crucial

Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:11:43 -0500

Subject: Like all Americans

From: Thurston Moore

I forward these missives, now and the ones previous, as one who is not
well-versed or articulate in global politics. A lot of information re:
the history of contemporary global politics flowing through internet lines
is well known to some and unknown to most. If you are the former, excuse me
for the naivete, if the latter, now's the time more than ever I imagine.
With the carnage in NYC/DC literally in our backyard some of us political
know-nothings are in 1st semester mode. Sifting through the hundreds of
forwarded tracts I attempt, as I hope others do, to only forward the
most cogent. This article by a professor at Evergreen State College I found
striking in its fact-based assertions:

Thanks

T. Moore

From: Larry Mosqueda <lmosqueda@home.com

Dear Friends and Associates, Attached is an article I wrote on the
current situation. Please pass it along or post if you wish.

*****

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
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.

As shocking as the events of last Tuesday were, they are likely to
generate even more horrific actions by the U.S. government that
will add
significantly to the 8,000,000 figure stated above. This response
may
well be qualitatively and quantitatively worst than the events of
Tuesday. The New York Times headline of 9/14/01 states that, "Bush
And
Top Aides Proclaim Policy Of Ending States That Back Terror" as if
that
was a rationale, measured, or even sane option. States that have
been
identified for possible elimination are "a number of Asian and
African
countries, like Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, and even Pakistan." This
is
beyond shocking and horrific-it is just as potentially suicidal,
homicidal, and more insane than the hijackers themselves.

Also, qualitatively, these actions will be even worse than the
original
bombers if one accepts the mainstream premise that those involved
are
"madmen", "religious fanatics", or a "terrorist group." If so,
they are
acting as either individuals or as a small group. The U.S. actions
may
continue the homicidal policies of a few thousand elites for the
past 50
years, involving both political parties.

The retail terror is that of desperate and sometime fanatical small
groups and individuals who often have legitimate grievances, but
engage
in individual criminal and illegitimate activities; the wholesale
terror
is that of "rational" educated men where the pain, suffering, and
deaths
of millions of people are contemplated, planned, and too often,
executed, for the purpose of furthering a nebulous concept called
the
"national interest". Space does not allow a full explanation of the
elites Orwellian concept of the "national interest", but it can be
summarized as the protection and expansion of hegemony and an
imperial
empire.

The American public is being prepared for war while being fed a
continuous stream of shocking and horrific repeated images of
Tuesday's
events and heartfelt stories from the survivors and the loved ones
of
those who lost family members. These stories are real and should
not be
diminished. In fact, those who lost family members can be
considered a
representative sample of humanity of the 8,000,000 who have been
lost
previously. If we multiply by 800-1000 times the amount of pain,
angst,
and anger being currently felt by the American public, we might
begin to
understand how much of the rest of the world feels as they are
continually victimized.

Some particularly poignant images are the heart wrenching public
stories
that we are seeing and hearing of family members with pictures and
flyers searching for their loved ones. These images are virtually
the
same as those of the "Mothers of the Disappeared" who searched for
their
(primarily) adult children in places such as Argentina, where over
11,000 were "disappeared" in 1976-1982, again with U.S. approval.
Just
as the mothers of Argentina deserved our respect and compassion, so
do
the relatives of those who are searching for their relatives now.
However we should not allow ourselves to be manipulated by the
media and
U.S. government into turning real grief and anger into a national
policy
of wholesale terror and genocide against innocent civilians in Asia
and
Africa. What we are seeing in military terms is called "softening
the
target." The target here is the American public and we are being
ideologically and emotionally prepared for the slaughter that may
commence soon.

None of the previously identified Asian and African countries are
democracies, which means that the people of these countries have
virtually no impact on developing the policies of their governments,
even if we assume that these governments are complicit in Tuesday's
actions. When one examines the recent history of these countries,
one
will find that the American government had direct and indirect
influences on creating the conditions for the existence of some of
these
governments. This is especially true of the Taliban government of
Afghanistan itself.

The New York Metropolitan Area has about 21,000,000 people or about
8 %
of the U.S. population. Almost everyone in America knows someone
who
has been killed, injured or traumatized by the events of Tuesday. I
know that I do. Many people are calling for "revenge"
or "vengeance"
and comments such as "kill them all" have been circulated on the TV,
radio, and email. A few more potentially benign comments have
called
for "justice." This is only potentially benign since that term may
be
defined by people such as Bush and Colin Powell. Powell is an
unrepentant participant in the Vietnam War, the terrorist contra war
against Nicaragua, and the Gulf war, at each level becoming more
responsible for the planning and execution of the policies.

