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- Anti-war action reports
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CAMPUSES NATIONWIDE SHOW SOLIDARITY AGAINST WAR - Concerned students for justice without war - Students at 146 campuses across the United States held actions on Sept.20 calling on Americans to:
STOP BOMBING AFGHANISTAN! SAY NO TO WAR & RACISM! - IAC - The U.S. military-oil complex sees the World Trade Center tragedy as a cynical opportunity in the race, against rivals in Germany and Russia, for the oil resources of the former Soviet Union. For years, Texaco, Chevron and ExxonMobil — the world's biggest oil corporations with vast investments in Central Asia — have been itching to build an oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea to the Indian Ocean. That is, through Afghanistan. (more)
Vietnam veterans against the war anti-imperialist: NO US WAR! - To those GIs who are being called to join any military attack we call on you to resist and will support your right to refuse and honor you as the Real Heroes-the anti-warriors. As veterans of the U.S. military, ex-members of the largest terrorist group in the world, we can say with unshakable certainty that in order to rid the world of terrorism we are going to first have to rid the world of U.S. imperialism. As long as the U.S. is able to grind the people of the world under its boots, acts of terrorism will continue in opposition.
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Refuse & Resist the Atmosphere of Retribution & Repression - Refuse & Resist! - In an instant the world changed. Fireballs, followed by days of dust and smoke . . . the rewind button seems to be permanently pressed: the twin towers, one then the other, disappearing into the earth; thousands running in terror chased by clouds of death; desperate faces, hoping against hope for friends and loved ones ripped away. Images replayed and rewound on TV and seared into our hearts. (more)
Just and Positive Alternatives - Green Party USA Statement on the Disasters - All good people abhor the death and destruction of this past week. People of the world want peace. But they also want justice. Looking past today, we need to learn how to stop terrorism, how to break the cycle of hatred and revenge. We need to come up with JUST AND POSITIVE ALTERNATIVES. (more)
Women of Afghanistan Speak Out - Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) - It was the government of the United States who supported Pakistani dictator Gen. Zia-ul Haq in creating thousands of religious schools from which the germs of Taliban emerged. As is clear to all, Osama Bin Laden has been the blue-eyed boy of CIA. (more)
Al-Awda/PRRC Condemns Terror Attacks
- Sept.11, 2001 - Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition is deeply shocked at the unfolding tragedies that have taken place in the US today. Many of our members will be concerned for their friends, families and loved ones who may have been affected by these events. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of the victims and their families. We ask those in the media, politicians, and all people of good conscience to exercise sound judgment. We recall with pain how Arabs and Muslims were targeted and blamed for the Oklahoma City bombing, and the TWA 800 crash, neither of which had anything to do with Arabs or Muslims. (more)
The Terror Attacks--Who is to Blame? - Statement by the Workers Democracy Network - In the wake of the September 11 terror attack and the horrible loss of 5,000 lives two questions must be answered: Who is responsible? And how can such attacks be prevented in the future? (more)
Black Radical Congress - Sept.13, 2001 - During this extremely sad and traumatic time, we extend our sincere and heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those who lost their life on September 11th. (more)
International Action Center - Sept.11, 2001 - Everyone here has been deeply affected by today's events. The International Action Center extends its most heartfelt sympathies and condolences to all those who have lost loved ones today as well as the thousands of workers who were in lower Manhattan today. (more)
NO TO WAR FRENZY! - Workers World Party - The massive and stunning attacks Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon pose tremendous challenges to the working class and the progressive movement in this country and around the world. The U.S. capitalist ruling class and its political establishment are now preparing a warlike response that can only lead to more suffering and deaths. (more)
THE HORRORS THAT COME FROM THIS HORRIBLE SYSTEM - Revolutionary Communist Party USA - September 11, 2001. USA. Shock. Mountains of steel and concrete falling, crushing. Loss. Lives shattered in a moment. Searching for loved ones buried under mountains of debris. Horror from the sky. (more)
Oppose U.S. State Terrorism and Use of this Tragedy to Justify Aggression Against the Peoples! - September 12, 2001 - The U.S. Marxist-Leninist Organization calls on all the workers, women and youth across the country to cope with the tragedy unfolding in the country by stepping up the struggle against U.S. imperialism and for political empowerment of the people. We express our deepest sympathies to the families of all those killed and injured and our support to those joining in to rescue and assist the victims. (more)
SOME TALKING POINTS ON THE WTC/PENTAGON ATTACK - Freedom Road Socialist Organization - (more)
ARTISTS OF RESISTANCE - by Howard Zinn - Whenever I become discouraged (which is on alternate Tuesdays, between three and four) I lift my spirits by remembering: the artists are on our side! I mean those poets and painters, singers and musicians, novelists and playwrights who speak to the world in a way that is impervious to assault because they wage the battle for justice in a sphere which is unreachable by the dullness of ordinary political discourse. (more)
Breaking Ranks with the Gulf War - Michael Marsh
- Over 2500 US soldiers filed for Conscientious Objector discharges during the Gulf War the fastest rise in CO applications in US history. The government reacted harshly to these applications. The Army, for a time, refused to accept many applications. The Marine Corps ignored their own CO processing regulations. All branches of the military imprisoned some Conscientious Objectors. In the end, nearly 100 COs were imprisoned. A couple of dozen are still there now.
