedom
to disagree," in justifying the appropriateness of his own remarks. Nader
said that the best way to honor the memories of those lost on September
11th was to exercise and defend our democratic freedoms and to "make
sure our government doesn't slaughter the lives of hundreds of innocent
people."
Nader charged that, "thought police in Washington dismiss all critical
analysis as justifying the terrorist attack," calling for a rejection of
that notion while describing the terrorists' act as, "criminal butchery,
a massacre more than an attack, and with no justification". He urged the
audience to, "never allow Washington to tell you to shut up, get in line,
and waive the flag." "Never let them take your flag away from you." Nader
urged the audience to think for themselves, to not inhibit what they have
to say, and asked, "how many times have we been told that they were
dropping bombs only on military targets?" Nader concluded that there was
no such thing as limiting bombing to only military targets and that, "we
are not going to be able to bomb our way to a solution of this problem."
Nader described the Administration's rationale for the bombing as
"cheap propaganda", which is, "going to get more rancid and grim."
"U.S. attacks on Afghanistan will spread more hatred of our country and
our allies." He also worried that 7.5 million Afghans face starvation this
winter, which he said was only four weeks away in Afghanistan, while
the U.S. has dropped only "135,000 snacks."
Quoting approvingly Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's assertion
that, "poverty, disease, and illiteracy are breeding grounds for tolerance
of terrorism," Nader proposed a profound reorientation of U.S. foreign policy
to support democratic forces and to, "side with the millions and millions
of workers and peasants rather than with dictators and oligarches." He
proposed a, "balanced approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,"
and an end to economic sanctions against Iraq which he said was taking
the lives of 5,000 Iraqi children a month. "You do not destabilize a dictator
by destroying the lives of innocent children and adults," said Nader.
Nader also called for a renewed defense of civil liberties, opposition to
unwarranted curtailment of them, and reform of intelligence agencies,
including making them "leaner and more efficient" by reducing their
bloated budgets and bureaucracies", which, said Nader clearly couldn't
protect us.
The focus of Nader's speech was a major departure from the usual agenda
of the longtime consumer activist who usually sticks closely to themes
concerning how corporations have gained too much power and are subverting
democracy. Nader did draw a connection to those themes, noting that
corporations are taking advantage of the tragedy of September 11 for their
own greedy purposes. He pointed to corporate lobbying for government
bailouts, even by industries in trouble long before the terrorist attacks,
for the limiting of regulations, including the opening up of the Alaskan
Arctic reserve, and opposing benefits for workers who are losing their jobs.
The event was billed as a "People Have the Power" rally in support of San
Francisco ballot initiatives for a Municipal Utility District, which would
create
public control of power in response to California's failed electricity
deregulation.
Nader, and numerous speakers before him, called for volunteers for a
grassroots campaign which could overwhelm the big money being spent by
Pacific Gas & Electric to defeat the initiatives. However, Nader and other
speakers clearly felt compelled to address the war. The event was also
organized as part of a series of "super rallies" being held around the country
by Nader's new Democracy Rising Campaign.
For more information on Democracy Rising:
<http://www.democracyrising.org>
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Massive peace marches held in Europe
http://cbc.ca/cgi-bin/view?/news/2001/10/13/peacedemos_011013
Sun Oct 14, 2001
LONDON - Tens of thousands of peace protesters rallied in European cities
Saturday, demanding an end to the U.S.-led attacks against Afghanistan.
In London, about 20,000 people marched through the city's centre the
largest anti-war protest in Britain in years, according to organizers.
The crowd included students, union executives, and religious leaders. They
all urged political leaders to find some other way to bring the criminals
responsible for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to justice.
"The only way to ensure a stable and peaceful future for the world,
particularly for this troubled region, is to get diplomatic initiatives in
there," said Kate Hudson of Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Polls in the United Kingdom suggest about 70 per cent of the population
backs Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to join the air strikes against
the Taliban. But if people were given another option they would gladly take
it, according to peace activists.
"We don't think that war is the way of solving terrorism," said one
protester. "Killing more innocent people, you make more enemies, not
friends."
There were no reports of serious trouble during the rally, as people chanted
slogans and sang songs. Police moved in at one point when some demonstrators
tried to burn American and British flags.
About 15,000 people turned out for a similar march in Berlin, where
protesters carried banners that read "War is not the solution" and "Stop
Bush's war." There were also rallies in other parts of Germany, as well as
Sweden, Italy, Australia, and several other countries.
FROM OCT. 7, 2001: Peace protesters rally in Canada, U.S.
FROM OCT. 5, 2001: Retaliation will worsen world: peace group
Peace activists have organized marches in Canada over the past few weeks.
More than two dozen organizations recently created "The September Eleventh
Peace Coalition," which is now lobbying to keep Canada from taking part in
any military strikes.
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ANTI-U.S. RIOTS ROCK NIGERIA; PROTESTS ELSEWHERE
http://www.bayarea.com/rc/headlines/docs/1566080l.htm
Saturday, October 13, 2001
BY EMEKA MADU
KANO, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least 20 people were killed in Nigeria in
anti-American riots Saturday and thousands of demonstrators joined peace
marches in London and Berlin.
Nigerian authorities issued a shoot-on-sight order and clamped a night
curfew on Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north, after some
of the most violent anti-American protests in Africa since U.S. air
strikes on Afghanistan began.
Army tanks criss-crossed the streets to quell riots which followed a
pattern of Muslim-Christian clashes that have killed thousands in
oil-producing Nigeria over the past two years.
``There is rampant shooting in the streets,'' said resident Jibrin Idris,
who said he was trapped in a building with scores of people in the city's
commercial district.
``Churches, mosques and shops are on fire. There is smoke everywhere,''
he said by telephone.
In London, Muslims and Christians marched side by side in a protest
against the bombing of Afghanistan that attracted more than 20,000
people, according to police estimates.
``We're here because there are thousands of people across Britain who
know that the bombing of Afghanistan is not going to put an end to
terrorism,'' said Carol Naughton, chairman of the protest organizers, the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
``We need to stop the bombing and go right back to diplomatic ways to end
this crisis,'' she told Reuters.
Germany also saw its biggest protest so far against the air strikes,
launched a week ago in retaliation for the attacks on the United States
last month that killed around 5,500 people.
Afghanistan's Taliban rulers, who are sheltering the chief suspect in the
attacks, Saudi-born militant Osama bin Laden, estimate that more than 300
people, mainly civilians, have been killed in the raids. There has been
no independent confirmation.
Protest organizers said some 30,000 people turned out in Berlin, but
police put the figure at about 14,000. Protesters came from some 140
different groups, ranging from far-left Marxist parties to the far-right
neo-Nazi NPD party.
GERMANS ``LEERY OF WAR''
``The horror of World War Two makes all of us in Germany leery of war,''
said physician Hannes Wand, 54, at the rally held under blue skies and
unusually warm autumn weather.
``I'm against this war because it's not justified and innocent people are
being killed and forced to flee their homes.''
Police said an estimated 5,000 people protested in the Swiss capital
Berne, and about 4,000 in the southwest German city of Stuttgart. Smaller
protests were held in other parts of the non-Islamic world, including
Australia.
In Nigeria, the army moved tanks into Kano's Sabon Gari market area early
Saturday after Christian churches and mosques were set on fire in rioting
Friday.
Community leaders said rioters killed at least six female school students
on their way to take university entrance exams.
Police said they found another two bodies in the street, one hacked by a
machete, and a witness said he was seeking refuge in a police station
when eight more bodies were brought in.
Up to four people were shot later by soldiers enforcing the shoot on
sight measure, witnesses said.
Mike Idika, a leader of the predominantly Christian Igbo community, which
accounts for most of city's merchants, said more than 200 people had been
injured and sent to hospital.
Local residents said the protests were hijacked by hoodlums from the
city's army of unemployed youth, who chanted ``May God destroy America!''
and ``Americans are terrorists.''
Brandishing posters of bin Laden, they burned American flags and effigies
of President Bush and Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido, who has
backed the U.S. attacks.
In India, at least 12 people were injured in a clash between Hindus and
Muslims after Hindus tried to burn portraits of bin Laden in the eastern
state of Bihar, authorities said.
U.S.-led air strikes on Afghanistan began last Sunday after the Taliban
refused to hand over bin Laden.
``The first casualty in this war has been the rule of law. President Bush
must declare there will be justice for the Palestinians and sanctions
against Iraq must be lifted,'' Dr. Ghayasuddin Siddiqui, leader of the
Muslim Parliament of Great Britain which supported the London rally, told
Reuters.
The demonstrators turned Trafalgar Square into a sea of colorful banners
echoing with chanting against the bombing. No arrests were reported.
