Fw: from Fumiko Docker. A Must Read!

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fumiko Docker" <fumeco@yahoo.com<
To: <asdocker@mcn.org<; <tsrdock@mcn.org<; <dottyhop@napanet.net<;
<marija64@hotmail.com<
Cc: <mcb@dor.kaiser.org<
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2001 5:05 PM
Subject: Fwd: Read this if you get a chance.

< Another perspective
<
< < 'Brutality smeared in peanut butter'
< <
< < Why America must stop the war now. By Arundhati Roy
< <
< < Tuesday October 23, 2001
< <
< < As darkness deepened over Afghanistan on Sunday
< < October 7 2001, the US government, backed by the
< < International Coalition Against Terror (the new,
< < amenable surrogate for the United Nations), launched
< < air strikes against Afghanistan. TV channels
< < lingered on computer-animated images of cruise
< < missiles, stealth bombers, tomahawks,
< < "bunker-busting" missiles and Mark 82 high drag
< < bombs. All over the world, little boys watched
< < goggle-eyed and stopped clamouring for new video
< < games.
< < The UN, reduced now to an ineffective acronym,
< < wasn't even asked to mandate the air strikes. (As
< < Madeleine Albright once said, "We will behave
< < multilaterally when we can, and unilaterally when we
< < must.") The "evidence" against the terrorists was
< < shared amongst friends in the "coalition".
< < After conferring, they announced that it didn1t
< < matter whether or not the "evidence" would stand up
< < in a court of law. Thus, in an instant, were
< < centuries of jurisprudence carelessly trashed.
< < Nothing can excuse or justify an act of terrorism,
< < whether it is committed by religious
< < fundamentalists, private militia, people's
< < resistance movements - or whether it's dressed up as
< < a war of retribution by a recognised government. The
< < bombing of Afghanistan is not revenge for New York
< < and Washington. It is yet another act of terror
< < against the people of the world.
< < Each innocent person that is killed must be added
< < to, not set off against, the grisly toll of
< < civilians who died in New York and Washington.
< < People rarely win wars, governments rarely lose
< < them. People get killed.
< < Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They
< < use flags first to shrink-wrap people's minds and
< < smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to
< < bury their willing dead. On both sides, in
< < Afghanistan as well as America, civilians are now
< < hostage to the actions of their own governments.
< < Unknowingly, ordinary people in both countries share
< < a common bond - they have to live with the
< < phenomenon of blind, unpredictable terror. Each
< < batch of bombs that is dropped on Afghanistan is
< < matched by a corresponding escalation of mass
< < hysteria in America about anthrax, more hijackings
< < and other terrorist acts.
< < There is no easy way out of the spiralling morass of
< < terror and brutality that confronts the world today.
< < It is time now for the human race to hold still, to
< < delve into its wells of collective wisdom, both
< < ancient and modern. What happened on September 11
< < changed the world forever.
< < Freedom, progress, wealth, technology, war - these
< < words have taken on new meaning.
< < Governments have to acknowledge this transformation,
< < and approach their new tasks with a modicum of
< < honesty and humility. Unfortunately, up to now,
< < there has been no sign of any introspection from the
< < leaders of the International Coalition. Or the
< < Taliban.
< < When he announced the air strikes, President George
< < Bush said: "We're a peaceful nation." America1s
< < favourite ambassador, Tony Blair, (who also holds
< < the portfolio of prime minister of the UK), echoed
< < him: "We're a peaceful people."
< < So now we know. Pigs are horses. Girls are boys. War
< < is peace.
< < Speaking at the FBI headquarters a few days later,
< < President Bush said: "This is our calling. This is
< < the calling of the United States of America. The
< < most free nation in the world. A nation built on
< < fundamental values that reject hate, reject
< < violence, rejects murderers and rejects evil. We
< < will not tire."
< < Here is a list of the countries that America has
< < been at war with - and bombed - since the second
< < world war: China (1945-46, 1950-53), Korea
< < (1950-53), Guatemala (1954, 1967-69), Indonesia
< < (1958), Cuba (1959-60), the Belgian Congo (1964),
< < Peru (1965), Laos (1964-73), Vietnam (1961-73),
< < Cambodia (1969-70), Grenada (1983), Libya (1986), El
< < Salvador (1980s), Nicaragua (1980s), Panama (1989),
< < Iraq (1991-99), Bosnia (1995), Sudan (1998),
< < Yugoslavia (1999). And now Afghanistan.
< < Certainly it does not tire - this, the most free
< < nation in the world.
