Published on Saturday, September 29, 2001 in the Guardian of London

The Algebra of Infinite Justice

by Arundhati Roy

  In the aftermath of the unconscionable September 11 suicide attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, an American newscaster said: "Good and evil rarely manifest themselves as clearly as they did last Tuesday. People who we don't know massacred people who we do. And they did so with contemptuous glee." Then he broke down and wept.

Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know, because they don't appear much on TV. Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "international coalition against terror", mobilized its army, its air force, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.

The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks.

Who is America fighting? On September 20, the FBI said that it had doubts about the identities of some of the hijackers. On the same day President George Bush said, "We know exactly who these people are and which governments are supporting them." It sounds as though the president knows something that the FBI and the American public don't.

In his September 20 address to the US Congress, President Bush called the enemies of America "enemies of freedom". "Americans are asking, 'Why do they hate us?' " he said. "They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other." People are being asked to make two leaps of faith here. First, to assume that The Enemy is who the US government says it is, even though it has no substantial evidence to support that claim. And second, to assume that The Enemy's motives are what the US government says they are, and there's nothing to support that either.

For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance - the World Trade Center and the Pentagon - were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things - to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office staff in the days since the attacks.

America's grief at what happened has been immense and immensely public. It would be grotesque to expect it to calibrate or modulate its anguish. However, it will be a pity if, instead of using this as an opportunity to try to understand why September 11 happened, Americans use it as an opportunity to usurp the whole world's sorrow to mourn and avenge only their own. Because then it falls to the rest of us to ask the hard questions and say the harsh things. And for our pains, for our bad timing, we will be disliked, ignored and perhaps eventually silenced.

The world will probably never know what motivated those particular hijackers who flew planes into those particular American buildings. They were not glory boys. They left no suicide notes, no political messages; no organization has claimed credit for the attacks. All we know is that their belief in what they were doing outstripped the natural human instinct for survival, or any desire to be remembered. It's almost as though they could not scale down the enormity of their rage to anything smaller than their deeds. And what they did has blown a hole in the world as we knew it. In the absence of information, politicians, political commentators and writers (like myself) will invest the act with their own politics, with their own interpretations. This speculation, this analysis of the political climate in which the attacks took place, can only be a good thing.

But war is looming large. Whatever remains to be said must be said quickly. Before America places itself at the helm of the "international coalition against terror", before it invites (and coerces) countries to actively participate in its almost godlike mission - called Operation Infinite Justice until it was pointed out that this could be seen as an insult to Muslims, who believe that only Allah can mete out infinite justice, and was renamed Operation Enduring Freedom- it would help if some small clarifications are made. For example, Infinite Justice/Enduring Freedom for whom? Is this America's war against terror in America or against terror in general? What exactly is being avenged here? Is it the tragic loss of almost 7,000 lives, the gutting of five million square feet of office space in Manhattan, the destruction of a section of the Pentagon, the loss of several hundreds of thousands of jobs, the bankruptcy of some airline companies and the dip in the New York Stock Exchange? Or is it more than that? In 1996, Madeleine Albright, then the US secretary of state, was asked on national television what she felt about the fact that 500,000 Iraqi children had died as a result of US economic sanctions. She replied that it was "a very hard choice", but that, all things considered, "we think the price is worth it". Albright never lost her job for saying this. She continued to travel the world representing the views and aspirations of the US government. More pertinently, the sanctions against Iraq remain in place. Children continue to die.

So here we have it. The equivocating distinction between civilization and savagery, between the "massacre of innocent people" or, if you like, "a clash of civilizations" and "collateral damage". The sophistry and fastidious algebra of infinite justice. How many dead Iraqis will it take to make the world a better place? How many dead Afghans for every dead American? How many dead women and children for every dead man? How many dead mojahedin for each dead investment banker? As we watch mesmerized, Operation Enduring Freedom unfolds on TV monitors across the world. A coalition of the world's superpowers is closing in on Afghanistan, one of the poorest, most ravaged, war-torn countries in the world, whose ruling Taliban government is sheltering Osama bin Laden, the man being held responsible for the September 11 attacks.