``It's the most socially diverse we've ever seen. This shows it is not a
conflict between Islam and the West....all those in favor of human rights
oppose the U.S. and U.K. bombings,'' said Mike Marqusee, a leading member
of the Stop the War Coalition.
In Berlin, there were minor scuffles with police as protesters marched
through the central government quarter and past the Brandenburg Gate,
foreign ministry and city hall.
Banners read: ``War is genocide,'' ``War is not the solution'' and ``Stop
Bush's war.'' Singers performed anti-war folk songs of the 1960s from the
backs of flat-bed trucks.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder criticized the peace rally, saying
the demonstrators were being misled.
``Turn your focus on those who started this conflict,'' Schroeder said in
an interview with the newspaper Der Tagesspiegel, due to appear Sunday.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Surprise at large turnout for national anti-war rally
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/story.jsp?story=99415
By Cole Moreton
14 October 2001
Old men in Islamic dress marched with former Greenham women and dreadlocked
anti-capitalists who booed when they passed McDonald's. Yesterday's peace
rally in London was the first major public show of strength for a diverse
coalition of people opposed to war which has grown up by website and e-mail
faster than in any previous conflict.
Even the organisers were surprised at how many people turned up. "The police
expected 10,000 but we have far, far exceeded that,'' said Carol Naughton,
chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which cancelled a planned
demo against Star Wars in order to host the rally.
The police estimated 20,000 people were on the march from Hyde Park Corner
to Trafalgar Square, while the organisers put the numbers at 50,000.
It was a noisy and unruly demonstration on a hot day but people danced in
the fountains instead of causing trouble. Attempts by far-left groups such
as the Socialist Workers' Party to dominate the gathering were thwarted by
weight of numbers.
Salma Yakoob of the Stop the War Coalition in Birmingham addressed the crowd
from the plinth in Trafalgar Square. "If only the leftists had been here
today people would have said we were all lefties," she said. ''If only CND
had been here they would have said it was the middle-class elite. If it was
only the Muslims they would have called us extremists. If it was only Asians
and black people they would have said it was the ethnic minorities. Tony
Blair, we are here united against this war. You cannot dismiss us all.''
The poet Adrian Mitchell performed a piece which he had first read out in
Trafalgar Square in 1964. "It is about Vietnam,'' he said. "But it is still
relevant. It's about sitting faithfully in England while thousands of miles
away terrible atrocities are being committed in our name.''
The Stop The War Coalition announced that it intended to hold another
national rally on 18 November.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
US raids spark fear in traumatised Afghan children
http://www.brecorder.com/story/000000/200110/20011013/200110130266.shtml
Saturday, October 13, 2001
Reuters
.......KABUL : Sadeq is like any other five-year-old boy - inquisitive and
talkative, spending his days exploring his surroundings with the boundless
energy all youngsters have. But as soon as night falls, he changes. The
sound of an airplane turns him into a frozen statue. The noise of an
explosion triggers a frenzy of shivering.
......."The doctors have assured me that he will be all right," says his
mother, sitting beside him at a hospital in the Afghan capital on Friday. "I
really hope so, I am so worried."
.......Sadeq was just preparing for bed three nights ago when a bomb dropped
in the US-led air raids on Afghanistan landed near the family's home in the
capital.
.......In the noise, dust and confusion that followed, Sadeq went into
shock.
......."For several hours Sadeq wept and wailed," said his mother, clutching
the traditional all-enveloping Afghan burqa around her like a child would a
security blanket.
......."It was night-time and we could not help him. For a while he fainted
and the next day he had forgotten his name," she said.
.......Sitting on his bed at a hospital in the Afghan capital on Friday,
Sadeq was smiling again, enjoying a lull after five nights of continuous
raids on the capital.
......."We were forced to bring him to this hospital and now he laughs but
when the strike starts he shivers again and weeps," his mother said.
.......The family say they will take him home later on Friday despite
doctors saying he was nowhere near recovered from the ordeal.
.......They have little to treat him with, anyway.
.......Like every other hospital in Afghanistan, this one lacks even the
most basic medicines and medical equipment. Despite the best intentions of
doctors and staff, sanitation is a problem and electricity supplies
intermittent at best.
.......On Friday, the hospital tried to treat others injured in the latest
air raids.
......."I was in my house when the attacks began," said one man.
......."I went near the window and suddenly because of the wave of the
explosion our windows broke and I got some injuries from flying glass on my
hand."
.......Conditions are so bad, most people prefer simply to discharge
themselves or their relatives.
......."He was telling me that he wants to go home and we prefer him to go
as the horror of planes flying over and the explosions with the darkness
when the power is cut may bring back his shock," Sadeq's mother said.
......."We hope that at home he will be in contact with his family members
and there will be no more bombs in his area."
.......A doctor agrees.
......."We can't help him here in the darkness of night from the
explosions," the doctor said. "We just hope that by sending him home, he
will be safe from other side."
.......While Sadeq's mental scars may take time to heal, he is luckier than
some.
.......The doctor said he had just discharged a badly injured teenage girl
after her father said he thought it was too dangerous in the hospital.
......."She was 15 and tried to pick up food packets dropped by American
planes when she hit a land mine," the doctor said.
......."Her father decided to take her with her fresh wounds because of the
fear of the bombardments in Kabul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Protests against western crusade rock Indonesia, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Violent protests broke out Friday in cities across
Pakistan, including the port city of Karachi, where demonstrators torched an
American fast food restaurant and several cars.
Friday was the fifth day of protests in Pakistan against the government's
support of the U.S. campaign.
There were also protests against the U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan in
Iran, Turkey and Indonesia.
It was also the first Friday Muslim prayer day since the U.S. campaign against
Afghanistan began. Local police and paramilitary troops were deployed to keep
the peace. CNN's Christiane Amanpour reports on the latest protests in
Pakistan(October
An umbrella group of 35 Islamic organizations had promised to call a strike
Friday to protest the U.S. government action.
Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf promised to take action against
the protesters, saying army troops would come in to keep the peace if local
police could not.
In a round of security meetings Thursday with regional governors, Musharraf
laid out his plan to deploy troops, saying the destruction of property would
not be tolerated and instructing the governors how to deal with protests.
In Karachi, demonstrations began before midday prayers Friday with protesters
setting fire to several cars, including one owned by the mayor.
Demonstrators clashed with paramilitary troops at least three times before
noon, with the troops firing tear gas twice. A Kentucky Fried Chicken
restaurant was burned.
The leaders of the Afghan Defense Council and the political party
Jamaat-i-Islami were placed under house arrest.
Troops had standing orders to block any large gatherings from forming. Armored
cars were seen on the streets, and troops and police erected barricades to stop
large groups from entering the city. There also was heavy protection in the
diplomatic area of Karachi.
A less violent protest took place in Islamabad Friday morning. Still, riot
police in masks and helmets were seen in the streets, while army troops
patrolled in trucks with guns mounted on them.
Islamabad has a city ordinance banning the gathering of any group larger than
five.
The Pakistani government has confirmed there are U.S. troops and aircraft at
two bases in the country. Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider said they are
there for logistical operations and that no offensive operations are being
launched against Afghanistan from Pakistan.
The issue is a contentious one that has played a factor in anti-U.S. sentiment.
There was heavy security around the bases at Jacobabad in central Pakistan and
no demonstrations were reported there.
A heavy police presence was visible Friday in Quetta, which has seen the most
violent demonstrations so far this week.
CNN Correspondent Amanda Kibel reported about 3,000 people listened as leaders
delivered anti-American speeches.
However, the mullahs who lead the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party called for their
followers to remain calm.
Officials said 1,500 police and army troops were on the streets, but Kibel
reported that the number appeared to be much higher. She said 10 trucks
carrying Pakistani police were deployed around the stadium.
They said they would enforce a "zero-tolerance" policy against rioting and
violence.
Violent demonstrations also took place Friday morning in Peshawar, where
anti-American demonstrations have erupted since the airstrikes began in
Afghanistan, but were said to be peaceful by the afternoon.
Musharraf has repeatedly said the protests represent a vocal minority and are
not representative of the people.
Meanwhile, in Iran, a group of Afghan refugees took part in an anti-U.S.
demonstration Friday in Zahedan near the Afghan border. They threw stones at
the Pakistani consulate, breaking a few windows, to protest against Pakistani
cooperation with the United States. No injuries were reported.
In Turkey, about 1,000 people gathered outside Istanbul's main mosque after
Friday prayers to chant anti-U.S. slogans. Police said 15 people were detained,
after a smoke bomb was used to disperse the crowd.
