RW ONLINE: The Fear Factor: Who's Really Putting People in Harm's Way\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nThe Fear Factor\r\nWho's Really Putting People in Harm's Way\r\n<\/p>
Revolutionary Worker #1188, February 23, 2003<\/i>, posted at rwor.org<\/p>\r\n
While millions of people in the U.S. and around the world poured into the \r\nstreets in protest, official America had the grim look of a country about to \r\nlaunch war. The government has declared an \"orange alert\" and unleashed a \r\nhardening of the \"Homeland.\"<\/p>\r\n
The official story is that this \"high alert\" was based on secret information \r\nthat al-Qaida agents were planning \"dirty bomb\" attacks in U.S. cities. \r\nOfficials told the Los Angeles Times <\/i>they had identified between 600 and \r\n1,000 potential al-Qaida terrorists in cells around the country. Corporations \r\nwere urged to scrutinize their employees, to detect if secret terrorist agents \r\nmay have infiltrated into key operations.<\/p>\r\n
And, as if timed to fan this fever of fear, a tape suddenly surfaced that \r\n(supposedly) featured Osama bin Laden calling on Muslims to defend the Iraqi \r\npeople under attack. Within hours, Secretary of State Powell claimed that this \r\n\"proved\" the so-called \"links\" between Iraq and \"Islamic terrorist \r\nnetworks\"--those missing links that no one else in the world can see.<\/p>\r\n
Much of this was quickly exposed--as hype and deliberate war-time \r\ndisinformation. The FBI soon admitted that this Orange Alert was based on the \r\ninterrogation of one captured person (whereabouts unknown) who then \"failed the \r\nlie detector test.\" But even though this so-called \"tip\" was discredited--the \r\nOrange Alert and panic continued.<\/p>\r\n
Warplanes now circle major cities. Police patrol Washington, DC with \r\nautomatic weapons. The Washington monument has been transformed into an \r\nantiaircraft battery. In New York City swarms of police and National Guardsmen \r\nroam Grand Central Station. Even in small towns, there are security checks, \r\nstockpiling of gas masks, funding of new police measures, fortification of \r\nbridges and plants.<\/p>\r\n
They are \"hardening\" their homefront, because they know what they <\/i>are \r\nabout to do. The rumors of \"terrorist attack\" may be vague, but the plans for \r\nU.S. attack <\/i>are very real. This government is serious about \"bringing the \r\nwar home\"--because they are deadly serious about unleashing war in the Persian \r\nGulf.<\/p>\r\n
Their war plans and soldiers are rolling into place--they intend to bomb, \r\ninvade, conquer and occupy Iraq--a battered, weak, oil-rich country half a world \r\naway.<\/p>\r\n<\/b>
Who Is Putting the World in Harm's Way?<\/p>\r\n
While ordinary people in the U.S. are worrying about the possibilities of \r\nsudden attacks--the people of Iraq share such fears in an even more urgent \r\nway.<\/p>\r\n
Today across Iraq, school children are bracing themselves for bombs and \r\ninvasion--they are thinking through what they will do if their families die \r\naround them, and their homes crumble into rubble.<\/p>\r\n
The U.S. operation \"shock and awe\" is planning to rain down hundreds of \r\ncruise missiles in the first day of this war. If the signal is given, a massive \r\naerial attack will shatter the lives of Iraqi people and \"bring down\" their \r\ncities. A U.S. army of hundreds of thousands is prepared to move across Iraq, \r\nblasting everything in its path, and then impose a harsh military occupation \r\nlasting years.<\/p>\r\n
It is estimated that the U.S. attack will cause tens of thousands of \r\ndead--and the resulting dislocation may increase casualties into the hundreds of \r\nthousands.<\/p>\r\n
The UN expects a \"medium impact scenario\" of over two million refugees-- \r\nripped from their homes, their jobs, and schools--sent fleeing in all \r\ndirections, including across the borders into Kuwait and Iran. They expect 5 \r\nmillion people will instantly lose access to food and clean water--with all the \r\nsuffering and disease that brings. (The UN Office for the Coordination of \r\nHumanitarian Affairs assembled these figures, and while it is impossible to be \r\nprecise given the myriad scenarios for how the conflict might unfold, they \r\nrepresent the best estimates of the key operational humanitarian agencies in the \r\nUN system).<\/p>\r\n
There may be waves of ecological destruction from the fighting ahead, with \r\nimpacts that can last for generations. The last Gulf War left America's depleted \r\nuranium shells across the landscape causing birth defects and poisoning. The \r\nfight for the oilfields sent plumes of toxic smoke across thousands of miles, \r\nand badly poisoned waters of the shallow Persian Gulf.<\/p>\r\n
