-Caveat Lector- --- In [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Smokey Bandit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: right after sending that last one, i find this at:
http://www.economicdemocracy.org/wtc/binladentape Subject: BIN LADEN TAPE: 10 Points --text follows this line-- CRITICS OF U.S. POLICY need avoid focusing too much on the (many and obvious) flaws in the tape and its credibility. Indeed, even assuming, for the sake of argument, that the tape is exactly as presented, there are many lies and deceptions related to the conclusions the American public is being told to make from this tape. Below are 10 points, of which only one (#8) addresses the authenticity questions around the tape. The other points are far more relevant. Is the guilty/innocence of Bin Laden important? The answer is YES to the question of "how to we put suspects on trial?" (which, at least three or four times Bush deliberately threw away our chance to do -- see below) But the answer is a resounding NO! to the relevance, if the question is "does it tell us much about the policy Washington has pursued?" which is exactly the propaganda purpose it's being used for: to try to convince us that the attacks on civil rights at home (planned before 9/11) and the invasion of Afghanistan (also planned before 9/11 -- see BBC story at bottom) at the cost of as many or more "collateral damage" as the disgusting calculus of the suicide attacker of 9/11 that the "collateral damage" of WTC civilians was "ok" in order to stop US policies which have been killing civilians all over the third world (ironically, yet another similarity: the suicide bombers achieved the opposite, and made the militarist extremists here stronger; similarly the bombing of Afghanistan has made anti-US extremists stronger). But more on that later. Here are the 10 points: ============================== In their November 15 Q/A on the war [http://www.zmag.org/qatw.htm], Michael Albert and Stephen Shalom point out that even if evidence is ultimately produced proving a connection to Bin Laden, this came weeks to months after the bombing, and "isn't evidence supposed to precede, not follow, punishment?" Point #1: You don't shoot someone first, then LATER produce evidence they were guilty. ============================== Albert and Shalom add: "More to the intent of the question, if, when a vigilante mob tries to lynch someone, it turns out that their suspect actually WAS guilty, that doesn't make the mob's actions any less vigilante [or illegal, or immoral -ed]. And this is true even if the mob doesn't KILL A GREAT MANY PEOPLE (MOSTLY VICTIMS, NOT CULPRITS) in the process of going after their suspect, AS HAS BEEN OCCURRING in Afghanistan" [Emph added -ed] Point #2: Vigilante actions are illegal and immoral; all the more atrociously so when they become even more criminal in their own right by massacring scores of innocents ============================== Points 3, 4, and 5 are still more powerful Namely,they point to the fact that steps that could have been taken to prevent this, were consciously avoided, with deliberate, calculated decisions to choose avenues towards reaching the same goals as the stated goals, by non-murderous means. After all target #1, those who have released this tape remind us again and again, is Bin Laden. Consider these indisputable facts, of which Matthew Rothschild, the Editor of The Progressive reminds us: "The Bush Administration has sped by several exits off the bloody highway of war. In the days before the United States began bombing, the Taliban offered to arrest bin Laden if the U.S. produced the evidence. Bush said no. "Then the Taliban offered to put bin Laden on trial under Islamic law. Bush said no. "Then after the first week or so of bombing, the Taliban foreign minister asked for a two- day ceasefire so his government could find bin Laden and hand him over to a third country. Bush said no." ["The Sick Logic of War http://www.progressive.org/webex/wx102701.html ] ============================== Point #6: Apparently yet another opportunity to negotiate the surrender of Bin Laden was yet again turned down. See the extended quote from John Pilger below on the "guilty secret." In any even, is the main fig leaf for the mass-murder being caused by Washington's action is that "we had no choice, it was the only way to [try to] 'get' Bin Laden" -- then not only was that fig leaf always atrocious and immoral as a justification had it been true, but furthermore that fig leaf has by now been removed many times over. "We need to do this" was not only always an unacceptable and immoral justification for slaughtering innocent Afghans who had as much right to live as those people in the Twin Towers, but it is now abundantly clear that the justification was not only unacceptable and immoral, it was also a ghost -- plenty of other options