Visit our website: HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.ORG.UK --------------------------------------------- ----- Forwarded message follows ----- --- Jonathan Larson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 03:41:05 -0500 To: MAI NOT <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> From: Jonathan Larson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: [MAI-NOT] An open letter to the talking toughs C'mon folks, get a grip! The coverage of the World Trade Center / Pentagon kamikaze attacks has rapidly deteriorated from informative and gripping to absurd and frightening. What now passes for "expert analysis" consists mostly of aging white guys attempting to outdo each other in talking tough. But tucked into the coverage was an interesting encounter with historian David McCollum who had been spotted by camera crews outside a blood-donation center. He said the most important thing was to understand what could possibly motivate young men to commit suicide for a cause. He could have added the observation that at least four of these people had undergone advanced flight training - a preparation that positively reeks with the optimism of possible upward mobility - of flight, of pay, and of social standing. This IS an interesting question. It is a question the citizens of USA are uniquely unqualified to answer. Most of us simply cannot comprehend why anyone would ever want to do anything but emulate us. Is isn't merely the Florida trailer trash who got control of their local school board and demanded that their schools teach "that America is first in everything" who believe that "We're #1, and everyone else on the planet is scrambling to be just like us," I know Harvard grads who believe the same thing. Unfortunately, if a person believes that, a suicide attacker is utterly incomprehensible. This would be a minor conceit and no one embarks on a suicide mission over style points. But this "We're #1" arrogance has an ugly corollary "Our cause is always just." An astonishing number of Americans actually believe this in spite of enormous evidence to the contrary. Of course, the reason most of us believe our cause is always just is because the contrary evidence is hidden from all but the most diligent seekers of information - who must also have risen above the belief that we are always #1. Because we believe our cause is always just, we tend to quickly forget that contrary information that does occasionally filter through our arrogance about the rest of the world. We might have forgotten that our tax dollars organized and trained the Savak, the Shah of Iran's secret police that tortured to death over 100,000 persons of all ages and sexes, but the Iranians remember. We may choose to ignore that the CIA overthrew a democratically elected government in Chile and plunged that country into a nightmare of torture, death, and "disappearances," but the Chileans remember. We may forget the havoc brought to the peaceful country of Cambodia by our bombing, but the Cambodians certainly remember the murderous outcome - Pol Pot. In fact, we have spent the better part of a half a century throwing our weight around, creating millions of victims with long memories and a smoldering resentment for those who ruined their lives. Fortunately for us, most of our victims are so poor they can barely eat - much less launch a retaliatory military strike against their tormentors. But weapons once available only to the richest of nations, can now be imitated or neutralized by the very poor. This phenomenon is what we so carelessly call "terrorism." If we deliver an explosion via a cruise missile or a stealth bomber, we call it all sorts of cute names like "Surgical Air Strike." But if someone poor delivers an explosion by boat, truck, car or strapped to one's body, that is "terrorism." Make no mistake - what we call "terrorism" is most often a military retaliatory strike by the poor against the rich. The kamikaze attacks on the World Trade Center can be understood in no other light. In the wars of the poor against the rich, many tactics have proven historically successful. But the ultimate equalizer is the willingness of the poor man to engage in a suicide mission. Our military with all its weapons cannot defeat someone willing to die knowingly for a cause. In fact, unless USA can jettison its comfortable ignorance about the rest of the world, there is literally nothing that can be done about "terrorism." This is not a threat that can be countered by any conventional means. What good, after all, is a nuclear-powered submarine if someone chooses to fight their battles "on the cheap" and use box knives. The other night, the news came down that anyone with a working knowledge of Farsi or Arabic was to volunteer their skills to the FBI or CIA. Think about this. The government of the USA is promising to "wipe terror from the earth" in part by "beefing up human intelligence." They have a long way to go if they cannot translate a handful of documents written in common languages spoken by significant numbers of world's peoples. So an increase in human spy-style intelligence is predicated on either revamping America's schools so that students actually learn some other languages, OR finding someone in the Middle East who thinks USA is on the side of the Arabs to the point where he would sell out his cousins. Both propositions are beyond laughable. With the options of high-tech revenge and the destruction of "terror" cells through infiltration foreclosed, the tough guys are now talking about "Delta Force" style operations. Of course, the USA military has been most adverse to actual combat for some time now, but under the circumstances, they may actually be willing to shed blood. They better be. If the Afghans could defeat the "Evil Empire," the defeat of the "Ignorant Empire" should be a snap. Merely dodging all those land mines left