The only thing in Afghanistan that could possibly count as collateral value is its citizenry. (Among them, half a million maimed orphans.There are accounts of hobbling stampedes that occur when artificial limbs are airdropped into remote, inaccessible villages.) Afghanistan's economy is in a shambles. In fact, the problem for an invading army is that Afghanistan has no conventional coordinates or signposts to plot on a military map - no big cities, no highways, no industrial complexes, no water treatment plants. Farms have been turned into mass graves. The countryside is littered with land mines - 10 million is the most recent estimate. The American army would first have to clear the mines and build roads in order to take its soldiers in.

Fearing an attack from America, one million citizens have fled from their homes and arrived at the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The UN estimates that there are eight million Afghan citizens who need emergency aid. As supplies run out - food and aid agencies have been asked to leave - the BBC reports that one of the worst humanitarian disasters of recent times has begun to unfold. Witness the infinite justice of the new century. Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed.

In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of the country), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends.

In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilize it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.)

In 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilization reduced to rubble.

Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mojahedin ordered farmers to plant opium as a "revolutionary tax". The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of the heroin on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between $100bn and $200bn, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.

In 1995, the Taliban - then a marginal sect of dangerous, hardline fundamentalists - fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls' schools, dismissed women from government jobs, and enforced sharia laws under which women deemed to be "immoral" are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government's human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians.

After all that has happened, can there be anything more ironic than Russia and America joining hands to re-destroy Afghanistan? The question is, can you destroy destruction? Dropping more bombs on Afghanistan will only shuffle the rubble, scramble some old graves and disturb the dead.

The desolate landscape of Afghanistan was the burial ground of Soviet communism and the springboard of a unipolar world dominated by America. It made the space for neocapitalism and corporate globalization, again dominated by America. And now Afghanistan is poised to become the graveyard for the unlikely soldiers who fought and won this war for America.

And what of America's trusted ally? Pakistan too has suffered enormously. The US government has not been shy of supporting military dictators who have blocked the idea of democracy from taking root in the country. Before the CIA arrived, there was a small rural market for opium in Pakistan. Between 1979 and 1985, the number of heroin addicts grew from zero to one-and-a-half million. Even before September 11, there were three million Afghan refugees living in tented camps along the border. Pakistan's economy is crumbling. Sectarian violence, globalization's structural adjustment programs and drug lords are tearing the country to pieces. Set up to fight the Soviets, the terrorist training centers and madrasahs, sown like dragon's teeth across the country, produced fundamentalists with tremendous popular appeal within Pakistan itself. The Taliban, which the Pakistan government has sup ported, funded and propped up for years, has material and strategic alliances with Pakistan's own political parties.

Now the US government is asking (asking?) Pakistan to garotte the pet it has hand-reared in its backyard for so many years. President Musharraf, having pledged his support to the US, could well find he has something resembling civil war on his hands.

India, thanks in part to its geography, and in part to the vision of its former leaders, has so far been fortunate enough to be left out of this Great Game. Had it been drawn in, it's more than likely that our democracy, such as it is, would not have survived. Today, as some of us watch in horror, the Indian government is furiously gyrating its hips, begging the US to set up its base in India rather than Pakistan. Having had this ringside view of Pakistan's sordid fate, it isn't just odd, it's unthinkable, that India should want to do this. Any third world country with a fragile economy and a complex social base should know by now that to invite a superpower such as America in (whether it says it's staying or just passing through) would be like inviting a brick to drop through your windscreen.

Operation Enduring Freedom is ostensibly being fought to uphold the American Way of Life. It'll probably end up undermining it completely. It will spawn more anger and more terror across the world. For ordinary people in America, it will mean lives lived in a climate of sickening uncertainty: will my child be safe in school? Will there be nerve gas in the subway? A bomb in the cinema hall? Will my love come home tonight? There have been warnings about the possibility of biological warfare - smallpox, bubonic plague, anthrax - the deadly payload of innocuous crop-duster aircraft. Being picked off a few at a time may end up being worse than being annihilated all at once by a nuclear bomb.

