An article from Znet written by the Director for International Studies at Trinity College. There are some informative historical items vis a vis Afgani political history.

War Against the Planet 
©2001 Vijay Prashad
 
 
President George W. Bush of the United States appeared on television sets
across the world on the 11th of September and declared war against the
planet. Not only will those who committed the dreadful crimes of the morning
be brought to justice, he declared, but so too will those who once harbored
and now continue to harbor them.
 
Supply ships have started their way to Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, and
toward Spain. A large part of the $40 billion designated by the US Congress
will go toward the preparations that have already begun within the US
military establishment, in close contact with its allies.
 
The Taliban, in Afghanistan, quickly pleaded that the suffering of its poor
should not be increased with the wrath of the cruise missiles. So did
Libya's Gaddafi.
 
Others, such as Pakistan, hastily declared their fealty to the US strike
back, and pledged to allow planes to fly over its territory. India was not
far behind, eager to allow its land for what may be the largest assault
since the bombardment of Cambodia and Iraq.
 
One commentator on the US television networks lamented that the US lost its
virginity at 845am on 9/11 when the first plane struck the World Trade
Center.
 
But the war did not begin at that time. This was not Pearl Harbor. The war
has been ongoing for quite some time now, at least for five decades.
 
Indeed, five decades ago the United States assumed charge of that band of
nations that stretches from Libya to Afghanistan, most of whom are oil rich
and therefore immensely important for global capitalism. The civilizational
mandate held by France and Britain came to a close when World War II
devastated Europe, and it fell to the US to adopt the white man's burden. It
did so with glee, indeed on behalf, for the most part, of the Seven Sisters,
the largest oil conglomerates in the world (most of them US-based
transnational corporations).
 
Alliances forged with right-wing forces in these regions found fellowship
from the US, just as the Left fashioned relations with the USSR. The United
States participated in the decimation of the Left in north Africa and west
Asia, from the destruction of the Egyptian Communist Party, the largest in
the region, to the rise of people like Saddam Hussein to take out the
vibrant Iraqi Communist Party, and of the Saudi financier Osama bin Laden to
take down the Communist Afghan regime.
 
We hear that 9/11 was the "worst terrorist attack in history," but this
ignores the vast history of bombardment, in general, tracked by Sven
Lindquist in his new book (for the New Press), and it certainly ignores the
many terrorist massacres conducted in the name of the United States, for
instance, such as at Hallabja in Iraq or else in South America by Operation
Condor. These are just a few examples. But what is that history before 845am
on 9/11, and will it show us that "retaliation" misses out the fact that the
US has been at war for many decades already?
 
I. The Afghan Concession.
 
In 1930, a US State Department "expert" on Afghanistan offered an assessment
which forms the backbone of US social attitudes and state policy towards the
region: "Afghanistan is doubtless the most fanatic hostile country in the
world today." Given this, the US saw Afghanistan simply as a tool in foreign
policy terms and as a mine in economic terms. When the Taliban (lit.
"religious students") entered Kabul on 27 September 1996, the US state
welcomed the development with the hope that the new rulers might bring
stability to the region despite the fact that they are notoriously illiberal
in social terms. The US media offered a muted and clichéd sense of horror at
the social decay of the Taliban, but without any sense of the US hand in the
manufacture of such theocratic fascists for its own hegemonic ends. In
thirty years, Afghanistan has been reduced to a "concession" in which
corporations and states vie for control over commodities and markets without
concern for the dignity and destiny of the people of the region. Oil, guns,
landmines and heroin are the coordinates for policy-makers, not the shadowy
bodies that hang from the scaffolds like paper-flags of a nation without
sovereignty.
 
Shortly after the Taliban took power in Kabul, the US State Department
offered the following assessment: "Taliban leaders have announced that
Afghans can return to Kabul without fear, and that Afghanistan is the common
home of all Afghans," announced spokesperson Glyn Davies. The US felt that
the Taliban's assertion in Kabul would allow "an opportunity for a process
of reconciliation to begin." Reconciliation was a distant dream as the
troops led by the Tajik warlord, Ahmed Shah Masood and the troops led by
General Abdul Rashid Dostum and the Hazara-dominated Hezb-e-Wahdat party
disturbed the vales of Afghanistan with warfare. Citizens of the advanced
industrial states mouthed clichés about "timeless ethnic warfare" and
"tribal blood-feuds" without any appreciation of the history of Afghanistan
that produced these political conflicts (in much the same way as the media
speaks of the Tutsi-Hutu turmoil without a sense of colonial Belgium's role
in the production of these politico-ethnic conflicts).
 