behind by the Russians is a significant enough problem to probably rule out the Delta Force. There is also a question of leadership here. Dubya, one of the primary tough talkers, once had the chance to really BE tough. He chose instead the National Guard and didn't even go to all the meetings if they conflicted with his party schedule. Talking tough is an art form for those whose sense of entitlement assumes the dirty work will be done by the servants. Nevertheless, something should be done about these attacks on people and infrastructure by the dispossessed. No matter how much one hates New York, watching the World Trade Center buildings collapse is a troubling image because it could have been MUCH worse. Next time, it could be a nuke on a barge. The solution is quite obvious here, if the world wants an end to the poor man's warfare we call "terrorism" and there are no military options to end it, the sole remaining choice is to sue for peace. So at the risk of being charged with appeasing "terrorism" allow me to outline "Operation Stop Pissing People Off." (OSPPO) 1) Close all overseas USA military installations. No one chose us to be the World's Cop and we have done a terrible job of it anyway. Any free election in any country with a USA military presence would vote for the option GO HOME. We HAVE worn out our welcome. We cannot afford this quasi-imperialist nonsense. The "respectable" chattering classes will tell us that we have responsibilities that we cannot avoid so withdrawal is impossible. They lie. Eventually all armies must go home. George Washington warned about imperial pretensions. As we found out, we ignore Washington at our peril. If Osama Bin Laden IS actually behind all this, remember his "beef" with USA is ground troops in Saudi Arabia. Not everyone dislikes foreign occupation troops that much, but the feeling is pretty universal. It is time for the chattering classes and the military establishment to admit to this universal reality. 2) Immediately stop all military and monetary assistance to the states of the Middle East. The USA is supposed to have legal separation of Church and State, and on minor levels, the laws and practices of Church/State separation (like prayers before football games) are carefully enforced. Yet we allow a small lobby to trash this important Constitutional ideal so they might have a religious amusement park governed by theocratic laws, and whose current Prime Minister is clearly a war criminal. Poor Jefferson must be spinning in his grave like a runaway gyroscope. If Zionists in USA insist on supporting the State of Israel, let them pass the hat or hold bake sales like all the other faiths in USA that engage in missionary work. The rest of us are tired of having our reputations tarred with the results of your religious beliefs. And for those who think Israel is your land as promised by your God, remember, the rest of us are not bound by law to confuse your religious texts with real estate documents. If you want land in Israel, find a willing seller and give him his price. And leave the rest of us out of your religious fantasies. We dislike dying for your causes. And because of our rent-a-friend assistance to Egypt, we have a situation where there are probably more "terrorist" wanna-bes in Egypt than any other country in the world. And to prove the sincerity of her intentions, USA should shift all money now headed for the Middle East to someplace like sub-Sahara Africa as block grants. 3) USA must get serious about international cooperation--pay her dues, go back to the UN, stop losing votes 176-1. Arrogance is an UGLY sin--not only does it make the other folks really angry, it keeps the arrogant party from learning anything from the rest of the world. We are ignorant precisely BECAUSE we are arrogant. 4) Immediately outlaw the economic practices of neoliberalism / colonialism / slavery. You want to know the very BEST way to create a young man willing to embark on a suicide mission? Simple. Make certain that the young man knows he will be too poor to ever have a sex / love / family life -- EVER. Neoliberalism has created a LOT of newly poor people--their preposterous claims to the contrary. The Neoliberals are truly the world's most dangerous fundamentalists. People with jobs and futures do NOT sit around plotting their own flaming deaths. Neoliberalism is an even greater failure than Marxism. Because at the heart, economics is about survival--which makes it the one subject pragmatically worth dying for. Abandon the economic extremism of neoliberalism, and the extremism of the hopelessly poor will vanish like the snow in spring. Or maybe not. A friend who listened to me try these ideas out, suggested that we as a people are a LONG way from the OSPPO agenda. We agreed that the tough-talking war language was really scary and that it really would help if the tough guys were parachuted into Afghanistan so they might see for themselves the conditions that hatch what they so conveniently call "terrorism." With luck, only the enlightened would survive. But hey, the OSPPO agenda, or something very similar really IS the only way to stop the poor of the earth from WANTING to make war on the rich. It is the only solution that has the slightest chance for success. But no one I know is taking any bets to see who in official Washington would dare to first suggest anything LIKE OSPPO. 50 yearsof intellectual damage caused by internal Cold War propaganda has left such thoughts virtually unthinkable. -------------------- warmest regards Jonathan web site at: http://villa.lakes.com/eltechno -- For MAI-not (un)subscription information, posting guidelines and links to other MAI sites please see http://mai.flora.org ----- End of forwarded message ----- __________________________________________________ Terrorist Attacks on U.S. - How can you help? 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