RW ONLINE: A Time to Resist\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nA Time to Resist\r\n<\/p>
Revolutionary Worker #1165, September 1, 2002<\/i>, posted at rwor.org<\/p>\r\n
In the days after September 11, 2001, as the rubble of southern Manhattan \r\nstill glowed and smoked, the eyes of the world were on the people of New York. \r\nThere were gatherings throughout the city, in the streets, in Union Square--as \r\npeople tried to sort out what had happened, and what would come next.<\/p>\r\n
Groups of artists decided to act, together. They stood, silently, dressed in \r\nblack, in formation, wearing dust masks, up to 175 of them--carrying stark, \r\nidentical signs that said \"Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War.\"<\/i><\/p>\r\n<\/i>
These performances were powerful and courageous, as art should be. And \r\nthey were sorely needed in that moment: By October 6, the U.S. military machine \r\nroared into impoverished Afghanistan, pounding its cities, villages and highways \r\nwith their bombs. Flags from the World Trade Center were airlifted to U.S. \r\naircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean and presented as patriotic war relics to \r\nbomber pilots. Despite sentiments in New York itself against revenge and war, \r\nthe grief at ground zero was interpreted to the world as a vengeful \"Let's \r\nRoll\"--putting distant peoples into the crosshairs.<\/p>\r\n
Today, those words \"Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War\" seem all the more urgent \r\nand even prophetic: because of the magnitude of what followed--and what is still \r\nunfolding around us. September 11 has now been used to justify a whole \r\n<\/i>year <\/i>of war, with more to come.<\/p>\r\n
Last fall and winter, the U.S. destroyed Afghanistan's central government \r\nfrom the air, and mobilized Northern warlords on the ground. Since the fall of \r\nKabul, this Afghan war has virtually disappeared from the headlines--but the \r\nbombing and raids go on. The Pentagon predicts years of active U.S. \r\noccupation.<\/p>\r\n
The Pentagon refuses to estimate how many Afghan civilians have been killed, \r\nbut Prof. Marc Herold of the University of New Hampshire documented over 3,000 \r\nAfghan civilian casualties by July 31, 2002. It is estimated that half of the \r\nprisoners of war have been murdered by the new Afghan government-- many died \r\nfrom suffocation in boxcar prisons.<\/p>\r\n
The impact of that war spread far beyond Afghanistan, through Central and \r\nSouthern Asia. The insertion of U.S. forces so escalated tensions between \r\nnuclear armed India and Pakistan that, within months, tens of millions of people \r\nwere living on the brink of war.<\/p>\r\n
Meanwhile U.S. troops have gone into the Philippines, into Yemen and Somalia. \r\nThe U.S. has backed an aggressive new campaign by Israel to dismantle the \r\nPalestinian Authority by force and occupy much of the Palestinian West Bank. And \r\nincreasingly in the forefront: the Bush administration is pressing for a major \r\nnew war against Iraq.<\/p>\r\n
On June 1, President Bush told the cadets of West Point that he believed his \r\ngovernment had the right to attack \"preemptively\" anywhere in the world--meaning \r\nwithout warning or specific provocation. Bush said that 60 countries were being \r\ninvestigated for possible attack. His Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, \r\nlater added that the Pentagon will be inserting its troops and commandos \r\nanywhere in the world the U.S. wants to capture or even assassinate people it \r\nconsiders enemies--without announcing these things in public or informing the \r\ngovernments involved.<\/p>\r\n
No government in history has ever declared such a sweeping right of \r\naggression. Even Republican congressmen and close U.S. allies are pointing out \r\nthat such doctrines violate international law and existing American treaties. \r\nThe U.S. used to talk about being \"policeman of the world\"--now the self- \r\nappointed cop acts like self-appointed emperor.<\/p>\r\n
The U.S. president orders around whole countries like employees. The U.S. \r\nstarted this year by imposing a regime on Afghanistan--which has so little \r\nsupport that its officials need American bodyguards to leave their offices. Now \r\nthe U.S. is demanding a \"regime change\" in Iraq.<\/p>\r\n
In Pakistan, the U.S. ally General Musharrif overturns the country's \r\nConstitution and rejects elections--since his support of the U.S. war cannot \r\nsurvive any honest vote. And meanwhile, with remarkable doublespeak about \r\n\"democracy,\" the U.S. president demands that the Palestinian Authority carry out \r\nforeign-supervised elections, and adds that these elections must not \r\n<\/i>elect anyone the U.S. doesn't like.<\/p>\r\n
Such openly colonial actions make a mockery of concepts like \"national \r\nsovereignty\" and \"rule by the people.\"<\/p>\r\n
And accompanying all of this, we are seeing a sweeping series of new domestic \r\npolice powers put in place--with wiretapping, suspension of constitutional \r\nrights, mass incarcerations of immigrants without charges, federal snitch \r\nnetworks seeking to recruit a million participants, and even public discussion \r\nof U.S. government torture carried out in off-shore locations. The American \r\n\"homefront\" too is being put on a war footing.<\/p>\r\n<\/b>
Calling Out the Emperor's New Clothes<\/p>\r\n
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All this is literally being done in the name of the American people--in the \r\nname of providing security and defense for people living in the U.S. And it \r\nneeds to be said (not just here on this page, but loudly wherever people gather) \r\nthat there is a profound lie in effect.<\/p>\r\n
