WW News Service Digest #341
1) People Protest War in 75 U.S. Cities
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
2) Have You Heard There's a War On?
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
3) 1,000 Detainees Stripped of Rights
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
4) Police Lay Siege to Hartford March
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
5) U.S. Has Targeted Civilians Before
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
6) Nov. 7, 1917
by [EMAIL PROTECTED]
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
IN 75 CITIES ACROSS U.S.: PEOPLE PROTEST WAR
By Leslie Feinberg
They took to the streets. They raised their voices. They
educated themselves and others through rallies and teach-
ins, car caravans and leafleting. On Oct. 27 people in 75
cities all across the United States protested the Pentagon
raining of death and destruction on the people of
Afghanistan. They demanded an end to the frenzy of racist
profiling. And they stood shoulder to shoulder to defend the
most basic civil liberties that are being stripped away.
And as they demonstrated, they were forging a bond with
those in more than 40 cities in 20 other countries who were
carrying out similar protests at the same time.
The Oct. 27 international day of protest was initiated by
the coalition known as International ANSWER: Act Now to Stop
War and End Racism. The call was first heard from speakers
at the podium at the massive Sept. 29 anti-war, anti-racist
protest of more than 20,000 organized in Washington, D.C.,
by the then newly formed coalition.
Watching television or reading the newspapers could lead
anyone here or around the world to believe that there is
virtually no popular opposition as the U.S. military pounds
away at the impoverished population of Afghanistan.
That's part of why it is so important that people of so many
nationalities, ages, sexes, genders and sexualities united
to take a public stand in opposition to the war, and the
growing tide of state-sponsored racism and repression.
Protests in many forms took place in large urban areas that
don't require a state for identification: New York City,
Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia,
Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, Atlanta, Chicago, Denver,
Minneapolis.
But events also took place in Laramie, Wyo.; Flagstaff,
Ariz.; Ann Arbor, Mich.; Missoula, Mont.; Dover,
Peterborough and Plymouth, N.H.; Westport, Conn.; St. Louis
and Columbia, Mo.; Northfield, N.J.; Portland, Ore.;
Bloomington, Ind.; Salt Lake City, Utah; Honesdale and
Lewisburg, Pa.; Providence, R.I.; and Lawrence, Kan.
Cities throughout the South--including the historic sites of
Civil Rights movement battles--held Oct. 27 activities. They
include Birmingham, Ala.; Little Rock, Ark., Memphis and
Nashville, Tenn.; Columbus, Miss.; Miami and Tallahassee,
Fla.; Austin, Texas; and Morgantown, W. Va.
In Orlando, Fla., 2,000 gathered at the Magic sports arena
for "Operation Education." The event, with largely a Muslim
audience and speakers, was organized by the International
Students for Peace and Justice.
Some states saw demonstrations in numerous cities in
addition to some of the major urban centers already cited.
Virginia: Richmond, Charlottesville, Fredericksburg and
Radford University.
New Mexico: Albuquerque, Sante Fe, Taos, Gallup and Truth or
Consequences.
New York: Buffalo, Albany, Hudson, Kingston and Yonkers.
North Carolina: Appalachian State University/Boone,
Asheville, Chapel Hill and Charlotte.
California: San Diego, Chico, Arcata, Sacramento and
Huntington Beach.
And rallies, teach-ins and other forms of protest took place
at many, many colleges and universities across the United
States.
Organizers of the international day of actions vow to
continue to ratchet up protests against the war, racism and
assault on civil liberties. For information on how to become
a part of this burgeoning young movement, contact
International ANSWER Coalition, 39 W. 14 St., NY, NY 10011.
Call (212) 633-6646 in New York; (202) 543-2777 in
Washington; or (415) 821-6545 in San Francisco. Send email
to [EMAIL PROTECTED], or visit
www.internationalanswer.org on the Web.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
HAVE YOU HEARD THERE'S A WAR ON? IT'S BOSSES VS.
WORKERS
Layoffs, Tax Giveaways to Rich, and More to Come
By Gary Wilson
The economy is like the Nitro coaster at the Six Flags Great
Adventure amusement park. Since the peak of the capitalist
boom nearly two years ago, the economic dive has hit hyper-
speed.
More than 574,000 workers in the United States have been
laid off since
Sept. 11, according to the AFL-CIO labor federation.