were there and were deliberately not pursued. ============================== It follows that even if the outcome in today's Afghanistan had been 100% pure success and completely positive, not a single word of praise is deserved by Washington. If there is a way for a doctor to save a sick patient using a bandage that is readily available, and the doctor chooses to ignore and not even look at the bandages available, and instead kills another patient by tearing this second patient's skin off to use as bandage for the first, we would not admire this doctor. So even if the "outcome" was 100% success (which it is not, see below).. even if that had been that case, given the atrocious costs (the killing of countless innocent men, women and children in Afghanistan who had just as much a right to live as those people in the Twin Towers) and that the costs were on top of it, unnecessary, there would be zero admirable about the outcome. ============================== Point #7: We [not you or I, but "we" meaning our "leaders" in Washington] have made future terrorist attacks again the U.S. more likely. Whatever you think of the tape, we have helped make Bin Laden more popular. After all, Washington TURNED DOWN the efforts to hand over Bin Laden. Which means the attack on Afghanistan was preventable. If it was preventable, it was not only murderous, but a murderous attack that was deliberately chosen as the preferred path. Thus, even if we have Bin Laden on tape pressing a red button saying "kill WTC now" that evidence would be as strong as, but not stronger than, what we already have for Washington: 100% certain proof, confessions, etc, that they chose to attack Afghanistan's people Indeed, yes, the Afghan people WERE targeted; not only were civilian casualties inevitable in the bombing, but the Order to stop refugees from getting to aid, the lack of even a short pause in the bombing as called for by Oxfam, by Doctors without Borders, by Christian Aid, and others, was a death sentence to how many Afghans we will never know precisely, but indisputably, many. Has that made Americans safer? Indeed, dissident have said for years that the policy in Iraq would a) cause huge suffering b) allow Saddam to stay in power c) would note make the U.S. safer. We have been right and the "hawks" and war-mongers should admit their errors, apologize, and hang their heads low in shame. On a), over a half MILLION Iraqi children dead. If you still believe the fairy tales that this is all Saddam's doing, you may be interested to read that the head of inspections resigned over the sanctions. Then they replaced him with another. Eventually the second one resigned too. Wake up: http://www.unfoundation.org/unwire/archives/UNWIRE000216.asp#17 On b), After more than 10 years, Saddam is as strong as ever. The dissidents were right again. No matter if Saddam is toppled two minutes after this article is posted, the dissidents were still right -- a monumental 10+ years record of failure On c) The dissidents were not only right, but ironically, the murderous ultra-sanctions policy on Iraq that has killed so many children (see web link at a)) is one of the grievances that evil-doers who plan WTC attack use to RECRUIT people who would not be draw to terrorism, into their fold, by first talking only about injustices, and later, when the recruit is "assimilated", slowly move them to terrorism. Point #7: The policy of the "War" on the country of Afghanistan has not made us safer, and indeed it has made us less safe. ************************************************************ Point #8 About the information in the tape. As noted above, it is a mistake to focus on doubts about the tape since that is not the main issue. Pointing to the (rather obvious) problems with the tapes not only leaves one one, the present culture, to attacks of "defending Bin Laden" (just as those of us who OPPOSED funding Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war were accused of "defending the Ayatollah"), but is also misses the central point that even if the tape was exactly as presented, the illogical "conclusions" we are asked to make, are not valid. It's important to concentrate on revealing, carefully, patiently, precisely, that the "conclusion" they want us to take (that the murderous, illegal, immoral, and unnecessary attack on Afghanistan was somehow justified) -- is nonsense. That is why all of the points above are made first, and they argue forcefully against the justifications Washington is trying to make for their murderous attack on Afghanistan, and they are entirely as valid whether the tape is misrepresented or whether it is exactly as presented. We leave the discussion of the obvious problems with the tape to this one, single point, then: We already know that Bin Laden is a hateful, morally atrocious person who has publicly expressed his joy at the events of 