The US government, and no doubt governments all over the world, will use the climate of war as an excuse to curtail civil liberties, deny free speech, lay off workers, harass ethnic and religious minorities, cut back on public spending and divert huge amounts of money to the defense industry. To what purpose? President Bush can no more "rid the world of evil-doers" than he can stock it with saints. It's absurd for the US government to even toy with the notion that it can stamp out terrorism with more violence and oppression. Terrorism is the symptom, not the disease. Terrorism has no country. It's transnational, as global an enterprise as Coke or Pepsi or Nike. At the first sign of trouble, terrorists can pull up stakes and move their "factories" from country to country in search of a better deal. Just like the multi-nationals.

Terrorism as a phenomenon may never go away. But if it is to be contained, the first step is for America to at least acknowledge that it shares the planet with other nations, with other human beings who, even if they are not on TV, have loves and griefs and stories and songs and sorrows and, for heaven's sake, rights. Instead, when Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, was asked what he would call a victory in America's new war, he said that if he could convince the world that Americans must be allowed to continue with their way of life, he would consider it a victory.

The September 11 attacks were a monstrous calling card from a world gone horribly wrong. The message may have been written by Bin Laden (who knows?) and delivered by his couriers, but it could well have been signed by the ghosts of the victims of America's old wars. The millions killed in Korea, Vietnam and Cambodia, the 17,500 killed when Israel - backed by the US - invaded Lebanon in 1982, the 200,000 Iraqis killed in Operation Desert Storm, the thousands of Palestinians who have died fighting Israel's occupation of the West Bank. And the millions who died, in Yugoslavia, Somalia, Haiti, Chile, Nicaragua, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic, Panama, at the hands of all the terrorists, dictators and genocidists whom the American government supported, trained, bankrolled and supplied with arms. And this is far from being a comprehensive list.

For a country involved in so much warfare and conflict, the American people have been extremely fortunate. The strikes on September 11 were only the second on American soil in over a century. The first was Pearl Harbor. The reprisal for this took a long route, but ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This time the world waits with bated breath for the horrors to come.

Someone recently said that if Osama bin Laden didn't exist, America would have had to invent him. But, in a way, America did invent him. He was among the jihadis who moved to Afghanistan in 1979 when the CIA commenced its operations there. Bin Laden has the distinction of being created by the CIA and wanted by the FBI. In the course of a fortnight he has been promoted from suspect to prime suspect and then, despite the lack of any real evidence, straight up the charts to being "wanted dead or alive".

From all accounts, it will be impossible to produce evidence (of the sort that would stand scrutiny in a court of law) to link Bin Laden to the September 11 attacks. So far, it appears that the most incriminating piece of evidence against him is the fact that he has not condemned them.

From what is known about the location of Bin Laden and the living conditions in which he operates, it's entirely possible that he did not personally plan and carry out the attacks - that he is the inspirational figure, "the CEO of the holding company". The Taliban's response to US demands for the extradition of Bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable: produce the evidence, then we'll hand him over. President Bush's response is that the demand is "non-negotiable".

(While talks are on for the extradition of CEOs - can India put in a side request for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the US? He was the chairman of Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000 people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It's all in the files. Could we have him, please?)

But who is Osama bin Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He's America's family secret. He is the American president's dark doppelgänger. The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilized. He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by America's foreign policy: its gunboat diplomacy, its nuclear arsenal, its vulgarly stated policy of "full-spectrum dominance", its chilling disregard for non-American lives, its barbarous military interventions, its support for despotic and dictatorial regimes, its merciless economic agenda that has munched through the economies of poor countries like a cloud of locusts. Its marauding multinationals who are taking over the air we breathe, the ground we stand on, the water we drink, the thoughts we think. Now that the family secret has been spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming interchangeable. Their guns, bombs, money and drugs have been going around in the loop for a while. (The Stinger missiles that will greet US helicopters were supplied by the CIA. The heroin used by America's drug addicts comes from Afghanistan. The Bush administration recently gave Afghanistan a $43m subsidy for a "war on drugs"....)

