-Caveat Lector- WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a Prelude to War! Leaders Talk Up Economy; U.S. Kabul Embassy Torched By Tahir Ikram and Jeff Franks ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World leaders tried to talk up a global economy under siege since the hijacker attacks on the United States, while angry supporters of Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s ruling Taliban torched the long-abandoned U.S. embassy in Kabul on Wednesday. Afghan government officials and students ripped off the huge metal U.S. seal hanging at the entrance of the embassy and waved their arms in jubilation as protesters set fire to the building which the United States left in 1989 just before the Soviet Union abandoned its occupation of the Central Asian nation. The attack came as leaders in Europe and the United States tried to talk up a global economy shaken by threats of war and recession after hijacked jetliners slammed into New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon (news - web sites) near Washington on Sept. 11. ``There is no reason for fear because the political, cultural and economic elite have clearly shown that terrorism can neither damage the internal order in the free world nor put a long-term question mark over the free world economy,'' German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said during a debate on Germany's 2002 budget. ``There is no reason for pessimism,'' he said. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, speaking in Berlin at a joint press conference with Schroeder, said: ``Our economies are strong and thus we hope there will not be a slowdown in development...this is not only a hope, but a prognosis.'' The cheery talk notwithstanding, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said the attack would push the United States into recession and grind global economic growth to a halt in the coming quarters. The International Monetary Fund (news - web sites) said in a report that the attacks added ``further increased downside risk'' to an already slow U.S. economy. Washington has blamed Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) for the attacks, which left nearly 7,000 feared dead, and demanded that Afghanistan, where he has lived for the past five years, turn him over or face military attack. It has been sending warplanes, ships and troops to the region as it prepares to launch a ``war on terrorism.'' The ruling Taliban has recommended that bin Laden leave Afghanistan, but said it cannot find him to deliver the news. The growing threat of war has set off a huge exodus of Afghans trying to get out of harm's way. The United Nation's refugee agency said on Wednesday it was gearing up to deal with up to 1.5 million new refugees to add to the 3.5 million already housed in camps in Pakistan and Iran. It said it expected that 7.5 million Afghans would need assistance to survive the coming winter. ``These figures are based on the worst-case scenario, but then we simply must be prepared for the worst,'' said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Ruud Lubbers in a statement. Pakistan, which is backing U.S. action to get bin Laden, earlier closed its borders to new arrivals, but did not rule out the idea of reopening them. ``Within Afghanistan, if the situation becomes untenable, or if there is an attack, purely for humanitarian reasons, we will contemplate that,'' Abbas Sarfraz, its minister for the frontier regions, told a news conference. Voices across the Islamic world have urged the U.S. to be cautious, but British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) fired another salvo in what is still a war of words by saying that Afghanistan must surrender not only bin Laden, but other militant groups training in its rugged countryside. ``Military conflict there will be unless the Taliban change and respond to the ultimatum,'' Blair told a London news briefing. ``It's not simply a question of them (the Taliban) yielding up bin Laden, it is a question of them making sure that all those responsible for terrorism are yielded up,'' he added. Not all the words from Europe were so gung ho about the U.S.-led campaign. The European Union (news - web sites)'s top aid official, Poul Nielson of Denmark, told Danish newspaper Politiken, that the hijacker attacks were the result of ``bullying behavior'' by the U.S. ``There is no doubt that the bullying behavior is one of the causes of the frustration and hatred toward the United States which prepared the soil for the terror attacks,'' Nielson was quoted as saying. He later said he did not mean that Washington was ``somehow to blame'' for the attacks. In Germany, Berlin's minister for culture Adrienne Goehler called the World Trade Center twin 110-story towers destroyed by the hijackers ``phallic symbols.'' The comment brought calls for her resignation, but also an explanation from Goehler. ``In the context of my statement that the 'attacks were aimed symbolically at the heart of America,' I also made the comment that the towers are ``phallic symbols,''' she said. ``It was an answer to the question 'What sort of symbolic images did it remind me of?''' On the diplomatic front, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told NATO (news - web sites) defense ministers in Brussels that the world faced the specter of attacks by ``terrorists'' armed with weapons of mass destruction because the countries sheltering them were fast developing such arms. Wolfowitz said there is an ``alarming coincidence...between those states that harbor international terrorists and those states that have active and maturing WMD programs,'' a U.S. official said. The NATO ministers praised the United States for taking a long-term coalition-building approach to responding to the attacks rather than striking back in haste, a NATO official said. President Bush (news - web sites) has said he wants bin Laden ``dead or alive'' and also that the world's nations must choose whether to side with the United States or with the ``terrorists.'' The U.S. had hoped to bring Iran, strategically located next to Afghanistan, into the fight, but on Wednesday Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei lashed out at the U.S. and said it would not help in any attacks. ``Iran will provide no help to America and its allies...in an attack on suffering, neighboring, Muslim Afghanistan,'' he told a group of war veterans. ``We do not believe America is sincere enough to lead an international move against terrorism. America has its hands deep in blood for all the crimes committed by the Zionist regime,'' he said, referring to Israel. The coalition building also has required a delicate balancing act by the Bush administration. On Wednesday, India said the U.S. had assured it there would be no change in Indo-U.S. relations despite the United States' wooing of neighboring Pakistan in its pending war. India and Pakistan have tense relations at best, but both have sided with the U.S. and offered facilities for military operations. One of the biggest winners of the crisis thus far is Russian President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites), who is in the West's good graces after offering support in the war against terrorism. On Wednesday Putin won praise from Italy and Germany. ''Europe must open itself up to Russia,'' Italy's Berlusconi said. ``Europe must reconstitute itself on the basis of its Christian roots.'' The United States and Europe have long criticized Russia for its fight against separatists in Chechnya (news - web sites), but Germany's Schroeder signaled that a now sadder-but-wiser West understands the Russian position. ``You know that Chechnya is part of a region in which there is an elevated threat -- which we have now experienced,'' he said. ``The different aspects of Russian policy should be judged accordingly.'' Putin has said Moscow will step up arms supplies to opponents of the Taliban and not stop Russian allies in Central Asia from using airports for humanitarian flights. He has ruled out direct Russian military involvement. Elsewhere, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) said that Bush would attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (news - web sites) forum in Shanghai on October 20 and 21, but had put off stops in Beijing, Tokyo and Seoul until ``circumstances permit.'' China, which has backed the idea of a war on terrorism but wants the U.N. Security Council involved and any action based on evidence, said it understood the decision. *COPYRIGHT NOTICE** In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for nonprofit research and educational purposes only.[Ref. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml ] Want to be on our lists? Write at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for a menu of our lists! <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html <A HREF="http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html";>Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/";>ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