< < What freedoms does it uphold? Within its borders,
< < the freedoms of speech, religion, thought; of
< < artistic expression, food habits, sexual preferences
< < (well, to some extent) and many other exemplary,
< < wonderful things.
< < Outside its borders, the freedom to dominate,
< < humiliate and subjugate  usually in the service
< < of America1s real religion, the "free market". So
< < when the US government christens a war "Operation
< < Infinite Justice", or "Operation Enduring Freedom",
< < we in the third world feel more than a tremor of
< < fear.
< < Because we know that Infinite Justice for some means
< < Infinite Injustice for others. And Enduring Freedom
< < for some means Enduring Subjugation for others.
< < The International Coalition Against Terror is a
< < largely cabal of the richest countries in the world.
< < Between them, they manufacture and sell almost all
< < of the world's weapons, they possess the largest
< < stockpile of weapons of mass destruction - chemical,
< < biological and nuclear. They have fought the most
< < wars, account for most of the genocide, subjection,
< < ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in
< < modern history, and have sponsored, armed and
< < financed untold numbers of dictators and despots.
< < Between them, they have worshipped, almost deified,
< < the cult of violence and war. For all its appalling
< < sins, the Taliban just isn't in the same league.
< < The Taliban was compounded in the crumbling crucible
< < of rubble, heroin and landmines in the backwash of
< < the cold war. Its oldest leaders are in their early
< < 40s. Many of them are disfigured and handicapped,
< < missing an eye, an arm or a leg. They grew up in a
< < society scarred and devastated by war.
< < Between the Soviet Union and America, over 20 years,
< < about $45bn (?30bn) worth of arms and ammunition was
< < poured into Afghanistan. The latest weaponry was the
< < only shard of modernity to intrude upon a thoroughly
< < medieval society.
< < Young boys  many of them orphans - who grew up
< < in those times, had guns for toys, never knew the
< < security and comfort of family life, never
< < experienced the company of women. Now, as adults and
< < rulers, the Taliban beat, stone, rape and brutalise
< < women, they don't seem to know what else to do with
< < them.
< < Years of war has stripped them of gentleness, inured
< < them to kindness and human compassion. Now they've
< < turned their monstrosity on their own people.
< < They dance to the percussive rhythms of bombs
< < raining down around them.
< < With all due respect to President Bush, the people
< < of the world do not have to choose between the
< < Taliban and the US government. All the beauty of
< < human civilisation - our art, our music, our
< < literature - lies beyond these two fundamentalist,
< < ideological poles. There is as little chance that
< < the people of the world can all become middle-class
< < consumers as there is that they will all embrace any
< < one particular religion. The issue is not about good
< < v evil or Islam v Christianity as much as it is
< < about space. About how to accommodate diversity, how
< < to contain the impulse towards hegemony  every
< < kind of hegemony, economic, military, linguistic,
< < religious and cultural.
< < Any ecologist will tell you how dangerous and
< < fragile a monoculture is. A hegemonic world is like
< < having a government without a healthy opposition. It
< < becomes a kind of dictatorship. It1s like putting a
< < plastic bag over the world, and preventing it from
< < breathing. Eventually, it will be torn open.
< < One and a half million Afghan people lost their
< < lives in the 20 years of conflict that preceded this
< < new war. Afghanistan was reduced to rubble, and now,
< < the rubble is being pounded into finer dust. By the
< < second day of the air strikes, US pilots were
< < returning to their bases without dropping their
< < assigned payload of bombs. As one pilot put it,
< < Afghanistan is "not a target-rich environment". At a
< < press briefing at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld, the
< < US defence secretary, was asked if America had run
< < out of targets.
< < "First we're going to re-hit targets," he said, "and
< < second, we're not running out of targets,
< < Afghanistan is ..." This was greeted with gales of
< < laughter in the briefing room.
< < By the third day of the strikes, the US defence
< < department boasted that it had "achieved air
< < supremacy over Afghanistan" (Did they mean that they
< < had destroyed both, or maybe all 16, of
< < Afghanistan's planes?)
< < On the ground in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance
< < - the Taliban's old enemy, and therefore the
< < international coalition's newest friend - is making
< < headway in its push to capture Kabul. (For the
< < archives, let it be said that the Northern
< < Alliance's track record is not very different from
< < the Taliban's. But for now, because it's
< < inconvenient, that little detail is being glossed
< < over.) The visible, moderate, "acceptable" leader of
< < the alliance, Ahmed Shah Masud, was killed in a
< < suicide-bomb attack early in September. The rest of
< < the Northern Alliance is a brittle confederation of
< < brutal warlords, ex-communists and unbending
< < clerics. It is a disparate group divided along
< < ethnic lines, some of whom have tasted power in
< < Afghanistan in the past.