Tens of thousands more also lost their jobs in that period,
but they do not show up in the official count. These
unemployed workers aren't counted because they are
undocumented immigrants or "casual employees" or part-time
workers.
In New York City, the second "Twin Towers Job Expo" on Oct.
25 drew 10,000 looking for jobs. Thousands more were turned
away. The first job expo drew over 20,000. Only 6,000 got
in. The expos are sponsored by the city and held at Madison
Square Garden. A third expo is scheduled for November. Even
though many of the jobs being offered are low-paying--such
as clerk jobs at Duane-Reade drug stores--there have been
many more workers lined up to get into the expos than jobs
available.
More layoffs nationwide are expected in the coming weeks.
The Oct. 30 Wall Street Journal reported that on Nov. 1 the
U.S. economy will officially be in a recession.
SEPT. 11 BECAME EXCUSE FOR LAYOFFS ...
Big corporations took advantage of the Sept. 11 attacks to
announce shutdowns and layoffs, as if the attacks were the
source of the economic crisis. The aviation industry was the
worst offender, with almost 150,000 workers suddenly made
jobless after Sept. 11.
The aviation industry was already in a downturn before Sept.
11. In August, Midwest Airline had gone into bankruptcy.
Industry-wide layoffs and shutdowns were being predicted.
The $15-billion bailout passed by Congress after Sept. 11
protected the owners and at the same time insured that
interest payments would be made to the big banks. The
airline workers won't get a single dollar of that money.
The breakdown of layoffs in the six weeks after the attack
is, according to the AFL-CIO:
* 128,519 in transportation
* 134,831 in hospitality, tourism
and entertainment
* 119,241 in manufacturing
* 70,305 in aerospace
* 45,790 in communications
and utilities
* 36,092 in services
* 19,821 in finance, insurance
and real estate
* 9,978 in retail trade
* 7,833 in government
* 1,713 in mining.
This comes on top of over a million jobs lost between July
2000 and August 2001.
The shutdowns and layoffs over the last year have been so
severe that only 75 percent of the country's industrial
capacity is now being used, the lowest level in 18 years.
The capitalist downturn isn't limited to just the United
States. Every big capitalist economy in the world, from
Japan to Germany, Britain and France, is now in a recession.
"We are in a global, synchronized recession," the Oct. 26
New York Times reported, quoting Lakshman Achuthan, the
managing director of the Economic Cycle Research Institute
in New York. "Those are really hard to get out of," Achuthan
added, because companies cannot shift their resources to
economies that aren't declining.
... AND MORE GIVEAWAYS TO RICH
The Bush administration has responded to the crisis with
what it calls a stimulus plan. Looking at the details of the
plan, the whole proposal is a giveaway to the rich.
An analysis of the Bush stimulus plan by the Center on
Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington, D.C., concludes:
"Ultimately, 90 percent or more of the administration's
stimulus plan consists of tax cuts." Most of these cuts go
to Fortune 500 companies.
"While being generous to large corporations, the assistance
the plan would provide to the unemployed is surprisingly
meager," the CBPP says. Workers who lost their jobs before
Sept. 11 will not be eligible for extended benefits no
matter how high unemployment reaches.
In addition, "the proposal also fails to address flaws in
unemployment insurance coverage that cause many low-income
workers and working mothers to be ineligible for
unemployment benefits when they lose their jobs. For
example, in most states, a mother with young children who
works 70 percent or 80 percent time and is laid off--and who
meets all other qualifications for unemployment benefits and
is seeking similar employment--is denied because she is
available for work on less than a full-time basis," the CBPP
says.
Another research firm in Washington, the Citizens for Tax
Justice, calls the stimulus plan proposed by Bush and passed
by the House of Representatives a "$212 billion special
interest love feast."
Two-thirds of the tax cuts go to corporations, with almost
half of the remaining cuts going to the top tenth in income.
"The corporate alternative minimum tax, which now
discourages corporate tax sheltering and forces some
otherwise low- and no-tax large, profitable corporations to
pay at least something in taxes, would be permanently
repealed. As a bonus, companies that paid the minimum tax
over the past 15 years would get an immediate refund of
those payments. Of the $25 billion in instant corporate
rebate checks, $6.3 billion would be made out to just 14 tax-
avoiding Fortune 500 companies--whose rebates would average
$450 million each. Topping the list is IBM, which is slated
to receive a $1.4 billion rebate check. General Motors is
next at $833 million, followed by General Electric at $671
million, TXU (Texas Utilities) at $608 million,
DaimlerChrysler at $600 million, and ChevronTexaco at $572
million," the CTJ reports.