In Jakarta, Indonesia, fewer than 1,000 people showed up to demonstrate in
front of the U.S. Embassy, despite threats from radical Indonesian Islamic
groups that thousands would flood the streets to protest the strikes over
Afghanistan. Small but peaceful protests were also held in several other cities
in Indonesia.
In anticipation of trouble, officials deployed more than 5,000 police on the
streets of the capital. They used water cannon to prevent demonstrators from
burning an effigy of U.S. President George W. Bush, but little trouble was
reported.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Traders bring back eye-witness accounts of bombing
http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=115248&rware=PAUVQPCDVZJV&CQ_CUR_DOCUMENT=28
Allied military action is hardening Afghan resistance towards West
by Paul Gallagher In Peshawar
The Scotsman (Scotland); October 11, 2001
THE lorry drivers arriving at Gulbahar fruit market yesterday were
carrying with them an added commodity. Leaping from the cabs of
their trucks, each one of them has a story to trade about the
military onslaught on Afghanistan.
Despite the high state of military alert over the threatened civil war
in Pakistan, the cross-border fruit trade with Afghanistan continues
as normal and provides the only independent eye-witness accounts
of the effects of the US and British attacks.
Within the walled courtyard of Gulbahar Market in the frontier town
of Peshawar, the hauliers described the terror faced by residents in
Afghan cities and towns which they had left behind and also the
rising anger against the Western powers responsible for the
attacks.
The US has described how it is dropping thousands of emergency
rations, along with bombs and missiles, in an attempt to win over
ordinary Afghans, but according to the drivers these are being
received more with incredulity and anger than with the gratitude
America had hoped for.
"We don't want their food parcels, people are burning them in the
street," one driver said. "How can they drop bombs from one plane
and then food from another? Only America is capable of such
hypocrisy."
Iqbal Anwar, who had just arrived from Kabul, said the residents in
the capital city were becoming traumatised after three nights of
bombardment. "People are trying to carry on with their normal lives,
but it's impossible to sleep at night with the sound of missiles and
jets flying overhead," he said.
"After the first night's bombing, they were able to go about their
business in the day before sheltering at night, but now the attacks
are in daylight as well. This is terrorism to the people of
Afghanistan. It is America and Britain who are the real terrorists."
Mr Anwar was in Kabul when the first bombing raids were launched
on Sunday night, and he loaded his truck with fruit at dawn
yesterday to drive to Peshawar, an eight-hour drive. "The border is
open to us, Pakistan needs fruit and business must go on," he
added. "There are not many signs of damage along the roads, but
there are many frightened women and children who want to find
somewhere safe but have nowhere to go."
None of the hauliers reported any signs that the attacks were
spreading discontent with the Taleban. Instead, they are hardening
support for the regime. "The Taleban will never fall because they
are the people of Afghanistan, and this is what the US and George
Bush does not understand," one driver said. Another haulier,
sipping green tea while a crowd of traders gathered to bid for his
consignment of grapes, said he had driven from Jalalabad
where there had been nightly explosions around the city since
Sunday.
"The situation is very bad. The people will never forgive America for
these attacks because innocent people are being hit and killed and
they have no defences. "I saw a house which had been destroyed
and we hear of people who have been injured and killed. "It is not
just military targets that are being hit. The Americans cannot win
because there is nothing for them to bomb and they cannot kill
everyone in Afghanistan."
In one corner of the courtyard, a group gathered around a transistor
radio to hear the latest bulletins on BBC World Service. Radio
Sharriat, the Kabul-based Afghan radio station, has been off air
in recent days and the Afghan drivers have to look elsewhere for
information on the air strikes. They sat in silence as news of the
Taleban's response to the attacks was announced and nodded in
unison to the defiant declaration of the Taleban spokesman which
was read out over the air.
"After these attacks, the Americans and British have declared war
on our people and we will fight back," one of them said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DEMONSTRATIONS IN CAIRO, JERUSALEM, TEHRAN, KHARTOUM...
JERUSALEM, 12 October 2001 (VOA): Thousands of demonstrators took to the
streets in various cities in the Middle East to protest the U.S. military
campaign in Afghanistan. Many more thronged to mosques for Friday prayers
throughout the region and heard anti-American sermons.
Several thousand Palestinians staged anti-American demonstrations in the
West Bank Friday, including in Ramallah and Nablus. Many chanted their
support for Osama bin Laden and vented their anger against U.S. President
George W. Bush, describing him as the "father of terrorism."
The Palestinian Authority has clamped down on anti-American demonstrations
and earlier this week sent out police to quell one such protest in Gaza.
Two Palestinian youths were killed in the incident. Palestinian police have
also clamped down on media coverage of protests, at times barring
journalists from entering protest areas.
Tens of thousands of protesters, including some government ministers, took
to the streets in Iran. In Tehran, marchers carried placards denouncing the
U.S. action as terrorism. Others declared their willingness to join a jehad
(war against imperialistic terrorism) against the United States and its
allies. The Iranian government has denounced terrorism, but is also
critical of the American action. But Iran has also helped supply weapons to
the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance in Afghanistan.
There was heavy police presence in Cairo as about 5,000 people demonstrated
after Friday prayers at the city's Al-Azhar mosque. In Lebanon, several
thousand people took to the streets in the northern city of Tripoli to
denounce what they called the U.S."aggression."
Muslims across the region thronged to mosques and heard anti-American
sermons. In Saudi Arabia, prayers were held in support of Afghans and to
denounce the "enemies of Islam," but they made no direct mention of the
U.S. and British attacks. In the Syrian capital, Damascus, an imam
denounced terrorism, but said that terrorism cannot be fought by waging
wars that destroy cities and kill women and children.
The Associated Press reports that in one mosque in Baghdad, the imam and
worshippers broke down in tears. The imam spoke of a crusade against
Muslims, led by America. He also accused the United States and Britain of
playing games as they destroy cities and kill people.
The United States and its allies have repeatedly stressed that the attacks
are not against the Afghan people or Islam, but rather against Osama bin
Laden, his al-Qaida network, and the Taleban rulers of Afghanistan who
harbor him and his supporters.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Civilian casualties mount in Afghanistan
<http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/afgh-o13.shtml>
By Kate Randall
13 October 2001
Many news sources report mounting civilian casualties in Afghanistan since
the US launched air strikes against the country last Sunday. The Afghan
Islamic Press (AIP) reports that more than 250 civilians have been killed
so far, while the Taliban says casualties have surpassed 300. USA Today
reports that Western diplomats in Pakistan have received unconfirmed
reports from aid workers in Afghanistan that the number may be far higher,
and rising with each day's air raids.
Afghan refugees arriving daily in Pakistan speak of the destruction wrought
by the US bombing raids. Khawaja Ahmad, 25, who arrived from Jalalabad with
her two older brothers on Tuesday, told USA Today that she witnessed dozens
of homes destroyed and many injured children:
"We see only our mothers and children dying. Why do you kill us? What have
our civilians done to you?"
On Thursday, thousands of Afghan refugees fled their homes in Kabul,
Kandahar and Jalalabad after US jets carried out the heaviest bombing since
the US launched its attack last Sunday. They carried whatever personal
belongings they could, traveling on donkeys and in taxis and trucks. At
least 1.1 million of Afghanistan's 26 million people are fleeing areas that
might be hit by US air raids. Riza Kahn, a fruit merchant from Jalalabad,
told USA Today, "People everywhere are on the run. They are trying to hide,
wherever they can. But the bombs are everywhere."
Stephanie Bunker, spokesperson for the Office of the UN Coordinator for
Afghanistan, said that these refugees have little or no access to food,
water or shelter. She told USA Today that since September 11 nearly
three-quarters of Jalalabad's 100,000 residents, half of Kandahar's 100,000
residents and one-fifth of Kabul's 1.8 million residents have fled.
Those who can afford it are heading for the Pakistan border, and others are
fleeing to the countryside. UN officials report that many of those who lack
the resources to leave the country are widows, the elderly and the
extremely impoverished. Ms. Bunker commented, "The ones who have stayed are
the poorest of the poor. They're living on bread and water." Afghan
refugees report widespread devastation to civilian areas of the country,
including the shutoff of water and electricity in many areas.
AIP reports that at least 100 people were killed or missing following US
air attacks on the village of Kourram, 35 kilometers to the west of
Jalalabad on Wednesday, October 10. Twelve others were taken to a Jalalabad
hospital. An area resident said that the village was virtually destroyed
following three nighttime raids on the area by US jets. The village
comprised 25 houses that have now been completely destroyed. Taliban
sources told AIP that 50 bodies had been pulled from the rubble so far.