In 1964, King Zahir Shah responded to popular pressure from his subjects
with a constitution and initiated a process known as "New Democracy." Three
main forces grew after this phase: (1) the communists (who split into two
factions in 1967, Khalq [the masses] and Parcham [the flag]); (2) the
Islamic populists, among whom Burhanuddin Rabbani's Jamiat-i-Islami from
1973 was the main organization (whose youth leader was the engineering
student, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar); (3) constitutional reformers (such as
Muhammad Daoud, cousin of Zahir Shah, whose coup of July 1973 abolished the
monarchy). Daoud's consequent repression against the theocratic elements
pushed them into exile from where they began, along with the Pakistani
Jamaat-I-Islami and the Saudi Rabitat al-Alam al-Islami, to plot against the
secular regime in Afghanistan. In 1975, for instance, the theocratic
elements, led by Hikmatyar in Paktia, attempted an uprising with Pakistani
assistance, but the "Panjsher Valley incident" was promptly squashed. The
first split amongst the theocratic elements occurred in the aftermath of
this incident. Instability in Afghanistan led to the communist coup in 1978
and the eventual Soviet military presence in the region from 1979. The
valiant attempts to create a democratic state failed as a result of the
inability of hegemonic states to allow the nation to come into its own.
 
>From 1979, Afghanistan became home to violence and heroin production. Money
from the most unlikely sources poured into the band of mujahidin forces
located in Pakistan: the US, the Saudis (notably their general intelligence
service, al-Istakhbara al-'Ama), the Kuwaitis, the Iraqis, the Libyans and
the Iranians paid the theocratic elements over $1 billion per year during
the 1980s. The US-Saudi dominance in funding enabled them to choose amongst
the various exiled forces -- they, along with the Pakistanis, chose seven
parties in 1981 that leaned more towards theocratic fascism than toward
secular nationalism. One of the main financiers was the Saudi businessman,
Osama bin Laden. Five years later, these seven parties joined the Union of
Mujahidin of Afghanistan. Its monopoly over access to the US-Saudi link
emboldened it to assassinate Professor Sayd Bahauddin Majrooh in Peshawar in
1988 when he reported that 70% of the Afghan refugees wanted a return to the
monarchism of Zahir Shah (who waited in a Roman suburb playing chess).
Further, the Interim Islamic Government of Afghanistan called a shura
(council) in 1989; the seven parties nominated all the representatives to
the body. All liberal and left wing elements came under systematic attack
from the shura and its armed representatives. The US-Saudi axis anointed the
theocratic fascists as the heirs to Afghanistan.
 
With over $1 billion per year, the mujahidin and its Army of Sacrifice
(Lashkar-i Isar) led by Hikmatyar (who was considered the main "factor of
stability" until 1988) built up ferocious arsenals. In 1986, they received
shoulder-fired Stinger missiles that they began to fire indiscriminately
into civilian areas of Afghanistan. Asia Watch, in 1991, reported that
Hikmatyar paid his commanders for each rocket fired into Kabul. Claymore
mines and other US-made anti-personnel directional fragmentation mines
became a staple of the countryside. Today, about 10 million mines still
litter the vales of Afghanistan (placed there by the Soviets and by the
US-Saudi backed mujahidin). In 1993, the US State Department noted that
landmines "may be the most toxic and widespread pollution facing mankind."
Nevertheless, the US continues to sell mines at $3/mine (mines cost about
$300-$1000/mine to detect and dismantle). Motorola manufactures many of the
plastic components inside the mines, which makes the device undetectable by
metal-detectors.
 
The CIA learnt to extend its resources during the Southeast Asian campaigns
in the 1970s by sale of heroin from the Golden Triangle. In Afghanistan, the
Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI) [Pakistan's CIA], the Pakistani military
and civilian authorities (notably Governor Fazle Huq) and the mujahidin
became active cultivators, processors and sellers of heroin (a commodity
which made its Southern Asian appearance in large numbers only after 1975,
and whose devastation can be gleaned in Mohsin Hamid's wonderful novel, Moth
Smoke). The opium harvest at the Pakistan-Afghan border doubled between 1982
and 1983 (575 tons), but by the end of the decade it would grow to 800 tons.
On 18 June 1986, the New York Times reported that the mujahidin "have been
involved in narcotics activities as a matter of policy to finance their
operations." The opium warlords worked under cover of the US-Saudi-Pakistani
axis that funded their arms sales and aided the conveyance of the drugs into
the European and North American markets where they account for 50% of heroin
sales.
 
