lbo-talk-digest V1 #4983

Gar Lipow lipowg at sprintmail.com
Mon Oct 1 08:19:01 PDT 2001


Peter K:

>>http://www.zmag.org/whatsgoing.htm

>

>>What's Going On?

>By Michael Albert

>>

>>The U.S. response to September 11 seeks to benefit elites in the U.S.,

>>and, to a lesser degree, around the world. There are various goals.

[clip]

>>Fourth, to have a good shot at getting rid of the Taliban, you would

>>close the borders of Afghanistan, starve the country, and hope that

>>Taliban members start to defect and that the country rises up in anuish

>>and despair. Fifth, to fill the ensuing power vacuum, you would support

>>Afghanistan's Northern alliance. Most important, sixth, to diminish the

>>groundswell of anti-war opposition to your combating terror with even

>>greater terror, you would send food to Afghanistan's borders, and

>>perhaps even drop food from planes inland. But, if you could have your

>>way, not too much food, of course. Indeed, if you remained free to do

>>so, you would provide only a pittance compared to the need generated

>>by closing the borders in the first place and by removing larger

>>sources of aid. Your goal would be to induce starvation sufficient to

>>topple the Taliban.

>[clip]

>Ken Hanly posted:

>>"WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (AFP) -

>>Washington has shelved plans for bombing raids on Afghanistan because

>>of a shortage of viable targets, opting instead to deploy special

>>forces,

>Newsweek said in its issue appearing Monday. [clip]

>>Newsweek added that the United States may drop shipments of food into

>>Afghanistan before it drops any bombs, in a bid to undermine popular

>>supportin the starving country for the fundamentalist Taliban which

>>Washington has indicated it wants out of power."

>Could you find out if Albert thinks Newsweek is running propaganda?

I'll be glad to pass on the question , once I understand. This would seem to be a factaully correct, though incomplete statment. Even the "might" is probably correct. The government may well not have made up it's mind yet. I'm obviously missing something...

>Peter



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