>Date: Wed, 5 Dec 2001 23:32:02 -0800
>To: Recipient List Suppressed:;
>From: Vietnam Veterans Against the War Anti-Imperialist <vvawai@oz.net>
>Subject: Terrorism of War
>
>>
>>
http://www.neravt.com/left/jacobs40.html
>>
>>The Terrorism of War
>> In the past weeks we have heard and read plenty about the US "war on
>>terrorism," especially in Afghanistan. What the media doesn't ell us,
>>however, are the stories of the thousands of civilians rendered homeless at
>>the onset of the Afghani winter, the women whose burqas may be lifted but
>>who live in fear of rape and starvation under the reign of America's
>>allies, and the near-certain starvation thousands of Afghanis now face,
>>even if food aid is able to reach the areas these people are now struggling
>>to survive. While US marines dig in outside of Kandahar to either fight
>>the remaining Taliban forces, "clean up" after those forces surrender, or
>>settle in for a long time to impose the US vision for the country, Northern
>>Alliance forces are already fighting amongst themselves for positions of
>>power. This fighting can quickly turn from the current verbal sparring to
>>another round of civil war-a civil war that the US will most certainly have
>>a more difficult time ignoring than the one preceding the current US
>>campaign. In addition, as part of his "war on terrorism," Bush and his
>>cohorts are ratcheting up their threats against other populations unless
>>they do the Pentagon's bidding sooner rather than later.
>> This war has very little to do with defeating terrorism and much to do
>>with attempting to establish permanent US domination of the world and its
>>resources. Like the Athenian, Roman, and British empires before it, the US
>>government and the interests it serves need easy and unchallenged access to
>>resources, labor and markets to maintain not only a certain margin of
>>growth (which means profit), but to continue to exist. Not since the
>>existence of the Soviet Union and its allies has the capitalist world
>>perceived such a threat to its rule. During that time, however, it was the
>>ideology of Marxism-Leninism and national liberation that the US opposed
>>because its adherents wanted the US corporations and its military out of
>>their part of the world. Nowadays, politically-charged Islamic
>>fundamentalism is the ideology which appeals to many of the forces opposing
>>the US and calling for its defeat. Although what the west terms Islamic
>>fundamentalism is socially much more regressive than Marxism-Leninism, its
>>appeal to the oppressed in the Muslim world comes from the same dynamic and
>>population groups. Despite the differences in their origins, both
>>ideologies demand, on a very basic level, economic justice and an end to
>>imperialist domination and both also consider armed struggle as a way to
>>achieve these goals.
>> It is these demands that have led the US war machine to decide to fight
>>this radical Islamic ideology using strategies very similar to those it
>>used to fight the spread of Marxist-Leninism. Some of those tactics
>>were/are: continual propaganda denoting the adherents to the "enemy"
>>philosophy as either less than human (living in caves and tunnels) or
>>superhuman (evil itself/evil empire); the creation and support of unpopular
>>regimes and counter-movements whose sole purpose is to repress and fight
>>grassroots movements opposed to US imperialism (Diem/Thieu in Vietnam,
>>contras in Nicaragua and Angola/Fahd family in Middle East, KLA/Bosnian
>>forces in former Yugoslavia); and the attempt to politically isolate those
>>in the US who oppose this policy by placing them with the enemy
>>(McCarthy/HUAC hearings and COINTELPRO/the USA-PATRIOT Act and new crime of
>>domestic terrorism.)
>> Ironically, it was the US war against the Soviet Union and the various
>>national liberation forces around the world that the SU supported that
>>established today's scenario. Most of the forces currently battling in
>>Afghanistan were armed and trained by the CIA and other US intelligence
>>forces to fight the Soviet army in Afghanistan. The US supported Saddam
>>Hussein for many years before the Gulf War as a way to counteract the aid
>>he was receiving from the USSR. The Mubarak government in Egypt and the
>>monarchy in Jordan would not exist without the massive US military and
>>economic aid those regimes receive for their repression of any and all
>>anti-US movements. The Saudi and Kuwaiti ruling families would not be as
>>strong as they are without US support-a support most graphically
>>illustrated during the slaughter of Iraqis in 1991 known as the Gulf War.