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All I Am Saying Is Give War a Chance - Michael Moore, October 8
- It's about time! I was beginning to worry that George II didn't have it in him, that he might wander off to vacation in Omaha again. But finally, the bombs are raining down on Afghanistan and, as Martha Stewart says, that's a good thing.
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"Tell them they are being attacked..." - Hitler's #2 Man, Hermann Goering - "Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." Posted on www.zmag.org
A Message to Troops, Would-be Troops and Other Youth - Jeff Paterson, October 4 - On August 30, 1990, 22-year-old Marine Corporal Jeff Paterson refused to board a military plane in Hawaii heading to Saudi Arabia. He was the first active-duty military resister in the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
- In August 1990 I was an active duty U.S. Marine Corps Corporal. I was ordered to the Middle East -- the Gulf War was about to come. Four years prior -- thinking I had nothing better to do with my life -- I had walked into the Salinas, California recruiting station and told them to "put me where I was most needed." (more)
Noam Chomsky's reaction - Oct 8 -
So far, the US-UK response is about what had been expected. What has been reported is attacks by cruise missiles and high-altitude bombers, accompanied by some food drops outside of Taliban-controlled areas (most of the country), such a transparent PR gesture that there is no attempt even to conceal it. The attacks appear to have been based entirely outside the Muslim world, presumably because of fear of protests. It is far too early, and we have much too little information, to say anything with confidence, but it is not unlikely that the mood is captured by story from Cairo in the Boston Globe with the headline "Protests, horror greet US assault," quoting an Egyptian waiter as saying "I give you food and I kill you? It makes me crazy to think about that." (more)
Interviewing Chomsky - Radio B92, Belgrade
McCarthyism on a Grand Scale: U.S. President Unleashes Campaign of International State Terror - TML Daily, Canada - The speech of U.S. President George W. Bush to the Joint Session of the U.S. Congress on September 20 confirms that the U.S. imperialists have launched a campaign of international state terror in which no citizen of any country will be safe and no society which does not agree to cooperate will come out unscathed. It is McCarthyism on a grand scale. (more)
MUSIC CENSORSHIP: War...What Is It Good For? ABSOLUTELY NOTHIN'! - By Dave Marsh, counterpunch - I suspect it is this political aspect of the potential ban that really fascinates. After all, it is the beginning of what we would expect in war time. And since few of us have ever lived in the U.S. in an actual war, we don't know what to expect. (more)
Davey D Talks to Rep. Barbara Lee: A Lone Voice of Dissent - On Monday Sept 17th we had an opportunity to catch up with Congresswoman Barbara Lee and talk to her about her decision to cast the only vote opposing President Bush's War resolution. Not even her fellow colleagues from the Congressional Black Caucus voted with her on this one. That includes such notable people like Maxine Waters, Charles Rengel, Jesse Jackson Jr., Cynthia McKinney to name a few. What is this all about? (more)
The Racism of American Warmongering - Tim Wise, AlterNet - Well, it looks as if the good people of the rural U.S. should be breathing a sigh of relief right about now. After all, with the President and most Americans itching to bomb any place where terrorists might be hiding, one can only imagine the kind of wrath that would have been brought down upon the heads of folks in Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming or Mississippi had the guilty parties been white boys with crew-cuts, like Tim McVeigh. (more)
No challenge to US - Editorial from the Mail & Guardian, September 14, 2001 (South Africa) - The idea that US military and economic muscle has been dented in a fundamental way is a fantasy. The world has been left a more dangerous and more unstable place by the attacks, but the global balance of power is unchanged. For the foreseeable future there is no state, or alliance of states, that can offer any challenge to the US’s world ascendancy. (more)
Obscurantist Theories About the Need to Oppose "Forces of Evil" - by Sandra L. Smith - At the base of the warmongering propaganda of American leaders and those in Canada and Britain is the obscurantist theory that the entire world is engaged in a life and death struggle against the "forces of evil." It is enunciated in the demand that the "civilized nations" must unite to defeat the "forces of evil" by standing for the "universal values of good" which allegedly mark the "civilized world."