Now Bush and Bin Laden have even begun to borrow each other's rhetoric. Each refers to the other as "the head of the snake". Both invoke God and use the loose millenarian currency of good and evil as their terms of reference. Both are engaged in unequivocal political crimes. Both are dangerously armed - one with the nuclear arsenal of the obscenely powerful, the other with the incandescent, destructive power of the utterly hopeless. The fireball and the ice pick. The bludgeon and the axe. The important thing to keep in mind is that neither is an acceptable alternative to the other.

President Bush's ultimatum to the people of the world - "If you're not with us, you're against us" - is a piece of presumptuous arrogance. It's not a choice that people want to, need to, or should have to make.

© Arundhati Roy 2001

Arundhati Roy, forty-one, is the author of The God of Small Things (Random House, 1997), which won the Booker Prize, sold six million copies, and has been translated into forty languages. Here is link to an interview with Arundhati in the April 2001 issue of The Progressive Magazine: http://www.theprogressive.org/intv0401.html

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-- joj (jump@off.c), November 01, 2001

Answers

We do still punish for treason, right?

-- Karen (karen2@bestweb.net), November 01, 2001.

And what does the author suggest America do? He offers nothing! When someone writes political commentary that criticizes (re)actions and offers no alternatives, I disregard his opinion. He merely wants to see his name in print.

-- Jo (mamamia2kids@msn.com), November 01, 2001.

Sounds like a bunch of hot air .There is a reason we are the strongest country in the world ! The great people of this nation shall win the war against terrorism and keep our land safe .Our brave men and woman in uniform know this time what they are fighting for , it's are way of life .Let's stand proud together and fight the enemy not each other , let make our founding father's proud of what we have become.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), November 01, 2001.

I think Joe already jumped off!

Hate to disagree with you, Joe.... no, on second thought, I don't!

-- David (bookboy@iwon.com), November 01, 2001.

And the point is?

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), November 01, 2001.

Learn to spellcheck Patty. That just annoys me and then I have to ignore you.

Ed Karen, and David--are you afraid of free speech? Geez. Disagree and move on.

What are YOU offering Jo? Have you tried to think of an option other than killing others? What would it be?

Please think on your own and don't buy into every news release. Just consider another opinion, even if it makes you more entrenched in your current thoughts. At least you thought about it yourself without letting others form your opinion for you.

-- ST (None@this.moment), November 01, 2001.

First of all, there are absolutely legitimate reasons for condemning US foreign policy in the Middle East , and for blaming foreign policy decisions on the numerous boneheaded and shortsighted actions that we have been involved in in that area. Much of it I think is due to the kind of job our politicians have been doing that would, in any other business, have gotten them fired. But part of it is also due to the fact that while hindsight is 20/20, so to speak, foresight is much less keen.

I have a little bit of insight into Middle-Eastern mentalities, being married to a Middle-Eastern man with extensive family in Iran, United Arab Emirates and Iraq, and I don't believe for a minute that American foreign policy is the real kicker here, although it is certainly a catalyst. These countries are not democracies, they have no constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press or freedom of religion or freedom of speech. Their governments define their citizens' way of life down to the slightest detail, in some cases. You think the Taliban is bad? Saudi Arabia is little better, and the other Middle-Eastern countries are little better than Saudi Arabia.

People are greatly influenced by the society in which they live. Even in this country, where we have absolutely guaranteed freedoms, we have a multitude of cultural influences that make so many very different people so similar in so many ways. Think also about "mob mentality", and the damage it has wreaked in situations like the Los Angeles riots, for example. And now think of those countries where the press is one-sided, the government is a continuous source of unchecked propoganda, your neighbors will be rewarded for tattling on your misdeeds, and the general flow is straight down a carefully crafted shute toward compliance.