With the economy on the down side of the coaster ride, the
rich are making a quick grab for whatever is left in the
government's pocketbook. Meanwhile, the working class is
taking the brunt of the recession.
The labor unions see this, and they oppose the Bush plan.
The AFL-CIO has made a modest counter-proposal that would at
least offer some relief for workers, though it does not
propose the kinds of protections for workers that big
corporations are getting from the Bush plan. There is no
provision in the AFL-CIO proposal for a moratorium on all
layoffs while the economy is in recession or to guarantee a
living wage for all workers, for example.
WAR IS HELD OVER UNIONS' HEADS
But the unions have been held back in their efforts to stop
the Bush plan by their almost blanket endorsement of the war
on Afghanistan. The Bush administration and the media have
made it almost a principle that the only way to honor the
dead from the Sept. 11 attacks is to rally behind the
president and support the war while keeping quiet about
everything else. That is what they call patriotism.
If the unions are going to have any chance to fight against
the Bush administration's giveaways to the rich and the big
corporations, they will have to get off the war bandwagon
and take an independent position.
As has become increasingly clear, the war on Afghanistan has
little to do with fighting terrorism and everything to do
with protecting the Bush-Cheney-Big Oil interests in Central
Asia and the Middle East.
Even Bush's rightwing supporters are finding it difficult to
justify the conduct of the war. Two of the most prominent
rightwing voices in Washington, D.C., William Kristol and
Charles Krauthammer, wrote critical opinion pieces in the
Oct. 30 Washington Post. However, they want to expand this
horrible conflict, not abandon it.
The unions have no business being cheerleaders for this war.
There are better ways to honor the dead, ways that won't
prevent the unions from being able to openly fight for what
is right for workers in the United States.
In recessions, capitalists try to stop their profit decline
by intensifying the exploitation of the workers by pushing
wages down and speeding up production. That is their way of
putting the crisis onto the backs of the workers.
This is not based on any law of economics. It is based on
sheer greed.
There is no reason that the burden can't be put on the
bosses and their profits. This is the war that the unions
need to be preparing for and fighting right now. Otherwise,
the suffering here will only increase as unemployment
expands and wages fall. And there is no more "social safety
net" to fall back on, because it was decimated by the
Clinton administration.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
CASUALTIES OF WAR: 1,000 DETAINEES STRIPPED OF
RIGHTS
By Leslie Feinberg
How many Arab, South Asian and Muslim individuals in this
country have been swept up in raids and detained? It's a
secret.
Where are they being held and under what conditions? It's a
secret.
How many are being abused and mistreated? It's a secret.
But those who are holding them behind bars are not making a
secret about this: They want the legal go-ahead to employ
torture to extract details from the unknown number in their
custody.
It is estimated that more than 1,000 people have been
detained since Sept. 11 in connection with the attacks that
day. Most of them remain jailed. On Oct. 29, a coalition of
civil rights groups, including Arab and Muslim
organizations, filed a Freedom of Information Act request
demanding that the names of individuals and the charges they
face be released.
On Oct. 26, civil rights defenders met with FBI Director
Robert Mueller, but he rebuffed their requests for
information about those arrested. Just that morning
President George W. Bush had penned into law the "anti-
terror" bill that gives the state sweeping powers of
surveillance, investigation and detention.
Kate Martin, from the Center for National Security Studies,
told the New York Times, "The secret detention of more than
800 people over the past few weeks is frighteningly close to
the practice of 'disappearing' people in Latin America."
Of course, some of the same U.S. repressive agencies that
played a guiding hand in training and arming those "dirty
wars" in Central and South America are today carrying out
massive and secret internment of Arab and Muslim people in
this country.
Justice Department spokesperson Mindy Tucker, reports BBC
News on Oct. 20, "said the arrests on immigration charges
for people suspected of having some connection to terrorist
activities reflects a new approach, that of preventing
attacks."
Tucker is admitting that these are "preventive detentions."