9/11. In this regard, the tape, if authentic, reveals nothing new (indeed, Bin Laden's ability to have his heart "moved" by the deaths of Iraqi and Palestinians children while seeing the deaths at the WTC as "necessary" against "the enemy" is utterly analogous to Washington's ability to have it heart "moved" by the WTC and Kuwaiti and Israeli victims, while taking "necessary" steps which lead directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children and others) It has already been pointed out that the tape is grainy, that it has been edited by Washington, that the translation was done by Washington, and that the direct Arabic is very difficult to hear even for those who wish to make their own translation. And that one can barely see the lips so it would be easy to "dub" a tape of a distant Bin Laden with any voice-over. Let's put all of that aside. A crucially overlooked fact is the fact -- not only admitted by casually stated by Washington -- that the date on which this tape is alleged by Washington to have been taken is *after* 9/11. A tape before 9/11 showing Bin Laden had knowledge (*if* authentic) would have been conclusive evidence he had some knowledge. The most that could be concluded from a tape made after 9/11 is that Bin Laden attempts to impress his friend by making claims (perhaps true, perhaps false, perhaps partially true) about his knowledge. Let's put this, too, aside, and on top of assuming the tape is authentic, and the translation authentic, let's assume the statements made are also true. An Egyptian journalist on NPR (who took pains to distance himself from this obvious point which "stubborn" people, "others" make, he said) is that having prior knowledge is not the same thing as being "the mastermind" and it's possible that Bin Laden had prior knowledge that something was going to happen, without being the Mastermind. To add what the Egyptian journalist failed to add, the CIA itself might very well have had prior knowledge that it was looking like something of a terrorist attacking or hijacking was going to take place. Does that make the CIA the Mastermind behind the terrorist attack? The main difference seems to be that Bin Laden is very pleased about the attack, while the CIA and Washington are instead pleased with the attacks that killed innocent civilians in Afghanistan who had just as much a right to live as those people in the Twin Towers; and are pleased with the actions they take in Iraq which have killed as many people each month as who died in the WTC attack, innocent Iraqi men, women, and children who have just as much a right to live as those people in the Twin Towers had a right to live. And whose relatives feel the same pain, anger, rage, and despair as Americans, particularly relatives of the WTC victims did. CNN published excerpts quote Bin Laden: "We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day. We had finished our work that day and had the radio on." Is CNN claiming that Bin Laden couldn't have possibly been the Mastermind since he was merely "notified" of what the date the attacks would take place, and notified only "the previous Thursday," only five days before the attacks, that that is when they would take place? This isn't clear. What is clear is that statements such as "the brothers who conducted this operation, all they knew was that they have a martyrdom operation [since to be martyred is to die one wonders about accounts of Bin Laden laughing that some hijackers did not know they would die" -- that these are thing Bin Laden knew in November. The transcripts do not have Bin Laden claiming to have known of this level of detail or much detail at all, before 9/11. He might well have, but the transcripts do not seem to show more than what Bin Laden claimed, in November, to followers, that he knew then. Clearly, Bin Laden, "worried the secret would be revealed" was aware that some attacks were being planned out, though which specific details if any he knew, and when he knew them is unclear, let alone any evidence that he masterminded the operation. Again this is nothing new; it was a safe assumption that the network Bin Laden is a part of would have been given *some* prior knowledge by the direct planners, that some attack was being planned. Same with the statements Bin Laden appears to make about the tape that "we did not reveal the operation to them" -- who is "we"? Osama and one other guy? Or several masterminds and Osama being told about it by the masterminds? Or several dozen planners? Critically even those of us who critique at this level fall right into the framework established by the Establishment if we focus on Bin Laden. Bin Laden is only one of several people at this taped meeting who had had some prior knowledge that some attack was being planned; others not at that taped meeting were mentioned (e.g. "Abdullah Azzam, Allah bless his soul, told