Heroin is not the only commodity flogged by the mujahidin. They are the
front-line troops of an ensemble that wants "commercial freedom" in
Afghanistan so that the Afghan people and land can be utilized for
"peaceful" exploitation. The California-based oil company Unocal (76), then
busy killing the Karens and other ethnic groups in alliance with the Burmese
junta and with the French oil company Total, had its eyes on a pipeline from
Central Asia to the Indian Ocean, through Afghanistan. Only with an end to
hostilities, at any cost, will the international corporations be able to
benefit from the minerals and cheap labor of the Afghans. So far, the
corporations have reaped a profit from sales of arms to the Afghans; now
they want to use the arms of the Afghans for sweatshops and mines.
 
For corporations and for corporatized states (such as the US), an
unprincipled peace allows them to extract their needs without the bother of
political dissent. The Taliban briefly offered the possibility of such a
peace. Formed in 1994 under the tutelage of the ISI and General Naseerullah
Khan (Pakistan's Interior Minister), the Taliban comprises southern Pashtun
tribes who are united by a vision of a society under Wahhabism which extols
a form of Islam (Tariqa Muhammadiya) based on its interpretation of the
Quran without the benefit of the centuries of elaboration of the
complexities of the Islamic tradition. In late September 1996, Radio Kabul
broadcast a statement from Mullah Agha Gulabi: "God says that those
committing adultery should be stoned to death. Anybody who drinks and says
that that is not against the Koran, you have to kill him and hang his body
for three days until people say this is the body of the drinker who did not
obey the Koran and Allah's order." The Taliban announced that women must be
veiled and that education would cease to be available for women. Najmussahar
Bangash, editor of Tole Pashtun, pointed out shortly thereafter that there
are 40, 000 war widows in Kabul alone and their children will have a hard
time with their subsistence. Further, she wrote, "if girls are not allowed
to study, this will affect a whole generation." For the
US-Saudi-Unocal-Pakistan axis, geo-politics and economics make the Taliban a
worthy regime for Afghanistan. Drugs, weapons and social brutalities will
continue, but Washington extended a warm hand towards Mullah Mohammed Omar
and the Taliban. US foreign policy is driven by the dual modalities of
containment (of rebellion inspired by egalitarianism) and concession (of
goods which will bring profit to corporate entities). Constrained by these
parameters, the US government was able to state, in 1996, "there's on the
face of it nothing objectionable at this stage."
 
Certainly, on 10 October 1996, the State Department revised its analysis of
the Taliban on the basis of sustained pressure from Human Rights and women's
groups in the advanced industrial states as well as pressure from the
conferences held by Iran (at which numerous regional nations, such as India
participated). In conflict with its earlier statement, the US declared "we
do not see the Taliban as the savior of Afghanistan. We never really
welcomed them." The main reason offered for this was the Taliban's "uniquely
discriminatory manner" with women. The US state department would have done
well to mention the heroic attempt made by the communist regime to tackle
the "woman question." In late 1978, the regime of Nur Mohammad Taraki,
President of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, promulgated Decree
no. 7 which aimed at a transformation of the marriage institution by
attacking its monetary basis and which promoted equality between men and
women. Women took leadership positions in the regime and fought social
conservatives and theological fascists on various issues. Anahita Ratebzad
was a major Marxist leader who sat on the Revolutionary Council; other
notable leaders included Sultana Umayd, Suraya, Ruhafza Kamyar, Firouza,
Dilara Mark, Professor R. S. Siddiqui, Fawjiyah Shahsawari, Dr. Aziza,
Shirin Afzal and Alamat Tolqun. Ratebzad wrote the famous Kabul Times
editorial (28 May 1978) which declared that "Privileges which women, by
right, must have are equal education, job security, health services, and
free time to rear a healthy generation for building the future of the
country....Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close
government attention." The hope of 1978 is now lost and the pessimism must
not be laid at the feet of the Taliban alone, but also of those who funded
and supported the Taliban-like theocratic fascists, states such as the US,
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
 
The real reason for the US frustration with the Taliban was its
recalcitrance toward global capitalism (as an example, the Unocal scheme
fell apart). The Taliban, created by many social forces, but funded by the
Saudis (such as bin Laden) and the CIA, was now in the saddle in the center
of Asia, and it soon became a haven for disgruntled and alienated young men
who wanted to take out their wrath on the US rather than fight against the
contradictions of global capital. Bin Laden, the CIA asset, became the
fulcrum of many of their inchoate fears and angers.
 