None of those arrested in this witch-hunt have been charged
with any "terrorist crimes." The bulk of those detained are
being charged with petty immigration or other legal
violations. A smaller number are being held on so-called
material witness warrants, which allows authorities to seal
their identities. (BBC News, Oct. 30)
LEGALIZE TORTURE?
The mass incarceration of so many hundreds of people based
on who they are, not what they've done, creates a vast net
for police and spy agencies to go "fishing" for information.
But, the top cops are complaining, those held behind bars
aren't talking for the most part.
Could that be because they don't have the information that
the investigators want? FBI and Justice Department officials
want the legal right to torture answers out of them--just to
be sure.
"FBI considers torture as suspects stay silent," was the
headline of Damian Whitworth's article in the Oct. 22 Times
of London.
Washington Post staff writer Walter Pincus, in an Oct. 21
article, quoted a senior FBI official: "We're into this
thing for 35 days and nobody is talking." He added,
"Frustration has begun to appear."
Pincus wrote, "Among the alternative strategies under
discussion are using drugs or pressure tactics, such as
those employed by Israeli interrogators, to extract
information. Another idea is extraditing the suspects to
allied countries where security services sometimes employ
threats to family members or resort to torture."
He concludes, "The country may compare the current search
for information to brutal tactics in wartime used to gather
information overseas and even by U.S. troops from prisoners
during military actions."
While the depth and breadth of police brutality cases in
this country--perhaps the best known is the torture of Abner
Louima in Brooklyn, N.Y.--document that torture is an often-
used weapon in the repressive state arsenal, this is a call
to legalize and normalize the use of torture against
individuals caught in "preventive detention" dragnets.
ABUSE AND MISTREATMENT
Despite the mantle of silence, word of abuse and
mistreatment of those jailed is leaking out.
An Oct. 15 Washington Post article reports that in a high-
security wing on the ninth floor of Manhattan's Metropolitan
Correction Center, an unknown number of men with Middle
Eastern names are being held in solitary confinement in 8-by-
10-foot cells. Each has little more than a cot and a thin
blanket.
"They have no contact with each other or their families and
limited access to their lawyers," the reporters note.
Defense lawyers "have grown frustrated that their clients
are kept incommunicado, denied exercise and provided limited
opportunity to shower.
"The lawyers said that the prison is not providing their
clients with a basic Muslim diet and that guards
unnecessarily bang on steel cell doors every two hours to
conduct head counts. The prisoners cannot use the
telephone."
Detainees must confer with their law yers through wire
screens and "The prisoners are brought to the meeting in
shackles, escorted by as many as six guards."
Others who are being secretly held have slipped out word
about beatings, racist abuse and other forms of ill
treatment.
The FBI detained Muhammad Rafiq Butt on Sept. 19. He died in
Hudson Country jail a month later, on Oct. 23. Authorities
say he died of natural causes. But such overall, purposeful
concealment about the situation of those interned makes it
impossible to know for sure under what conditions he died.
Attorney Randall B. Hamud is trying to defend some of those
currently detained. He said his clients "had asked time and
again to call me and they were not allowed to do so." Hamud
concluded, "Law school doesn't prepare you for this."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
DEFEND THE HARTFORD 18: POLICE LAY SEIGE TO
PEACEFUL MARCH
By Leslie Feinberg
A police attack on peaceful anti-war marchers in Hartford,
Conn., on Oct. 25 is generating widespread outrage. Eighteen
people were arrested on charges ranging from "disorderly
conduct" to "inciting a riot." Some of the charges are
felonies that carry sentences up to 10 years.
At an Oct. 26 arraignment, bail bonds were set exorbitantly
high--from $15,000 to $50,000. But supporters raised enough
money to spring everyone by that night.
The only excuse that police officials or the big business
media could offer for the cops' laying siege to activists is
that there was no permit for the demonstration. But local
activists note that past protests have taken place without
permits and without incident.
The political climate in the state is very much influenced
by the fact that the military-industrial complex has a
strong base in Connecticut. The state is home to a submarine
base at Groton and other military installations.
Connecticut--cited in the last census as the most segregated
U.S. state after Mississippi--also reportedly has one of the
richest counties as well as three out of 10 of the poorest
counties in the country.
DELIVERING AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE
Sage Radachowsky, a sociology graduate student at the
University of Connecticut, was one of those arrested. He
told Workers World, "The demo was organized by a loose
network of people: students and nonstudents, young and old.