According to UN officials, civilian deaths on Wednesday also included 20 in
the northern city of Mazar-e Sharif and 10 in the southern city of Kandahar.
Ten civilians were killed when an American missile hit their home in a
residential neighborhood of Kabul early Thursday morning, according to AIP.
Another report said at least 18, mostly women and children, were killed and
more than 30 injured in an attack on Konduz Thursday morning in several air
and missile attacks on the city.
According to AIP, more than 200 people were killed on Thursday when a bomb
struck the village of Kadam, about 40 kilometers west of Jalalabad. Kadam
has been the target of repeated air strikes, lying near what the US has
cited as a terrorist training camp. The Taliban told AIP, "So far 160
bodies have been recovered, mostly women and children. This is not an
exaggeration. More bodies are still being recovered."
Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan, told reporters in
Islamabad that a bombing raid early Thursday morning killed about 100
civilians in a village in the Torghar region, near Jalalabad. He said the
casualties also included 15 people killed at a mosque in Jalalabad
Wednesday night.
The capital city of Kabul came under sustained bombardment in the early
morning hours of Friday, in what residents described as a combined plane
and missile assault. An Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporter in Kabul
counted 10 explosions, as planes flew over the city in numerous waves,
beginning at 3:15 a.m. "At times there were no planes but still explosions,
so there must have been some missiles coming in as well," the AFP
correspondent reported. He said that some of the blasts were felt inside
the city.
The AIP reported that several houses in a residential neighborhood were
flattened by a cruise missile during raids that went on for most of the
night around Kabul and its airport.
Truck drivers arriving from Kabul at a fruit market in Peshawar, Pakistan
described to the Scottish newspaper The Scotsman the conditions faced by
residents in Afghanistan's capital city following consecutive nights of
bombardment. Aqbal Anwar said, "After the first night's bombing, they were
able to go about their business in the day before sheltering at night, but
now the attacks are in daylight as well. This is terrorism to the people of
Afghanistan. It is America and Britain who are the real terrorists."
Another driver said, "The situation is very bad. The people will never
forgive America for these attacks because innocent people are being hit and
killed and they have no defenses. I saw a house which had been destroyed
and we hear of people who have been injured and killed. It is not just
military targets that are being hit. The Americans cannot win because there
is nothing for them to bomb and they cannot kill everyone in Afghanistan."
US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told the press Thursday:
"Everyone in this county knows that the United States of America does not
target civilians." While denying Washington was targeting civilians, he
said they were inevitable in any military conflict.
Britain's International Development Secretary Clare Short on Friday flatly
denied that Afghan civilians had been killed: "Clearly there is propaganda
being fed out.... Information moves across the borders in and out and there
are refugees and families, and it is widely understood amongst Afghanistan
refugees that there have not been civilian casualties."
Two US aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea continue to launch strike
aircraft and heavy bombing was reported to be continuing around
Kabul. Rumsfeld told reporters Thursday that the US had hit unidentified
cave complexes with an array of precision munitions. These weapons
including GBU-28 "bunker busters"5,000-pound laser-guided bombs designed to
penetrate buried concrete structures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Allies dismiss Taliban claims of civilian dead
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_422533.html?menu=
Saturday 13th October 2001
A Taliban report that 200 villagers were killed in a missile strike has been
dismissed as Taliban propaganda.
The Taliban said people had been killed in the village of Karam, near
Jalalabad, on Wednesday.
Zadra Azam, the Taliban deputy governor of Nangarhar province, said bodies
were still being dug out of the rubble.
Britain has dismissed the claims with International Development Secretary
Clare Short saying: "It's widely understood... That there have not been so
many civilian casualties."
She spoke after the Taliban announcement of deaths in Karam, but it was not
clear if she was also referring to them.
Even before the latest claims, the Taliban spoke of dozens killed in the
raids.
However, reports of casualties are extremely difficult to verify, with
Afghanistan all but sealed off from the outside world.
Only the deaths of four guards working for a mine-clearing agency contracted
by the United Nations have been confirmed - by UN officials in neighbouring
Pakistan.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Bomb Misses Target, Hits Neighborhood
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A54434-2001Oct13?
Saturday, October 13, 2001; 12:58 PM
By Matt Kelley, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON -- A U.S. bomb intended to strike a helicopter at the Kabul
airport hit a residential neighborhood a mile away in the Afghan capital
Saturday, the Pentagon said.
Reports from the ground said four people were killed and eight injured,
the Defense Department said in a statement. U.S. officials said they had
no way to confirm the number of casualties.
A Navy F/A-18 Hornet had aimed the 2,000-pound guided bomb at a military
helicopter at the airport, but the bomb hit the residential area during a
morning raid on the seventh straight day of airstrikes, the Pentagon
said.
The bomb had a satellite guidance system designed to steer it toward its
target. A "targeting process error" could have caused the bomb to go
astray, the Pentagon said.
Four destroyed houses could be seen in the neighborhood.
"We have no way to rebuild our homes," said Mohammed Shoaib, whose house
was one of those wrecked. "What will we do?"
U.S. planes returned in the evening, firing seven missiles at targets in
the northern part of Kabul. Heavy smoke was seen from the area of the
airport. The private Afghan Islamic Press also reported attacks against a
military base outside Kandahar, the southern city home to the Taliban's
headquarters.
Military officials have said the airstrikes are becoming increasingly
focused on "targets of opportunity" that pilots spot from the air, such
as aircraft parked on the ground or convoys of troops for the Taliban,
the militia sheltering suspected terrorist Osama bin Laden and his
al-Qaida network.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Raid Kills Unknown Number in an Afghan Village
October 13, 2001, The New York Times
By BARRY BEARAK
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct. 12 - Karam is a village in the
hills of eastern Afghanistan, barely an hour from the
border with Pakistan. Villagers say a training camp for
Islamic guerrillas was once situated nearby, though it has
been closed for several years.
Whether that camp was the intended target of the American
bombers that swooped overhead on Wednesday, or whether
there was somebody or something in the village that
American military planners wanted to hit, may never be
known.
What does seem clear is that Karam was bombed. One
eyewitness account comes from a respected Pakistani
journalist, working temporarily for The New York Times and
exploiting connections at the border. He was able to get to
Karam late on Thursday, returning today.
Villagers told him that 53 people had died, though only 22
bodies had yet been pulled from the wreckage. They said the
radical Islamic Taliban government seemed inclined to
inflate the toll.
The journalist, who could not be identified because his
travel in Afghanistan was not authorized, had a close-up
look at only three corpses in a hospital. They were all
mutilated, he said. The face of one victim, a man named
Shaqib, was torn away. A relative was patiently cleaning
the body, preparing it for burial.
This relation, on seeing a Taliban official, began to
shout. "I'm angry at the Americans and I'm angry at you,"
he said. "This is the result of your jihad."
Karam appeared thoroughly destroyed. Dead livestock lay
about. Villagers, many in tears, were pulling away debris,
looking for the missing. Throughout the area, Taliban
soldiers sped by in pickups, reinforcing positions on the
hilltops with antiaircraft guns.
The fog of war is always dense, with each side projecting
its own claims and its own views of the conflict. In
Afghanistan it is denser than usual because of the
inaccessibility to Western journalists of the areas being
bombed.
This morning Pakistani newspapers reported that the hamlet
had been obliterated and that more than 100 people were
believed to be dead. Late today the Afghan Islamic Press, a
news service, quoted a Taliban official who said the body
count had reached 160 and was likely to exceed 200.
The Taliban are almost certainly inflating casualties and,
with Taliban-controlled territory closed to foreigners and
the movement of even Afghan journalists limited, it is
difficult to know how much about Karam there is to regret.
In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, asked
about the Taliban assertions, repeated assurances that
United States strikes were not aimed at innocents.
"There is no question but that when one is engaged
militarily that there are going to be unintended loss of
life," Mr. Rumsfeld said on a day when the bombardment had
slowed. "And there's no question but that I and anyone
involved regrets the unintended loss of life."
People in Karam said they had felt in no particular danger
of an American attack. "We were eating our late meal when
the planes came, dropping their bombs," said Shah Mehmood,
a farmer. "I was knocked out completely, and I still have
shrapnel in my neck. My 8-year-old son, Najib, he was
knocked out, too, but I think he will be O.K. now."
Maulvi Abdullah Haijazi, an elder from a nearby village,
had come to assist. "These people don't support the
Taliban," he said. "They always say the Taliban are doing
this or that and they don't like it. But now they will all
fight the Americans. We pray to Allah that we have American
soldiers to kill. These bombs from the sky we cannot
fight."