II. Oil, Guns and Saddam.
 
During the Gulf War of 1991, a decade ago, the US-Europe discovered the
Kurds for a few years. The Kurds and the Kuwaitis provided the war aims for
the Alliance, since we kept hearing how Saddam Hussein's armies had
exploited both. Oil is not the reason, we were repeatedly told; we are only
concerned for the ordinary people of the region oppressed by these madmen,
such as Saddam Hussein, Hafez al-Assad and the Ayatollahs. We heard little
about the recently closed Iran-Iraq war, about the various contradictions in
the region, indeed about the role of the US-Europe for several decades in
the fabrication of the regimes that ruled here. As the cruise missiles fell
on Iraq, we did not then hear that the first major aerial bombardment in
modern times took place in December 1923 when the Royal Air Force pummeled
the rebellious Kurds (they felt the wrath of the guns again in March 1924,
not being disciplined firmly enough by Headmaster Britain).
 
In 1932 the British put in place the puppet royal dynasty, the al-Saud
family to rule the Arabian Peninsula as Saudi Arabia. This regime was to
protect the "interests" of global capitalism, particularly after oil was
discovered there in the early 1930s. The British put King Faisal over the
newly created Iraq, a Sunni leader over a predominantly Shi'ite land.
Workers movements in the region came under attack from these regimes, many
of which violently crushed democratic dissent in the name of the dollar.
Henry Kissinger was later to create political theory of a policy that had
been long in the works: that the US should lock arms with any political
leader who will resist the will of socialism, who will ensure that
international capitalism's dictates be maintained and who can therefore be a
"factor of stability." The rogue gallery of this policy includes a host of
CIA assets, such as the Noreiga, Marcos, Pinochet, Suharto, the Shah of
Iran, the various Gulf Sheikhs, and latterly such fundamentalist friends as
the BJP in India. Even when some of these leaders flirted with the Soviets
(Saddam and al-Assad), their usefulness to US policy prevented a break in
their links to the CIA, mainly to contain domestic left-wing dissent. The
Ayatollah may have been a natural asset, but his regime was stamped by a
radical and patriarchially egalitarian Shi'ism that terrified the Oil
Kingdoms, whose tenuous rule was now bolstered even further by the armies of
the imperial powers and their proxy state at this time, Iraq. When the
Iran-Iraq war broke out, people spoke of it as a sectarian war between Shias
and Sunnis, but few pointed out that Iraq has a large Shia population and
that Iraq fought primarily with the backing of the US and its alliance to
"contain" the Iranian revolution and the rule of the Mullahs. Saddam, then,
was friend not foe.
 
During these years, no one mentioned the Kurds. For decades the communist
movement grew amongst the Kurds, both in Turkey and in northern Iraq. But by the early 1970s, the CIA entered the battlefield to cut down the left and
bolster the right. Between 1972 and 1975 the CIA paid $16 million to the
eccentric and untrustworthy Mullah Mustafa Barzani as a "moral guarantee" of
US support for this activities. In 1959, Barzani had expelled the communists
from his mainly Iraqi party and he had sent Iranian Kurds to their death in
the camps of the Shah. Barzani was an asset that the US cultivated, and is
now a close ally of Saddam Hussein, another US asset. In 1975,
Marxist-Leninists within the Kurdish resistance formed the Patriotic Union
of Kurdistan (PUK), which pushed many Kurds to the Left, including those in
the Iraqi Kurdish Front formed in 1988. Saddam Hussein was given the green
light by Washington to take out the PUK, and he conducted chemical bombing
on them in 1983 (at Arbil) and most spectacularly in 1988 (at Halabja, where
five thousand died, and many thousand continue to suffer). The outrage of
Halabja created a momentary stir in the Left media, but nothing was done
then because Saddam was a US ally and asset - it returned to do ideological
work during the Gulf War. As many died at Halabja as on 9/11, but their
death does not factor in when NPR announces that 9/11 was the "worst
terrorist attack in history." When terror is conducted in our name, then it
is not terror but "retaliation."
 
