[1362] in peace2
Bush in Boston Tuesday!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Julia Steinberger)
Sun Jan 6 02:50:30 2002
Message-Id: <200201060749.CAA13272@scrubbing-bubbles.mit.edu>
To: peace-list@MIT.EDU
Date: Sun, 06 Jan 2002 02:49:59 -0500
From: Julia Steinberger <julias@MIT.EDU>
Anyone for a "Nerds against War" welcoming committee?
*Please Forward Widely*
Protest George "War" Bush in Boston
Tuesday, Jan. 8
3:00 PM
Boston Latin School
78 Avenue Louis Pastuer, near corner of Longwood Ave
"Longwood" stop on the E Green Line
*Please Forward Widely*
Bush, who in a 2001 year-end interview with the Washington Post
threatened, "Next year will be a war year", is scheduled to speak
to a handpicked audience at 4:00 pm Tues. inside
Boston Latin School.
Join students, teachers, community activists, unionists, and
Boston's anti-war and anti-globalization movements
in telling George W. Bush:
Stop Bombing Afghanistan! U.S. Out of Central Asia!
No more war against the peoples & nations of the
Middle East, Asia & Africa.
Over 4,000 Afghan civilian deaths is enough -
No more blood for oil!
"Plan Colombia" - Phony War on Drugs
Another Vietnam
Layoffs and Budget Cuts are terror to millions in the U.S.
Working and poor people must not be made to pay for the
profits, corruption, and recession of
Enron, Unocal, Chase Manhattan, Raytheon & Wall Street.
Money for Education, Housing, Jobs, AIDS & Healthcare, Not War!
U.S. Navy Out of Vieques and the World
War is Not the Answer.
posted by
A.N.S.W.E.R. Boston
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)
&
International Action Center - Boston
http://www.iacboston.org
31 Germania St.
Boston, MA 02130
Phone: 617 522-6626
Fax: 617 983-3836
email: iacboston@iacboston.org
International ANSWER coalition
(Act Now to Stop War & End Racism)
http://www.internationalanswer.org
IAC - New York City
http://www.iacenter.org
For latest actions and updates to
"Free Mumia Abu-Jamal", check out
http://www.mumia2000.org
Conventional devastation and nuclear terror
Bush pushes war on many fronts
By Fred Goldstein
The Bush administration is pushing out on all fronts in an effort to develop
a permanent state of belligerency and war. Right now it is trying to prolong
the war in Afghanistan, is supporting Israel's war in Palestine, is planning
to launch wars in other areas of the world, and is trying to keep the people
of the U.S. in a perpetual state of fear, suspicion and patriotic war fever.
This is what was behind the showing of the inflammatory tape of Osama bin
Laden for 24 straight hours by all the television networks. This is what is
behind the escalating campaign against Muslim students, other Middle Eastern
immigrants and Muslim charities. And this is what is behind the periodic
announcements of "terror alerts" coming from Washington.
On the battlefield in Afghanistan, the Pentagon is trying to prolong the war
and the killing as long as possible-to wreak destruction and havoc and to
condition the population at home to a state of prolonged war.
As an example, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld went to Afghanistan to
review the troops, assess the situation and dictate instructions to the new
puppet leadership. During a visit to an airfield, he met with Hamid Karzai,
who is to be installed as the provisional head of the new government, and
the incoming Secretary of Defense, Gen. Muhhamad Fahim. Rumsfeld told them
that even though the Afghan local forces considered the war over, the U.S.
was going to continue its military operations in the country.
Rumsfeld decides when war is over
Warlord commanders in the Tora Bora region said they had taken control of
the area and, according to the New York Times of Dec. 17, commanders
Muhhamed Zaman and Hazirat Ali, tribal leaders in the region, both declared
that the military conflict was over.
"There is no need for American bombing," commander Zaman said. "Our men have
control over the situation." Commander Ali, speaking of the fortified caves
in which bin Laden might be hiding, said, "There is no cave that is not
under the control of the mujahadeen."
