File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0109, message 118


Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:57:56 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Kamran D. Rastegar" <kdr7-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Aftershocks (from Counterpunch)



... note that cockburn also is reporting that the footage of palestinian
celebrants is from 1991.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 11:41:18 -0400
From: Kouross Esmaeli <kesmaeli-AT-hotmail.com>
To: vze2g5zz-AT-verizon.net, elham-AT-ucla.edu, Erika.Jeffers-AT-mail.house.gov,
     GRanjbaran-AT-aol.com, Jegarbala-AT-aol.com, jf133-AT-columbia.edu,
     kdr7-AT-columbia.edu, kfizazi-AT-hotmail.com, lht7-AT-columbia.edu,
     lisabee-AT-earthlink.net, lrabiee-AT-hotmail.com, Mahyous-AT-aol.com,
     mana.rabiee-AT-dpw.com, marleavner-AT-netscapeonline.co.uk,
     maryamborjian-AT-hotmail.com, OMIDARAB-AT-aol.com, RolandJones-AT-aol.com,
     samiramirza-AT-aol.com, sfarkhondeh-AT-gc.cuny.edu, shahriar.rafimayeri-AT-csfb.com
Subject: Cockburn

		    		   Aftershocks

                                   by Alexander Cockburn and
                                   Jeffrey St. Clair

                                   A Very Big Hammer

                                   Even though there's much carping
                                   about the CIA's failures in regard to
                                   Tuesday's attacks, there seems to be
                                   an unparalleled unity between the
                                   White House and the Congress on the
                                   desire for a swift and savage
                                   retaliatory response, a response that
                                   one Pentagon official described as
                                   demonstrating "our big hammer, a
                                   very large hammer that can be
                                   brought to bear in a number of ways
                                   at any time. That's not a threat, it's a
                                   fact.''

                                   The Senate and House, in between a
                                   rash of bomb threats and "suspicious
                                   packages" that emptied the Capitol
                                   building on Thursday evening, have
                                   moved forward with a $40 billion
                                   military package that may signal the
                                   onset of a huge military build up and
                                   the end of all rational debate about
                                   the fate of the social security system.
                                   Thus was the lock-box blown apart.

                                   So what's in store? We got some clue
                                   today from Paul Wolfowitz, the
                                   hyper-hawkish assistant secretary of
                                   defense, who said that the Pentagon
                                   would begin examining how to
                                   retaliate against the "host countries"
                                   of terrorists with the intent of "ending
                                   states that support terrorism". In
                                   other words, the decimation,
                                   occupation and reconstitution of
                                   nations that the Bush crowd finger as
                                   being part of Terror Inc. Afghanistan
                                   won't be the only target (Iraq, ever
                                   the whipping post of the Bush crowd,
                                   and, perhaps, Iran are also on the
                                   list), but the Russian experience in
                                   the Hindu Kush and in Chechnya
                                   should give any rationale military
                                   planner pause. Years of fighting,
                                   thousands dead, no ground gained.

                                   But word coming out of the Pentagon
                                   is grim. A top Pentagon official told
                                   NBC news on Thursday evening that
                                   "Americans have to get over their fear
                                   of bloodshed. The events of Tuesday
                                   should have vaccinated them against
                                   a fear of casualties."

                                        Most revealing reaction

                                   Benyamin Netanyahu, former Israeli
                                   prime minister, on being asked what
                                   the attack means for relations
                                   between the US and Israel: "It's very
                                   good."

                                        Least credible analysis

                                   New York Times columnist William
                                   Safire, claiming there was a terrorist
                                   mole in the White House, relaying to
                                   the kamikaze pilots the whereabouts
                                   of the President and the special
                                   coordinates of Air Force One. Safire's
                                   political mission in that particular
                                   column was to explain why the
                                   President fled down a SAC bunker in
                                   Nebraska.

                                        Least credible news
                                        footage

                                   CNN's videotape of Palestinians
                                   supposedly dancing in the streets of a
                                   West Bank town. CounterPuncher
                                   Marcio A.V. Carvalho at the state
                                   university of Campinas in Brazil tells
                                   us that he and his colleagues had
                                   compared this tape with one from
                                   1991 showing Palestinian cheering,
                                   and found them to be identical.

                                   America's Greens Rally to
                                   Flag,
                                   Run for Cover

                                   Hot to present themselves as staunch
                                   flag-waggers, some of America's
                                   premier environmental organizations
                                   have disgracefully ditched their
                                   principles.

