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Western leaders have claimed the attack to be an assault on civilisation.
But what is this civilisation that has been attacked, where 600 million
have no home, where 800 million are chronically malnourished, where 1
billion have no access to clean water?
What is this civilisation where three individuals have more wealth than
the combined income of the world's 48 poorest nations?
How can we defend a “civilisation” where food is destroyed to keep prices
high and scientists employed on weapons programmes whilst children die of
preventable disease?
Since the attacks on New York and Washington, The US and British media has
become a history exclusion zone, feeding only the whipped-up contagion of
patriotism, whilst flag-waving and the repetitious singing of anthems
trigger, in Pavlovian fashion, a national epidemic of jingoism, the only
cure for which is reprisals.
The dominant view is that extremists the world over are intent on
destroying democracy and western civilisation – a near sighted perspective
which washes well with a news-hungry audience whose knowledge of US
foreign policy and basic international affairs makes it impossible for
them to separate reality from distortion.
US Vice President Dick Cheney has demanded bin Laden's head on a platter
whilst his liege, Bush, informs the world that the US will not only target
terrorists but those who harbour terrorists. The popular vision now is of
US F-16's and stealth bombers leaving US bases in Diego Garcia, Incilirik
and from the carriers of the 5th and 6th fleets in the Middle East, their
mission to level the breeding ground of Islamic terrorism – Afghanistan
and any other states suspected of wittingly giving them refuge.
For the belligerent Bush, a war-monger long before his ascendancy to the
White House, the terrorist attacks on mainland USA must be a blessing in
disguise, providing Republican hawks and their bellicose corporate backers
with a prime pretext with which to reinforce US hegemonic credentials and
perhaps forge ahead with a costly National Missile Defense System now that
the reality has struck home that the USA, or rather its profit-mongers and
military machine, are loathed around the world.
The attacks on the US will perhaps serve to show Republican hawks the
futility of this proposal. These hijacked planes could well have flown
into nuclear power stations or bases containing US stockpiles of
biological weapons (the US is the world's biggest stockpiler of such
weapons). They may well have carried small nuclear devices. The most
sophisticated missile defence system imaginable simply cannot be
programmed to read the mind of a religious fanatic incensed with the
notion that his death (and those of 10,000 infidels with him) is a
passport to heaven.
Bush may well speak of the terrorism the US faces from Islamic
fundamentalism, but what about the global threat from US fundamentalism?
Since coming to power, Bush has helped scupper the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on
emissions and all but wiped his presidential backside on the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. His
attitude to treaties and conventions suggests he has already declared war
on the planet and that US foreign policy will continue as before and with
one aim – to ensure the 21st Century is another “American Century”.
Bush claims that this is the first war of the 21st Century but it is just
one battle in a larger war that began in 1945 with the US determined to
control the world's resources, and there is more than ample evidence to
prove this. More importantly, though, The entire episode serves to show
the insanity of the system we live in, and the desperate need to wrest
control of our planet away from the madmen before it is indeed too late.
In the 20th century, some 220 million lost their lives in wars, in
conflicts over trade routes, areas of influence, foreign markets, mineral
wealth and the strategic points from which the same can be defended or in
other words, in the name of profit.
The solution to the ongoing insanity, we insist, remains the same.
There is one world and we exist as one people in need of each other and
with the same basic needs. There is far more that unites us than can ever
divide us along cultural, nationalistic or religious lines. Together we
can create a civilisation worth living in, but before that happens we need
the conscious Cupertino of ordinary people across the world, united in one
common cause – to create a world in which each person has free access to
the benefits of civilisation, a world without borders or frontiers, social
classes or leaders and a world in which production is at last freed from
the artificial constraints of profit and used for the good of humanity –
socialism.
http://communities.msn.com/realworldsocialism
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