From: "gracchus" <tiberiusgracchus-AT-home.com>
Subject: Re: postmodern war blues
Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 14:02:23 -0700



----- Original Message -----
From: "ninetyone andy" <andy_91_2000-AT-yahoo.co.uk>
To: "gracchus" <tiberiusgracchus-AT-home.com>; "a-list"
<anarchy-list-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu>
Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2001 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: postmodern war blues


>
> It's just nationalism and religion, and frankly, rich
> little Saudis wanting to be heroes. Nothing new.
>
> Andy
>
>

i don't think so.  it COULD have been just that, but shrubby insists
on raising it to the level of war (indeed THE war of good vs evil; you
can fight a clear evil without yourself becoming good by the way).
this is significant in that the approach up to now is to fight
'terrrorism' as a crime, no matter how obviously political the
motivation.  this is more than a semantic point.  can a freelance
group, even a well financed one, jerk around a modern nation-state?
while entertained as an abstract concept, it had never been
demonstrated prior to last tuesday.  the u$ response has given
tremendous political legitimacy to whomever is behind this.

one could almost interpret this as a moment of crisis for the state.
might even explain why so many otherwise sensible foreign ministers
are maintaining ranks with washington.  as i mentioned before, the
state has based it's very identity and raison d'etre on it's monopoly
of credible war-making capacity.  a lot of people may get some nasty
ideas from this week.  not good for states and probably not very good
for the rest of us cannon fodder either.

this is all very depressing.  i still don't know about a lot of people
i know in the city and some who should have been passing through.
hard to separate out the personal from the more universal at a time
like this.  i do think, however, that my main point is that the remedy
that will be attempted by the u$, et. al. will likely be far worse
than the malady we now suffer from.

fortunately, i've got a couple days worth of simpson and south park
episodes taped and lots of mental health aids.  see ya later.

roger