September 17, 2001
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
1:36pm.
I've spent the morning cleaning paintball spatter off my combat clothing and organizing slides I took out for the show with Wes. Now, I gotta return the borrowed slide projectors to Mike Beliveau, Rob Roy and Hilcrest Church. Before the end of the day, I want to publish the images I shot playing war, cuz I know some of the boys will be looking. I promised the guys who operate the battle ground that I'd let them use the pictures in exchange for given me an extra fill of ammo.
The events of September 11th were awesome to see live. I liked how switching channels offered different perspectives. News reporters from various stations said things that didn't jive, but I thought it was cool... cuz it was real journalism for a change. They were putting out information as soon as it came in... without adding propaganda. However, there was one image of people in Afghanistan dancing in the streets and little was said describing what was happening in the scene, but it seemed like those folks were rejoicing the attack. CNN could have just cut and pasted the clip... which might have been shot at a much earlier date. It is smart to be skeptical of news sources.
It has been hard to ignore media and folks talking about "terrorists". Tabatha said she has been depressed all week. The boys playing paintball were talking about killing "towel heads", and how Canada needs to protect ourselves or we'll be next, "especially us here in Saint John, because we got one of the largest oil refineries in North America, a port and a nuclear power plant." War is in people's heads. I'd rather it not be in mine. I'm choosing to fight this war with love. I got a gift for Tabatha: a t-shirt with a big sun shining on the front, and I made her a card that says, "You are my sun shine."
I don't know what more to say. I wrote a couple paragraphs then deleted them. I hesitate to publish some thoughts when I don't know them to be "true". Talking to Trish on the phone a minute ago, she said I should write whatever I think... and not to worry. So I'll briefly tell you what I wrote: I wrote about how government puts the fear of war in people's heads to unite them and justify military spending. Building weapons creates jobs and the economy gets a boost.
Propaganda machines are pumping out opinions and advice... and I'm taking it in... cause I know there is a lot to be learned. It is too easy to bury my head in the wilderness and pretend it is not happening(although I gotta do that sometimes just to keep sane). The following are a few different points of view.
An hour ago, when I sat down at the computer, an email in my father's inbox caught my attention, entitled, "WE CAN, INDIVIDUALLY, THWART THE TERRORISTS." It said:
Here's a short essay on what average people can do to thwart
the plans of the terrorists. We hope you take heed. You are welcomed to pass this appeal on to others.
____________________________________________
NEVER, ON ANY FRONT
While we have mourned our losses and searched for solace this past
week, we have united our hearts and our minds. Our wills remain strong and
steadfast. Our spirits are soaring with determination.
Americans are now asking themselves, "What can I do to help?"
Millions have prayed and tens of thousands have responded to blood drives
and have donated money to the Red Cross and other trusted organizations.
That will continue. But what else can you do?
The answer may be more simple than you realize. The answer is work
harder -- harder than you've ever worked before.
Here's why:
As America and her allies unite, there is an important aspect of the
terrorists' strategy to destabilize the civilized world that cannot be
ignored.
David Dolan, a former CBS correspondent in Israel, stated this week,
"(The) enemies concluded in the 1970's that the great United States could
eventually be brought to its knees by internal guerrilla-style terrorist
strikes that would wreak emotional and economic havoc.
"America's gigantic warships and far flung military bases would prove
basically useless... Militants realized that the main target for attack
should be lower Manhattan, since that would severely injure the massive
U.S. economy -- the key element in America's power and prestige."
The terrorists were successful in wreaking emotional havoc.
However, the economic havoc our enemies have conspired so hard to
achieve can be stopped!
You see, our enemies used our own airplanes to destroy our lives and
property, and now they want to use our own fears to destroy our economy.
They've physically killed our countrymen, and now they want to economically
kill the rest of us.
Our free economic system is psychologically driven. When you're
scared, you stop spending, when you stop spending, the economy comes to a
standstill, and more workers are laid off, creating a downward spiral.
The value of the American dollar is based on consumer confidence and
productivity. That's why, more than ever, Americans need to insure that
our economic base remains strong by doing two simple things -- work harder
and spend money!
The money you spend has to be earned by good old fashioned hard work.
The same holds true for our government. The $40 billion that has been
pledged by Congress to fight this terror does not grow on trees. While
Congress does have a printing press in the basement, the fact remains, that
the value of the money is only backed by the labor it takes to create it.
