The dastardly murder of thousands of Americans, via the latest terroristic outrage, can never be condoned. But it can be explained.
There can be no doubt that Arab terrorists have committed these crimes and that the centerpiece is the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Clinton Camp David negotiations proved that Israel may make every concession save one: committing suicide. The Arafat demand that sank the negotiations was the demand to effectuate repatriation to Israel of the 5 million Palestinian refugees in their camps in the adjacent Arab states. If complied with, that would have been the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
The Palestinians demand all of Israel for themselves and therein lies the irreconcilability of this conflict which can only be decided ultimately by force of arms. The Israeli solution is to expel into eastern Palestine (Jordan) all the Palestinians in their midst. Driving the Israelis into the sea a la Kemal Ataturk (Smyrna 1921) is the Palestinian solution.
America is seen as the determining force in this conflict. Our policy is to support Israel as its existence serves to distract Arab attention from our transnational oil interests in the region. Israel's existence weakens the Arab countries. Consequently our country is the force behind Israel. As such we have become the "Great Satan" to the Arabs, their prime enemy. We have forbidden Israel to undertake their solution and, now that our chickens have come home to roost, many Israelis no doubt understand how Americans are now experiencing calamities that befall them almost every day. The bankruptcy of our foreign policy has exposed our vulnerability to fanatics.
Our foreign policy, always an extension of domestic policy, has never been concerned with Israel because she is democratic. That is crass propaganda. Foreign policy serves the dominant domestic interests of our transnational corporations in their attempts to hegemony abroad, profits. For politics is but an extension of economics.
In ancient Greece Athens became the dominant hegemonic power as a result of its victory over the Persians. It formed a defensive alliance with some Greek city states and then exploited them by exacting onerous contributions to the alliance. This unrest coupled with Spartan ambitions resulted in a war that made Sparta the hegemon. And soon Sparta became hated by all because in class conflicts she always supported the elites against the common people.
Rome conquered much of the known world and in doing so, by becoming a thoroughly militarized state, its citizens lost their freedoms. There is a lesson here for us. Rome also always supported the rich in its subject states in their internal conflicts with the poor. And Rome was hated by all.
Until we became the supreme military power after World War II, Americans were the most loved people in Europe and the world. Now we are the most hated precisely because we have supported the wealthy elites against the struggle of the peoples for some democracy and better living conditions. The recent revelations (60 Minutes) of Kissinger and Nixon conspiring to overthrow the Allende government in favor of the bloody fascistic Pinochet regime is a case in point. We call all reformers and revolutionaries, pseudo or genuine, terrorists. Our policy is not to "make the world safe for democracy" but to make the world safe for the globalization of our transnational corporations in order to serve and safeguard their profits. Democracy is a chimera.
If we were to cease meddling in the internal affairs of other nations, then the views of us by others could change.
Our foreign policy, an extension of our domestic anti-labor and pro capital policies, shall not change in the foreseeable future. Thus the possibility of successfully fighting terrorism with force alone may serve as a rationale for establishing a dictatorship. It can happen here.
WALTER TEGNAZIAN
Rockledge, Fla.
I was turning my radio dial today when I happened upon Mark Weisbrot on some talk show, giving his views on the chaos of the past week. Some woman from Virginia was calling in, asking, "Who is this guy? Is he an American?"
At that instant I had one of those sickening moments when I am fully aware that the vast majority of the citizens of the United States find my heroes as alien as if they'd just arrived from a moon of Pluto!
So effective has been the manipulation of our mainstream media by the military/corporate/congressional conspirators, that honest rational thought sounds bizarre to most folks. And our loving praying Skull & Bones leader seems sincere to the majority of the victims of our kakistocracy.
I always read Mr. Weisbrot's pieces in The Progressive Populist. They are consistently lucid and well-researched, and I've never found anything he's written about economics to be untrue. He is a real hero to me -- someone who loves the truth so much and hates hypocrisy so badly that he will speak even the most unpopular truth without blinking.
