SCN: [Fwd: Why Do They Attack Us?]

[sharma]

The forwarded article is after this brief
announcement of a gathering for peace tomorrow...
---------------------------------------------------
Please pass this on quickly....   Thanks!

     WHO? September 11 Peace Coalition
     WHERE? Westlake Center, downtown Seattle,
corner of 4th and Pine
     WHEN? Saturday, September 22, 2001 Noon to
3PM
     WHY?  No more civilian deaths
           To end terrorism and injustice
           Defend the civil rights of all people
           Justice, not revenge


Endorsed by: Peace Action of Washington, Seattle
Colombia Committee,
Palestine Information Project, Community Action
Network, International
Socialist Organization, International Action
Center, Voices of
Palestine, Seattle International Human Rights
Coalition, Citizens for
Overt Action, Radical Women, Chaya.

911 Peace Coaltion
http://www.scn.org/911peace
------------------------------------------------

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Shocked and Horrified
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 00:08:19 -0700

     Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 12:04:52 +0100
    
Shocked and Horrified
Larry Mosqueda, Ph.D.
The Evergreen State College
September 15, 2001


Like all Americans, on Tuesday, 9-11, I was
shocked and horrified to watch the WTC Twin Towers
attacked by hijacked planes and collapse,
resulting in the deaths of perhaps up to 10,000
innocent people.

I had not been that shocked and horrified since
January 16, 1991, when then President Bush
attacked Baghdad,  and the rest of Iraq and began
killing 200,000 people during that 'war'
(slaughter). This includes the infamous 'highway
of death' in the last days of the slaughter when
U.S. pilots literally shot in the back retreating
Iraqi civilians and soldiers. I continue to be
horrified by the sanctions on Iraq, which have
resulted in the death of over 1,000,000 Iraqis,
including over 500,000 children, about whom former
Secretary of State Madeline Allbright has stated
that their deaths 'are worth the cost'.

Over the course of my life I have been shocked and
horrified by a variety of U.S. governmental
actions, such as the U.S. sponsored coup against
democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in
the deaths of over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by
U.S. installed dictatorships over the course of
four decades.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the horror I
felt when the U.S. overthrew the governments of
the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped to
murder 3,000 people. And it reminded me of the
shock I felt in 1973, when the U.S. sponsored a
coup in Chile against the democratic government of
Salvador Allende and helped to murder another
30,000 people, including U.S. citizens.

Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the shock and
horror I felt in 1965 when the U.S. sponsored a
coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder of
over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter
in 1975 of over 250,000 innocent people in East
Timor by the Indonesian regime with the direct
complicity of President Ford and Secretary of
State Henry Kissenger.

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt
during the U.S. sponsored terrorist contra war
(the World Court declared the U.S. government a
war criminal in 1984 for the mining of the
harbors) against Nicaragua in the 1980s which
resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent
people (or as the U.S. government used to call
them before the term 'collateral damage' was
invented--'soft targets').

I was reminded of being horrified by the U. S. war
against the people of El Salvador in the 1980s,
which resulted in the brutal deaths of over 80,000
people, or 'soft targets'.

I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt
during the U.S. sponsored terror war against the
peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola)
that began in the 1970's and continues to this day
and has resulted in the deaths and mutilations of
over 1,000,000. I was reminded of the shock and
horror I felt as the U.S. invaded Panama over the
Christmas season of 1989 and killed over 8,000 in
an attempt to capture George H.
Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manual
Noriega.

I was reminded of the horror I felt when I learned
about how the Shah of Iran was installed in a U.S.
sponsored brutal coup that resulted in the deaths
of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1979. And the
continuing shock as I learned that the Ayatollah
Khomani, who overthrew the Shah in 1979, and who
was the U.S. public enemy for decade of the 1980s,
was also on the CIA payroll, while he was in exile
in Paris in the 1970s.

I was reminded of the shock and horror that I felt
as I learned about how the U.S. has 'manufactured
consent' since 1948 for its support of Israel, to
the exclusion of virtually any rights for the
Palestinians in their native lands resulting in
ever worsening day-to-day conditions for the
people of Palestine. I was shocked as I learned
about the hundreds of towns and villages that were
literally wiped off the face of
the earth in the early days of Israeli
colonization. I was horrified in 1982 as the
villagers of Sabra and Shatila were massacred by
Israeli allies with direct Israeli complicity and
direction. The untold thousands who died on that
day match the scene of horror that we saw last
Tuesday. But those scenes were not repeated over
and over again on the national media to inflame
the American public.

The events and images of last Tuesday have been
appropriately compared to the horrific events and
images of Lebanon in the 1980s with resulted in
the deaths of tens of thousand of people, with no
reference to the fact that the country that
inflicted the terror on Lebanon was Israel, with
U.S. backing. I still continue to be shocked at
how mainstream commentators refer to 'Israeli
settlers' in the 'occupied territories' with no
sense of irony as they report on who are the
aggressors in the region.

