Attacks Imminent?
Attacks limited to targets found by special forces War on Terrorism - Observer special Ed Vulliamy, Washington, Jason Burke, Peshawar, Peter Beaumont and Paul Beaver Sunday September 30, 2001 The Observer Devastating attacks on bases controlled by Osama bin Laden are set to be launched in the next 48 hours as part of a tightly focused military operation approved by US President George Bush and backed by Britain. The strategy, which is a victory for pragmatists in both Britain and America, is designed to kill bin Laden and his forces, and will be launched in tandem with strikes against air and ground forces of the Taliban regime supporting him. The operation, which British and US sources say could be launched as early as today, would begin with air and missile strikes to destroy the Taliban's 20-aircraft air force, remove anti-aircraft missile batteries, and destroy Taliban tanks and other armour. In a clear sign that strikes were imminent, Bush declared last night, after a meeting with military advisers at Camp David: 'America will act deliberately and decisively, and the cause of freedom will prevail.' In a live radio address, he added: 'We did not seek this conflict, but we will end it. This war will be fought wherever terrorists hide, or run, or plan. Other victories will be clear to all.' The aim of the first phase, likely to be launched from aircraft with US and British ships in the Arabian Sea, would be to remove any threat from the Taliban for the substantial incursion that would follow. Sources say this would be in the form of a so-called desant operation - an airborne assault deep into Taliban-held territory - led by helicopter-carried troops of the US 82nd Airborne Division. Sources said that the 101st Air Assault Division has also been ordered to be ready for action. Also fully mobilised was the 10th Mountain Division, which would be the main ground force in what Bush called an upcoming 'guerrilla war' fought by US and British forces. Although soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division are trained for low-level parachute jumps, any assault is likely be made by first abseiling down fixed lines from helicopters. American forces would be supported by US Special Forces - including US Army Rangers and Green Berets, and by British Special Forces. British units understood to have been earmarked include mountain warfare cadres of G-troop, 22 SAS Regiment; the Special Boat Service's Mountain Troop - which is trained for cliff assault and Arctic warfare - and the Mountain Leaders' section of 4/5 Royal Marine Commando. All are trained and equipped to operate in mountainous terrain for periods of up to a fortnight without being resupplied. The US troops are equipped with a specialised version of the Black Hawk attack helicopter and long range MH-47 Chinooks armed with rotary cannon. They would also be able to call on support from AC-130 aircraft - nicknamed Puff the Magic Dragon - which can give ground support with an artillery cannon in its belly. Initial targets earmarked for the air assault and desant operation include bases controlled by the al-Qaeda around Kabul, in particular those with usable air strips. Crucial evidence that links bin Laden to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington nearly three weeks ago has been obtained by The Observer . A secret intelligence dossier compiled by an Arab state with a longstanding interest in bin Laden last night revealed that at least one of the 19 hijackers was trained in a camp in Afghanistan run by al-Qaeda and that another is 'close to bin Laden'. American security sources told The Observer they believe four of the hijackers had spent time in Afghanistan with the Taliban and possibly with al-Qaeda. One, Wali Mohamed al-Sherhi, is believed to have been taught urban warfare and terrorism in al-Farooq training camp in eastern Afghanistan, close to the Pakistan border. He is thought to have left Afghanistan 18 months ago. The dossier, for the first time, definitely links al-Farooq to bin Laden, naming four men who are bin Laden aides who it says administer and train those at the camp. Back in Washington, the tight focus of the planned military operation is a victory for the pragmatists in Bush's cabinet, notably Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell has been involved in a battle of wills with hawks gathered around the figure of Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who would like to see US strikes against a wide range of targets, including Iraq. It also follows words of caution from America's key ally, Britain. Tony Blair has advised that the only target of military action should be bin Laden's network and, if necessary, the Taliban. The location of the bases was revealed yesterday by Russian intelligence, which has provided the Pentagon with the most detailed intelligence so far on the network of bin Laden camps. The news came as British sources claimed that the Taliban was set to flood the west with heroin in an attempt to destabilis
Successful Anti-war demonstration in Chico
There was an anti-war demonstration in Chico today, attended by about 100 people. The group held a short rally at the downtown plaza, then marched a block and joined the weekly peace vigil on Main Street that has been a regular Saturday even in town ever since a Nike missile silo was built outside of town in the 60s. Chico is in a very conservative, primarily agricultural County, and yet the demonstrators were met with many, many car honks in support, and no antagonism or disapproval whatsoever. The demostration was organized after a "pro-war rally" (they really called it that) was sponsored by the local Republican party last week. Only about twenty people showed up for it. Maybe there's hope. tim = Check out the Chico Examiner listserves at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DisorderlyConduct http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ChicoLeft Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $40 annually or $25 for six months. Mail cash or check payabe to "Tim Bousquet" to POBox 4627, Chico CA 95927 __ Do You Yahoo!? Listen to your Yahoo! Mail messages from any phone. http://phone.yahoo.com
FWD: Michael Albert: What's Going On?