If American consumers are not working, not buying products or services, and
not paying taxes, then the $40 billion might as well be Monopoly money --
it is worthless.
We cannot fight this new war with fake currency.
If there were ever a time for Americans to roll up their sleeves and
get to work, now is the time.
You may not be in the military -- but you can do your part in assuring
victory in this new war by being a confident and loyal supporter of our
economic system by shopping with your hard earned dollars.
There are no excuses. If you don't have a job, find one. If you
can't get one, then do something constructive and fix up the house. If
you're retired, volunteer to fix up your community. No matter what your
circumstances, each of us can apply more effort to our occupations and
volunteer activities.
Even though our thoughts and prayers during this past week have taken
us away from our jobs, this is not the time to curl up in a ball and
pretend this is all going to go away. If you want to do your part in
making America stronger, now is the time to open your wallet and buy
American to put other Americans to work.
The stock market will be re-opening. The terrorists will be watching
the financial television networks, with great hopes that the opening bell
will spell disaster. Nothing would make them rejoice more than to see the
markets nose dive into economic chaos, forcing businesses to close. They
are hoping that investors will run for the hills, causing an erosion in
confidence of our capitalistic system. We've already seen it. Our airline
companies are on the brink of collapse.
What can you do? Buy American stocks! Make solid investments in our
blue chip companies that employ hundreds of thousands of workers and who
make up the backbone of our commercial prosperity. If you like smaller
companies, then buy those too. Mortgage rates are very low and stocks have
been undervalued for too long. You have a golden opportunity to personally
participate in America's economic triumph and thwart the terrorists' plans.
And buying U.S. Savings Bonds doesn't hurt either!
It's time to invest in America!
It's time to put our shoulders to the grindstone, work harder and
better at our jobs, and unite our pocketbooks to show the terrorists that
they will NEVER win on any front.
-- Lee Simonson, Publisher
lee @ heartwarmers.com
http://www.heartwarmers.com
The below was sent to me by my friend, Deb:
Dear Friends,
The following was sent to me by my friend Tamim Ansary, Tamim is an
Afghani-American writer. He is also one of the most brilliant people
I know in this life. When he writes, I read. When he talks, I listen. Here
is his take on Afghanistan and the whole mess we are in.
Gary T.
Dear Gary and whoever else is on this email thread:
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone
Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that
this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with
this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral
damage. What else can we do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit
discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am from
Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've
never lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will
listen how it all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt
in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity
in New York. I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even
the government of Afghanistan.
The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who took over Afghanistan in
1997. Bin Laden is a
political criminal with a plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When
you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of
Afghanistan" think "the Jews in the concentration camps." It's not only
that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. They were the
first victims of the perpetrators. They would exult if
someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear out the rats
nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban?
The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A
few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are
500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food.
There are millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these
widows alive in mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines,the farms
were all destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the
Afghan people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it
already. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level
their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate
their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from
medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that. New bombs
would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they
at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the
Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away
and hide. Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans,they
don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying
over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the
criminals who did this horrific thing. Actually it would only be
making common cause with the Taliban--by raping once again the people
they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true
fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there
with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs
to be done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly
to kill as many as needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms
about killing innocent people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand.
What's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some
Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's
hideout. It's much bigger than that folks. Because to get any troops to
Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely.
The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first.Will other Muslim nations
just stand by? You see where I'm going.
We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West. And guess what:
that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did
this. Read his speeches and statements.It's
all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might
seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and
the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a
holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose,
that's even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in
the end the west would win, whatever that would mean,but the war would last
for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the
belly for that? Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
Branden sent me this:
Hello All,
I know we are all still reeling from last Tuesdays events. I've been keeping very busy since
Tuesday going to community meetings, planing vigils and community forums and such. This is a
time for mourning and reflection. I think it is also a time for the hardest kind of reflection:
self-examination. This kind of reflection is inevitably difficult, but it needs to be done. Some of
you have recieved quite a few forwards and e-mails from me over the last five days as I have
tried to counter the mainstream media distortions and deception. I hope I haven't overwhelmed
you. I'm afraid our efforts may be to no avail, as things look more hopeless today. Nonetheless
I will continue my efforts in the hope that calm and reason will prevail. I have been spending the
weekend grieving and pondering the immensity of suffering in the world. Still I think there is
room for hope among the ashes. If we do nothing we guarantee that things will remain exactly as
they are, but if we make an effort to change the world for the better than there is a least the
possiblity that things will one day justice and peace will prevail. So while we mourn for the past
we must begin to fight for the future. I am including a letter from a professor of mine, that had me
in tears a few moments ago, as a starting point for the reflection and self-examination that must
take place if we are to move on from here.