The message was to protest the bombings in Afghanistan and
U.S. foreign policy, though there was no centralized message
other than being for peace and against all forms of
oppression."
The rally began about 4:30 at Bushnell Park with speeches
and skits. A half hour later the number grew to more than
200 activists. They spilled into the street and marched
toward Sen. Joseph Leiberman's office to deliver an anti-war
petition and protest his position as a pro-Pentagon hawk.
Radachowsky described, "The protest before police attacked
was nonviolent but defiant. We walked through the streets.
We stayed on one side and didn't block traffic for more than
two minutes at any point, but we were not going to remain on
the sidewalk either, feeling that this was a message that
needs to be heard.
"Police were present from the beginning, although their
numbers increased. Police became more and more
confrontational, running their cruisers at high speed up to
people and stopping only feet before hitting them. They
brought out canisters of pepper spray. They tried to run
cars into protesters to block the way and shove people.
People walked through the spaces between the cruisers and
continued. Police also shoved with billy clubs but people
absorbed the shoves and continued."
Radachowsky said, "Then police shout ed out 'Those three!'
and 'Him!' and arrested some people. Many were standing on
the sidewalk when arrested."
A busload of riot-clad police arrived and tried to disperse
the crowd.
"Shame, shame," protesters jeered at police who beat and
pepper sprayed Vittorio Lancia as the man shouted, "I have
asthma!" At least one of Lancia's ribs was broken.
Tom Deere was one of those hit and pepper sprayed. "It
stings a lot, but I'll be OK," he reassured fellow
protesters.
When a group of activists on the sidewalk tried to discuss
what to do next, police reportedly grabbed the facilitator.
A woman shouted, "Why are you taking him?" One cop yelled
over his shoulder, "Conspiracy to incite a riot."
READYING FOR A LONG-TERM STRUGGLE
Those who escaped arrest made their way to Hartford police
headquarters on Jennings Road to demonstrate their support
for those held inside.
Behind bars, Radachowsky explained, "is a sexist, racist,
homophobic and generally dehumanizing environment. There was
a U.S. flag and a 'Wanted: Osama bin Laden' poster on a
prominent door. They made remarks constantly about how we
should be ashamed of ourselves, and how 'if it were up to me
you wouldn't be here safe and sound right now,' etc."
But, Radachowsky stressed, "This will most emphatically not
stop me from protesting. In fact, the opposite is true. It
only makes me more persistent and determined. We're holding
another vigil here at UConn tomorrow."
Anne D'Alleva, an assistant professor at the University of
Connecticut, has played a dynamic role in organizing actions
on campus against the anti-Muslim frenzy and against the
war.
D'Alleva told Workers World, "I have tremendous admiration
for everyone involved--the students are so dedicated, and so
skilled. What strikes me about our activist community is
that we're working on so many fronts at once.
"One of the things that has emerged so clearly is how
related these oppressions are: racism, sexism, homophobia,
the war. Not surprisingly there has been a spate of
homophobic incidents here on campus since 9/11. We always
have a problem with homophobia here, but I think 9/11 has
authorized some people to show a kind of blanket hatred of
otherness."
D'Alleva concluded, "We're realizing that this is going to
be a long-term effort. We're all working hard to raise money
for the legal defense and to organize protest to the police
brutality experienced there while working long-term on the
issue of peace."
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
LOOK AT THE RECORD: U.S. HAS TARGETED CIVILIANS
BEFORE
By John Catalinotto
Rocket attacks from U.S. jets on a place of worship and a
hospital. Bombs directed at a convoy of fleeing refugees.
Repeated hits by 2,000-pound bombs on clearly marked Red
Cross food warehouses. Fragmentation bombs on civilian
homes.
All these things have occurred in the first three weeks of
the Pentagon's attacks on Afghanistan.
Most people living here, because they've never been informed
by the corporate media, probably don't realize that these
kinds of U.S. attacks are all too familiar to people in
other countries. A look at recent U.S. wars against Iraq,
Somalia, Yugoslavia and Sudan is eye-opening.
The Pentagon always claims not to be targeting civilians,
that civilian deaths are merely "collateral damage." But it
openly admits to tactics aimed at destroying the civilian
infrastructure. This always leads to civilian deaths,
sometimes long after the fighting ends.