On the next day, according to the Times of Dec. 18, "the Pentagon delivered
its answer. ... American AC-130 gunships continued to prowl over the
mountain area. Then a thunderous explosion lit up the sky. The American
bombing had resumed and was continuing on the other side of the mountain
today."
"They have got their own program," declared Ali. "Last night they even
bombed us."
Washington's determination to keep the war going as long as possible and to
bring as much killing and destruction as possible was further demonstrated
earlier in the week. "The anti-Taliban, anti-Qaeda commanders were furious
and dejected," reported the Times of Dec. 13, " believing that they had
negotiated a cease-fire and surrender agreement in good faith, only to see
it derailed by American bombing and strafing by AC-130 gunships through the
night and a heavy barrage early in the morning, just before the surrender
was supposed to take place."
The agreement was to allow the Al Qaeda fighters to surrender and for Arab,
Pakistani and other foreign fighters to be turned over to the United
Nations. But Rumsfeld was not having any of that. The Pentagon vetoed the
agreement with bullets and the killing continued.
The Bush Doctrine: military devastation
This military policy was dictated by the political strategy of the so-called
Bush Doctrine of perpetual war for decades to come, first enunciated to a
joint session of Congress on Sept. 14. Bush made a follow-up elaboration of
this new, ultra-militaristic doctrine in a speech at the Citadel military
college in Charleston, S.C., on Dec. 12.
Pumped up by the victory in Afghanistan, he denounced those who thought that
after the destruction of the Soviet Union "our military would be used
overseas, not to win wars, but mainly to police and pacify; to control
crowds and contain ethnic conflict. They were wrong."
He drove home the lesson that the Pentagon and the ruling class wanted
everyone to learn from the war in Afghanistan. "Our military has a new
essential mission: For states that support terror, it's not enough that the
consequences be costly; they must be devastating."
The New York Times, reporting on the speech, said that "Mr. Bush cited the
American military campaign in Afghanistan as a model for future wars, and
said the United States needs to further develop unmanned planes, like the
Predator, and precision-guided bombs."
With intentional racist insensitivity, Bush referred to the war in
Afghanistan and the new use of high technology by Special Forces operations
as "strikes from horseback in the first cavalry charge of the 21st century."
Speaking at this Southern military academy in the land where slavery was
defended and the Native people were conquered by the cavalry, the symbolism
was hard to miss.
It is fitting that Bush has now chosen the Citadel to make two major policy
speeches. Charleston is the birthplace of the Confederacy-the site of Fort
Sumter.
U.S. nuclear terror and cancellation of ABM Treaty
In the same speech Bush signaled his intention to withdraw from the ABM
Treaty of 1972, which he did officially a few days later. It shows the
dimension of the global military threat that the Rumsfeld wing of the
Pentagon had been working on before Sept. 11. Breaking the treaty will free
up the U.S. government to begin the construction of anti-missile silos in
Greeley, Alaska, as early as June of next year.
There was much ado in the ruling class opposition about how this would
damage relations with Russia. It is a characteristic of this
administration's fiercely militarist wing, headed by Rumsfeld and his deputy
secretary Paul Wolfowitz and supported by a host of strategists for the
military-industrial complex, that they advocate subordinating diplomacy
wherever it interferes with military expansion or plans for aggression.
These are the so-called unilateralists.
The multilateralist "coalition builders," represented in the administration
by Secretary of State Colin Powell, tried mightily to work out a negotiated
arrangement with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In fact, Powell was in
Moscow trying to work it out when, according to the New York Times of Dec.
12, "Mr. Bush concluded ... that Secretary Powell's last effort would likely
fail." Bush had already told Putin by telephone that he was pulling out.
Setting up an ABM system is a highly aggressive act. It means the
establishment of a first-strike force, since an opponent is prevented from
retaliating to an attack. Thus a country like the People's Republic of
China, which has only 20 or so missiles capable of reaching the U.S., would
have no deterrent to prevent a military attack by the U.S. in the event that
the Pentagon is able to perfect a workable ABM system.