Today's papers, whether in Urdu, Pashto or Punjabi, were
filled with horrors: a civilian death toll placed at
anywhere from 200 to 500; 10 members of a family killed in
Kabul; a mosque leveled in the Surkh Rud district of
Nangarhar Province; 11 unexploded missiles lying in the
area around Jalalabad. All of the dead were referred to as
"martyred."
None of those reports could be independently confirmed
today, including a story that said the 10-year- old son of
Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, had
been killed in the air raids on Kandahar. That item, based
on a single unnamed source, was published on the front page
of several newspapers, including Pakistan's largest, The
Daily Jang.
The Jang, an Urdu paper, also ran a front-page cartoon
portraying Uncle Sam as a munitions dealer boasting that
his latest products were being field-tested in Afghanistan.
The reports reveal the gulf in perceptions between Pakistan
and the United States about the war. Although Pakistan is
nominally allied with the United States in its quest to
eliminate the terrorist cells in Afghanistan responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks, sympathy for the plight of
Afghans is strong here.
Items published here often seem eerie twists on items
appearing in the United States. Ausaf, the second largest
daily, ran what purported to be an announcement from Al
Qaeda offering $50,000 for the capture of an American
soldier and $3,000 for the uniform of a dead one.
At a protest rally here today, 1,000 people marched from
one of Peshawar's famous mosques to one of its famous
bazaars, chanting anti- American slogans all the way.
"Death to Bush!" they yelled. In the United States, the
"war against terrorism" is described as a duel between good
and evil. But most of the protesters are working from a
much different set of premises. To them Al Qaeda's leader,
Osama bin Laden - from a remote perch in Afghanistan - is
an unlikely suspect in the terrorism of Sept. 11.
Rafatullah, a well-groomed wholesaler of medical supplies,
said, "I think the Americans are anti-Islam, and their
assault on Osama without proof is a tragedy."
By then another protester, this one with an unkempt beard
and a raging tone in his voice, declared that the Muslims
of the world had decided to wage jihad against the
Americans.
Yet another man intervened. "We will have our vengeance,"
he said, unfolding a newspaper he had placed in his pocket.
He pointed to the news about the village of Karam.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reuters. 13 October 2001.
Anti-American Riots Rock Nigeria, Protest Elsewhere.
KANO, Nigeria -- At least 16 people were killed in Nigeria in
anti-American riots on Saturday and thousands of demonstrators joined
peace marches in London and Berlin.
Nigerian authorities ordered police to shoot on sight and clamped a
night curfew on Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Muslim north, after
some of the most violent anti-American protests in Africa since U.S.
air strikes on Afghanistan began.
Army tanks criss-crossed the streets to quell riots which followed a
pattern of Muslim-Christian clashes that have killed thousands in
oil-producing Nigeria over the past two years.
"There is rampant shooting in the streets," said resident Jibrin Idris,
who said he was trapped in a building with scores of people in the
city's commercial district.
"Churches, mosques and shops are on fire. There is smoke everywhere," he
said by telephone.
In London, Muslims and Christians marched side by side in a protest
against the bombing of Afghanistan that attracted more than 20,000
people, according to police estimates.
"We're here because there are thousands of people across Britain who
know that the bombing of Afghanistan is not going to put an end to
terrorism," said Carol Naughton, chairman of the protest organizers, the
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND).
Germany also saw its biggest protest so far against the air strikes,
launched a week ago in retaliation for the attacks on the United States
last month that killed around 5,500 people.
Protest organizers said some 30,000 people turned out in Berlin.
Protesters came from some 140 different groups, including from far-left
Marxist parties.
"The horror of World War Two makes all of us in Germany leery of war,"
said physician Hannes Wand, 54, at the rally held under blue skies and
unusually warm autumn weather.
"I'm against this war because it's not justified and innocent people are
being killed and forced to flee their homes."
In Berlin, there were minor scuffles with police as protesters marched
through the central government quarter and past the Brandenburg Gate,
foreign ministry and city hall.
Banners read: "War is genocide," "War is not the solution" and "Stop
Bush's war." Singers performed anti-war folk songs of the 1960s from the
backs of flat-bed trucks.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder criticized the peace rally.
Police said an estimated 5,000 people protested in the Swiss capital
Berne, and about 4,000 in the southwest German city of Stuttgart.
Smaller protests were held in other parts of the non-Islamic world,
including Australia.
In Nigeria, the army moved tanks into Kano's Sabon Gari market area
early on Saturday after Christian churches and mosques were set on fire
in rioting on Friday.
Community leaders said rioters killed at least six female school
students on their way to take university entrance exams.
Police said they found another two bodies in the street, one hacked by a
machete, and a witness said he was seeking refuge in a police station
when eight more bodies were brought in.
Mike Idika, a leader of the predominantly Christian Igbo community,
which accounts for most of city's merchants, said more than 200 people
were injured and sent to hospital.
Local residents said the protests were hijacked by hoodlums from the
city's army of unemployed youth, who chanted "May God destroy America!"
and "Americans are terrorists."
Brandishing posters of bin Laden, they burned American flags and
effigies of President Bush and Nigerian Foreign Minister Sule Lamido,
who has backed the U.S. attacks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Differences Between Terrorists and US Government
Confused? Having difficulty telling the good guys from the bad guys?
Use this handy guide to differences between terrorists and the U.S.
government:
by Daniel Solnit, Dissident Voice, October 9, 2001
TERRORISTS:
Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful politician, from extremely
wealthy oil family
US GOVERNMENT:
Supposed leader is the spoiled son of a powerful politician, from extremely
wealthy oil family
TERRORISTS:
Leader has declared a holy war ('Jihad') against his 'enemies'; believes
any nation not with him is against him; believes god is on his side, and
that any means are justified.
US GOVERNMENT:
Leader has declared a holy war ('Crusade') against his 'enemies'; believes
any nation not with him is against him; believes god is on his side, and
that any means are justified.
TERRORISTS:
Supported by extreme fundamentalist religious leaders who preach hatred,
intolerance, subjugation of women, and persecution of non-believers
US GOVERNMENT:
Supported by extreme fundamentalist religious leaders who preach hatred,
intolerance, subjugation of women, and persecution of non-believers
TERRORISTS:
Leadership was not elected by a majority of the people in a free and fair
democratic election
US GOVERNMENT:
Leadership was not elected by a majority of the people in a free and fair
democratic election
TERRORISTS:
Kills thousands of innocent civilians, some of them children, in cold
blooded bombings
US GOVERNMENT:
Kills (tens of) thousands of innocent civilians, some of them children, in
cold blooded bombings
TERRORISTS:
Operates through clandestine organization (al Qaeda) with agents in many
countries; uses bombing, assassination, other terrorist tactics
US GOVERNMENT:
Operates through clandestine organization (CIA) with agents in many
countries; uses bombing, assassination, other terrorist tactics
TERRORISTS:
Using war as pretext to clamp down on dissent and undermine civil liberties
US GOVERNMENT:
Using war as pretext to clamp down on dissent and undermine civil liberties
TERRORISTS:
Weapon of choice: a three-dollar box cutter
US GOVERNMENT:
Weapon of choice: a billion-dollar B1 bomber
----------
Daniel Solnit is Executive Director for the Leadership Institute for
Ecology and the Economy, and a supremo with the Sonoma County Green Party.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
* 50,000 march for peace in central London
* "Blair does not speak for Britain"
STOP THE WAR COALITION
07951 235 915
PO Box 3739, London E5 8EJ
NEWS RELEASE: Saturday 13 October 2001
The Stop the War Coalition hailed today's huge anti-war protest in central
London as "the tip of an iceberg of dissent and outrage".
Less than one week after the US and Britain began their military assault on
Afghanistan, 50,000 people from all over Britain joined one of the biggest
and most diverse demonstrations seen in central London in many years.
"The extraordinary turn-out for this demonstration proves that the there is
a substantial, diverse and rapidly growing coalition of people strongly
opposed to this unjust and immoral war," said Mike Marqusee, on behalf of
the Stop the War Coalition. "Along with the protests taking place today in
other cities and towns across the country, this is the tip of an iceberg of
dissent and outrage.
"It's clear that Tony Blair does not speak for Britain - and we hope the
world will now take note of that fact.
"From now on, neither the media nor the political establishment in this
country can afford to ignore the palpable reality of a mass anti-war
movement embracing a wide variety of social constituencies."
Anti-Racist campaigner Suresh Grover, chair of the National Civil Rights
Movement, and a member of the Stop the War Coalition steering committee,
described the march as "probably the most multi-racial protest ever seen in
central London. It's a huge success. People of south Asian descent in
Britain have served notice on Blair: we will not accept the cruel hypocrisy
of this war."