< < Until the US air strikes, the Northern Alliance
< < controlled about 5% of the geographical area of
< < Afghanistan. Now, with the coalition's help and "air
< < cover", it is poised to topple the Taliban.
< < Meanwhile, Taliban soldiers, sensing imminent
< < defeat, have begun to defect to the alliance. So the
< < fighting forces are busy switching sides and
< < changing uniforms. But in an enterprise as cynical
< < as this one, it seems to matter hardly at all.
< < Love is hate, north is south, peace is war.
< < Among the global powers, there is talk of "putting
< < in a representative government". Or, on the other
< < hand, of "restoring" the kingdom to Afghanistan's
< < 89-year old former king Zahir Shah, who has lived in
< < exile in Rome since 1973. That's the way the game
< < goes - support Saddam Hussein, then "take him out";
< < finance the mojahedin, then bomb them to
< < smithereens; put in Zahir Shah and see if he's going
< < to be a good boy. (Is it possible to "put in" a
< < representative government? Can you place an order
< < for democracy - with extra cheese and jalapeno
< < peppers?)
< < Reports have begun to trickle in about civilian
< < casualties, about cities emptying out as Afghan
< < civilians flock to the borders which have been
< < closed. Main arterial roads have been blown up or
< < sealed off. Those who have experience of working in
< < Afghanistan say that by early November, food convoys
< < will not be able to reach the millions of Afghans
< < (7.5m, according to the UN) who run the very real
< < risk of starving to death during the course of this
< < winter. They say that in the days that are left
< < before winter sets in, there can either be a war, or
< < an attempt to reach food to the hungry. Not both.
< < As a gesture of humanitarian support, the US
< < government air-dropped 37,000 packets of emergency
< < rations into Afghanistan. It says it plans to drop a
< < total of 500,000 packets. That will still only add
< < up to a single meal for half a million people out of
< < the several million in dire need of food.
< < Aid workers have condemned it as a cynical,
< < dangerous, public-relations exercise. They say that
< < air-dropping food packets is worse than futile.
< < First, because the food will never get to those who
< < really need it. More dangerously, those who run out
< < to retrieve the packets risk being blown up by
< < landmines. A tragic alms race.
< < Nevertheless, the food packets had a photo-op all to
< < themselves. Their contents were listed in major
< < newspapers. They were vegetarian, we're told, as per
< < Muslim dietary law (!) Each yellow packet, decorated
< < with the American flag, contained: rice, peanut
< < butter, bean salad, strawberry jam, crackers,
< < raisins, flat bread, an apple fruit bar, seasoning,
< < matches, a set of plastic cutlery, a serviette and
< < illustrated user instructions.
< < After three years of unremitting drought, an
< < air-dropped airline meal in Jalalabad! The level of
< < cultural ineptitude, the failure to understand what
< < months of relentless hunger and grinding poverty
< < really mean, the US government1s attempt to use even
< < this abject misery to boost its self-image, beggars
< < description.
< < Reverse the scenario for a moment. Imagine if the
< < Taliban government was to bomb New York City, saying
< < all the while that its real target was the US
< < government and its policies. And suppose, during
< < breaks between the bombing, the Taliban dropped a
< < few thousand packets containing nan and kebabs
< < impaled on an Afghan flag. Would the good people of
< < New York ever find it in themselves to forgive the
< < Afghan government? Even if they were hungry, even if
< < they needed the food, even if they ate it, how would
< < they ever forget the insult, the condescension? Rudi
< < Guiliani, Mayor of New York City, returned a gift of
< < $10m from a Saudi prince because it came with a few
< < words of friendly advice about American policy in
< < the Middle East. Is pride a luxury that only the
< < rich are entitled to?
< < Far from stamping it out, igniting this kind of rage
< < is what creates terrorism. Hate and retribution
< < don't go back into the box once you've let them out.
< < For every "terrorist" or his "supporter" that is
< < killed, hundreds of innocent people are being killed
< < too. And for every hundred innocent people killed,
< < there is a good chance that several future
< < terrorists will be created.
< < Where will it all lead?
< < Setting aside the rhetoric for a moment, consider
< < the fact that the world has not yet found an
< < acceptable definition of what "terrorism" is. One
< < country's terrorist is too often another1s freedom
< < fighter. At the heart of the matter lies the world's
< < deep-seated ambivalence towards violence.
< < Once violence is accepted as a legitimate political
< < instrument, then the morality and political
< < acceptability of terrorists (insurgents or freedom
< < fighters) becomes contentious, bumpy terrain. The US
< < government itself has funded, armed and sheltered
< < plenty of rebels and insurgents around the world.
