From: [EMAIL PROTECTED],
10/17/01
***** THE TOP FIVE LIES ABOUT THIS WAR *****
How many people do you know who claim to be skeptical, who pride themselves
on their distrust for authority, who like to pretend that they're wise to
the ways of the world -- and then, every time there's a war, they swallow
the lies of the government with all the gullibility of a three-year-old
child in the lap of a department store Santa Claus? Don't fall into that
trap yourself! Learn to identify and refute official misinformation when
you see it. Let's count down some of the common misconceptions about this war:
Lie #5: "We're not at war with the Afghan people -- look, we're bringing
them food!"
Reality: Afghanistan is in the midst of a severe drought which threatens
literally millions of people with starvation. Even before the threat of US
bombing, the World Food Program (WFP) said that nearly 6 million people
were in need of immediate food assistance. When the threat of war caused
massive movements of refugees and internally displaced people, the WFP
raised that number to 7.5 million. UN agencies were keeping huge numbers of
people alive, but the war danger -- as well as the US demand that Pakistan
seal its border with Afghanistan -- caused the WFP to suspend deliveries of
wheat flour to the country. We have no idea how many people have already
died as a result. Meanwhile, the US dropped 37,000 individually-wrapped
packages of food from the sky. You do the math. That's enough to feed about
37,000 people for one day, in a country where seven and a half million are
in danger of starvation. Additionally, the spokesman for an international
charity active in Afghanistan told the London Independent that "Random food
drops are the worst possible way of delivering food aid. They cause more
problems than they solve." Not the least of which is the fact that
Afghanistan has the highest number of unexploded land mines in the world.
There are already 10 or 15 mine incidents every day, and with people
scrambling into mine-ridden areas to pick up random packages of food
dropped from US planes, that number is only going to go up.
Lie #4: "Oil? Who said anything about oil?"
Reality: The Caspian Sea region has potentially the world's largest oil
reserves, likely making Central Asia the next Middle East. The problem is
piping it out. Afghanistan occupies a strategic position between the
Caspian and the markets of the Indian subcontinent and east Asia. It's
prime territory for building pipelines, which is why the oil company Unocal
-- as well as the US government -- welcomed the Taliban's rise to power in
1996 as a promising source of "stability." That turned out to be a pipe
dream (so to speak), but people like our Commander-in-Chief and the oil men
around him have never given up on the tremendous profit possibilities that
Central Asia offers. And if you don't think such considerations are
crossing their minds at this time of crisis, may we suggest a refresher
course in The Facts of Life?
Lie #3: "The US is trying to liberate the people of Afghanistan from
Taliban tyranny."
Reality: The US, Russia, and Iran have been aiding a rough coalition of
armed groups called the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance's fighters
are drawn mainly from ethnic minority groups in Afghanistan who have been
persecuted by the Taliban. But their record is also a bloody one. Groups
like the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA),
www.rawaa.org which have been fighting against fundamentalism and for
democracy in Afghanistan for years, have publicly stated that the
fundamentalist gangsters of the Northern Alliance are not an acceptable
alternative to the fundamentalist gangsters of the Taliban. No wonder:
Human Rights Watch implicates the Northern Alliance in "indiscriminate
aerial bombardment and shelling, direct attacks on civilians, summary
executions, rape, persecution on the basis of religion or ethnicity, the
recruitment and use of children as soldiers, and the use of antipersonnel
landmines." By now everyone knows that Osama bin Laden was among the
mujihadin recruited by the CIA to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. Meet
the next generation.
Lie #2: "America is coming together."
Reality: Tens of thousands of people have been laid off in the airline
industry alone. The government quickly responded to the airline industry
crisis with a multi- billion-dollar bailout package for the companies in
order to keep afloat the profits of shareholders and the salaries of CEOs,
but when it came to aiding the thousands of workers laid off, Congressman
Dick Armey said that that would be contrary to "the American spirit." Maybe
it is. Maybe it's the "American spirit" to make common working people pay
for a crisis and to bear the burdens of an expensive war. But it certainly
doesn't have anything to do with "togetherness."
And the biggest lie of them all . . .
Lie #1: "It's possible to win a 'war against terrorism.'"
Reality: Terrorism is a tactic, not a political or social force in and of
itself. Anyone can use it, and the idea that you can wage a "war" against
it is as dishonest as the idea behind the "War on Drugs." The use of food
as a political weapon, indiscriminate aerial bombardment, and the arming of
gangsterish groups of religious fanatics all count as "terrorism" by any
reasonable definition of the word, and the United States has long employed
all of them -- and more. This war is really about sordid material interests
and power (see especially Lies numbers 2 and 4, above), and in defense of
these interests the US is prepared to shift the label "terrorist" as it
sees fit, to apply to all manner of dissident political movements and not
just marginal bands of fanatics like bin Laden's al-Qa'ida. Conversely,
it's willing to call its own terrorists "freedom fighters" (see Lie number
3 above). Maybe some of them will get transformed into "terrorists" again
in a few years. It's a sick game and a charade, and the government is
manipulating the very real grief and anger of the people of the United
States after the September 11 atrocities to get us all to fall for it
again. Don't believe them for a second.
Produced by the Anti-War Committee of Students in Solidarity at the
University of Pittsburgh
Support free press everywhere.
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http://www.aljazeera.net/
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