Those affected, all of us, must do everything in our power to
prevent a
wider war and even greater atrocity, do everything possible to stop
the
genocide if it starts, and hold those responsible for their
potential
war crimes during and after the war. If there is a great war in
2001
and it is not catastrophic (a real possibility), the crimes of that
war
will be revisited upon the U.S. over the next generation. That is
not
some kind of religious prophecy or threat, it is merely a
straightforward political analysis. If indeed it is Bin Laden, the
world must not deal only with him as an individual criminal, but
eliminate the conditions that create the injustices and war crimes
that will inevitably lead to more of these types of attacks in the future.
The phrase "No Justice, No Peace" is more than a slogan used in a
march, it is an observable historical fact. It is time to end the horror.

In a few short pages it is impossible to delineate all of the events
described over the past week or to give a comprehensive accounting
of U.S. foreign policy. Below are a few resources for up to date news
and some background reading, by Noam Chomsky, the noted analyst. The
titles of the books explain their relevance for this topic.

For the most current information see http://www.commondreams.org/.

For information on how the media distorts the news see
http://www.fair.org/.

For excellent links on the Middle East see
http://al-awda.org/newyork/links.html.

For background reading by Noam Chomsky see:

* Necessary Illusions: Thought Control in Democratic Societies
* Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (with Ed Herman Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians
* Deterring Democracy

--
"An eye for an eye only leaves the whole world blind."
- Mahatma Gandhi

Larry Mosqueda, Ph.D.

The Evergreen State College

September 15, 2001

---

A RESPONSE TO DR. LARRY MOSQUEDA, PhD;
Evergreen State College, September 15, 2001.

From: Jonathan Harrington
Poet and Novelist, Manhattan
October 5, 2001

Dr. Mosqueda-

I read with interest your statement, "Shocked and Horrified." I was an
eyewitness to the attack on the World Trade Center and am still dealing
with, as people throughout the world have had to deal with, the emotional
and mental consequences of witnessing such a horrific event. First let me
assure you that your opinions have not been "eliminated from the public
discourse." They are very much a part of the public discourse as evidenced
by my reading of your work and my responding to it. This IS public
discourse, and I'm grateful for it. Our papers and magazines in New York
have published items similar to yours ever since September 11.

I share your shock and horror at the atrocities committed by our government.
To your credit, you admit that "The above list is by no means complete or
comprehensive." Indeed it is not. I'm curious about why you were shocked
and horrified in 1991 (as I was) when Bush attacked Baghdad, but you fail to
register your shock or horror in 1988 when thousands of Muslim Kurds were
gassed by Saddam Hussein creating 2 million refugees? Is this an oversight
on your part?

You also mention Vietnam, a war I opposed then. Yet you again register no
shock or horror at the deaths of up to 2 million persons in Cambodia at the
hands of the Khmer Rouge during the 1975-79 period. That, too, can be
attributed to US foreign policy since we withdrew from Southeast Asia and
allowed the Khmer Rouge to carry out its bloody campaign.

How can I convince you that I am every bit as outraged by brutality as you
are, perhaps even more so since I was an eyewitness to the murder of perhaps
8,000 people? I did not want to witness this slaughter and I wish I never
had. It's the selective nature of your "shock and horror" that, frankly,
shocks and horrifies me.

The list of horrors committed throughout history goes well beyond your
catalog. Why did you not mention the 6 million Jews murdered by Hitler?
Why not mention the persecution, repression, incarceration in concentration
camps and deaths of gay people under Fidel Castro?

What is it about the nature of these crimes that eludes your condemnation?

You were horrified "by U.S. military and CIA action in...Yugoslavia..." but
apparently not horrified (or were you? explain, please) by the atrocities,
mass rapes, mass murder, and ethnic cleansing carried out under Milosevic.

What about Timothy McVeigh? Like many of the other criminals you cite, he
too had "significant training in logistics, armaments, and military
training" by the US. He then murdered 168 people in Oklahoma City because
of his belief that the American government is corrupt, criminal, and
homicidal. Did he have "real grievances"? You've made it clear that you,
too, consider the American government "corrupt, criminal, and homicidal."
Did McVeigh's actions move you to "put them in a context and suggest an
explanation." Should the loved ones of McVeigh's victims be examining "the
seeds, the roots" of his murder and terror? Should they be questioning
their own culpability in the deaths of their loved ones the way you have
asked us who are wounded and burying our dead to examine how we brought this
on ourselves?