When my husband's sister lived in Iran 20 years ago, she watched in horror as Ayatollah Khomeini came on TV and her young son stood up and saluted him. (She had known a different life, her son had not.) They moved to the United Arab Emirates shortly after that, and before her other son came to the US, his hero was actually Osama Bin Laden. He feels entirely different now. My point, I guess, is that while Americans are continually searching for the logic in this kind of attitude, I think there is actually only a thread of it. That thread is American foreign policy, and American prosperity and (perceived or not) arrogance. I don't mean to undervalue the importance of this, because it is extremely important that we re-evaluate and amend it, but looking at the whole picture, I think it's primarily an excuse for fanatics to give full vent to their snowballing hatreds.

For example, Saddam Hussein using the American influence and support for Israel in the Palestinian issue to validate violence against Americans. Saddam Hussein deliberately annihilated countless numbers of his own people, but he's deeply sympathetic to the Palestinians? Yeah, right. And don't think he's an isolated example; multitudes in the Muslim world believe this, they just don't have the power Saddam Hussein has and are therefore not as obvious.

In any case (and I'm sorry for running on here), I strongly believe that our foreign policy must be overhauled, not to mention the myopia of our politicians. But unless the governments and economies in these Muslim countries undergo a radical and simultaneous change themselves, we have no choice but to take out the armies, training camps, assets and leaders of terrorist organizations. The process may be horribly flawed, but detente and fairplay are non-issues at this point, so if anyone thinks they have a viable alternative to dismantling terrorist networks, then please say so. So far, I haven't heard one.

-- Leslie A. (lesliea@mm2k.net), November 01, 2001.

Thank You Leslie and JOJ for publishing that.

Today in Europe opinion is swinging away from the current military strategy. The latest surveys in Britain toping 60% in favour of stopping now. Why ? America claims to have evidence of the link to bin laden. Frankly, I think he is guilty, but what evidence has published is very little, all circumstantial and would not hold up in any court. America may have more but the world has not seen it, some politicians may have but the public has not. I am not talking about suppositions hear but hard facts.

Now we are beginning to see Pentagon Officials are standing up on CNN and admitting that they are “ making it up as we go along !” Other quotes have included include “We are in a time of dis- Information and that’s exactly where we should be…..” In other words we are not telling you the truth and we are not going to.

Whilst Europe supports the “Fight against Terrorism” it now beginning to perceive the current US actions as uncoordinated revenge. You have to realize that we have lived with terrorism on our door step for the last 40 years. This is nothing new to us, more of a way of life. If New York wan in Ireland or Northern Spain. People would be being shot in the streets and shops, restraints, hotels, business etc etc bombed - preferable at rush hour for maximum effect (eg Omah ) .

We have lived through an age when the USA and the USSR played their cold war games using our countries as their play ground. We have real fears of a repeat performance with middle east

I fear that this will never be a war that America wins, At best it will be one which they “Got away with”. I firmly believe that they are making more enemies. Remember, if you use antibiotics you must take the full course, so as not to leave any resistance bacteria alive. America will never allow it’s self to finish the job, it does not have the stomach for it. All this talk of not killing civilians. Remember the bombing in WWII. In the Gulf war Bush Senior pulled out because he feared a decline in popular opinion ( votes ! ) if CNN showed any more picture of the road to Bazra – result we still have Saddam and his nuclear chemical and biological weapons ( there are now reports that he was the one that may have made the anthrax for bin and the gang). All of this make the situation far more dangerous than anything before.

I keep hearing people say things like “The hate us, they want to kill us, kill us all” to which I say true, true and true. So what are we left with , “to kill them, before they kill us” ! and that is civilized ? Do afghan mothers cry less that American ones ? Remembering hear that the US is trying to take the moral high round.

We cannot win the Harts and Minds of these people until we accept them for what they are and who they, understand them and make them feel safe and wanted. Their value system has been developed of thousands of years on a very harsh and un-forgiving land. The only military leader to ever defeat thin in history was Alexander the Great!

Remember to tell people how to run their country in dictatorship not democracy even when their value system is different. You cannot tell these people to take on democracy when the political evolution is not at a suitable level any more that you can tell single celled pond life to get up and walk.

Finally it is not what you tell people, nor the way you say it that counts, it is what is heard and the way they hear it.

“Forgive our sins, as we forgive sin against us” - amen

Julian

-- Julian (Julian_young@nl.compuware.com), November 02, 2001.