For years, Washington think-tanks have argued that the U.S. was now the \r\n\"hyperpower\" in a \"unipolar world\"--that it was unchallenged and untouchable. \r\nPowerful forces within the establishment have argued that the U.S. government \r\nand military should press its advantage much more aggressively \r\n<\/i>--exploiting the collapse of the Soviet Union to energetically recast \r\ninternational power relations in a way that even more starkly serves the \r\ninterests of the U.S. power structure and corporate interests. They have long \r\nwanted new influence in oil-rich Central Asia and labor-rich Southeast Asia--and \r\nnow, under the banner of the \"war on terrorism,\" there are new U.S. bases from \r\nthe Black Sea to Uzbekistan to the Philippines.<\/p>\r\n
It is extremely important to understand that many of the plans that are now \r\ninto operation were drawn up before September 11.<\/i><\/p>\r\n<\/i>
One revealing example: U.S. government officials and oil executives were \r\ninvolved in years of negotiation with Afghanistan's government for an oil \r\npipeline from Central Asia to the Indian Ocean. When the Taliban's hold on power \r\nproved too unstable for such operations, relations with the U.S. soured. NBC \r\nnews revealed that the plan for war against the Taliban was already on George \r\nBush's desk on September 9, two days before <\/i>planes crashed into the two \r\ntowers.<\/p>\r\n
On a world scale, this \"war on terrorism\" is treated like a blank check used \r\nby the U.S. to attack any opponent they choose. \"Terrorism\" means whatever the \r\nU.S. government chooses it to mean. And everyone is supposed to accept it--in \r\nthe name of protecting the American homefront.<\/p>\r\n
Bush has invented an \"axis of evil\"--including Iraq, Iran, and North Korea \r\n(with China included as an unnamed but unmistakable target)--using September 11 \r\nto threaten countries that include a quarter of the world's people and much of \r\nthe world's oil. Attacking Iraq would finish the \"old business\" of tightening \r\nthe U.S. grip on Persian Gulf oil. And Sept. 11 is used to justify that attack-- \r\ndespite no proven connection of <\/i>Saddam Hussein with al-Qaida or September \r\n11.<\/p>\r\n
It is particularly disturbing that the U.S. government has started to label \r\npopular revolutionary movements as \"terrorist\"--so that future wars of \r\ncounterinsurgency can become part of their \"war on terrorism.\" Recently the U.S. \r\nState Department began targetting the Maoist parties of the Philippines and \r\nNepal. This means that these armed insurgencies against unjust governments are \r\nthreatened with U.S.-trained counterinsurgency troops, possible U.S. commandos \r\nand assassins, international dragnets and threats against their fundraising \r\nefforts. All this despite the fact that these revolutionary forces clearly are \r\nnot \"terrorist\" by any stretch of the imagination and obviously had nothing to \r\ndo with September 11.<\/p>\r\n
There is much speculation about who knew about September 11 before it \r\nhappened--especially because Osama bin Laden has a long history with the \r\nAmerican CIA, and because governments all over the world warned the U.S. about \r\nimpending attacks. Though we may never know the true pre-history of September \r\n11--who really organized these attacks, and who may have \"allowed it to \r\nhappen\"-- this much is <\/i>clear: The U.S. government has exploited those \r\nevents to unleash a huge juggernaut of bullying and war in many parts of this \r\nplanet.<\/i><\/p>\r\n<\/i>
This is all done in the name of the American people--under the banner of \r\nsecurity, defense, justice, world order, anti-terrorism and even peace.<\/p>\r\n
But, in truth, this world will be a nightmare if the U.S. government gets to \r\ninvade and occupy and bully wherever it wants. The American threats and attacks \r\non countries like Iraq will not make people around the world safer. They will \r\nnot bring justice in their wake.<\/p><\/b><\/i>\r\n<\/b>
Not in Our Name!<\/p>\r\n
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\"Qui tacet consenti're vide'tur. (Silence gives consent.)\"<\/p>\r\n
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Ancient legal doctrine<\/p>\r\n
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\"Let it not be said that people in the United States did nothing when their \r\ngovernment declared a war without limit and instituted stark new measures of \r\nrepression.\"<\/p>\r\n
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From \"A Statement of Conscience: Not in Our Name\"<\/p>\r\n
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There are turning points where everyone is tested, where even more than \r\nusual, it matters what we say and do. It is now a year after the towers fell on \r\nSeptember 11. Much of the shock and some of the grief have faded. But the \r\ngovernment has fanned fear in their place--to maintain support for continuing \r\noperations.<\/p>\r\n
There is, to be candid, still a great deal of confusion among people in the \r\nU.S.--about what is happening, about who it serves and where it leads. This is \r\nall the more reason for those who do see to speak out, in ways that millions can \r\nhear.<\/p>\r\n
There is, in all of the operations of this \"war on terrorism,\" a profound \r\ndisdain for the interests, popular will, and most basic rights of people all \r\naround the world. And these operations are intended, piece by piece, to impose a \r\nlocked-down McFuture ruled by dollars and smart-bombs.<\/p>\r\n
This cannot be accepted. We must resist it together. Another world is \r\npossible.<\/p>\r\n
This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker \r\nOnline
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