There is almost universal public support for massive retaliation. Already no distinction is made between the terrorists and countries who harbor terrorists. This makes it appropriate to take massive retaliatory action against countries such as Afghanistan. The fundamentalist islamic jihad against the US (and the west) is worldwide. Although in the past Bin Laden and the Taliban trained terrorists it is not clear how much this is true now. Bin Laden is as much a symbol and insipiration as a cenral planner. Typically terrorists operate in small cells so that they are not infiltrated and plans are not widely known. Unless intelligence services are even more incompetent than they seem to be if this were planned by Bin Laden they should have known.Of course most -but not all- intelligence experts are less experts than part of the information management apparatus. Of course they conveniently point the finger at Bin Laden in most instances and parrot a line about how only he can have the resources to plan such a sophisticated operation.
If these actions were carried out as part of a jihad the result will be to cause massive retaliation and this in turn will only inflame further members of the movement throughout the world and enable the movement to recruit more terrorists. Hatred against arabs will be so inflamed that moderate leaders will be able to achieve nothing. In the case of Arafat this has already happened. But this is exactly what is wanted by the movement. So how exactly is it suicidal. It may kill any possibility of success of the liberal left. But this is part of the whole plan.
I am not sure that this is part of a jihad but if it is it is not suicidal. It could be the work of anarchists, small palestinian radical groups, the japanese red army, or even some anti-capitalist anarchists--propaganda of the deed or even some of the right wing groups such as those assocaited with Tim McVeigh. Interesting that this latter possibility doesn even register on any commentators radar screen. Could anyone explain that?
Cheers, Ken Hanly
----- Original Message ----- From: Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2001 9:09 PM Subject: Re: Hi-jack fall-out
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ken Hanly" <khanly at mb.sympatico.ca>
> >You would think that what happened might cause Americans to ask
themselves
> >why some people hate them so much they are willing to lay down their
lives
> >and kill innocent people to express that hatred. Of course that wont
> happen.
> >Outrage, moralising, repression, reprisals and revenge will be the order
> of
> >the day. Already there seem to be explosions in Kabul.
>
> Most of the time on this list, electoral politics is dismissed because
> average people have no voice, that the government represents only the
> corporate interests. Yet suddenly when possibly tens of thousands of the
> American people are murdered, they should feel no outrage because they are
> culpable for all the harms that their government may have perpetuated at
> that individual level.
>
> I do believe that the American people have collective responsibility for
the
> harms perpetuated in their name, but that is a very different thing from
> recognizing the barbarism involved in the mass slaughter that occurred
> today. I am not a pacifist or even against all "terrorism" in the sense
> that proportional targetted response against civilians may be justified on
> occasion where no other outlets for resistance are possible. But this
kind
> of disproportionate mass murder warrants little response that will lead to
> any questioning of the US's role. If anything, it will justify those
> actions retrospectively in many minds.
>
> Gandhi wrote that an eye for eye, a tooth for a tooth, and soon the whole
> world will be blind and toothless. To imply that there is even a hint of
> justice in today's actions is morally bankrupt and blind to how
politically
> suicidal such statements are if they emanate from what are seen as left
> quarters.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>
>