http://www.zmag.org/whatsgoing.htm What's Going On? By Michael Albert The U.S. response to September 11 seeks to benefit elites in the U.S., and, to a lesser degree, around the world. There are various goals. --> Destroy the bin Laden network --> Topple the Taliban --> Build a coalition fighting selected terrorists internationally in exchange for trade and foreign aid benefits and the right of coalition partners to pursue their own dissidents locally --> Channel fear and anger to cut education, social services, health care, and other socially desirable expenditures --> Expand military spending --> Enlarge police and surveillance budgets --> Curb civil rights --> Deny and even aggravate just grievances around the world when doing so serves corporate interests even if it also fuels the despair that breeds terrorism --> Ignore international legality to curb notions that the U.S. ought to obey international law --> Avoid defining terrorism as any attack on civilians for political ends, to avoid indicting the U.S. and its allies. But if you are Bush, how do you juggle so many goals simultaneously? How do you neutralize bin Laden, topple the Taliban, and strengthen regimes supportive of U.S. interests, yet avoid destabilizing others we want to maintain? How do you create a domestic dynamic that expands police and military powers and that redistributes wealth upward by gutting social programs and enhancing regressive taxes, yet retain popular support? And what about dissent...how does that impact your choices? The good news is that I don't think it can all be done, supposing dissidents react with sufficient vigor and clarity. The campaign to elaborate an anti-terrorism war into national policy is ill-conceived. That last little proviso -- that they must avoid clearly defining terrorism -- is the Achilles heal of the entire undertaking. With sufficient resistance, the campaign will succumb to its own obvious hypocrisy. U.S. policy makers are terrorists too. There are numerous indicators that activists will have the room to mount the needed resistance and help communicate the towering hypocrisy. In the past thirty years I have rarely addressed an audience too big to fit in a large auditorium - but in the last two days I was on a national radio call-in with two million listeners for two hours, and I was on NPR, again nationally, for an hour. Demonstrations and gatherings are occurring locally all over the country, with education and solidarity resulting. Many feel this is the worst of times for leftists.but while it is certainly a time of great grief and fear, and a time of immense danger, and while it is certainly a time of widespread confusion and nationalism, nonetheless, regarding communicating with previously apolitical people, there are many more openings than closings of opportunity occurring, both on the local and on the national scale. So, again, if you were Bush, what would be your preferred agenda, if you could have your way? Here is my best guess...at the moment, with admittedly little information available. First, you would elicit fear and nationalism. Second, you would convince populaces worldwide that there is a long-term war we must fight (the same war that was at the core of Reagan's foreign policy twenty years ago), which requires a massive allotment of resources and energy, plus lock-step patriotism. Third, after saber-rattling sufficiently to arouse fear and passion, you would ratchet down the rhetoric in accord with the necessity to avoid actual military losses or risking destabilizing friendly regimes, and to avoid appearing to want to punish civilians. Fourth, to have a good shot at getting rid of the Taliban, you would close the borders of Afghanistan, starve the country, and hope that Taliban members start to defect and that the country rises up in anguish and despair. Fifth, to fill the ensuing power vacuum, you would support Afghanistan's Northern alliance. Most important, sixth, to diminish the groundswell of anti-war opposition to your combating terror with even greater terror, you would send food to Afghanistan's borders, and perhaps even drop food from planes inland. But, if you could have your way, not too much food, of course. Indeed, if you remained free to do so, you would provide only a pittance compared to the need generated by closing the borders in the first place and by removing larger sources of aid. Your goal would be to induce starvation sufficient to topple the Taliban. It would not deter you that such behavior is precisely the definition of terrorism -- attacking civilians for political aims - because seventh, you would blame the ensuing starvation, caused by your closing the borders, on the Taliban itself. Finally, you would claim, eighth, that we are humanely seeking to avoid innocent suffering, even as the starved bodies pile up. Assuming Bush and his advisors can overcome some internal opposition from their right and reign in the momentum to shoot someone tha