Across the planet, people worry deeply about where this war would lead. No \r\none believes that it would be the last move by the U.S.--or that a U.S. victory \r\nwill bring them peace. The U.S. attack on Af- ghanistan last year rippled across \r\nsouth Asia--and brought Pakistan and India to the brink of nuclear war.<\/p>\r\n
Meanwhile, while the U.S. government fans the fears of the people, many \r\npeople justly fear the government itself. All their talk of \"thousands of \r\npotential <\/i>terrorists\" <\/i>means the targeting of Arab and Muslim \r\npeople within the U.S. It is also a cold and open government threat against \r\nanyone who fights to politically resist this war.<\/p>\r\n
Today, across the U.S., in hundreds of immigrant communities, people wonder \r\nwhat will now happen to them. Will they lose their jobs because of officially \r\nfanned paranoia? What will the informants now flooding mosques and neighborhood \r\nassociations do with their lists? Will more Muslim people be ordered to report? \r\nAnd what will face them there--deportation? Sudden jailing? The breakup of their \r\nfamilies? What will happen to their kids in the schools? What will cops do to \r\nthe next young man with a Mideastern name they approach at a traffic stop?<\/p>\r\n
The hype of terrorist threat has shaken up millions of people throughout the \r\nU.S. It was designed to frighten those who haven't been paying enough \r\nattention--and who have not been eager enough for war.<\/p>\r\n
History remembers previous attempts to mobilize this \"fear factor\" for war \r\nand repression: During World War 2, fanning fears of an impossible invasion of \r\nthe West Coast was used to justify rounding up Japanese people into \r\nconcentration camps. The talk of \"supporting our troops\" in the Pacific war was \r\nthen used to justify the destruction of the civilian cities of Hiroshima and \r\nNagasaki with nuclear weapons.<\/p>\r\n
During the Cold War, the authority demanded that kids carry out bizarre and \r\nterrifying rituals of \"duck and cover\" (practicing diving under desks during \r\nnuclear attack). This was not intended to make people \"safe\" or \"prepared\"--but \r\nto build popular support for hostility and war against countries like Vietnam \r\nand Maoist China.<\/p>\r\n<\/b>
A Time to Act<\/p>\r\n
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This government has a plan for the American people: <\/i><\/i>They want \r\npeople to stockpile duct tape, wrap their family in plastic, join a local snitch \r\ngroup and (above all) support launching this war.<\/p>\r\n
Their war path is unpopular, and they hope to reverse this by fanning fears \r\nand offering a target: They want people to \"support the troops\"--and all further \r\ndestruction \"necessary\" to keep those invading troops \"safe.\"<\/p>\r\n
They want this war to be waged in the name of the American people. And the \r\nnext one too.<\/p>\r\n
None of this will bring peace or security to the people of the U.S. who are \r\nbeing held hostage by the unjust war plans of their own government<\/p>\r\n
There are moments in history when the actions we take shape the world and \r\nthe future for decades to come.<\/b><\/p>\r\n<\/b>
People here in the U.S. today have a choice and a profound responsibility. It \r\nstarts with asking the urgent questions: \"Who has put all these millions of \r\npeople in harm's way? And why is the U.S. government really so determined to do \r\nthis?\"<\/p>\r\n
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The U.S. government thinks it can exploit its military strength to bully \r\nand bulldoze. Like the Roman emperors, they think that the world can be reduced \r\nto vassals, tributaries and mercenary troops for their empire.<\/p>\r\n
Their motives flow from the deepest dog-eat-dog conflicts of capitalist \r\ncompetition and rivalry.<\/p>\r\n
An Iraq occupied by the U.S. will be reshaped to even more completely serve \r\nthe interests of U.S. capitalism. U.S. war makers are already picking the future \r\nrulers of Iraq, and secretly negotiating who will run its oilfields. Under U.S. \r\nguns, the resources of the Persian Gulf will be drilled and pumped, sold and \r\nbartered, in ways that leave the U.S. government towering over everyone \r\ndependant on that oil. Conquerors are not liberators.<\/p>\r\n
All the lies and disinformation are spread for one obvious reason: How many \r\nwould be willing to fight for this government if it openly said it was seeking \r\nglobal hegemony and restructuring the pecking order of nations?<\/p>\r\n
Not in our name! <\/b><\/p>\r\n
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This article is posted in English and Spanish on Revolutionary Worker \r\nOnline
rwor.org
Write: Box 3486, \r\nMerchandise Mart, Chicago, IL 60654
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