Among the groups taking part in the march were Muslim organisations, peace
organisations, student unions, anti-racist and community
organisations,trades unions, Palestinian campaigners, environmentalists,
Lawyers Against the War, Media Workers Against the War, Medics Against the
War and many, many others. Coaches arrived from Birmingham, Cardiff,
Cambridge, Sheffield and elsewhere.
The Stop the War Coalition has announced that the next national
demonstration against the war will be held in central London on Sunday, 18
November.
The Stop the War Coalition was formed in London out of a meeting of more
than 2000 people held at Friends House a fortnight ago. Sponsors
include: MPs George Galloway, Tam Dalyell, Jeremy Corbyn, and Alan
Simpson, Harold Pinter, writer George Monbiot, Bob Crow of the RMT, Mark
Seddon (Labour NEC and Tribune editor), Mick Rix (ASLEF), John Foster
(NUJ), Tariq Ali, Bernard Regan (NUT Executive), peace activists Hugh
Stephens and Jim Addington, Suresh Grover (chair of the National Civil
Rights Movement), Asad Rehman from the Newham Monitoring Project, Andrew
Murray from ASLEF, Dave Nellist and Liz Davies from the Socialist Alliance,
Mark Seddon (Tribune), Rosie Boycott (journalist), Jeremy Dear (NUJ),
Hilary Wainwright from Red Pepper, Chris Nineham from Globalise Resistance,
broadcaster John Pilger, playwright Caryl Churchill, writer Mike Marqusee,
novelist and screenwriter Ronan Bennett, lawyer Soraya Lawrence and writer
and comedian Mark Steel.
For more information call Lindsey German 07810 540584 or Mike Marqusee 0207
275 9399
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2001/b10132001_bt509-01.html
No. 509-01
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 13, 2001
JDAM MISSES INTENDED TARGET IN AFGHANISTAN
At approximately 6:30 p.m. EDT yesterday (Oct. 12), a
U.S. Navy F/A-18 Hornet missed its intended target and
inadvertently dropped a 2000-pound GPS-guided Joint Direct
Attack Munition (JDAM) in a residential area near Kabul Airport,
Afghanistan. The intended target was a military helicopter at
Kabul Airport, approximately one mile from the residential area.
We regret the loss of any civilian life. U.S. forces
are intentionally striking only military and terrorist targets.
They take great care in their targeting process to avoid
civilian casualties. We have no accurate way of estimating the
number of casualties, but reports from the ground indicate there
may have been four deaths and eight injured.
Although details are being investigated and may take
several days, preliminary indications are that the accident
occurred from a targeting process error.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reuters. 13 October 2001
U.S. Raids Resume as Afghans Still Dig for Bodies.
KABUL -- Afghanistan's ruling Taliban on Saturday rejected an offer by
President Bush to halt air strikes if they handed over Saudi-born
fugitive Osama bin Laden, saying they would fight until their last
breath.
The defiance was voiced as the country counted the cost as bombings
resumed after a brief respite for the Friday Muslim holy day and enraged
authorities searched for more bodies in the rubble of a remote village
flattened by a direct strike.
"We once again want to say that their (the U.S.) intention is a war
against Muslims and Afghans," Taliban Information Minister Mullah
Qudratullah Jamal told Reuters.
On Thursday, Bush said he would halt air strikes if the Taliban "cough
up" bin Laden, an offer he described as a second chance.
"Osama is not the issue and people have realized this by the crimes they
are committing," Mullah Jamal said. "Our stance regarding the situation
is as before.
"Our jihad (holy struggle) ... will continue until the last breath for
the defense of our homeland and Islam."
U.S. warplanes bombed Kabul's airport early on Saturday and CNN reported
the Taliban's southern stronghold of Kandahar was under attack after a
lull of nearly 24 hours out of what Washington said was deference to
the Muslim holy day.
At least one civilian was killed and four injured near Kabul airport
when a bomb landed near a poor residential area. Six houses near the
strike site were flattened by the blast.
Exhausted residents of the capital were woken on Saturday by at least
eight huge explosions, with one strike apparently hitting the airport,
which has been the main target.
"From my house I could see a bomb land on the airport, I saw a fireball,
debris flying up into the sky and the initial big fire then dimming,"
one witness said.
"The shockwaves of the bombs were quite severe but there was less
anti-aircraft fire seen in the sky compared to other nights," one said.
On Friday, angry Muslim clerics vented their rage against the air
onslaught during prayers, urging Afghans to fight to the last breath and
decreeing death to anyone who aided the United States.
"America can destroy our country but not our faith and our principles,
we will fight till the last breath," the Afghan Islamic Press (AIP)
quoted another cleric as saying in a sermon in the southern city of
Kandahar.
Much of the rage had been fueled by the deadly strike on the hillside
village of Khorum near the eastern city of Jalalabad, where at least 160
bodies have already been pulled from the rubble of flattened houses.
"Some 160 bodies have been recovered from the debris so far. Most of
them are women and children," Jamal told Reuters.
"We believe more are to be dug out. The burial process has already began
and each victim will be buried in a separate tomb," he said.
Dozens more people were killed or injured and military bases hit in
raids on southern Kandahar province, officials said.
Despite the ferocity of the raids, there was no sign the U.S. was any
closer to getting bin Laden -- who Bush has said is wanted "dead or
alive" -- or the Taliban's reclusive spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad
Omar.
The death toll pushed past the 300 mark -- with more than half from a
single village near Jalalabad -- on the sixth day of the U.S.-led
assaults and was set to rise, the Taliban said.
"Such acts of the Americans and their supporters are outrageous and show
that their enmity is with Afghans and Muslims," Jamal said.
"If their claim is getting rid of the people who they call terrorists
then why they have not succeeded. They're boasting their attacks are
precise, so why have they failed?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anti-US protests worldwide
From Turkey to the far east, Islamists took to the streets to oppose the
American attacks
by John Aglionby in Jakarta, Bill Sellars in Istanbul, Jonathan Steele and
agencies
The Guardian
Saturday October 13, 2001
Malaysia
Malaysian police sprayed chemical-laced water at about 2,500 supporters of
a Muslim opposition party demonstrating peacefully outside the American
embassy in Kuala Lumpur yesterday, as they knelt on prayer mats to begin
their afternoon prayers in defiance of police orders.
The Pan-Malaysia Islamic party crowd had gathered outside the embassy at
about 2pm after Friday prayers. A small delegation was allowed in to
deliver a protest note while the majority shouted anti-US slogans and
brandished placards of Osama bin Laden.
Riot police started to forcibly disperse the! demonstrators after about 30
minutes when some started their prayers. The deputy city police chief, Dell
Akbar Khan, said the authorities had made it clear that there should be no
prayers outside the embassy.
India
Indian police fired teargas and used water cannon to disperse thousands of
Muslims protesting against the attacks on Afghanistan.
Muslims poured on to the streets of major Indian cities after Friday
prayers shouting anti-American slogans. About 10,000 chanted "Death to
America, Death to Israel, Taliban, Taliban, we salute you" at the country's
biggest mosque, the Jama Masjid in New Delhi.
In the southern city of Hyderabad and in Srinagar, summer capital of the
revolt-racked northern state of Kashmir, Muslims pelted police with stones.
In Hyderabad, a former princely state with a large population of Muslims,
more than 50 policemen and civilians sustained minor injuries when a mob
turned violent.
In the eastern city of Calcutta, ! 4,000 Muslims gathered near a mosque
shouting "Long live Bin Laden, down with Bush".
Iran
Angry Iranian crowds attacked the Pakistan consulate in the south-eastern
town of Zahedan close to the Afghan border yesterday. In Tehran protesters
hanged effigies of US and Israeli leaders, burned the two countries' flags
and carried placards saying "Bush the killer" and "War is not the answer".
Zahedan is home to tens of thousands of Afghan refugees, most of whom fled
the Soviet invasion 20 years ago. Although they are fierce opponents of the
Taliban, many opposed the American attacks on their homeland, saying it was
up to Afghans to solve the country's problems.
But foreign residents of Zahedan said yesterday that the demonstration at
the consulate was led by Iranians and not Afghans. The crowd attacked the
Pakistani consulate with stones and clubs and broke windows before police
brought them under control, witnesses said.
Conservative groups ! opposed to President Mohammad Khatami's efforts to
reform the Islamic republic and improve relations with the west organised
rallies after Friday prayers in several cities.
Turkey
More than 100 people were detained yesterday during demonstrations across
Turkey against the bombing and Ankara's support for the US.