                                   The Sierra Club, America's oldest
                                   green group has abruptly turned off
                                   its campaign against the
                                   anti-environmental program of the
                                   Bush administration. CounterPunch
                                   has secured an internal memo in
                                   which the club's high command
                                   explains to its staff why it suspending
                                   its campaigns. "In response to the
                                   attacks on America," the memo goes,
                                   "we are shifting our communications
                                   strategy for the immediate future. We
                                   have taken all of our ads off of the
                                   air; halted our phone banks; removed
                                   any material from the web that people
                                   could perceive as anti-Bush, and we
                                   are taking other steps to prevent the
                                   Sierra Club from being perceived as
                                   controversial during this crisis. For
                                   now we are going to stop aggressively
                                   pushing our agenda and will cease
                                   bashing President Bush "

                                   The memo then instructs club staffers
                                   on how to respond to the press: "If
                                   you are asked about what this
                                   terrorism does to the Sierra Club's
                                   agenda, please respond simply by
                                   saying that right now the public needs
                                   to focus on comforting each other and
                                   strengthening our national security to
                                   deal with the crisis at hand."

                                   Imagine if this craven posture spreads
                                   across the public interest movement.
                                   We could expect First Amendment
                                   defenders to say that they were
                                   abandoning efforts to protect the Bill
                                   of Rights. We could expect groups
                                   defending immigrants to say that
                                   henceforth the INS should be given
                                   free rein. Fortunately First
                                   Amendment defenders and defenders
                                   of immigrants have stronger spines
                                   and principles than the supposed
                                   defenders of the environment at the
                                   Sierra Club. Are we now to expect the
                                   Club to endorse drilling in the Arctic
                                   National Wildlife Reserve as
                                   necessary "for national security"?

                                   Even groups that we here at
                                   CounterPunch have admired are now
                                   in pellmell cowardly retreat.

                                   The Berkeley-based International
                                   Rivers Network, which has been the
                                   main bulwark against the Three
                                   Gorges dam in China, now announces
                                   that it is suspending its planned
                                   nationwide protest against Morgan
                                   Stanley, one of the dam's principle
                                   financiers. Morgan Stanley had 50
                                   floors of offices in the World Trade
                                   Center. IRN has also announced that
                                   "out of respect for the victims of this
                                   disaster, with understanding of the
                                   strategic difficulties in conveying to a
                                   shocked media and public our
                                   messages regarding the World Bank
                                   and IMF, with concern for the integrity
                                   of security systems in Washington DC,
                                   and for the safety of all, we will
                                   refrain from participating in activities
                                   surrounding the planned World Bank /
                                   IMF this month. We are also sharing
                                   our concerns with the leading
                                   organizations responsible for planning
                                   and coordinating these activities."

                                   The Ruckus Society, the direct action
                                   training group involved in many
                                   demonstrations at the World Trade
                                   Organization has simultaneously
                                   announced that it is canceling its
                                   training camp, to be held in
                                   Middleburgh, Virginia, scheduled as
                                   preparation for the next World Bank
                                   meeting. This camp was to be
                                   cosponsored by the Institute for Policy
                                   Studies, Jobs with Justice and Global
                                   Exchange. All these organizations
                                   have now backed out, saying that now
                                   is not the time for such activity.

                                   The Rainforest Action Network, based
                                   in San Francisco, has called for the
                                   cancellation of the protest and said
                                   that in the event it goes forward it will
                                   not participate.

                                   Let's get this straight. If all resisters
                                   to the Bush political program were to
                                   follow this shameful exhibition by
                                   these green groups, we would see
                                   peace groups declining to protest
                                   against nuclear attacks on Iraq and
                                   armed invasion of Afghanistan. We
                                   would see civil rights sitting on their
                                   hands as racial and religious profiling
                                   is used to persecute people of Middle
                                   Eastern descent. Defenders of
                                   Palestinian rights would say that for
                                   the time being they wouldn't protest
                                   the use of US Apache helicopters
                                   against civilians in West Bank towns
                                   and villages. What nonsense!
                                   Principles are never more important
                                   than when it is inconvenient or
                                   dangerous to stand up for them.

                                   Big Oil's Kamikaze

                                   Rep. Don Young, the wild man from
                                   Alaska, was one of the few members
                                   of congress who didn't completely buy
                                   into the notion of Osama bin Laden as
                                   the mastermind of the attacks on the
                                   World Trade complex and the
                                   Pentagon. There's some possibility,
                                   Young told the Alaska Daily News,
                                   that the attacks are linked to the
                                   protests against the World Trade
                                   Organization, another of which is
                                   scheduled for later this month in
                                   Washington D.C. "If you watched what
                                   happened (at past protests) in Genoa,
                                   in Italy, and even in Seattle, there's
                                   some expertise in that field," Young
                                   said. "I'm not sure they're that
                                   dedicated but ecoterrorists --which
                                   are really based in Seattle -- there's a
                                   strong possibility that could be one of
                                   the groups."