>> What is the common denominator here? I hesitate to say it,
>>because it is
>>so obvious-oil and the profits it creates. Clearly, this is the primary
>>reason any government in the world would be interested in this region.
>>Since the end of World War I, when the victors created new nations out of
>>the desert to serve their individual desires, the Middle East and its oil
>>has been one of the primary causes of imperial interest and the consequence
>>of that interest-war. After World War II and the creation of Israel as a
>>US-sponsored garrison outpost in the region-a creation which displaced
>>millions of Palestinians already living there-the importance of the region
>>only increased, as did the non-Israeli population's resentment of western
>>meddling. By now, this western meddling was mostly US meddling, because of
>>its clear domination of the capitalist world after the second world war.
>> Up to this point I have been writing only about the Middle East, as if
>>movements and regimes in this region were the sole targets of the US "war
>>on terrorism." Unfortunately, this is not the case. Other nations with
>>large Muslim populations and insurgencies (Somalia, Indonesia, Sudan, too
>>name a few) are also being mentioned by the White House and the Pentagon,
>>as are the seemingly permanent enemies of the US establishment-northern
>>Korea and Cuba.
>> Another target in this war against GW's bogeyman are the revolutionary
>>forces in Colombia (FARC/ELN). Indeed, recent statements by the US
>>Ambassador to Colombia and State Department spokespeople compared these
>>forces to Bin Laden and the Al-Quedda network and called for "appropriate"
>>armed intervention. The FARC-ELN have been fighting the oligarchy in
>>Colombia for over thirty years. Along with a few other now-defunct
>>revolutionary groups, they tried armed insurgency for several years and
>>then, in an attempt to bring peace along with justice, lay down their arms
>>and formed political parties. After winning many local elections and
>>several seats in the Colombian legislature, they found themselves being
>>killed off one by one in the early 1990s by paramilitary and military
>>forces aligned with the government and the oil/coffee/drug cartels it
>>represents. So, the remaining forces returned to armed struggle. Since
>>that return, the war has intensified, as has US involvement. In 1999 Plan
>>Colombia began--a multi-billion dollar US strategy that includes aerial
>>spraying of coca and poppy crops (along with whatever and whoever happens
>>to be in the surrounding areas), more military aid, increased involvement
>>of the CIA and its fronts, and the presence of US advisors and commandos.
>>Since September 11th, the aid provided by Plan Colombia is being
>>supplemented by additional counterterrorism funds.
>> This increased US involvement has brought more environmental
>>destruction
>>of the countryside, greater repression of labor and social justice
>>activists including murder by paramilitaries, the displacement of tens of
>>thousands of Colombian citizens because of aerial spraying and fighting
>>between revolutionary forces (FARC/ELN) and the military and paramilitaries
>>aligned with rightwing elements in the government, and the deaths of
>>thousands of mostly poor Colombians. Why? Once again, to establish, expand
>>and maintain US markets and domination in the region, and to exploit
>>Colombia's resources and plentiful cheap labor. Indeed, in the opening
>>paragraphs of Plan Colombia, it states that very clearly: "The plan also
>>involves the implementation of measures that would serve to encourage
>>foreign investment and further promote trade expansion. These
>>include the completion of the necessary steps to comply with existing
>>Uruguay Round agreements, especially those dealing with customs valuation,
>>intellectual property protection, and investment measures, as well as
>>implementing business facilitation measures proposed in the FTAA
>>negotiations." Also, once again, that resource that defines most of the
>>US's wars, comes into the picture: oil. In fact, according to
>>Americas.org, ''Colombia's petroleum production today rivals Kuwait's on
>>the eve of the Gulf War. The United States imports more oil from Colombia
>>and its neighbors Venezuela and Ecuador than from all Persian Gulf
>>countries combined."
>> Which leads me neatly into the current strategy in South
>>America known as
>>the "Andeazation" of the war against anti-US elements in the region. Much
>>like the regionalization of the war against the people of Southeast Asia in
>>the 1960s and 1970s, the United States is now expanding its military and
>>counterintelligence operations in Latin America. It is the Pentagon's hope
>>that it can defeat the FARC and ELN, while simultaneously keep their
>>supporters, both governmental (Cuba, the Chavez government in Venezuela)
>>and nongovernmental, at bay. Already, sources in the contested and
>>revolutionary-held regions of Colombia report a drastic increase in
>>paramilitary and military activities since September 11th (including
>>massacres of peasants and labor leaders.)