Complexity sets in
Listen to the damned It is not Islam or poverty that succours terrorism, but the failure to be heard Orhan Pamuk Saturday September 29, 2001 The Guardian As I walked the streets of Istanbul after watching the unbelievable images of the twin towers in New York blazing and collapsing, I met one of my neighbours. "Sir, have you seen, they have bombed America," he said, and added fiercely, "They did the right thing." This angry old man, who is not religious, who struggles to make a living by doing minor repair jobs and gardening, who drinks in the evening and argues with his wife, had not yet seen the appalling scenes on television, but had heard only that some people had done something dreadful to America. I listened to many other people express anger similar to his initial reaction, which he was subsequently to regret. At the first moment in Turkey, everyone spoke of how despicable and horrifying the attack was. However, they followed up their denunciation of the slaughter of innocent people with a "but", introducing restrained or resentful criticism of America's political and economic role in the world. Debating America's world role in the shadow of a terrorism that is based on hatred of the "west", endeavours to create artificial enmity between Islam and Christianity and brutally kills innocent people is extremely difficult and, perhaps, morally questionable. But since in the heat of righteous anger at this vicious act of terror, and in nationalistic rage, it is so easy to speak words that can lead to the slaughter of other innocent people, one wishes to say something. If the American military bombs innocent people in Afghanistan, or any other part of the world, to satisfy its own people, it will exacerbate the artificial tension that some quarters are endeavouring to generate between "east" and "west" and bolster the terrorism that it sets out to punish. We must make it our duty to understand why the poor nations of the world, the millions of people belonging to countries that have been pushed to one side and deprived of the right even to decide their own histories, feel such anger at America. We are not obliged, however, always to countenance this anger. In many third world and Islamic countries, anti-American feeling is not so much righteous anger, as a tool employed to conceal the lack of democracy and reinforce the power of local dictators. The forging of close relations with America by insular societies like Saudi Arabia that behave as if they had sworn to prove that Islam and democracy are mutually irreconcilable is no encouragement to those working to establish secular democracies in Islamic countries. Similarly, a superficial hostility to America, as in Turkey's case, allows administrators to squander the money they receive from international financial institutions and to conceal the gap between rich and poor, which has reached intolerable dimensions. Those who give unconditional backing to military attacks to demonstrate America's military strength and teach terrorists "a lesson", who cheerfully discuss on television where American planes will bomb as if playing a video game, should know that impulsive decisions to engage in war will aggravate the hostility towards the west felt by millions in Islamic countries and poverty-stricken regions. This gives rise to feelings of humiliation and inferiority. It is neither Islam nor even poverty itself directly that succours terrorists whose ferocity and creativity are unprecedented in human history, but the crushing humiliation that has infected third world countries like cancer. Never has the gulf between rich and poor been so wide. It might be argued that the wealth of rich countries is their own achievement and does not concern the poor of the world, but never have the lives of the rich been so forcibly brought to the attention of the poor through television and Hollywood films. Today, an ordinary citizen of a poor Muslim country without democracy, or a civil servant in a third world country or a former socialist republic struggling to make ends meet, is aware of how insubstantial an amount of the world's wealth falls to his share and that his living conditions, so much harsher than those of a westerner, condemn him to a much shorter life. At the same time, a corner of his mind senses that his poverty is the fault of his own folly, or that of his father and grandfather. The western world is scarcely aware of this overwhelming humiliation experienced by most of the world's population, which they have to overcome without losing their common sense and without being seduced by terrorists, extreme nationalists or fundamentalists. Neither the magical realistic novels that endow poverty and foolishness with charm, nor the exoticism of popular travel literature manage to fathom this cursed private sphere. The great majority of the world population - which is passed over with a light depreciating smile and feelings of pity and compassion - is afflic