me not to record anything.....so that I thought that was a good omen") who had given given some kind of indication that an attack was being planned. The tape does not tell us that Osama knew of the main details, or that he was one of only a handful, let alone that he was a mastermind, let alone the sole mastermind. Some vague "we" planned it and some larger set of people, another vague "we", knew about it, at least to some level of detail, and perhaps more detail by 4 days before 9/11, nothing surprising. [http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/ret.bin.laden.quotes/index.html] Probably many dozens of people, at the very minimum, had had some level of indication that an attacks against the US was being planned and would happen soon. Why the focus on Bin Laden? The answer is not, unfortunately, that Bin Laden is in control over everyone else, as all the mainstream commentators have pointed to a de-centralized network. The answer is not, unfortunately, that Bin Laden is the main source of hate or inspiration to hate, since dozens and hundreds of other leaders and individuals in de-centralized networks in dozens and dozens of countries have similarly hateful messages and similarly hope to inspire individuals to "martyr" themselves in anti-US attacks. Why then does Washington focus on Bin Laden with maniacal ferocity when it knows damn well that there are many others who are influential and hateful? In order not to dilute the propaganda message, and to not let the American people see the common threads between this years dictator we support, and next year's demonized "HE is the new Hitler!" target which keeps our eyes away from Washington's policies which breed these people year after year. More to the point..: ============================== Point #9: Demonize individuals, to avoid looking at root-causes True, Bin Laden certainly has a level of charisma (in his followers' eyes) that is, admittedly high -- and will be higher if he is assassinated by the US, it must be noted. So no, that can't be it either. And Washington certainly doesn't demonized Bin Laden because he's evil -- that is just obvious, since Washington supported the Taliban, and supported Saddam Hussein, and supported Noriega, and supported scores of "evil" people. The rapists and torturers and murderers of the Northern Alliance who barely differ from the Taliban, are "our allies" we're told, remember? So no, Bin Laden being "evil", that can't be the reason either. [And to be clear, by pointing out that Bin Laden is being "demonized" we are not denying his evil nature: we are making a point about the manipulation of the emotions of the American people through a single-minded mania (like Saddam-fear-mania in the past) that is so narrow and extreme that it keeps many other critical aspects out of focus, out of sight, out of mind.] No, the reason is simply that demonizing an individual is the goal, if you want to control the public mind of the American publish. You need to "put a face on Evil" and thus you need to choose *someone*. That someone should be prominent and one of the leading figures, true, but otherwise it can be anyone. This year, Bin Laden. Not many years ago, the Taliban were being supported by the US, while demonizing Saddam Hussein (always called just, "Saddam"); before that, Saddam was being funded and aided by Washington, while Demonizing Noriega; in three years; we may be demonizing the people we're putting into power in Afghanistan. Yet they are just as brutal today as they will be then; the Taliban were just as brutal then as they are now; and so on. So you create public "he's worse than Hitler" hysteria about the newly appointed Demon, a Demon which changes depending on convenience. And so you beat the American public into going along with your plans (the plans that were in place, as BBC confirms, well before 9/11) to invade Afghanistan, to attack civil liberties in the US, etc. But there is another reason you want to demonized an *individual*, because that it's an excellent way of controlling the public's perception. Namely, you focus on demonizing an individual, no matter even if you reveal in other, separate articles that the "enemy" is a very broad, de-centralized network across many countries -- because of the danger of the American public realizing that the source of the (indeed, very real) evil is not "evil persons" The US public might start thinking, wait, if it's not evil persons, then where do these de-centralized networks of people who hate the US come from? But you're not allowed to ask that. After the Oklahoma City bombing it was OK to ask what motivated Tim McVeigh, and you were not accused of "justifying" the terrorism, but if you try to ask the same question here, you are accused of "excusing the terrorism". Why? Because that's a very dangerous question they don't want us to ask. Because if we