Love,
Branden
#################
Shocked and Horrified
Larry Mosqueda, Ph.D.
The Evergreen State College
September 15, 2001
Like all Americans, on Tuesday, 9-11, I was shocked and horrified to
watch the WTC Twin Towers attacked by hijacked planes and collapse,
resulting in the deaths of perhaps up to 10,000 innocent people.
I had not been that shocked and horrified since January 16, 1991, when
then President Bush attacked Baghdad, and the rest of Iraq and began
killing 200,000 people during that "war" (slaughter). This includes the
infamous "highway of death" in the last days of the slaughter when U.S.
pilots literally shot in the back retreating Iraqi civilians and
soldiers. I continue to be horrified by the sanctions on Iraq, which
have resulted in the death of over 1,000,000 Iraqis, including over
500,000 children, about whom former Secretary of State Madeline
Allbright has stated that their deaths "are worth the cost".
Over the course of my life I have been shocked and horrified by a
variety of U.S. governmental actions, such as the U.S. sponsored coup
against democracy in Guatemala in 1954 which resulted in the deaths of
over 120,000 Guatemalan peasants by U.S. installed dictatorships over
the course of four decades.
Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the horror I felt when the U.S.
overthrew the governments of the Dominican Republic in 1965 and helped
to murder 3,000 people. And it reminded me of the shock I felt in 1973,
when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Chile against the democratic
government of Salvador Allende and helped to murder another 30,000
people, including U.S. citizens.
Last Tuesday's events reminded me of the shock and horror I felt in 1965
when the U.S. sponsored a coup in Indonesia that resulted in the murder
of over 800,000 people, and the subsequent slaughter in 1975 of over
250,000 innocent people in East Timor by the Indonesian regime with the
direct complicity of President Ford and Secretary of State Henry
Kissenger.
I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S. sponsored
terrorist contra war (the World Court declared the U.S. government a war
criminal in 1984 for the mining of the harbors) against Nicaragua in the
1980s which resulted in the deaths of over 30,000 innocent people (or as
the U.S. government used to call them before the term "collateral
damage" was invented--"soft targets").
I was reminded of being horrified by the U. S. war against the people of
El Salvador in the 1980s, which resulted in the brutal deaths of over
80,000 people, or "soft targets".
I was reminded of the shock and horror I felt during the U.S. sponsored
terror war against the peoples of southern Africa (especially Angola)
that began in the 1970's and continues to this day and has resulted in
the deaths and mutilations of over 1,000,000. I was reminded of the
shock and horror I felt as the U.S. invaded Panama over the Christmas
season of 1989 and killed over 8,000 in an attempt to capture George H.
Bush's CIA partner, now turned enemy, Manual Noriega.
I was reminded of the horror I felt when I learned about how the Shah of
Iran was installed in a U.S. sponsored brutal coup that resulted in the
deaths of over 70,000 Iranians from 1952-1979. And the continuing shock
as I learned that the Ayatollah Khomani, who overthrew the Shah in 1979,
and who was the U.S. public enemy for decade of the 1980s, was also on
the CIA payroll, while he was in exile in Paris in the 1970s.
I was reminded of the shock and horror that I felt as I learned about
the how the U.S. has "manufactured consent" since 1948 for its support
of Israel, to the exclusion of virtually any rights for the Palestinians
in their native lands resulting in ever worsening day-to-day conditions
for the people of Palestine. I was shocked as I learned about the
hundreds of towns and villages that were literally wiped off the face of
the earth in the early days of Israeli colonization. I was horrified in
1982 as the villagers of Sabra and Shatila were massacred by Israeli
allies with direct Israeli complicity and direction. The untold
thousands who died on that day match the scene of horror that we saw
last Tuesday. But those scenes were not repeated over and over again on
the national media to inflame the American public.
The events and images of last Tuesday have been appropriately compared
to the horrific events and images of Lebanon in the 1980s with resulted
in the deaths of tens of thousand of people, with no reference to the
fact that the country that inflicted the terror on Lebanon was Israel,
with U.S. backing. I still continue to be shocked at how mainstream
commentators refer to "Israeli settlers" in the "occupied territories"
with no sense of irony as they report on who are the aggressors in the
region.