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Together with the U.S. people we feel pain and sadness PRESIDENT Fidel Castro expressed the pain and sadness felt by Cubans alongside the U.S. people at the horrific scenes of this September 11, "a tragic day for the United States," he added. (more)
Inevitable ring to the unimaginable - by John Pilger - If the attacks on America have their source in the Islamic world, who can really be surprised? Two days earlier, eight people were killed in southern Iraq when British and American planes bombed civilian areas. To my knowledge, not a word appeared in the mainstream media in Britain. (more)
They can't see why they are hated
Pakito Arriaran - For the Workers At Windows on the World - I worked with the 300 workers who worked on top of the World Trade center.
This is dedicated to any who may have perished. (more)
Michael Moore - filmmaker, documentarian.
Noam Chomsky - political commentator, linguist.
Howard Zinn - historian.
Tom Morello, Rage Against the Machine - musician.
OSAMAGATE - by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa - A major war supposedly "against international terrorism" has been launched by a government which is harboring international terrorism as part of its foreign policy agenda. In other words, the main justification for waging war has been totally fabricated. The American people have been deliberately and consciously misled by their government into supporting a major military adventure which affects our collective future.
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Getting used to the idea of double standards - by Tariq Ali, The Independent - The underlying maxim is: we will punish the crimes of our enemies and reward the crimes of our friends. (more)
"War is Good for Business" - by Michel Chossudovsky
Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa - Does President Bush intend to jump-start confidence in the stock-market by launching a "timely" military strike?
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Folks Out There Have a "Distaste of Western Civilization and Cultural Values" - by Edward S. Herman
Professor Emeritus of Finance, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania - One of the most durable features of the U.S. culture is the inability or refusal to recognize U.S. crimes.