Often, however, the claims of not directly targeting
civilians are an outright lie. The U.S. military targets
civilians as part of its strategic aims today just as it did
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and across Korea and Vietnam,
where millions died.
AL AMARIYAH, FEB. 13, 1991
In the midst of what the Pentagon called the "surgical"
bombing of Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War, the Pentagon
incinerated civilians in a Baghdad bomb shelter. Here's a
description of that event in the 1992 book, "The Fire This
Time," written by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark,
now an anti-war activist.
"Probably 1,500 civilians, mostly women and children, were
killed when the Amariyah civilian bomb shelter was hit by
two bombs in the early morning hours of Feb. 13, 1991. One
bomb opened a hole in the shelter's roof. The second bomb,
much bigger and more powerful, traveled through the hole and
blasted its way through one floor to the bottom floor of the
shelter, where it exploded. ...
"The first bomb hit at 4:30 a.m. It did not kill everyone.
Neighborhood residents heard screams as people tried to get
out of the shelter. They screamed for four minutes. Then the
second bomb hit, killing almost everybody. The screaming
ceased.
"There were at most 17 survivors," said Clark.
The shelter was in a suburb of Baghdad where many families
from people in the government lived. It was under intense
surveillance by U.S. planes and satellites. There was no way
for the Pentagon not to have known that civilians were in
the shelter and that it was a war crime to hit it.
MEDICINE FACTORY IN SUDAN--AUGUST 1998
After U.S. embassies were blown up in Kenya and Tanzania in
1998, the Clinton administration decided on a military
strike against "military targets" allegedly connected with
Osama bin Laden. When, on Aug. 20, 1998, some 16 U.S. cruise
missiles hit a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan's capital,
President Bill Clinton told the press he had "convincing
information" that the plant had been used to manufacture
chemical weapons.
Clinton lied and knew it. He had no certain knowledge about
the plant's ownership or what it produced. On Oct. 27, 1999,
the New York Times reported that the U.S. attack was "one of
the most debated military actions undertaken by the
administration."
The report explained that, "Within days, Western engineers
who had worked at the Sudan factory were asserting that it
was, as Sudan claimed, a working pharmaceutical plant.
Reporters visiting the ruined building saw bottles of
medicine but no signs of security precautions and no obvious
signs of a chemical weapons manufacturing operation."
The raid itself killed few people on the spot. But it
eliminated a factory that produced and packaged about half
of the medicines, including veterinary medicines, used to
defend the health of millions of Sudanese people and the
livestock that the people depend on for sustenance.
YUGOSLAVIA: REFUGEES, BRIDGES, TV, CHINESE EMBASSY
NATO's aggression against Yugoslavia in 1999, allegedly to
stop military and police "atrocities," targeted the Yugoslav
population, especially in Serbia.
On Sept. 19-21, 1999, the Washington Post ran a series of
articles by Dana Priest about Pentagon debates on the
conduct of the war. It showed clearly that all the assaults
on the Serb civilian industrial infrastructure were aimed at
demoralizing the Yugoslav population and leadership. Attacks
on the Yugoslav Army were considered a public-relations
adjunct.
Still, the Pentagon tried to cover up some of the attacks
clearly aimed at civilian deaths.
One was the April 12, 1999, attack on a railway bridge near
Gdelicka, Yugoslavia. U.S. Air Force jets dropped two guided
bombs on the bridge. The bombs hit not only the bridge but a
passenger train on it. At least 14 people were killed.
Gen. Wesley Clark, the U.S. officer running NATO's bombing
onslaught, told the world that the train had appeared so
suddenly that the pilot had no chance to abort the attack.
He apologized at the time for what he called "collateral
damage."
To justify the bombing raid, Clark claimed that the train's
speed had made it impossible for the pilot to divert the
bomb. Then he showed the attack on a video filmed from the
head of a rocket-propelled AGM-30 bomb.
What Clark failed to say was that the film was shown at
three times its normal speed. It was a gross propaganda
trick.
A German daily newspaper, the Frankfurter Rundschau, exposed
this U.S./NATO gimmick in its Jan. 6, 2000, edition.
As the newspaper put it: "During the Kosovo war, NATO used
two video films to try and demonstrate that a bomb attack on
a passenger train was an unavoidable accident. ... But the
films were played through at least three times the normal
speed."