Of course, the largest and most shocking war crime of the second half of
the 20th century was the U.S. assault on Indochina from 1954-1975,
especially Vietnam, where over 4,000,000 people were bombed, napalmed,
crushed, shot and individually "hands on" murdered in the "Phoenix
Program" (this is where Oliver North got his start). Many U.S. Vietnam
veterans were also victimized by this war and had the best of
intentions, but the policy makers themselves knew the criminality of
their actions and policies as revealed in their own words in "The
Pentagon Papers," released by Daniel Ellsberg of the RAND Corporation.
In 1974 Ellsberg noted that our Presidents from Truman to Nixon
continually lied to the U.S. public about the purpose and conduct of the
war. He has stated that, "It is a tribute to the American people that
our leaders perceived that they had to lie to us, it is not a tribute to
us that we were so easily misled."
I was continually shocked and horrified as the U.S. attacked and bombed
with impunity the nation of Libya in the 1980s, including killing the
infant daughter of Khadafi. I was shocked as the U.S. bombed and invaded
Grenada in 1983. I was horrified by U.S. military and CIA actions in
Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Brazil, Argentina, and Yugoslavia.
The deaths in these actions ran into the hundreds of thousands.
The above list is by no means complete or comprehensive. It is merely a
list that is easily accessible and not unknown, especially to the
economic and intellectual elites. It has just been conveniently
eliminated from the public discourse and public consciousness. And for
the most part, the analysis that the U.S. actions have resulted in the
deaths of primarily civilians (over 90%) is not unknown to these elites
and policy makers. A conservative number for those who have been killed
by U.S. terror and military action since World War II is 8,000,000
people. Repeat--8,000,000 people. This does not include the wounded,
the imprisoned, the displaced, the refugees, etc. Martin Luther King,
Jr. stated in 1967, during the Vietnam War, "My government is the
world's leading purveyor of violence." Shocking and horrifying.
Nothing that I have written is meant to disparage or disrespect those
who were victims and those who suffered death or the loss of a loved one
during this week's events. It is not meant to "justify" any action by
those who bombed the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. It is meant to put it
in a context. If we believe that the actions were those of "madmen",
they are "madmen" who are able to keep a secret for 2 years or more
among over 100 people, as they trained to execute a complex plan. While
not the acts of madmen, they are apparently the acts of "fanatics" who,
depending on who they really are, can find real grievances, but whose
actions are illegitimate.
Osama Bin Laden at this point has been accused by the media and the
government of being the mastermind of Tuesday's bombings. Given the
government's track record on lying to the America people, that should
not be accepted as fact at this time. If indeed Bin Laden is the
mastermind of this action, he is responsible for the deaths of perhaps
10,000 people-a shocking and horrible crime. Ed Herman in his book The
Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda does not justify
any terrorism but points out that states often engage in "wholesale"
terror, while those whom governments define as "terrorist" engage is
"retail" terrorism. While qualitatively the results are the same for
the individual victims of terrorism, there is a clear quantitative
difference. And as Herman and others point out, the seeds, the roots,
of much of the "retail" terror are in fact found in the "wholesale"
terror of states. Again this is not to justify, in any way, the actions
of last Tuesday, but to put them in a context and suggest an
explanation.
Perhaps most shocking and horrific, if indeed Bin Laden is the
mastermind of Tuesday's actions; he has clearly had significant training
in logistics, armaments, and military training, etc. by competent and
expert military personnel. And indeed he has. During the 1980s, he was
recruited, trained and funded by the CIA in Afghanistan to fight against
the Russians. As long as he visited his terror on Russians and his
enemies in Afghanistan, he was "our man" in that country.
The same is true of Saddam Hussein of Iraq, who was a CIA asset in Iraq
during the 1980s. Hussein could gas his own people, repress the
population, and invade his neighbor (Iran) as long as he did it with
U.S. approval.
The same was true of Manuel Noriega of Panama, who was a contemporary
and CIA partner of George H. Bush in the 1980s. Noriega's main crime
for Bush, the father, was not that he dealt drugs (he did, but the U.S.
and Bush knew this before 1989), but that Noriega was no longer going to
cooperate in the ongoing U.S. terrorist contra war against Nicaragua.
This information is not unknown or really controversial among elite
policy makers. To repeat, this not to justify any of the actions of
last Tuesday, but to put it in its horrifying context.
(Continue to sept. 18th.)