III. Revenge or Justice?
 
President Bush promises to get those who did the bombings in New York and
Washington, but he also promises that those who harbor them will feel the
wrath of the US. This is the most dangerous statement so far. Not only does
it violate all manner of international laws, it ignores the fact that the US
has harbored these criminals for years, mainly at the expense of the global
Left. Saddam and bin Laden are products of the US, even as they, like
Frankenstein's beast, turn against their master now. The lesson is not to
continue the madness, to go after the symptom with $40 billion of firepower.
The lesson, for all democratic minded people, is to undermine the basis of
our global insecurity.
 
First those people who did the horrendous deed on 9/11 must be found,
arrested and brought to trial. The path of justice should not be
short-circuited by the emotions of the moment.
 
Second, our fight in the US continues, as we continue to point out that US
foreign policy engenders these acts of barbarism by its own desire to set-up
strong-arm "factors of stability" in those zones of raw materials and
markets that must be subservient to US corporate interests. Vast areas of
anger, zones of resentment will continue to emerge - this is not the way
forward. Another indiscriminate bombardment will bring forth more body bags
for the innocent.
 
History shows us that the US was not innocent on 9/11, even as thousands of
innocent people died. We should not confuse these two things: the terrorists
made no distinction between those who conduct political and economic terror
over their lives, between a regime that they dislike, corporate interests
that they revile and innocent people who live in the same spaces. The terror
of the frustrated works alongside the terror of the behemoth to undermine
the powerful and democratic urges of the people. Both of those terrors must
be condemned.
 
Vijay Prashad Associate Professor and Director, International Studies
Program 214 McCook, Trinity College, Hartford, CT. 06106. 860-297-2518.

LINKS TO NEWSPAPERS OF THE MIDDLE EAST: check out these middle eastern perspectives...
ARABIA SAUDITA
<http://www.arab.net/asharqal-awsat/ Asharq Al-Awsat Newspaper

BAHRAIN
<http://www.bahraintribune.com Bahrain Tribune
<http://www.alayam.com Alayam Newspaper
<http://www.alayam.com/files/english.html Alayam Newspaper

EGIPTO
<http://www.egypttoday.com/ Egypt Today
<http://www.businesstoday-eg.com/ Business Today
<http://www.metimes.com/n3splash.html The Middle East Times


ISRAEL
<http://www.jcn18.com/ Jewish Communication Network
<http://www.jreport.virtual.co.il/ The Jerusalem Report
<http://www.netvision.net.il/interbet/ Reshet Bet
<http://gauss.technion.ac.il/israeline/ Israel Line
<http://www.touristguide.co.il Israel Tourist Guide Magazine
<http://virtual.co.il/news/news/arutz7/ Arutz Sheva Israel National
Radio News
<http://www.virtual.co.il/city_services/news/today.htm Virtual Jerusalem
<http://www.al-ayyam.com/ Al Ayyam
<http://www.alquds.com/ Al Quds
<http://www.haaretz.co.il/ HaAretz
<http://www.ilespnl.com/ Israel en EspaÒol
<http://www.globes.co.il Globes
<http://www.jpost.co.il Jerusalem Post
<http://Jerusalem.edu Jerusalem Christian Review
<http://www.snsnews.co.il SNS News Service

JORDANIA
<http://http://www.arabia.com/Addustour/ Jordanian Newspaper
<http://www.accessme.com/Shihan/ Shihan
<http://www.arabia.com/Addustour/ Ad Dustour Daily
<http://www.access-jo.com/Al-Ra'i/ Al Ra'i
<http://www.arabia.com/star/ The Star

KUWAIT
<http://www.paaet.edu.kw/Info/HomePage/shaheen/kt/current/kutoday.htm
<http://www.al-watan.kuwait.net/ Al Watan

IRAN
<http://www.netiran.com/news/TehranTimes/ Tehran Times
<http://www.netiran.com/news/IranNews/ Iran News
<http://www.ettelaat.com/ Ettelaat
<http://neda.net/hamshahri Hamshahri
<http://www.iranshahr.com/ IranShahr

LIBANO
<http://www.dailystar.com.lb/ The Daily Star
<http://www.freelebanon.org/ Free Lebanon
<http://www.aflnet.com/ AFL Americans for a Free Lebanon
<http://www.beiruttimes.com Beirut Times
<http://www.annahar.com.lb/index.html An Nahar Newspaper
<http://www.future.com.lb/news.htm Future News Daily
<http://www.lebanon.com/news/newswire/index.htm Lebanon News Wire
<http://www.assafir.com/ Assafir