I feel the same about Dan Perkins (Tom Tomorrow), Jim Hightower, Norman Solomon, Hal Crowther, Jim Cullen, and the late Donella Meadows. Sadly, when all people are allowed to hear are the sinister deceptions of George Will, Rush Limbaugh, and Dan Westinghouse Rather honest criticism of America sounds like commie propaganda.
Surely some reader of this paper, far brighter than I, can figure out some way to get the thoughts of our best minds out to as wide an audience as our worst minds now command. Please do so before Mr. Weisbrot's Virginia critic and her ilk parade to give the CIA unlimited power.
LARRY SURBER
Stoneville, N.C.
Your 10/1/01 editorial called the suicide bombers monsters and damn fools. They, you argued, like others in Ireland, the Balkans, etc., undermined peace efforts. The joyous reaction to the attack by Palestinians dancing in the streets of Nablus, you wrote, "will only steel US resolve to support Israel and dilute sympathy for the Palestinians' plight."
Well, thanks for noting that the Palestinians have a "plight."
Most of the comment on the attack falls into one of two categories: (a) We Americans are innocent angels who were attacked by evil devils; or (b) We Americans have souls blackened with sin and the attack was our punishment for our lack of atonement.
The first thing a political analyst must do is determine the relative positions of the components in the power structure: Who is on top? Who is on the bottom?
So who dominates? Men or women? Whites or blacks? Anglos or Mexicans? So ditto: Who dominates? Israelis or Palestinians?
With 200,000 Israeli settlers on Palestinian territory, living in settlements connected by roads on which only Israelis are allowed to travel, you have a structural social arrangement guaranteed to produce the revolutionary rage which we have just experienced.
Bombing Afghanistan or executing bin Laden will just add gasoline to the fire. If we want peace and security, how about some editorials in The Progressive Populist calling for the abolition of the settlements? Each president, from Reagan to Clinton, warned the Israelis to stop those illegal invasions -- and all those warnings were ignored. In spite of that Israeli defiance, the annual aid of $4 billion to Israel was never withheld or reduced. How can we call them "peace efforts" when every Israeli-Palestinian negotiated agreement just resulted in more settlements?
SYDNEY SPIEGEL
Casper, Wyo.
When your new [10/15/01] issue arrived today, I was reading yet another description of the ruins. The reporter saw "a patch of muddy ground the size of two football pitches, framed by the ruins of ... buildings ... rubble ... and broken walls. ... the surfaces are lacerated and punctured ... yet they stand ... an amputated stump."
No, it is not the ruins of the World Trade Center. This is all that is left of the mosque and its complex of minarets, built in Afghanistan in 1417 in Herat. Byron saw it and called it "the most beautiful example of color in architecture ever devised by man to the glory of his God and himself." The entire surface was covered with mosaic tiles in white, jade, turquoise and lapis. It was deliberately blown up by the British in the late 19th century: part of their war with Russia. It was necessary to destroy the complex in order to save it. And I thought we invented that rationale! [Source: An Unexpected Light: Travels in Afghanistan, by Jason Elliot, 1999]
Their towers: our towers. This is what retaliation brings.
Thank you for this issue, which is full of reassuring good sense -- despite the singular image of a red-eyed bin Laden on the front page.
NANCY RADER
Acton, Mass.
Email ducdame@juno.com
Why didn't the CIA who receives billions of dollars a year, know about these terrorist's and their plans? Why didn't the FBI and other intelligence agencies know about these people and their plans ?
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS, THEY DID KNOW. How could they not know? If they did not know, certainly every one of the top people in these agencies, should be fired for their incompetence and given NO PENSIONS.
Roosevelt knew for two days that Pearl Harbor would be attacked. He allowed it to happen in order to get the peoples consent to enter the war to help BRITAIN. We are not people to these big people at the top, David Rockefeller etc., who do control this country and most of the world, to them we are numbers. THIS IS ALL ABOUT OIL.