During the era of the USSR, both Moscow and Washington signed the ABM Treaty
precisely to eliminate first-strike capability on the other side. Setting up
an effective missile "defense" system, however, lays the basis for further
Pentagon nuclear terrorism.
The decision was regarded as "a major policy defeat for Secretary Powell"
and "a major victory for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, fresh from the
success of the military campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda,"
according to the Times.
Bush and Sharon: Palestine is phase two
The war momentum has swept the Bush administration to new levels of
aggression. The war against the Palestinians is in reality Phase Two.
Washington quickly incorporated the massive offensive by Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon into its so-called "war on terrorism."
Sharon, a war criminal of major proportions who is currently being tried in
Belgium for crimes committed during the siege of Beirut in 1982, is trying
to destroy the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine, the Islamic Jihad, Fatah and all other instruments
of resistance to the Israeli occupation.
U.S. Apache helicopters, U.S. F-16s, U.S. missiles, U.S. bullets and
billions of dollars of U.S. military aid are waging this war. It could not
continue without full support from the Bush administration.
Powell had dispatched a negotiating team headed by retired Gen. Anthony
Zinni, former head of the Central Command, to try to placate moderate Arab
regimes and the European imperialist allies and give the impression that the
U.S. wanted to calm the situation in Palestine.
The Sharon regime sabotaged the mission in advance by assassinating a major
Hamas military commander, then opening up a major attack after the
inevitable retaliation by Hamas. The Zinni mission was converted into a
pressure group to squeeze Yasir Arafat to open up civil war against the
resistance movement. Zinni finally had to be recalled.
Planning the next war well underway
As the war in Afghanistan is winding down and the war in Palestine is
heating up, the Bush administration is already trying to plan its next war.
The New York Times of Dec. 17 wrote that it will be "making some difficult
choices in the next few weeks... . Is it taking the war to Iraq ... to
Somalia, or perhaps Indonesia and the Philippines? Or alternatively, will
events pick Phase Two for him, perhaps in Pakistan or the Middle East.
"For weeks now it has been clear that the White House, the State Department
and the Pentagon are not waiting to see Mr. bin Laden in handcuffs ...
before preparing the next phase of the war."
The greatest pressure in the government is to overthrow Saddam Hussein of
Iraq. The struggle inside the administration has progressed from whether to
do it to how to do it. The difficulty in plunging into the heart of the
Middle East in a wild act of unprovoked aggression is giving major sections
of the ruling class pause for thought.
It was one thing for the Pentagon to overthrow the unpopular, austere,
medireview, counter-revolutionary Taliban government, which had no military
to speak of. It is another thing to challenge the hundreds of millions of
Arab people who have seen the genocidal destruction of villages and
civilians in Afghanistan and who have been watching the Israelis kill
Palestinian men, women and children with U.S. weapons and U.S. military
support for the last 14 months of the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
At the present there is an active effort to find some way to overthrow the
government of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The Pentagon is exploring the
possibility of encircling the regime and initiating a proxy war involving
the Turkish government, a section of the Kurds in northern Iraq and the
Shiites in the south.
Whether such a course is practical and whether it will satisfy the
ultra-militarists is doubtful. But in any case, one thing is for sure, the
hatred for U.S. imperialism among the masses of the Middle East is growing
with each new act of aggression.
Poverty and unemployment in the Middle East are growing. The governments of
Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria are all holding their breath at the
moment, as mass discontent grows daily. A new act of U.S. military
aggression could truly set off a conflagration that could not be put out.
And above all, if the capitalist economic crisis in the U.S. continues to
deepen, the masses of workers who are losing their jobs, going on short
hours, losing benefits, and being driven into poverty may decide that the
war they really want to fight is the war for social and economic justice at
home--not a war to conquer the Middle East or southern Asia for the benefit
of the super-rich who are behind the layoffs and are raking in all the aid
Congress can muster.
What the militarists never count on is that mass resistance, at home and
abroad, can bring all their grandiose plans of world conquest to naught.
- - END -
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