PALESTINA
<http://www.palestine-net.com/news/ Palestine: News and Press Releases
<http://www.alhayat-j.com/ Al Hayat Al Jadedah
<http://www.amin.org/ Amin
<http://palestine-online.com/ Palestine Online
<http://www.ptimes.com/ The Palestine Times
<http://members.aol.com/plstntimes/index.html The Palestine Times (II)
<http://www.alquds.com/ Al Quds
<http://www.al-ayyam.com/ Al-Ayyam Palestinian Daily

QATAR
<http://www.raya.com Al Raya
<http://www.gulf-times.com/ Gulf Times

UNION DE EMIRATOS ARABES
<http://khaleej.com/ Khaleej Times
<http://www.alittihad.co.ae/ Al Ittihad

 This message comes to you via the Namaste mailing list
hosted by Deepak Chopra and ©2001 The Chopra Center for Well Being.
The Deeper Wound

As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took
>off 45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed
>in Detroit, chaos had broken out. When I grasped the fact that American
>security had broken down so tragically, I couldn't respond at first. My
>wife and son were also in the air on separate flights, one to Los
>Angeles, one to San Diego. My body went absolutely rigid with fear.
>All I could think about was their safety, and it took several hours
>before I found out that their flights had been diverted and both were
>safe.
>
>Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been
>hit by a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater
>trauma that reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the
>tens of thousands who would survive only to live through months and
>years of hell. And I asked myself, Why didn't I feel this way last
>week? Why didn't my body go stiff during the bombing of Iraq or
>Bosnia? Around the world my horror and worry are experienced every
>day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are bombed
>mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland.
>Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?
>
>As we hear the calls for tightened American security and a fierce
>military response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any
>answers. However, we feel compelled to ask some questions.
>
>Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of
>this evil? We must find out not superficially but at the deepest
>level. There is no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world
>and is even celebrated.
>
>Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we
>don't know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this condition for
>a long time?
>
>One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for
>America. Why were we selected to be the focus of suffering around the
>world?
>
>All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't
>something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of
>God? Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India,
>Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of
>America?
>
>Can any military response make the slightest difference in the
>underlying cause? Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity?
>
>If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone?
>
>When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and
>biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them?
>Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us?
>
>If all of us are wounded, will revenge work? Will punishment in any
>form toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an
>eye, a tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind,
>toothless and crippled?
>
>Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been
>magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is
>patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another
>form of tribalism?
>
>What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can
>we afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer?
>
>Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in
>our collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without
>that is also from within?
>
>When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded,
>after the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul
>searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the
>deepest spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the
>shield of military might and stockpiled arsenals. There can be no
>safety until the root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don't
>think anyone of us has the answers. It is imperative that we pray and
>offer solace and help to each other. But if you and I are having a
>single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this
>moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world.
>
Love,
Deepak

Here's the fist paragraphs of the article about the king:
http://jang.com.pk/thenews/sep2001-daily/16-09-2001/main/main13.htm

Plan to install Zahir Shah in Afghanistan
By Nusrat Javeed
ISLAMABAD: The United States of America has "virtually bought" the idea that "within minutes of taking over Kabul," the former king of Afghanistan, Zahir Shah, should be installed as the legitimate ruler of that country.
Highly reliable sources from the diplomatic community of Islamabad also
revealed to "The News" that the plan to restore Zahir Shah was originally
drawn by NATO-related security experts from a European country.

>From Iranian news:
http://www.irna.com/en/tnews/010916205421.etn09.shtml

Two days prior to the WTC attacks, the death of the leader of the
anti-Taliban opposition in Afghanistan was attacked by two men on suicide
mission that could also be linked to the organization behind the hijackers.
This is very relevant since one may speculate that there was an intention to
prepare the national political terrain for U.S. retaliation. I also read
that the U.S. is avoiding to attack by land and would prefer to lead the
anti-Taliban Nothern Alliance Forces (the opposition in Afghanistan, waging
a civil war against the Taliban) to have them do the military occupation of
the government with all the back-up they may need.

Afghan leader Masood confirmed dead Tehran, Sept 14, IRNA -- The legendary
leader of anti-Taliban NorthernAlliance Forces in Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah
Masood, has succumbed to the injuries he sustained in a suicide bomb
attack last Sunday, reliable Afghan sources confirmed Friday.