This country under the power of these men, wants to take control of ALL the oil supplies in MID EAST COUNTRIES.
Geo. Bush Senior and JR are OIL MEN. David Rockefeller financed Bush many years ago in his oil ventures. He made a rich man out of Geo. Bush. Bush is a CIA man. Let no one fool you. Once a CIA operative, always a CIA operative. Dick Cheney is a very rich oil man.
Yes we have to retaliate against these terrorists. But to go to full scale war is a "POWER PLAY" to take control of most of the world's oil.
We know why the Government allowed the MEDIA to be bought up by BIG BUSINESS. They are the same "ENTITY". Remember the Gulf War, all the stories put out by these powerful men's LOBBIES, stories about Iraq soldiers taking babies out of their cribs in Kuwait and bashing their heads. THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. THAT WAS PROVED LATER. But we had already gone to war.
When they take over these countries it will be slowly, one by one, while they call it clearing out the terrorists. That's why we are warned it will be a long war.
"THE CULT OF SECRECY GIVES POWER TO THE FEW"
For all the money it would take to fight this kind of war, to say nothing of all the loss of life (numbers to them) we could build ETHANOL refineries all up and down the center of this nation close to the farmlands, so the BIO-MASS for ETHANOL would be nearby, SOLAR and WINDPOWER all over the nation, we would be ENERGY INDEPENDENT. This would be absolutely neutral to the environment. No pollution. But it wouldn't be putting money and power into the hands of these OLD VERY OBSCENELY RICH OLD MEN.
The Bush family benefited greatly from the GULF WAR. The boys and Dad were able to come into lots of OIL PROPERTY IN BAHRAIN. I'm not sure where else.
IT'S ALL ABOUT OIL.
Sincerely,
ALYCE DAVIS
Shelter Cove, Calif.
Re: "Get Those Antibiotics Out of My Burger" article, in the 10/1/01 PP. A simple solution to avoid eating meat that has been injected with antibiotics, is to eat either certified organic meats or buy directly from a local farmer that uses sustainable growing methods. One could also become a vegetarian.
Five years ago, my husband and I quit purchasing all meat from the grocery store. We realized that we didn't know where the meat came from (possibly from another country), how old it was, how it had been grown and processed (factory feedlot), or what was in it (like antibiotics), and sometimes it even looked and smelled bad (possible contamination).
I did a little research (check with your local county extension service, sustainable farming association or state department of agriculture) and found several sustainable and organic farmers within a 50-mile radius that were selling chickens, turkeys, pork, beef and lamb. We purchased a mid-size, energy-efficient freezer and stocked up.
I have met all three farmers that I purchase our meat from and we have visited their farms and enjoy a friendship with each one.
My family of four now enjoys meat that is healthier, was grown with less negative impacts on the environment, is helping to support a local farmer, and the meat looks and tastes great.
In addition, your readers can lobby the Food and Drug Administration, United States Department of Agriculture, their congressional senators and representatives and even the president on important food safety issues such as the use of antibiotics and other unhealthy practices.
Here is their contact information: President George W. Bush, The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, DC 20500; phone (202) 456-1111, fax (202) 456-2461; email president@whitehouse.gov.
Congressional Switchboard (202) 224-3121; main website for US Representatives: www.house.gov; main website for US Senate: www.senate.gov.
US Department of Agriculture, 14th & Independence Ave., Washington, DC 20250; phone: (202) 720-2791; web www.usda.gov; Secretary of Agriculture, phone (202) 720-3631; fax (202) 720-2166; email agsec@usda.gov; USDA's Meat and Poultry Hotline: 1-800-535-4555.
Food and Drug Administration, 1-888-463-6332 or FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition: 800-332-4010; see www.fda.gov
DEBBIE ORTMAN
Duluth, Minn.
Email ddo@cpinternet.com
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