ask about the roots of these de-centralized networks, we first, take away their excuse to invade this or that country. We would be taking away their excuse to invade this or that country because it would be clear that you can't stop terrorism that way. Putting aside the immoral, and terrorist nature of killing scores of innocents again and again, it wouldn't work in practical ground. Not the least of which because we would be inflaming more pain and suffering and nd outrage against the US...but even more simply, because if suppose you catch Bin Laden, suppose you you destroy the Taliban, does that end terrorism? If terrorism is a complex phenomenon spanning dozens and dozens of countries where de-centralize networks, and all sorts of individual small groups who can afford a $20 box cutter and a few hundred dollar's worth of flight training -- if that's terrorism, then isn't it obvious that invading this or that country, or even capturing Bin Laden or destroying the Taliban, doesn't end terrorism, any more than the invasion of Panama, and all the civilians we killed, and capturing Noriega, let us win the "drug war" as was claimed at the time? The "War on terrorism" is as phony as "The war on drugs" was and is. But there's a second reason. If we ask that dangerous question, we also start questioning the decades old policy of strong-arm intervention and of proping up dictators and all sorts of unsavory things about Washignton's policy, that our leaders would really rather we not worry our little heads over, they're really rather we watch the superbowl. So that's why you're not allowed to ask what motivated those people who blow themselves, along with so many innocents, up, although it was ok in the case of Tim McVeigh. So you continue this Childrens' Cartoon view of the world as Good Guys Fighting the Bad Guys and you demonize individuals so you put an end to any kind of logical, rational analysis based on facts of what is going on in the world, why, and what the root causes are. Can you imagine a doctor trying to get rid of a nasty disease saying, "I don't care what the root causes are, I'm going to treat whatever I see on the surface, don't you dare ask about what the cause is of the symptoms"?? ============================== Point #10: Policy is a failure, and morally bankrupt. It follows that even if the outcome in today's Afghanistan had been 100% pure success and 100% positive, not a single word of praise is deserved by Washington, any more than if I go on a shooting rampage through a neighborhood and massacre people dozens, in order to "get" the person who tried to kill me or who killed my uncle. As Howard Zinn point out, The law is very clear: if I'm currently under attack by a killer, I have a right to self defense. If I survive the attack however, and killer escapes, I do not have the right to go home, get a run, and go back outside vigilante style to try to kill the person who attacked me; if I did I would be guilty of murder. You're supposed to go to the sheriff. The sheriff here is international law, which Washington ignored. [Zinn also pointed out that in this "war", success was and is at best uncertain; that "We" (our "leaders") would be killing innocents was certain from the start. That tells you the moral level of Washington; the same as those who say that to stop the killings of third world people by the US, it's an "Acceptable collateral damage" to kill innocents in the WTC.] Zinn's analogy can be amplified however. Washington's behavior is as if I went out with my gun to the neighborhood where the suspected killer (I never agreed to release the evidence when I did this) is suspected to be hiding, and with guns and grenades and bombs, to kill hundreds or thousands of innocent people. If a murder suspect is hiding in a neighborhood and they offer to surrender him to an independent court, and the police decline and instead blow up a large number of houses in the neighborhood, it would be grossly illegal and immoral even if they caught him and didn't hurt anyone else. Let alone if they also killed thousands of others. To say that Washington "didn't intend" to kill those people is a half truth at best. It's reasonable to assume that those who attacked the World Trade Center wanted carnage. But it could have been different. It's possible to imagine, and it could have happened, that a different, brutal but slightly less brutal group, could have planned and carried out a similar attack against the US, only that this hypothetical second group did not *intend* to kill Americans; it was only willing to. It's entirely possible that an attack against the US could have been carried out, or in the future might be carried out, by a group which wants to capture or kill a CEO or government official who is responsible for deaths abroad. E.g., Bill Clinton who carried out a bombing (read: terrorist) attack against