In the meantime, Israel is taking advantage the whole situation to increase
its military agression against Palestinian finally doing away with any hope
of peace talks.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1545000/1545718.stml

Phillipines:
In Phillipines the Government has informed of a plan to either attack US
Embassy in Manila or hijack us-bound airplanes after WTC attacks.

http://malaya.com.ph/sep15/news1.htm THIS IS A QUOTE FORM THAT ARTIClE:
Edgar Manda, Ninoy Aquino International Airport general manager, said
there were intelligence reports of a plan by a Muslim extremist group with
links to Bin Laden to hijack a commercial airplane bound for the US.

He said the plan was supposed to be carried out after the attacks in the US.

Manda said the report was based on "A-1" or very reliable information which
they relayed to management of Philippine Airlines, Northwest and Continental
Micronesia, three of the biggest airlines with regular flight to Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and Guam.>>

THE FULL ARTICLE:
Police say 3 Omani...

"The initial feeling is they may have planned to attack the embassy before
September 11 or on September 11," Rigoberto Tiglao, presidential spokesman,
said.
Tiglao was referring to the date when hijacked planes were crashed into the
World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.
US officials have said the hijackers were probably men of Middle East origin
and that Saudi-born exile Osama Bin Laden was a key suspect in the
conspiracy.
President Arroyo told reporters in Tokyo earlier on Friday that joint
operations of the PNP and US authorities were being undertaken at the hotel.
Cameramen were prevented from filming the area around the hotel and the US
Embassy and security in the area was heightened.

But hotel guests were not disturbed and the embassy was open for business as
usual.

National security adviser Roilo Golez said the operation was aimed only at
securing the area and preventing any threat to the US embassy.

"It's just for security. It (the building) is fronting the embassy. You
could have snipers there," Golez said.

A Sri Lankan photojournalist, with Arab looks, was accosted by police while
covering an anti-terrorist rally in front of the US embassy yesterday.

Police released the Sri Lankan identified only as Hoya after he presented
his press credentials. He was, however, warned against taking photographs of
the US embassy.

Embassy officials refused to comment.

Asked if there was any specific threat to the embassy, Golez said there was
none but "we presume there is a threat worldwide."

Justice Secretary Hernando Perez said a suspected foreign terrorist, said to
be a brother of one of the suspects in the New York attack, slipped through
a security cordon at the airport Thursday night.

Perez would not identify the alleged terrorist but said he is a pilot of
Saudia airlines. Sources, however, said the terrorist was a certain Mohammad
Bukhari.

Also Thursday night, immigration agents at the NAIA detained an Iranian for
allegedly posing as a Filipino citizen.

Simeon Vallada, NAIA head immigration supervisor, identified the suspect as
Sadeq Salim. A Philippine passport allegedly bought in Switzerland for
$3,000 and documents on various high-powered firearms and explosives were
seized from him.

Vallada said Salim was first intercepted and deported April last year after
he yielded maps of Cagayan de Oro City and the US embassy in Manila.

A few weeks later, an explosion ripped through Cagayan de Oro City.

Vallada said Salim also resembled features of an Interpol photograph of a
wanted international terrorist.

Edgar Manda, Ninoy Aquino International Airport general manager, said there
were intelligence reports of a plan by a Muslim extremist group with links
to Bin Laden to hijack a commercial airplane bound for the US.

He said the plan was supposed to be carried out after the attacks in the US.

Manda said the report was based on "A-1" or very reliable information which
they relayed to management of Philippine Airlines, Northwest and Continental
Micronesia, three of the biggest airlines with regular flight to Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit and Guam.

The Air Force has deployed its specialized units such as special operations
wing, K-9 unit and explosives and ordnance squadron to beef up airport
security.

Lt. Gen. Benjamin Defensor, PAF chief, also offered the Air Transportation
Office its counter-urban terrorism team to "preempt or contain hijack
attempts in our domestic skies."

Japanese media quoted Arroyo as saying on Thursday that there may be a
connection between those who planned and carried out the attacks against the
United States and the local Abu Sayyaf guerrillas.

"It is better to wait for the investigation, but there are some traces of
relationship, and some angles we are looking at," Arroyo said.

Bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, has been on the Philippine watchlist
for years on suspicion of funding the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and the
Abu Sayyaf.

Both groups professed fighting for an Islamic state but the Abu Sayyaf,
holding a US missionary couple and 16 Filipinos hostage for 15 weeks on
Basilan island, is seen largely as a bandit group whose main business is
kidnap for ransom.