                                   Young doesn't believe any of this. But
                                   he smells weakness in the
                                   environmental movement and, like
                                   the old fur-trapper that he is, he is
                                   poised to exploit it. Young is not
                                   beneath using the carnage of the
                                   World Trade Center as a launching
                                   ground for his own agenda: oil drilling
                                   in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, logging
                                   in the Tongass rainforest, passing
                                   laws against environmental protest
                                   and construction of new missile bases
                                   in the Alaska tundra and on the
                                   Aleutian Islands.

                                   Chemical War in
                                   Manhattan
                                   As the environmentalists are putting
                                   themselves into a state of suspended
                                   animation, the citizens of Manhattan
                                   and the thousands of volunteer rescue
                                   workers mulling through the rubble at
                                   the World Trade Center complex may
                                   well be in the whirlwind of a toxic
                                   event, which has received little media
                                   attention and almost no precautionary
                                   aid from FEMA or other federal
                                   agencies coordinating.

                                   Early reports from the Environmental
                                   Protection Agency described the
                                   destruction of the World Trade
                                   complex "an environmental
                                   catastrophe": the air of Manhattan
                                   clotted with asbestos, dioxin and
                                   other poisons. Yet, rescue workers
                                   found themselves without little more
                                   than surgical masks between their
                                   lungs and the poisons emanating from
                                   the smoldering ruins.

                                   For years, the Pentagon and other
                                   terror pundits had been warning of
                                   the vulnerability of American cities to
                                   attack by biological and chemical
                                   weapons, the so-called asymmetrical
                                   warfare. These apocalyptic scenarios
                                   held that terrorist groups would
                                   unleash anthrax or sarin gas attacks
                                   in subways, water supplies or
                                   mega-office buildings, such as the
                                   World Trade Towers. Well, it turns out
                                   that the attackers didn't need to pack
                                   any chemicals, the buildings
                                   themselves proved to be quite toxic
                                   enough. The attackers used American
                                   planes as missiles and the buildings
                                   as chemical weapons.

                                   Built during the height of the asbestos
                                   boom, the guts of the World Trade
                                   Center may have been one of the
                                   world's largest repositories of the
                                   carcinogenic fiber, used as insulation
                                   in the giant towers.

                                   Underneath the rubble, thousands of
                                   tires continue to burn, sending plumes
                                   of pitch black smoke down the
                                   canyons of Manhattan. This smoke is
                                   contaminated with dioxins and
                                   assorted other poisons of the
                                   petrochemical age.

                                   Early Warnings
                                   Reports keep coming in to us of
                                   advanced warnings that an attack of
                                   some sort was eminent. San Francisco
                                   Mayor Willie Brown was booked to fly
                                   from the Bay Area to New York City on
                                   the morning of September 11. But
                                   Brown says that late Monday evening,
                                   a full 8 hours prior to the attack, he
                                   received a call from a person Brown
                                   described as his "airport security
                                   man" telling him that he should be
                                   extra cautious about air travel on
                                   September 11.

                                   In addition to what we have
                                   previously reported about heightened
                                   security at the World Trade Center
                                   itself in the weeks leading to the
                                   attack and at the Picatinny Arsenal in
                                   Rockaway, New Jersey, CounterPunch
                                   has also learned that an internal
                                   memo was sent around Goldman
                                   Sachs in Tokyo on September 10
                                   advising all employees of a possible
                                   terrorist attack. It recommended all
                                   employees to avoid any American
                                   government buildings.

                                   That said, according to Rep. David
                                   Bonior, the Michigan Democrat, the
                                   Congress was the last to know. Even
                                   after two planes had struck the World
                                   Trade Center towers and another had
                                   smashed into the Pentagon, Bonior
                                   says congressional officials were not
                                   warned by the CIA or any other
                                   intelligence arm of the federal
                                   government that the 30,000 workers
                                   in the Capitol might be at risk of an
                                   attack. Bonoir has been one of the
                                   few members of Congress to openly
                                   question the value of bowing to the
                                   demands for more money made by
                                   CIA and other intelligence agencies.
                                   "If they can't even warn members of
                                   Congress about an ongoing attack,
                                   you really have to wonder what good
                                   they are," Bonior said. CP

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