>>
>> There is another equally important element to the US empire's need to
>>dominate the world. That element is the creation of and access to consumer
>>markets for goods made for US corporate profit. From movies and music to
>>tennis shoes and cigarettes, the culture profiteers need to expand their
>>reach. Interestingly enough, in another parallel to the Marxist-Leninist
>>national liberation movements and governments of the cold war era, Islamic
>>radicals also oppose this aspect of US capitalism. Just as the communists
>>saw the culture of capitalism to be a culture that emphasizes the dollar
>>over content, the individual over the common good, and uses the
>>objectification of women and the glorification of hedonism as the way to
>>market a culture that would otherwise have little appeal since it has so
>>little content, the Islamic fundamentalists frame their opposition in
>>somewhat similar terms. To put it succinctly, the US export of its
>>capitalist culture is nothing but spreading propaganda for a way of life
>>that requires greed, egocentrism, murder and war to thrive. In addition,
>>the technical sophistication, pervasive marketing, and appeal to humanity's
>>most elemental instincts used by the propagandists makes more conventional
>>appeals to reason and history virtually irrelevant to much of the world's
>>population who have neither the time nor the inclination to examine the
>>alternative.
>>
>>
>>
>>The War at Home
>>
>> The other front in this war against enemies of the US plan for global
>>domination is right here in the USA. It wasn't more than two or three days
>>after the tragedy of September 11, 2001 that Attorney General Ashcroft and
>>his fellow lawmen started calling for a curtailment of the remaining civil
>>liberties in this country. While they rounded up hundreds of men of Middle
>>Eastern origin, they were formulating a new office with the rather
>>Orwellian name Office of Homeland Security. Subsequently, a new law
>>curtailing our rights to private conversation and protest was enacted by
>>Congress known as the USA-PATRIOT act, and the establishment of military
>>tribunals for suspected "terrorists" is underway. Although most members of
>>Congress succumbed to the hysteria fanned by Ashcroft and his cohorts when
>>it came time to vote for the USA-PATRIOT bill, even some of them are
>>questioning the use of military tribunals. Of course, the only way they
>>might be convinced to forbid their use is if masses of people pressure them
>>to do so. Even then, the fact that these tribunals are being set up via an
>>executive order makes it extremely unlikely even this type of pressure will
>>make much difference. Given this, it is extremely likely that other
>>dictatorial measures curtailing our freedom of movement and expression will
>>also be carried out by executive fiat.
>> These moves are less about war and more about control. Before the
>>occurrences of September 11, 2001 and the subsequent combat overseas, the
>>US corporate plan for economic hegemony was under attack. The protests and
>>riots in the streets at every meeting of the world's capitalist leaders
>>were but the most obvious aspect of this opposition. Just like the number
>>of protestors in the streets at these meetings, the opposition was growing.
>> It was growing so quickly, in fact, that the governments and corporations
>>who had much to lose from the growing popularity of the protestors' demands
>>had to do something. The use of live ammunition by police in Gothenburg
>>and the killing of a protestor in Genoa were indications of what lay ahead
>>for protestors planning on attending the demonstrations against the IMF and
>>World Bank in Washington, DC on September 29, 2001-meetings that were
>>cancelled in the wake of September 11th. The bullets used by the police
>>and fences constructed around these meetings are a metaphor for the
>>legislation demanded by the corporations of the governments they control.
>>It is necessary to silence the protestors by any means necessary. The
>>terrorist attacks gave the authoritarians the opening they needed. Now
>>citizens of both Britain and the United States have fewer rights than they
>>did in the summer of 2001.
>> Under the USA PATRIOT Act, the Secretary of State could designate any
>>group that has ever engaged in protest activity designed to prevent an
>>action from occurring a "terrorist organization" - whether it be Operation
>>Rescue, Greenpeace, or People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Such a
>>designation forbids the group's non-citizen members from entering the
>>United States, and makes payment of membership dues a deportable offense.