the Sudan, bombing half of their pharmaceutical plans, claiming chemical weapons were being produced, then, later, backing off that claim, after the impoverished county's millions suffer who knows how much suffering and death due to half of the entire country's medicine production being destroyed. Or against Bush senior for his illegal and terrorist was against Nicaragua. Or former Haitian leaders who are accused of terror, which Washington refuses to extradite, and whom it is harboring. Suppose such a group decided to bomb the World Trade Center, or part of D.C. or somewhere else, where the US leader was suspected to be, and supposed they did not *intend* to have hundreds or thousands of American killed, but were "merely willing" to let that happen. The question is, would be in this nuanced modification of the 9/11 scenario, would we call the group who carried this out anything but terrorist, atrocious, insane, and evil? Of course not. That they didn't "intend" to kill but were "merely" willing to kill Americans would buy them zero sympathy. They knew with 100% certainty that Americans would die, during their mission, so "didn't intend" is more than a little hypocritical. Similarly, it was 100% certain that very large numbers of innocent Afghani men, women, and children, already desperately poor, would be killed, or pushed father into starvation or indeed over the brink to death by starvation. The fact that Washington "didn't intend" for this to happen but "merely" was willing to take the steps that it knew very well would with 100% certainty lead to those deaths, is a nuance that puts Washington in the same moral arena as those "hypothetical WTC terrorist" who are in turn no better than the actual ones. ====================================================================== Excellent Howard Zinn talk: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3865 Second Audio: http://www.radio4all.net/proginfo.php?id=3819 Interview with Professor Francis Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law [who holds both PhD and Law degrees from Harvard] about the illegality and intentions of U.S. attacks on Afghanistan. ====================================================================== Appendix: "The Guilty Secret" Excepted from WAR ON TERROR: FALSE VICTORY By John Pilger [http://www.zmag.org/pilgerfalse.htm] The guilty secret is that the attack on Afghanistan was unnecessary. The "smoking gun" of this entire episode is evidence of the British Government's lies about the basis for the war. According to Tony Blair, it was impossible to secure Osama bin Laden's extradition from Afghanistan by means other than bombing. Yet in late September and early October, leaders of Pakistan's two Islamic parties negotiated bin Laden's extradition to Pakistan to stand trial for the September 11 attacks. The deal was that he would be held under house arrest in Peshawar. According to reports in Pakistan (and the Daily Telegraph), this had both bin Laden's approval and that of Mullah Omah, the Taliban leader. The offer was that he would face an international tribunal, which would decide whether to try him or hand him over to America. Either way, he would have been out of Afghanistan, and a tentative justice would be seen to be in progress. It was vetoed by Pakistan's president Musharraf who said he "could not guarantee bin Laden's safety". But who really killed the deal? The US Ambassador to Pakistan was notified in advance of the proposal and the mission to put it to the Taliban. Later, a US official said that "casting our objectives too narrowly" risked "a premature collapse of the international effort if by some luck chance Mr bin Laden was captured". And yet the US and British governments insisted there was no alternative to bombing Afghanistan because the Taliban had "refused" to hand over Osama bin Laden. What the Afghani people got instead was "American justice" - imposed by a president who, as well as denouncing international agreements on nuclear weapons, biological weapons, torture, and global warming, has refused to sign up for an international court to try war criminals: the one place where bin Laden might be put on trial. ====================================================================== BBC reveals plans to launch a war against Afghanistan preceded 9/11: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/south_asia/newsid_1550000/15503 66.stm ====================================================================== [Copy of this post: http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=106047&group=webcast] ------------------------------------------------------------ The Official Iron Maiden Website: http://www.ironmaiden.com More Metal at: http://www.metal-is.com --- End forwarded message --- <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. 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