File spoon-archives/anarchy-list.archive/anarchy-list_2001/anarchy-list.0109, message 272


Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 10:37:18 -0400
From: kmart <thoucynic-AT-crosswinds.net>
Subject: Re: not surprised


"Michael A. Lewis" wrote:
>     The attack was not directed at human beings, though they were the
> victims. In fact, the human victims of this attack were used as weapons by
> the perpetrators, who targeted both the symbols and the infrastructure of
> United States economic and military oppression of their compatriots.
	Perhaps, perhaps not.

I am not at all convinced that this is the case, given that we really do
not know who did the attack and for what purposes they performed the
attack. 

> appropriate level or organization. The attack on the WTC and the Pentagon
> was perpetrated by a group who have been engaged in destructive activities
> in a wide international sphere, affecting a broad constituency of victims.

	Perhaps or perhaps not, again we are assuming that "Al-Qa'ida did it"
which could be an erroneous assumption, the TV tells us this constantly,
the pundits tell us this constantly, but there has been NO proof fostered,
whatsoever, that this is the case.  Indeed the only, the ONLY attacks that
can probably be pinned on these people is the Khobar towers incident years
ago, and it is likely that the USS Cole incident has their fingerprints all
over it. If not them then certainly people associated with them, read and
listen to Bin Laden's responses to questions surrounding these events, it
differs GREATLY from his responses concerning the Embassy bombings and the
WTC incident.

We know that the people who carried this out looked, vaguely, middle
easterner. Which by itself means nothing because to Joe Smith man at the
pub a Sikh looks middle easterner. I'm not even from the region but a Sikh
does not look middle eastern to me, indeed NO Punjabi looks Middle Eastern
to me, they look Desi to me.

To Joe Smith man in the pub, you can take a Puerto Rican dress him up in a
robe and turban and our Puerto Rican friend will magically appear to look
"middle eastern", while you can take a blond and green eyed Afghani and
dress him up in an Armani suit and he will appear to look "kinda german
like" to Joe Smith, man in the pub. And indeed we can take a Yemeni friend,
put him in a Black suit and yarmulke and introduce him as "my friend,
Schlomo Blatt" and convince Joe Smith, man in the pub, that he is a top
Rabbinical scholar.

At the turn of the century Eastern European Jews were subject to similar
popular delusions regarding their phenotypes, if Arther Miller wore glasses
he suddenly "looked Jewish", this results from an unfortunate manipulation
of the public mind concerning non dominant ethnic groups. If someone sees a
Korean he attacks him because he "looks Japanese".  I am not sure that
there is a solution to this other than constant education. And countering
media stereotypes.
We know that these guys had 'Arabic names', whatever that means, when in
fact it is proved that at *least* 5, and perhaps more, of the identities
used by the attackers were stolen from living individuals who had no clue
as to what was going on.  Arabic names being taken for granted, we have no
clue as to the ideological disposition of these attackers, they could have
Islamic militants, but they very well could have been Marxists, or non
Marxist Socialists (like Iraq's Ba'athists), they could have been
representatives of some official State ideology, the security apparatus
from any number of states, there are many alternatives. We do not know who
did it or why they did it so we convince ourselves of a meta-narritative in
order to feel comfortable and give our actions some, vague, sense of
direction.

This could be an error on our part.

> We therefore form a confederation with those societies also affected by this
> group and seek to stop the destructive activity.

	How do you physically restrain them without applying very harshly coercive
measures.
	How do you address the social conditions that spawned this type of
behavior. 
	Given the anonymous nature of much of modern terrorism, state sponsored
AND OTHERWISE,
	how do you give your coalition a clear sense of direction.

These are legitimate and well intended questions, I have no desire to shoot
down your idea, just instead to explore it to a greater length.
--
"Exit sanity; enter paranoia. "  || thoucynic-AT-crosswinds.net
   --Ziauddin Sardar             || neither paranoid nor sane

   

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