> > by William Mandel > Oakland, California > > 9/11/01 5:36 PM > The attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center > are the most important event in world history since the collapse of the > Soviet Union. > The disappearance of the USSR ended a half century in > which two powers dominated the world. The casualties in New York, > Washington, and in the skies made an end to the belief that the United > States could continue waging wars costing us no blood, whether in no-fly > zones over Iraq, in Kosovo, or anywhere else on any continent. > > For fifty-six years Washington has successfully conducted > mass murders of noncombatant civilians from the air with no fear of > retaliation. In 1945, when Japan could no longer strike back, there was > Hiroshima, 75,000 killed. Then Nagasaki, 40,000 killed. The Korean War > cost that country, with no possible means of harming the United > States, 4,000,000 dead [Encyclopedia Brittanica] versus 34,000 > Americans, or more than 100 Koreans per American. Most of the Korean deaths > were caused by American carpet bombing (white phosphorus, napalm, > explosives)to break the will to resist, and therefore > were predominantly civilian. > > The numbers in the Vietnam War were of the same orders of > magnitude."Desert Storm" has slaughtered 6,000 Iraqi children per month since the end of the fighting, due to the embargo against > necessities. > > Until now the vast majority of Americans have clucked > their tongues over these things and gone about their business. No more. > The deaths in the collapsed New York towers, the Pentagon, and the crashed airliner are 6,000 [number corrected post 9/11]. The super-expensive space and information age espionage technology of the National Security Agency, as well as the more conventional activities of the CIA and FBI are now the > laughing stock of the world. As to the Defense Intelligence Agency in > the Pentagon, I wonder if it was accidental that the plane striking that > building hit exactly the section where that agency was housed. > > There is simply nothing Washington can do to restore the > situation existing before this morning. Even if it decides to blame > Saddam Hussein, and nukes Baghdad off the face of the earth, it will > accomplish nothing in a world of suicide bombers and underground > organizations capable of working in complete secrecy and with perfect > coordination. Undoubtedly U.S."intelligence"(?!)operations will be multiplied. That guarantees absolutely nothing. > > The Korean War was accompanied by the rise of > McCarthyism. It is possible that today's events may bring similar > hysteria and suppression of civil liberties. Not only would that further diminish the > civil liberties that are one of this country's proudest achievements, > but by so doing it would reduce the ability of the citizenry to ask the > necessary questions about the policies responsible for the hatred of the > United States expressed in this catastrophe. > > The time has come to realize that the motivation that > brought about our Revolutionary War in 1776 is the strongest single > force active in the world today. Peoples will be independent, no matter what > Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley want to do with and in their > countries. > The United States must either adapt to that or suffer the > fate of ancient Rome. > > William Mandel, Oakland, California > (37 years [1958-1995] on Pacifica Radio stations > ************************************************ > ======================================================== Do you teach in the social sciences? Consider my SAYING NO TO POWER (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), for course use. It was written as a social history of the U.S. for the past three-quarters of a century through the eyes of a participant observer in most progressive social movements (I'm 84), and of the USSR from the standpoint of a Sovietologist (five earlier books) knowing that country longer than any other in the profession. Therefore it is also a history of the Cold War. Positive reviews in The Black Scholar, American Studies in Scandinavia, San Francisco Chronicle, forthcoming in Tikkun, etc. Chapters are up at http://www.billmandel.net ========================================================