Of course, the largest and most shocking war crime
of the second half of the 20th century was the
U.S. assault on Indochina from 1954-1975,
especially Vietnam, where over 4,000,000 people
were bombed, napalmed, crushed, shot and
individually 'hands on' murdered in the 'Phoenix
Program' (this is where Oliver North got his
start). Many U.S. Vietnam veterans were also
victimized by this war and had the best of
intentions, but the policy makers themselves knew 
the criminality of their actions and policies as 
revealed in their own words in 'The Pentagon 
Papers,' released by Daniel Ellsberg of the RAND 
Corporation.

In 1974 Ellsberg noted that our Presidents from
Truman to Nixon continually lied to the U.S.
public about the purpose and conduct of the war.
He has stated that, 'It is a tribute to the
American people that our leaders perceived that
they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to us
that we were so easily misled.'

I was continually shocked and horrified as the
U.S. attacked and bombed with impunity the nation
of Libya in the 1980s, including killing the
infant daughter of Khadafi. I was shocked as the
U.S. bombed and invaded Grenada in 1983. I was
horrified by U.S. military and CIA actions in
Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil,
Argentina, and Yugoslavia. The deaths in these
actions ran into the hundreds of thousands.

The above list is by no means complete or
comprehensive. It is merely a list that is easily
accessible and not unknown, especially to the
economic and intellectual elites. It has just been
conveniently eliminated from the public discourse
and public consciousness. And for the most part,
the analysis that the U.S. actions have resulted
in the deaths of primarily civilians (over 90%) is
not unknown to these elites and policy makers. A
conservative number for those who have been killed
by U.S. terror and military action since World War
II is 8,000,000 people. Repeat--8,000,000 people.
This does not include the wounded, the imprisoned,
the displaced, the refugees, etc. Martin Luther
King, Jr. stated in 1967, during the Vietnam War,
'My government is the world's leading purveyor of
violence.' Shocking and horrifying.

Nothing that I have written is meant to disparage
or disrespect those who were victims and those who
suffered death or the loss of a loved one during
this week's events. It is not meant to 'justify'
any action by those who bombed the Twin Towers or
the Pentagon. It is meant to put it in a context.
If we believe that the actions were those of
'madmen', they are 'madmen' who are able to keep a
secret for 2 years or more among over 100 people,
as they trained to execute a complex plan. While
not the acts of madmen, they are apparently the
acts of 'fanatics' who, depending on who they
really are, can find real grievances, but whose
actions are illegitimate.

Osama Bin Laden at this point has been accused by
the media and the government of being the
mastermind of Tuesday's bombings. Given the
government's track record on lying to the America
people, that should not be accepted as fact at 
this time. If indeed Bin Laden is the mastermind 
of this action, he is responsible for the deaths 
of perhaps 10,000 people-a shocking and horrible 
crime. Ed Herman in his book "The Real Terror 
Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda", does 
not justify any terrorism but points out that 
states often engage in 'wholesale' terror, while 
those whom governments define as 'terrorist' 
engage is 'retail' terrorism. While qualitatively 
the results are the same for the individual
victims 
of terrorism, there is a clear quantitative 
difference. And as Herman and others point out,
the 
seeds, the roots, of much of the 'retail' terror 
are in fact found in the 'wholesale' terror of 
states. Again this is not to justify, in any way, 
the actions of last Tuesday, but to put them in 
a context and suggest an explanation.

Perhaps most shocking and horrific, if indeed Bin
Laden is the mastermind of Tuesday's actions; he
has clearly had significant training in logistics,
armaments, and military training, etc. by
competent and expert military personnel. And
indeed he has. During the 1980s, he was recruited,
trained and funded by the CIA in Afghanistan to
fight against the Russians. As long as he visited
his terror on Russians and his enemies in 
Afghanistan, he was 'our man' in that country.

The same is true of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who
was a CIA asset in Iraq during the 1980s. Hussein
could gas his own people, repress the population,
and invade his neighbor (Iran) as long as he did
it with U.S. approval. The same was true of Manuel
Noriega of Panama, who was a contemporary and CIA
partner of George H. Bush in the 1980s. Noriega's
main crime for Bush, the father, was not that he
dealt drugs (he did, but the U.S. and Bush knew 
this before 1989), but that Noriega was no longer 
going to cooperate in the ongoing U.S. terrorist 
contra war against Nicaragua. This information 
is not unknown or really controversial among 
elite policy makers. To repeat, this not to 
justify any of the actions of last Tuesday, 
but to put it in its horrifying context.

As shocking as the events of last Tuesday were,
they are likely to generate even more horrific
actions by the U.S. government that will add
significantly to the 8,000,000 figure stated
above. This response may well be qualitatively 
and quantitatively worst than the events of 
Tuesday. The New York Times headline of
9/14/01 states that, 'Bush And Top Aides Proclaim
Policy Of Ending States That Back Terror' as if
that was a rationale, measured, or even sane
option. States that have been identified for
possible elimination are 'a number of Asian and
African countries, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan,
and even Pakistan.' This is beyond
shocking and horrific-it is just as potentially
suicidal, homicidal, and more insane than the
hijackers
themselves.