Now the obvious oversight. Why do you NOT mention that the Taliban in
Afghanistan regularly stages public executions of women who committed such
offenses as going out in public without a male escort or prostitution; that
homosexuals have brick walls pushed over on them and are crushed. Thieves
have their hands cut off or their feet cut off. Do these documented
atrocities not elicit your "shock and horror"? If they do, why do you fail
to mention it in your catalog of atrocities?

Nevertheless, your list is meant to explain the motives of the alleged
terrorists. If, for the sake of argument, we ascribe these attacks to Al
Queda, then there is no need to grapple for motives. Their motives are
clearly outlined in the "Text of Fatwah Urging Jihad Against Americans,"
published in al-'Arabi on February 23, 1998. Have you read it? I'd gladly
forward a copy. It calls on "every Muslim who believes in God and wishes to
be rewarded to comply with God's order to kill the Americans..." I think
that you will find that it ratifies many of your beliefs in terms of their
motives. You are right. They are angry at our continued bombing of Iraq.
But they express no anger toward Saddam Hussein's crimes against Muslims.
I have traveled extensively in the Arab world-a beautiful and unforgettable
experience. But it is hard to ignore the fact that there is not to my
knowledge a single democratic government in the Muslim world. Many of these
government are oppressive. But the Taliban quarrels primarily with those
who have not adopted their narrow-minded interpretation of the Koran, not
because they disregard basic human rights. As Salman Rushdie writes, with
the authority of those of us who have been personally victimized by
terrorism, "Whatever the killers were trying to achieve, it seems improbable
that building a better world was part of it." The "Text of Fatwah" makes it
clear that Islamic Fundamentalists' reason for despising America is that
they believe we are decadent and allied with "Satan and the devil." A view
that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and some militant right wing militia
groups, among others, apparently share. Do you?

A European member of an international writers organization to which I belong
recently wrote to assure us that the terrorists "don't hate Americans
(presumably he meant North Americans), they hate the actions of the American
government." But it will be hard to convince any rational person that
"people don't hate Americans...it's the American government they hate..."
when as many as 8,000 completely innocent CIVILIANS were murdered. That was
not an attack against our government. It was a calculated attack against
men, women, and yes, children, the vast majority of which had no affiliation
with the American government, nor were they in many cases even American
citizens.

Finally, I think it is the "score-keeping" tone of your statement that
shocks and horrifies me. You add up all the atrocities committed by our
government and the score is 8 million killed by the US to 10,000 killed in
the World Trade Center. You say that there is "a clear quantitative
difference." You even do the math on our pain. "If we multiply by 800-1000
times the amount of pain, angst, and anger being currently felt by the
American public, we might begin to understand how much of the rest of the
world feels as they are continually victimized." Please, Dr. Mosqueda,
please tell me that you don't view the deaths of human beings in terms of a
score. To paraphrase the rabbi who spoke at the memorial service at Yankee
Stadium, "it is 1 death multiplied 10,000 times." Yes, and 1 death
multiplied 8 million times. We actually agree on much of what you have to
say. It's your appalling, nearly abusive insensitivity that shocks and
horrifies me. You lamely assert that the "heartfelt," and "heart wrenching"
and "poignant" stories of those who "lost family members" that we "are being
fed...should not be diminished." But the entire sneering tone of your
invective does diminish them. More, it insults us all in the midst of our
mourning.

I am not a political scientist nor a scholar. I am a poet and novelist and
the author of seven books. I do not pretend to have the extensive knowledge
of US foreign policy that you do, Dr. Mosqueda. However, I take offense at
your patronizing accusation that I have been "fed a continuous stream of
shocking and horrific repeated images of Tuesday's events." The media
cannot "feed" any of us anything. We willingly choose to open a newspaper,
turn on a TV, or open and read e-mails such as yours that came to me
unsolicited. I have no desire to watch the events of Sept 11 on TV. I am a
person of conscience. I was an eye-witness to the mass murder of perhaps as
many as 8,000 people. No one "fed" me that image. I would do anything if I
could change that day and not have been where I was in downtown Manhattan on
September 11. Now, that image of towers burning, people jumping to their
deaths, and the towers collapsing may never leave my mind. I am writing to
you because I share your shock and horror at all outrages and atrocities
committed against humanity. I share your desire for peace and justice. I
share your desire to end the "conditions that create injustices and war
crimes." Every single one of them, not just the ones you have selected to
prove your point.

Now, I ask you to join me in showing some respect for all of the dead
and murdered of all times and in all places.

Jonathan Harrington
Manhattan

PS. In the interest of NOT eliminating my views from "public discourse and
public consciousness," please forward my remarks to your e-mail list, and
circulate them to your associates as I have circulated yours. Thanks.