The FR also said that the U.S. Air Force admitted it found
out months after the attack on the train that the videos had
"given a false picture of the events leading up to the
attack." But, an Air Force spokesperson told the FR, "We saw
no reason to publish the films after we noticed the
mistake."
On April 13, 1999, NATO warplanes killed at least 75 to 100
ethnic Albanian refugees and injured at least 30 more in a
convoy crossing a bridge near Djakovica in Kosovo, the
Associated Press reported. At the same time, another U.S.-
directed bomber hit an ethnic Albanian village in Kosovo,
killing at least 20 inhabitants and injuring many others,
according to a French Press Agency reporter at the scene.
Were these purposely targeted? Or were they the inevitable
"mistakes" of a war machine geared up for the kill and
searching for targets?
About the illegal attack on the Yugoslav civilian media,
there can be no doubt.
On the morning of April 23, 1999, at 2 a.m., a missile from
a NATO plane exploded inside a Belgrade television station
killing 16 people. They were camera technicians, makeup
people, sound technicians and copyeditors. None was
military. None was a government employee tied to either
Slobodan Milosovic or the Yugoslav military.
They were average citizens of Belgrade simply making a
living. The cruise missile that was intentionally aimed at
them that morning changed that forever. A small monument
with the names of the dead has been erected next to the
television station.
It was followed by a missile attack on the Chinese Embassy.
Washington denied this attack was on purpose. First the
Pentagon said it targeted the wrong building in an
unfortunate accident. Then it came up with the story that
the CIA was responsible for the mistake because it provided
maps of Belgrade made three or four years earlier, when the
embassy had been at a different location.
Two excuses are weaker than one, as the old saying goes.
All these are war crimes under the Geneva Convention. Yet
the U.S. and NATO generals who committed these crimes are
free to commit others. Moreover, Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic is the one now charged with war crimes. He faces
trial before a court in The Hague that is a tool of NATO.
'BLACK HAWK DOWN'
Perhaps the war crime most likely to be repeated in
Afghanistan is the one that took place on Oct. 3, 1993, in
Somalia. With little evidence, U.S. spokespeople now even
blame Bin Laden's group for the Somali resistance that day.
If true, this should give the Pentagon another reason to
rethink the attack on Afghanistan.
This mass murder was supposed to be part of a "humanitarian
mission" to feed hungry Somalis. It's story--told from the
point of view of the U.S. troops, of course--will be spread
widely through the new movie "Black Hawk Down," based on a
book by journalist Mark Bowden.
Black Hawk helicopters circled above Mogadishu, Somalia's
capital, and Humvees topped with heavy-gauge machine guns
brought in backup squads. Teams of Rangers and Delta Force
elite troops encircled a building in the middle of the city,
near the teeming Bakara market. A meeting of supporters of
the Somali leader Mohamed Farah Aidid, whom Washington was
hunting, was supposedly taking place in the building.
The rotors on these helicopters created such a powerful
downdraft that they had actually ripped the clothes off of
women on the street below and lifted the tin roofs off
dwellings. They had been invulnerable death machines of the
occupation.
But when the people of Mogadishu saw them hovering over the
downtown area and realized they were carrying out a military
operation right in their capital city, they ran in by the
thousands, mostly unarmed, to resist.
Women and children shielded men with their bodies as the
men, some armed with World War I rifles, crawled out in the
street to fire on the 17 copters and their crews. Old men
rode in on horses and even cows to fight the invaders.
The heavy guns of the U.S. forces killed at least 500
Somalis in the 15-hour battle that followed, most of them
civilians. Though they outgunned and slaughtered the
Somalis, the determined mass Somali resistance finally
overwhelmed the elite U.S. troops, surrounding and trapping
100 of them after two Black Hawks were shot down.
Eighteen U.S. elite troops were killed and nearly 80
injured. Soon the Clinton administration, fearing that mass
opposition to the occupation of Somalia would be aroused at
home, withdrew all U.S. troops from Somalia.
-------------------------
Via Workers World News Service
Reprinted from the Nov. 8, 2001
issue of Workers World newspaper
-------------------------
EDITORIAL: NOV. 7, 1917
Workers in the U.S. are bombarded with racist stereotypes of
people in Central Asia and the Middle East. The picture
painted by U.S. officials and the corporate media is one of
chaotic, despotic societies that require Washington's strong
hand to guide them. In this myth, the terrible legacy of
Western colonialism and imperialism is completely erased
from the historical record, as is the people's long, heroic
struggle for liberation.