Also, qualitatively, these actions will be even
worse than the original bombers if one accepts the
mainstream premise that those involved are
'madmen', 'religious fanatics', or a 'terrorist
group.' If so, they are acting as either
individuals or as a small group. The U.S. actions
may continue the homicidal policies of a few
thousand elites for the past 50 years, involving
both political parties. The retail terror is that
of desperate and sometime fanatical small groups
and individuals who often have legitimate
grievances, but engage in individual criminal and
illegitimate activities; the wholesale terror is
that of 'rational' educated men where the pain, 
suffering, and deaths of millions of people are 
contemplated, planned, and too often, executed, 
for the purpose of furthering a nebulous concept 
called the 'national interest'. Space does not 
allow a full explanation of the elites Orwellian 
concept of the 'national interest', but it can 
be summarized as the protection and expansion 
of hegemony and an imperial empire.

The American public is being prepared for war
while being fed a continuous stream of shocking
and horrific repeated images of Tuesday's events
and heartfelt stories from the survivors and the
loved ones of those who lost family members. These
stories are real and should not be diminished. In
fact, those who lost family members can be
considered a representative sample of humanity of
the 8,000,000 who have been lost previously. If we
multiply by 800-1000 times the amount of pain,
angst, and anger being currently felt by the
American public, we might begin to understand how
much of the rest of the world feels as they are
continually victimized.

Some particularly poignant images are the heart
wrenching public stories that we are seeing and
hearing of family members with pictures and flyers
searching for their loved ones. These images are
virtually the same as those of the 'Mothers of the
Disappeared' who searched for their (primarily)
adult children in places such as Argentina, where
over 11,000 were 'disappeared' in 1976-1982, again
with U.S. approval. Just as the mothers of
Argentina deserved our respect and compassion, so
do the relatives of those who are searching for
their relatives now. However we should not allow
ourselves to be manipulated by the media and U.S.
government into turning real grief and anger into
a national policy of wholesale terror and genocide
against innocent civilians in Asia and Africa.
What 
we are seeing in military terms is called
'softening 
the target.' The target here is the American
public
and we are being ideologically and emotionally
prepared for the slaughter that may commence soon.

None of the previously identified Asian and
African countries are democracies, which means
that the people of these countries have virtually
no impact on developing the policies of their
governments, even if we assume that these
governments are complicit in Tuesday's actions.
When one examines the recent history of these
countries, one will find that the American
government had direct and indirect influences on
creating the conditions for the existence of some
of these governments. This is especially true of
the Taliban government of Afghanistan itself.

The New York Metropolitan Area has about
21,000,000 people or about 8 % of the U.S.
population. Almost everyone in America knows
someone who has been killed, injured or
traumatized by the events of Tuesday. I know that
I do.

Many people are calling for 'revenge' or
'vengeance' and comments such as 'kill them all'
have been circulated on the TV, radio, and email.
A few more potentially benign comments have called
for 'justice.' This is only potentially benign
since that term may be defined by people such as
Bush and Colin Powell. Powell is an unrepentant
participant in the Vietnam War, the terrorist
contra war against Nicaragua, and the
Gulf war, at each level becoming more responsible
for the planning and execution of the policies.

Those affected, all of us, must do everything in
our power to prevent a wider war and even greater
atrocity, do everything possible to stop the
genocide if it starts, and hold those responsible
for their potential war crimes during and after 
the war. If there is a great war in 2001 and it 
is not catastrophic (a real possibility), the 
crimes of that war will be revisited upon the 
U.S. over the next generation. That is not some 
kind of religious prophecy or threat, it is 
merely a straightforward political analysis. 
If indeed it is Bin Laden, the world
must not deal only with him as an individual
criminal, but eliminate the conditions that create
the injustices and war crimes that will inevitably
lead to more of these types of attacks in the
future. The phrase 'No Justice, No Peace' is more
than a slogan used in a march, it is an observable
historical fact. It is time to end the horror.

In a few short pages it is impossible to delineate
all of the events described over the past week or
to give a comprehensive accounting of U.S. foreign
policy. Below are a few resources for up to date
news and some background reading, by Noam Chomsky, 
the noted analyst. The titles of the books explain 
their relevance for this topic.

For the most current information see
http://www.commondreams.org/

For information on how the media distorts the news
see http://www.fair.org/

For excellent links on the Middle East see
http://al-awda.org/newyork/links.html

For background reading by Noam Chomsky see:
Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic
Societies, Manufacturing Consent: The Political
Economy of the Mass Media, (with Ed Herman Fateful
Triangle: The United States, Israel and the
Palestinians, Deterring Democracy
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *  From the Listowner  * * * * * * * * * * * *
.	To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to:
majordomo at scn.org		In the body of the message, type:
unsubscribe scn
==== Messages posted on this list are also available on the web at: ====
* * * * * * *     http://www.scn.org/volunteers/scn-l/     * * * * * * *