In Istanbul, 58 were taken into custody during a noisy but generally
peaceful protest outside the Beyazit mosque near the city's tourist
district after midday prayers. The protest ended after teargas was
released, possibly by accident.
Much of the protest focused on the Turkish government's decision, approved
by parliament on Wednesday, to deploy troops overseas if requested by its
NATO ally Washington. During the 45-minute protest, demonstrators also
burned an American flag and unfurled a banner declaring the US a terrorist
state.
Indonesia
A small homemade bomb exploded outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant
in! the city of Makassar on Sulawesi island at 3am, causing some damage but
no casualties. Another device was found a few hours later outside an
Australian insurance company's office in the same city and was defused.
Four protesters and two police officers were injured in a clash outside the
provincial parliament building in Indonesia's second city of Surabaya.
The massive protests and operations by Islamist groups to "sweep" Americans
and Britons out of the country that were predicted on what was the first
Muslim Sabbath after the start of American and British strikes in
Afghanistan never materialised.
The crowds that gathered in more than half a dozen cities rarely exceeded
1,000 people in each place.
The foreign minister, Hasan Wirayuda, warned the American president, George
Bush, that he would risk alienating many Muslim nations if it did not halt
the offensive in Afghanistan by the start of the Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan, which begins in ! just over a month.
"It would be emotionally explosive for an Islamic country to see their
fellow Muslims suffering such bombings while they are fasting," he told a
security briefing of local and foreign businesspeople and foreign diplomats.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I Am Against This War
by William Rivers Pitt <w_pitt@hotmail.com>
I have been wrestling with this since the attacks came down. You will all
recall that I was the first person on the forum DemocraticUnderground.com
who started a thread that stated our need to get behind Bush on 9/11.
I'm also the guy who wrote 'The Real American Traitors,' so it's clear I've
been all over the map.
The newly-begun bombing campaign in Afghanistan has torn it for me. I am
against this war as it is currently being fought.
Before I tell you why I am against it, I should explain why I am *not*
against it.
1. I am not against it because I am a peace-at-all-cost appeasement
pacifist. Far from it. My dream would involve bin Laden and that dippy
fruitloop from Al Queda in stocks on Strawberry Field in Central Park. A
carnival barker would sell tickets - all proceeds to the disaster fund - for
those who wanted to meet them. Whatever is left of them would be put in a
tiny box in Lompoc, where videotapes of the weddings, birthdays and
anniversaries of all our dead would be fed to them on a continuous loop
until the day they die.
There are ways I could see this dream realized, but the current attacks are
not of that category. More on that in a bit.
2. I am not a friend of terrorists.
3. I am not anti-American. In my own small way I am hoping to save some of
America's soul by saying 'no.'
If anyone else wants to question me more along these lines, I'll be happy to
oblige
To business.
I am against this war because Bush and the GOP are using it for political
gain. They are stifling dissent, pushing Star Wars, trying to get to ANWR,
defaming Clinton yet again, bailing out a guilty-as-sin airline industry,
and seeking to combine every iota of Federal police power into a huge ball
to be controlled by John Ashcroft. Tom Ridge is a cipher - in letters to GOP
constituents announcing his appointment were appeals for fundraising.
All these things - ALL OF THEM - spit on the graves of our lost.
Congressional oversight has ceased to exist as we plunge towards what has
been described by Rumsfeld as a 'new Cold War.' That war lasted from Truman
to Bush/41, and the shit we are currently swimming in is a DIRECT RESULT of
it. I refuse to even consider supporting something that will create a new
45-year war.
The old Cold War gave us nuclear weapons in all corners of the globe, Korea,
Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua, Iraq, the Gulf War, the Red Scare, the
Black Lists, McCarthy, Hoover, Reagan, anthrax weapons, smallpox weapons,
Star Wars, massive ecological destruction, and yes, Osama bin Laden and the
Taliban. Anyone seeking the specific history lessons behind these need only
ask.
Let's do it again, right? Wrong.
I am against this war because it is being fought in EXACTLY the wrong way.
Pursued as it is, we will soon find ourselves facing a united Muslim world
that has a long laundry list of grievances against us to begin with. A
united Pan-Islamic Front is precisely what bin Laden wants, and by strafing
the rubble in Afghanistan, we are skipping gaily into his arms.
If Pakistan falls, as it may well do, the fundamentalists will have nukes.
India, China and Russia will immediately go red alert. If just one nuke goes
off over there...well...
And hey? Who says those Pak fundies can't cart one of those suckers over
here? If Pakistan falls, that is what we face. This is yet another reason
why strafing the rubble in Afghanistan is a rotten idea.
I have heard from several people, including my own mom, the comparison of
bin Laden to Hitler. That is a joke. bin laden has no mechanized army to
roll on Poland or France, nor does he have a Navy to close sea lanes, nor
does he have an air force, nor even a nation.
This is a war between two rich assholes - Bush and bin Laden - that is
gambling with all of our lives. bin Laden is no Hitler. He is a
fundamentalist lunatic who kills us with WEAPONS AND TRAINING WE PROVIDED HIM.
In that, he is like Saddam Hussein, who is another fundamentalist lunatic
who kills people with WEAPONS AND TRAINING WE PROVIDED HIM. Also like bin
Laden, Hussein was compared to Hitler by Bush/41. The comparison did not,
and does not, hold water. It did, however, manage to get us all whipped up
as we are now.
Waving the bloody shirt of Hitler is exactly what Bush wants you to do,
because it obscures clear and critical thinking. Being afraid right now is
understandable, but lashing out with that fear and destabalizing the planet
is stupid and suicidal.
If we continue to lash out, and bin Laden can fulfill his Pan-Islamic
dreams, then he will have the capability to become Hitler. He's not there
yet, but you help him on his way with such inflammatory and inaccurate
comparisons.
I am against this war because civilians are dying. Simply put, I have had a
fucking bellyful of that. The more civilians we kill, the stronger and more
sympathetic we make bin Laden to a poor and pissed-off Muslim world.
Continue to support this bombing campaign and you are feeding the fires that
will burn us all out of house and home.
I am against this war because the millions of Afghan civilians who escape
the bombs can look forward to unknown amounts of time eating grass and
drinking poisoned water in deathtrap refugee camps. We dropped 37,000 meals
on Afghanistan when the bombing started, which leaves, by my math, 6,963,000
people who need to eat.
There is dying, and there is dying. Among those who flee will UNDOUBTEDLY be
thousands who listen to clerical rhetoric against America and decide, in
their despair, that strapping Semtex to their chests and boarding a plane is
preferable to a squalid death far from home at the hands of an unseen
bomb-dropping enemy.
Better to die on you feet than live on your knees, right? Bet the farm that
many of those now fleeing our bombs will come to decide the same thing.
Again, we put the barrel of the gun to our own heads.
I am against this war because Afghanistan is a convenient target whose
ultimate destruction will do little to win 'The War On Terrorism.' bin Laden
will survive and flee, and the thousands of Al Queda terrorists in places
like Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Germany, Ireland, Boston, Chicago, Cleveland
and Los Angeles will be totally unharmed.
Afghanistan is a straw man. Yes, they are repressive. Yes, they treat women
unspeakably. They did so on September 10th, and I heard NO ONE here advocate
the limitless bombing of that country on that day or any day before it.
You've been sold a bill of goods, friends, by some pitchmen who are very
good at what they do. Afghanistan? Give me a break.
SOLUTIONS:
1. Immediately recognize a Palestinian State, and pull out all the stops to
broker a peace deal. Beat Arafat and Sharon about the head and shoulders
until they come to an agreement that will stop the unspeakable suffering of
the Palestinian people while ensuring the safety and security of Israel.
Make Jerusalem a UN Protectorate guarded by Swiss troops, or some equally
uninvolved nation. This is no longer an eternally nagging problem. It is the
lynchpin upon which peace or total destruction will turn.
2. Take the billions of dollars we are currently spending to destroy rubble
and mud in Afghanistan and turn it into food, medicine, radios, propaganda,
clothing, seeds. If we can read Mullah Abdul bin Tallal bin Alla bin
Mustafa's watch as he rides his camel through the Kaiber pass with our
satellites, we can feed and clothe these people, because we are clever. Who
says a Marshall Plan has to come after a war? With a concentrated effort,
all the Taliban warriors in Afghanistan won't be able to stop it. They will
fall.
3. Continue what had been shaping up to be an excellent diplomatic course.
Cut off terrorist funding. Organize the coalition to marshall every iota of
intelligence ability to tracking, arresting and convicting terrorists in
every corner of the globe. Before we started bombing, we had massive
cooperation. That may evaporate in a cloud of outrage soon, and the
aforementioned safe terrorists will not have the combined might of the
international community looking for them anymore. Boom.