The world's attention is now focused on the U.S. war against
Afghanistan and the desperate poverty endured by people
there and in neighboring countries. By does it have to be
this way?
Class-conscious workers and progressive people will mark the
84th anniversary of Russia's 1917 socialist revolution on
Nov. 7. It is an appropriate time to remember the
revolution's impact on the peoples of Central Asia. Great
strides were made by people living in the Soviet republics
of Turkmenia, Uzbekistan, Kirgizia, Tajikistan and
Kazakhstan, beginning in the 1920s.
Before 1917, the Russian empire ruled by Czar Nicholas was
known as the "prison house of nations." Conquered lands were
seen only as sources of raw materials and slave labor.
Central Asian peoples in the Russian empire-who shared the
same history and culture as those in neighboring
Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey and Pakistan-had no rights.
All that changed after 1917. The multinational Soviet
government led by Lenin, in its "Declaration of the Rights
of the Working and Exploited Peoples," insisted on a
"complete break with the barbarous policy of bourgeois
civilization, which has built the prosperity of the
exploiters belonging to a few chosen nations on the
enslavement of hundreds of millions of working people in
Asia, in the colonies in general, and in the small
countries."
The Soviet Union, a voluntary union of the revolutionary
republics that emerged after 1917, was an historic
recognition by the many nationalities that they could
develop better and faster working together. The Supreme
Soviet of the USSR, the main governing body, included a
Soviet of Nationalities that gave equal representation to
each national group. "In this way, not only the general
interests of the working class are reflected, but also the
very special and important interests of all nationalities,"
Sam Marcy wrote in the book "Perestroika: a Marxist
critique." Marcy was the founder of Workers World Party.
It's not hard to imagine the revolutionary impact of such a
measure, even in today's highly industrialized United States-
-if, for instance, the millionaires' club of the U.S. Senate
were replaced with a body giving equal representation to
African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Arabs, Native peoples
and whites.
"The Bolsheviks not only brought about a political
transformation and a social revolution," Marcy wrote, "but
they completely wiped out illiteracy, which had affected
over 90 percent of the population. The revolution brought
about a renaissance of native arts, music and theater, and
also brought with it the great social and cultural
achievements of the Soviet Union." The right to a job was
guaranteed. Schools, universities, hospitals and modern
cities were built throughout the formerly oppressed Central
Asian republics. Children across the USSR were taught in
their native languages-52 in all.
In his 1985 book "Soviet But Not Russian," author William
Mandel said the Soviets "invented the policy we call
'affirmative action.'" He noted the revolution's profound
impact on women in the Central Asian republics. For the
first time, women not only went to school and college, but
became political leaders and scientists, engineers and
doctors, authors and film makers.
"Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and China flank
the formerly colonial areas of the Soviet Union. In 1928
they, and the Islamic Soviet areas, were essentially still
in the Middle Ages in terms of industrialization,
agricultural techniques and education," Mandel wrote. "Even
by that early date--when guerrilla fighting by former ethnic
nobility and tribal leaders was still going on--the Soviet
territories had doctors and hospital beds in quantities that
Turkey did not reach until 40 years later."
He continued: "By 1969 the Soviet peoples of this area were
totally literate (99.7 percent to be precise), the Turks
only one-third. The Turkic- and Farsi-speaking peoples of
the USSR had, in that year, four-and-a-half times as many
college students, 14 times as many newspaper readers, nearly
five times as many physicians, seven times as many hospital
beds as Turkey, in proportion to population."
It's no wonder, then, that people in neighboring Afghanistan
sought to emulate the achievements of their Soviet kin. In
the 1970s and 1980s, a pro-socialist revolution liberated
Afghan women, built schools and hospitals, and tried
heroically to raise up the whole society. That effort was
undermined and eventually destroyed by U.S. imperialism and
those it funded, which included the Taliban. The Afghan
counter-revolution contributed mightily to the breakup of
the Soviet Union and the subsequent plunge of the Central
Asian republics into capitalist chaos.
Today, as in 1917, the path to liberation in Central Asia
lies along the road of socialist revolution. It's the solemn
responsibility of the working class here to do everything
possible to clear that road-first of all by stopping the
U.S. war in Afghanistan.