The military earlier this year also accused Bin Laden's group of giving
financial aid to the Abu Sayyaf to carry out attacks on US interests in the
Philippines and to assassinate Arroyo but did not present evidence to back
up its claim. (With Priam Nepomuceno, Jim Bilasano, Jay Rempillo, Victor
Reyes, Reuters)

MEDIA WATCHDOGS:

"If thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought."
George Orwell

DEMAND THAT U.S. NETWORK TELEVISION BE MORE THAN A MOUTHPIECE OF BUSH'S NATIONAL SECURITY STATE. THOSE INTERESTED IN JUSTICE NOT VENGEANCE SHOULD CALL THESE NUMBERS AND ASK FOR A BALANCED PERSPECITIVE ON ALL NATIONAL NEWS DURING THIS CRISIS:

· Contact CNN and Fox News Channel.

CNN, Washington Bureau, 202-898-7900 (ask for the news room)
CNN President, Walter Isaacson, 404-827-1500

Fox News Channel, 212-301-3100 (Jama Vitale), FAX 212-301-4224
Fox News Channel Comment Line: 888-369-4762; comments@foxnews.com

Following are some talking points for your calls to these outlets (courtesy of Media Alliance) :

1. Their coverage needs to include pacifist perspectives. So far the discussions in the
mainstream media have centered on which form of violent retribution is preferred.
Avoiding discussion of other responses, including non-violent ones, contributes to an
atmosphere that further perpetuates the cycle of violence that manifested itself on
Tuesday.

2. Their coverage needs to include perspectives that oppose racist and xenophobic
stereotyping and behavior, especially against Arabs and Arab Americans. Although
outlets have covered the recent spate of hateful attacks on Arab Americans, there
need to be voices included that explicitly defend immigrants. Immigrants of all
backgrounds have always been, and are today, a central part of U.S. society and our
many communities.

3. Their coverage needs to include analysis of the root causes that led the people
who perpetrated the attacks on Tuesday to want to kill thousands of civilians (and
themselves too). One such root cause is the longstanding, widespread, and
devastating violence that has been the result of U.S. foreign policy. Some recent
examples include the U.S.-driven sanctions on Iraq which have killed more than 1.5
million children, the billions of dollars in military aid to Colombia which the U.S. has
used to fuel a deadly civil war, and the hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid
to Israel to enforce an occupation in violation of numerous U.N. resolutions.

Additionally, reporters should acknowledge the role of the United States in training
and aiding many parties that the U.S. government subsequently has labelled as
"terrorists" (e.g. Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, etc.). Reporting that the
terrorists "are against American values" and "hate our freedom" is inadequate.

4. Their coverage needs to include perspectives that oppose new policies that will
use the recent attack as a pretext to increase military spending, fast track StarWars, and curtail civil liberties.

A truth that is being hidden in the media coverage and the political speeches is that these attacks are the result of a situation created by the U.S. government and its wealthiest, most powerful allies. U.S. military and foreign policy has reaped hatred -- any U.S. retaliation will escalate the hate of the U.S. and worsen an already bad situation. The U.S. government is using last week's tragedy to cause an even more devastating human tragedy across the globe.
The military offensive being prepared abroad has been accompanied by a wave of racism, xenophobia and threats to basic civil liberties at home. Already, some of the ugly face of American chauvinism and racism has come out: a violent, racist, xenophobic, backlash has begun against Arab Americans, Muslims and South Asians across the country.

A September 14 mass meeting (organized in less than 24 hours) of over 200 students and activists at the University of California Berkeley, voted for the 3 Points of Unity and called for a mass rally and march as part of a September 20 National Day of Action Against Scapegoating Arab Americans and to STOP THE WAR. On campuses throughout the nation, we call for rallies, teach-ins, marches, and other events to show solidarity and opposition to the war drive on this day.
Within months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, racist hysteria against Japanese Americans led to the internment of nearly one hundred twenty thousands people solely on the basis of race -- we must never allow anything like that to happen again.
Now is the time to act. Join many thousands across the country the National Day of Action Against Scapegoating Arab Americans and to STOP THE WAR.
BRING THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR TERRORISM AND FOR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY TO TRIAL IN AN INTERNATIONAL COURT!!!

PREVENT A HOLOCAUST OF STARVATION THIS WINTER IN AFGHANISTAN.

JUSTICE AND PEACE, NOT VENEANCE!!!