4. We've got Special Forces in Afghanistan right now lazing 'targets', i.e.
mudpiles and rubble. Reconstitute their mission to search-and-destroy mode.
Shoot these Al Queda bastards between the eyes from 1,000 yards out...you
know we can do it.
Basically, these actions will strip bin Laden and the Taliban of their most
potent weapon - the ability to generate outrage in the Muslim world. If we
are not bombing cities, if we are actively seeking peace between Palestine
and Israel, if we are lobbing tons of food and supplies at Afghan civilians,
nothing bin Laden can say or do will be able to deflect the obvious fact
that America is not...gasp...being BELLIGERENT to yet another Muslim
country. His ranting will make him and his friends more and more isolated,
and a well-fed Afghan populace with the Northern Alliance hot on their heels
will make some good changes.
There is one last truth we all have to face when considering this war:
ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NOTHING WE SAY OR DO CAN COMPLETELY END THE THREAT OF
TERRORISM IN THIS COUNTRY. Nothing.
It's here, friends. For 225 years we were protected by two oceans and 2,000
nuclear missiles. Those days are gone. We were protected and isolated from
our policies, our wars, our mistakes and our evils. Not anymore.
We DID NOT DESERVE the attack we have absorbed, but neither did those whom
we have attacked, or helped others to attack. Nobody deserves it, but it
has been
done by us and in our name for generations. Now, we reap the whirlwind.
This is merely an upping of an ante that has been bid on for years.
Super-terrorism did not come from nowhere. It is a step on the ladder to
hell, a ladder we did much to place.
The time has come to ask the really hard question:
If we cannot stop it without becoming a barricaded, isolated, totalitarian
state - the ONLY SURE CURE - then what is left?
More bombs far away? More civilian death? More feeding of the cycle that
will surely, SURELY, bring more of the same to our shores and theirs?
Or a long, slow, tortured path towards some kind of redemption?
I know what I have chosen, and it has nothing to do with our current actions.
I am against this war.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Global Oppressors Can't Deliver Justice
Revolutionary Worker #1122, October 14, 2001, posted
at rwor.org
The U.S. president is talking about justice. And the
U.S. armed forces are waging war.
Where is justice? What does it look like? Does it look
like the bombs falling on Afghanistan?
The U.S. power structure is talking about justice. And
their cruise missiles and fighter bombers are raining
death on the impoverished people of Afghanistan.
Horror from the sky.
The same empire that has been responsible for a global
economy where thousands of children die every day of
hunger and disease; for a global network of regimes
who can only perpetuate this poverty and inequality;
for dropping bombs on people in Hiroshima, Vietnam,
Panama, Iraq, Serbia; for plotting murderous coups
from Chile to Iran; for backing brutal regimes where
women cannot even show their faces and people get
their hands cut off for stealing bread--now the same
empire responsible for all of this misery demands that
people unite with them in war.
This power structure--which has lied to the people
about every war they have waged, which has backed the
most despicable death squads, from the Christian
fascists of Rios Mott in Guatemala to the Islamic
fundamentalists of the Taliban--now expects the people
to give them a free hand to define who is "the enemy"
and what it will take to "take them out."
We have seen the outlines of this kind of justice: in
the hunched bodies of veiled women begging on the
streets of Afghanistan; in Saudi Arabia, whose corrupt
kings rule a system where women are the property of
men and foreign workers are treated like slaves; in
Pakistan, where U.S.-backed generals alternate between
backing drug lords and waging drug wars; in the
hospitals of Iraq, where more that half a million
children have died because the U.S. has deliberately
destroyed Iraq's water system with bombs and sanctions;
in the bull-dozed homes of Palestinians in the West Bank.
While the bombs rain down on Afghanistan, the U.S.
imperialists claim that this war is not aimed at the
Afghani people. The U.S. generals claim that their
bombers are "clearing the way" for a humanitarian
mission to free the peoples of Afghanistan from the
Taliban. Do they imagine that the masses of people in
Afghanistan will thank them as they scramble for food
rations amidst the shattered bones of their children,
fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers?
No. No. No.
Every U.S. military intervention only leads to death
and destruction for the people. In the 1980s there was
a just struggle in Afghanistan against a Soviet invasion.
But the U.S. intervened, backing forces like Osama bin
Laden and the oppressive mujahedeen. More than a
million people in Afghanistan died in that war, the
country was devastated by thugs and warlords, and with
the support of the rotten regime in Pakistan and
millions of dollars in funding from Washington, the
brutal Taliban rose to power.
And anyone who thinks that the armed forces of the
U.S. ruling class can play a positive role in
defending "secular democracy" should consider that president
of the U.S. ruling class regularly consults with
Christian fascists and fundamentalists like Ralph Reed
and claims to be on a mission from god.
No. There is no justice in the house of the U.S.
ruling class. We need to be crystal clear on the
nature of these oppressors who have launched a new
war: these arrogant lying creatures do not rule in the interests
of the people of this country or the world. Their
nature can be seen in the kind of military actions they
take--their long-standing military mottos like "death
from above" and their covert "special ops"--like the
Green Berets in Vietnam whose actions were accompanied
by napalm and carpet bombing.
Many conscious people see this and see that this
planet does not need another unjust war. But some have
suggested that instead of war, there should be legal
justice--that the perpetrators of September 11 should
be tracked down and brought to trial.
Who are the perpetrators? As the Committee of the
Revolutionary Internationalist Movement has said: "In
the murky waters of terrorism and the intelligence
services, where intrigue and double-dealing are the
currency, it may never be possible to know exactly who
organized the attack, or their motives. But two things
are clear: first, the victims in New York join the
millions of direct and indirect victims of the
policies and actions of the U.S. ruling class. Second,
even greater crimes are in preparation."
And even if the perpetrators could be identified, who
would track them down and what court would try them?
Clearly, whoever committed the acts of September
11 will not submit to a trial without a fight. And who
would bring them in? Do the advocates of a "fair
trial" really believe that U.S. imperialist armed forces could
be an instrument for such a process? Where is the
regime on this planet whose soldiers could be the
instrument of justice in this case? And does anyone familiar
with the workings of the U.S. justice department and
its death-penalty president seriously believe that a
just trial could occur on U.S. soil? Or that U.S.
imperialism would allow such a trial to occur in a
world court?
And more to the point, is it not clear from the words
and actions of the U.S. power structure--from their
massive acts of war--that they are not just moving to
respond to the events of September 11. They are not
seeking "justice." Rather their aim is to use this war
to forcibly recast the world to protect their ability to
dominate and exploit the planet and the people--to
more firmly secure their grip on the rich oil
resources of the Middle East. Behind the talk of "Operation
Enduring Freedom" are the aims of unjust empire.
If we think clearly and soberly about the situation,
there is no way within the confines of the present
world order for justice to be delivered--not by any of the
existing world powers, and least of all the U.S. power
structure. They can and will do nothing but act
against the interests of millions and millions of people, seek
to enforce the oppressive and unjust order that serves
their interest, and generally make all manner of things worse.
So, our problem, our historic task, is to stand
together against this unjust war and to bring about
the revolutionary transformation of this world. Only the
revolutionary people, rising up in their
millions--with a clear program and plan to kick out
imperialism and make new democratic revolution--can bring
justice in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, and other countries
of the Third World. And those who live within the U.S.
itself have a responsibility to support the people
rising up against oppression around the world and to
do our part to make revolution in the belly of this
beast.
Then, and only then, will the children of the planet
know where justice is and what it looks like.
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Anti-war resources:
http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html
http://www.geocities.com/miriamczc/czcpazsi.htm
http://www.peacenowar.net/
http://www.911peace.net/
http://www.stopwar.org.uk/
http://www.zmag.org/6reasons.pdf
http://www.actionla.org/S11/
http://www.warisnottheanswer.org/
http://www.9-11peace.org/
http://pax.protest.net/
http://www.s29.org/
http://Antiwar.com
http://www.luver.org/
http://www.alternet.org/issues/index.html?IssueAreaID=26
http://www.sfbg.com/News/altvoices.html
http://www.peacefuljustice.cjb.net/
http://www.warresisters.org/attack9-11-01.htm#things
http://www.legitgov.org/peaceprotests.html
http://www.igc.org/inkworks/www/downloads.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/studentsnowar/files (members only)
http://www.honoringourhumangoodness.homestead.com/
http://www.earthflag.net/
http://www.peaceflags.org
http://www.mwaw.org
http://www.stopworldwar3.com/
http://www.veteransforpeace.org/
www.internationalanswer.org
http://www.peace2001.org/
http://www.justresponse.org/
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