>>Under the bill, people can be deported regardless of whether they knew of
>>the Secretary's designation and regardless of whether their assistance had
>>anything to do with the group's alleged terrorist activity. Furthermore, US
>>citizens are subject to prosecution under a part of this new law that could
>>re-define many direct action tactics(lockdowns, street blockades) as
>>domestic terrorism. Parts of this provision give law enforcement agents
>>the ability to charge anyone who provides assistance to a person charged
>>with domestic terrorism with harboring a terrorist. They also now have the
>>authority to wiretap the home of anyone providing assistance. In addition,
>>this provision gives the federal government the authority to prosecute
>>violations of state law, which should be prosecuted in state courts, not in
>>federal court.
>>This act also allows law enforcement agencies to enter a house, apartment
>>or office with a search warrant when the occupant is away, search through
>>her/his property and take photographs, and in some cases seize physical
>>property and electronic communications, and not tell the victim of the
>>search until later. It allows highly personal student information to be
>>transmitted to many federal agencies that could lead to adverse
>>consequences far beyond the stated goal of the anti-terrorism bill.
>> What about military tribunals? According to Bush and
>>Ashcroft, these are
>>necessary to preserve national security. As for the right to a trial by
>>jury and to cross-examine witnesses, forget it--immigrants who the state
>>thinks are terrorists have no right to these niceties. In short, in order
>>for the US to preserve its "freedoms", the government now finds it
>>necessary to curtail those freedoms for certain people who may be accused
>>of a crime. The current government seems to think that the right to a fair
>>trial is a uniquely American right that does not apply in all cases to US
>>citizens and certainly not to non-citizens. However, they are incorrect.
>>The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights clearly states:
>>Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national
>>tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the
>>constitution or by law.
>>No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
>>Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an
>>independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and
>>obligations and of any criminal charge against him.
>>Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent
>>until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had
>>all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
>>
>>The military tribunals supported by Bush and Ashcroft provide none of these
>>guarantees-which is exactly why they are going to be used. Once again, the
>>people who run this country have proven how little regard they have for the
>>human rights the founders of this country (with all their faults) fought
>>for. No longer does the judicial branch and an independent jury stand
>>between the government and the accused. In lieu of those checks and
>>balances central to our legal system, non-citizens face an executive that
>>is now investigator, prosecutor, judge, jury and jailer or executioner. If
>>these trials do take place without great protest, there is a very real fear
>>some US citizens could also be facing the tribunals.
>>
>> What is the solution? I don't claim to have the answers, but here are
>>some commonsense thoughts that might prevent future attacks by terrorists.
>>First and foremost, the attack on Afghanistan must end and all troops,
>>planes and warships in the region must return to the United States.
>>Secondly, the United States must sign on to the various mechanisms being
>>designed to prosecute war crimes like the US use of cluster bombs and the
>>training of death squads and other international actions against humanity
>>like that of September 11th. Although these mechanisms have their
>>shortcomings, they are still better than war and its accompanying terror
>>and murder. It must be the ultimate goal of all nations and peoples to
>>design a truly fair and representative mechanism for solving disputes
>>between nations and peoples and for trying crimes against the human race.
>> In the long run, the US needs to change its foreign policy. It must
>>consider the needs of all people in the developing world, not just those
>>reactionary forces it prefers to deal with and put into power (or support
>>once they seize power). It must end its financial support of Israel's
>>expansionist policies that ignore the reality of the Palestinian people. I
>>honestly believe that if these two elements changed in Washington's foreign
>>policy, the majority of the people in the middle east and central
>>Asia-along with those folks in predominantly Islamic nations-would no
>>longer consider extremist philosophies to be the answer to the injustices
>>they face. However, these changes are not going to come about by
>>themselves. Indeed, the American people need to inform themselves and make
>>a fairer foreign policy a key to getting elected in this country.
>>Unfortunately, our foreign policy has been decided by oil companies and
>>other corporations for too long. The US can no longer act as if the world
>>is its real estate. It is essential that we put human needs before
>>corporate desires. The drive for profit is not only bad for the earth's
>>environment and its people, it puts the American people in real danger.
>>Bombing and fighting wars against other countries (or groups within those
>>countries) only makes the situation worse. It is up to the people of the
>>world to demand that bombing and other offensive actions end now and
forever.
>>
>>-ron jacobs
>>burlington, vt
>
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