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Pre-1979-1989, Afghanistan: The CIA's Biggest Covert War - Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade - During the Reagan years, the CIA ran nearly two dozen covert operations against various governments. Of these, Afghanistan was by far the biggest; it was, in fact, the biggest CIA operation of all time, both in terms of dollars spent (US$5 to US$6 billion) and personnel involved. (more)
The Consequences Of Our Actions Abroad: Americans Feeling the Effects of 'Blowback' - by Chalmers Johnson, LA Times, May 4, 2000 - Our intelligence agencies--the CIA and its rivals in the Pentagon--have a
history of creating neologisms to describe our world that cover up more than
they reveal. There have been lofty coinages like "host-nation support,"
meaning foreign countries pay to base our troops on their soil, and military
jargon like "low-intensity warfare" that repackages the most brutal strife
in antiseptic language. (more)
Level of human development in Afghanistan among lowest in world: UN figures - UN newservice, October 8 - With an average life expectancy of about 40 years and a staggering mortality rate of nearly 26 per cent for children under five years of age, Afghanistan ranks among the most destitute, war-weary countries in the world, according to figures released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). (more)
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - Ramallah, September 11, 2001 - The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine declares that it has no connection whatsoever with the attacks in New York and Washington, DC. The PFLP is a political party that is working to regain the national rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of refugees to return and the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. (more)
Oppose the Politics of International State Terror, Assassination, Retaliation and the Criminalization of Dissent! - September 11, 2001 - The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) abhors the tragedy which the people of the United States have suffered on this day. CPC(M-L) expresses its deepest sympathies for the American people who are suffering this tragedy, for the working men and women who were and continue to be its victims and for their families and the front-line rescue personnel who are doing their utmost to save lives under desperate conditions, as well as for the people all over the country who are terrified. (more)
Statement of the Communist Party on Terrorist Attacks in US - September 11, 2001 - 1. The Communist Party of Canada deplores and condemns the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington that occurred on September 11, 2001. We share the sorrow and grief caused by these unpardonable acts. (more)
Statement of the Political Bureau of the Workers’ Party of Belgium regarding the attacks in the USA - September 11, 2001 - More than anything else, the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, which have shocked the entire world, are signs of the state of crisis in which the world finds itself, no matter what the world leaders may say at the summits of the rich member countries of the G8. We share the grief of the relatives and friends of the victims and we convey our condolences to them. The American civilian victims, like the great majority of the American people, cannot be held responsable for the barbarous policies of their government and of the transnational corporations it represents. At the same time, we are deeply shocked by the hypocrisy of the US government, which bears an enormous responsibility for what has happened today. (more)
A War Prayer - By Mark Twain - It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; ... (more)
Tens of thousands march against war - By John Catalinotto, Workers World, Washington, D.C. - Tens of thousands of people in Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles, and thousands in other cities worldwide, demonstrated Sept. 29 against the Bush administration's drive to war and in defense of Arab and Muslim people living in the U.S. who have been subject to racist attacks. (more)
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Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad
by Seumas Milne, The Guardian -
Nearly two days after the horrific suicide attacks on civilian workers in New York and Washington, it has become painfully clear that most Americans simply don't get it. From the president to passersby on the streets, the message seems to be the same: this is an inexplicable assault on freedom and democracy, which must be answered with overwhelming force - just as soon as someone can construct a credible account of who was actually responsible. (more)
ON THE BOMBINGS - The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). (more)
RETALIATION - The images on television have been heartbreaking. People on fire leaping to their deaths from a hundred stories up. People in panic and fear racing from the scene in clouds of dust and smoke. We knew that there must be thousands of human beings buried alive, but soon dead under a mountain of debris. We can only imagine the terror among the passengers of the hijacked planes as they contemplated the crash, the fire, the end. Those scenes horrified and sickened me. (more)
Our deepest sympathy and condolences go out to all the people and their families affected by the attacks on Tuesday. The loss of innocent life is just terrible, and our thoughts go out to all of you who personally may have had friends or family killed or injured in the tragedy. The pain felt across the country demonstrates the lesson of Tuesday's events: that the taking of innocent life is devastating to a society and terribly wrong. (more)
Who Is Osama Bin Laden? - by Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa - A few hours after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon, the Bush administration concluded without supporting evidence, that "Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organisation were prime suspects". (more)
Moving anti-war artist performance - New York City - On Friday, October 5th, at 6pm in Times Square a growing group of artists staged its third performance of "Our Grief Is Not a Cry for War". The group numbered at least 150 people and lined both long sides of the triangle at 43rd/44th Streets. The artists wore all-black, dust masks and placards with the group's slogan, and held each other's hands in silence for one hour. Hundreds of pedestrians and motorists stopped and looked on as the major news networks on the jumbo video screens above filled Times Square with reports on the "war against terrorism". The unified silence of the protesters in Times Square and especially during the news hour was stunning. Click here to view photos of the performance. (Open the "Times Square October 5" folder.) For an article and description of past performances of "Our Grief Is Not A Cry For War", click here.
(Farewell & Fantasies, 3-discs, Elektra R2 73518, 1997)
Always the young to fall
Now look at all we won with a
saber and a gun
Tell me, is it worth it all?
(The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Columbia WCK-8786)
(The Times They Are A-Changin', Columbia WCK-8905)