< < The CIA and Pakistan's ISI trained and armed the
< < mojahedin who, in the 80s, were seen as terrorists
< < by the government in Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.
< < Today, Pakistan - America's ally in this new war -
< < sponsors insurgents who cross the border into
< < Kashmir in India. Pakistan lauds them as
< < "freedom-fighters", India calls them "terrorists".
< < India, for its part, denounces countries who sponsor
< < and abet terrorism, but the Indian army has, in the
< < past, trained separatist Tamil rebels asking for a
< < homeland in Sri Lanka - the LTTE, responsible for
< < countless acts of bloody terrorism.
< < (Just as the CIA abandoned the mujahideen after they
< < had served its purpose, India abruptly turned its
< < back on the LTTE for a host of political reasons. It
< < was an enraged LTTE suicide bomber who assassinated
< < former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1989.)
< < It is important for governments and politicians to
< < understand that manipulating these huge, raging
< < human feelings for their own narrow purposes may
< < yield instant results, but eventually and
< < inexorably, they have disastrous consequences.
< < Igniting and exploiting religious sentiments for
< < reasons of political expediency is the most
< < dangerous legacy that governments or politicians can
< < bequeath to any people - including their own.
< < People who live in societies ravaged by religious or
< < communal bigotry know that every religious text -
< < from the Bible to the Bhagwad Gita - can be mined
< < and misinterpreted to justify anything, from nuclear
< < war to genocide to corporate globalisation.
< < This is not to suggest that the terrorists who
< < perpetrated the outrage on September 11 should not
< < be hunted down and brought to book. They must be.
< < But is war the best way to track them down? Will
< < burning the haystack find you the needle? Or will it
< < escalate the anger and make the world a living hell
< < for all of us?
< < At the end of the day, how many people can you spy
< < on, how many bank accounts can you freeze, how many
< < conversations can you eavesdrop on, how many emails
< < can you intercept, how many letters can you open,
< < how many phones can you tap? Even before September
< < 11, the CIA had accumulated more information than is
< < humanly possible to process. (Sometimes, too much
< < data can actually hinder intelligence - small wonder
< < the US spy satellites completely missed the
< < preparation that preceded India's nuclear tests in
< < 1998.)
< < The sheer scale of the surveillance will become a
< < logistical, ethical and civil rights nightmare. It
< < will drive everybody clean crazy. And freedom - that
< < precious, precious thing - will be the first
< < casualty. It's already hurt and haemorrhaging
< < dangerously.
< < Governments across the world are cynically using the
< < prevailing paranoia to promote their own interests.
< < All kinds of unpredictable political forces are
< < being unleashed. In India, for instance, members of
< < the All India People's Resistance Forum, who were
< < distributing anti-war and anti-US pamphlets in
< < Delhi, have been jailed. Even the printer of the
< < leaflets was arrested.
< < The rightwing government (while it shelters Hindu
< < extremists groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad
< < and the Bajrang Dal) has banned the Islamic Students
< < Movement of India and is trying to revive an anti-
< < terrorist Act which had been withdrawn after the
< < Human Rights Commission reported that it had been
< < more abused than used. Millions of Indian citizens
< < are Muslim. Can anything be gained by alienating
< < them?
< < Every day that the war goes on, raging emotions are
< < being let loose into the world. The international
< < press has little or no independent access to the war
< < zone. In any case, mainstream media, particularly in
< < the US, have more or less rolled over, allowing
< < themselves to be tickled on the stomach with press
< < handouts from military men and government officials.
< < Afghan radio stations have been destroyed by the
< < bombing. The Taliban has always been deeply
< < suspicious of the press. In the propaganda war,
< < there is no accurate estimate of how many people
< < have been killed, or how much destruction has taken
< < place. In the absence of reliable information, wild
< < rumours spread.
< < Put your ear to the ground in this part of the
< < world, and you can hear the thrumming, the deadly
< < drumbeat of burgeoning anger. Please. Please, stop
< < the war now. Enough people have died. The smart
< < missiles are just not smart enough. They're blowing
< < up whole warehouses of suppressed fury.
< < President George Bush recently boasted, "When I take
< < action, I'm not going to fire a $2m missile at a $10
< < empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It's going
< < to be decisive." President Bush should know that
< < there are no targets in Afghanistan that will give
< < his missiles their money's worth.
< < Perhaps, if only to balance his books, he should
< < develop some cheaper missiles to use on cheaper
< < targets and cheaper lives in the poor countries of
< < the world. But then, that may not make good business
< < sense to the coalition1s weapons manufacturers. It
< < wouldn't make any sense at all, for example, to the
< < Carlyle Group - described by the Industry Standard
< < as "the world's largest private equity firm", with
< < $13bn under management.
< < Carlyle invests in the defence sector and makes its
< < money from military conflicts and weapons spending.
< < Carlyle is run by men with impeccable credentials.
< < Former US defence secretary Frank Carlucci is
< < Carlyle's chairman and managing director (he was a
< < college roommate of Donald Rumsfeld's). Carlyle's
< < other partners include former US secretary of state
< < James A Baker III, George Soros and Fred Malek
< < (George Bush Sr's campaign manager). An American
< < paper  the Baltimore Chronicle and Sentinel -
< < says that former president George Bush Sr is
< < reported to be seeking investments for the Carlyle
< < Group from Asian markets.
< < He is reportedly paid not inconsiderable sums of
< < money to make "presentations" to potential
< < government-clients.
< < Ho hum. As the tired saying goes, it's all in the
< < family.
< < Then there's that other branch of traditional family
< < business - oil. Remember, President George Bush (Jr)
< < and Vice-President Dick Cheney both made their
< < fortunes working in the US oil industry.
< < Turkmenistan, which borders the north-west of
< < Afghanistan, holds the world's third largest gas
< < reserves and an estimated six billion barrels of oil
< < reserves. Enough, experts say, to meet American
< < energy needs for the next 30 years (or a developing
< < country's energy requirements for a couple of
< < centuries.) America has always viewed oil as a
< < security consideration, and protected it by any
< < means it deems necessary. Few of us doubt that its
< < military presence in the Gulf has little to do with
< < its concern for human rights and almost entirely to
< < do with its strategic interest in oil.
< < Oil and gas from the Caspian region currently moves
< < northward to European markets. Geographically and
< < politically, Iran and Russia are major impediments
< < to American interests. In 1998, Dick Cheney - then
< < CEO of Halliburton, a major player in the oil
< < industry - said, "I can't think of a time when we've
< < had a region emerge as suddenly to become as
< < strategically significant as the Caspian. It's
< < almost as if the opportunities have arisen
< < overnight." True enough.
< < For some years now, an American oil giant called
< < Unocal has been negotiating with the Taliban for
< < permission to construct an oil pipeline through
< < Afghanistan to Pakistan and out to the Arabian sea.
< < From here, Unocal hopes to access the lucrative
< < "emerging markets" in south and south-east Asia. In
< < December 1997, a delegation of Taliban mullahs
< < travelled to America and even met US state
< < department officials and Unocal executives in
< < Houston. At that time the Taliban's taste for public
< < executions and its treatment of Afghan women were
< < not made out to be the crimes against humanity that
< < they are now.
< < Over the next six months, pressure from hundreds of
< < outraged American feminist groups was brought to
< < bear on the Clinton administration.
< < Fortunately, they managed to scuttle the deal. And
< < now comes the US oil industry's big chance.
< < In America, the arms industry, the oil industry, the
< < major media networks, and, indeed, US foreign
< < policy, are all controlled by the same business
< < combines. Therefore, it would be foolish to expect
< < this talk of guns and oil and defence deals to get
< < any real play in the media. In any case, to a
< < distraught, confused people whose pride has just
< < been wounded, whose loved ones have been tragically
< < killed, whose anger is fresh and sharp, the
< < inanities about the "clash of civilisations" and the
< < "good v evil" discourse home in unerringly. They are
< < cynically doled out by government spokesmen like a
< < daily dose of vitamins or anti-depressants. Regular
< < medication ensures that mainland America continues
< < to remain the enigma it has always been - a
< < curiously insular people, administered by a
< < pathologically meddlesome, promiscuous government.
< < And what of the rest of us, the numb recipients of
< < this onslaught of what we know to be preposterous
< < propaganda? The daily consumers of the lies and
< < brutality smeared in peanut butter and strawberry
< < jam being air-dropped into our minds just like those
< < yellow food packets. Shall we look away and eat
< < because we're hungry, or shall we stare unblinking
< < at the grim theatre unfolding in Afghanistan until
< < we retch collectively and say, in one voice, that we
< < have had enough?
< < As the first year of the new millennium rushes to a
< < close, one wonders - have we forfeited our right to
< < dream? Will we ever be able to re-imagine beauty?
< < Will it be possible ever again to watch the slow,
< < amazed blink of a newborn gecko in the sun, or
< < whisper back to the marmot who has just whispered in
< < your ear - without thinking of the World Trade
< < Centre and Afghanistan?
< <
< <
< <
< < ---------------------------------
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