ST, I offer no alternative to our government officials because I am not criticizing them. First of all, I don't have all the facts no matter how much I try to stay informed. Second, I would never offer a suggestion unless I were willing to carry it out myself. I offer to the author of the article "Do more research, some of your facts are off."

-- Jo (mamamia2kids@msn.com), November 02, 2001.

Evil is still evil . . . in anybody's name. (Line from song "From Dirt to Dollars".

Some relevant points made by the author, but as pointed out by Jo, what is the alternative to U.S. actions? Just sit here and pout about who kicked over our sand castles?

TERROR MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO STAND. One lesson learned in Viet Nam is that if the enemy has a place to retreat to, a place where no one will continue to chase and engage them, that enemy will never be defeated. NEVER. And frankly, waiting for people to continue waging a war on civilians doesn't seem like much of a way to live.

I don't think the terrorists are done with their actions. Our reaction in seeking out the terrorists, and the governments who protect them, in my opinion, is just. Civilian casualties are a part of the equation. That is fact. The Taliban is responsible for these casualties because they refuse to acknowledge that a crime against ALL people has been committed. They wanted blood . . . they got it.

-- j.r. guerra (jrguerra@boultinghousesimpson.com), November 02, 2001.

ST next time I will throw the toddler of my lap so I have 2 hands to type with if that would make you happy ? Is there a reason you don't use a real name and email addy ?

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), November 02, 2001.

Just a response to the snotty comment about spelling, since this annoying point-of-view was also expressed several times previously, most especially on the bin jr threads: I personally think its a cheap shot. One's ability to spell has absolutely nothing to do with one's intellect, period. It is actually quite common, in fact, for individuals who are endowed with superior intellectual and/or artistic gifts to be horrific spellers, (and even to have trouble forming proper sentences!). Einstein was one example. This in no way is in defense of Patty's or bin jr's or anyone specifically on this forum's positions, but please to learn to grasp the ideas behind the imperfect grammar, even syntax, when people express themselves. This requires careful thought with an open mind and heart, not critical knee-jerk reactions and choosing to be offended.

Peace,

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), November 02, 2001.

Yawn... now we're printing copyright opinions from other sites, and other authors? If you have an opinion, share it... but posting long winded editorials from an author who is not here to discuss the article is a waste of space.

-- Jake (Jake@home.com), November 02, 2001.

I agree with Earthmama. It probably had not taxed ST to leap onto the minutia of a spelling error rather than comment substatively on the topic. Unless, of course, we take ST's comment literally:

>>Learn to spellcheck Patty.

Punctuated (as posted) this way, it simply encourages Patty to educate herself on spellchecking her own name. I can't imagine it was intended in that sense, so perhaps I'll paraphrase:

Learn to punctuate, ST.

All in fun because I make more mistakes than all of you put together, Mark

-- Mark Sykes (mark@marksykes.net), November 02, 2001.

Nice point Mark .I am sorry if I upset anyone but in my own defense I often have a child on my lap along with taking medication to deal with daily pain .This along with 3 other children a farm and lord only knows what else sometimes leaves my brain in a fog .If someone is going to be so picky so be it .I for one am more interested in what a person has to say than there spelling or if they formed a correct sentence .So my advice is if you don't like it don't read it .Everyone have a good day ~Patty

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), November 02, 2001.

Israel is an occupying force? I don't think so. Israel is situated on less than 1% of the land in the middle east and is willing to live in peace with its neighbors. It is still in the PA Charter to destroy Israel so where is the attempt on the PA side to negotiate peace? Arafat stated that his idea of peace was the peace treaty that Muhammed had made: the treaty was only good until his forces were built up and the other party was suffiicently lulled into a false sense of security. Besides that, Israels claim to the land goes back further than anyone else's. Also, read up on the history of modern Israel and you will discover that the arab nations created/caused the Palistinian problem to begin with. Won laast thang, iff speling erors ar a sign of intlignce then does my last centence meen that I are one? :-) (Just a joke!!!!!!!)

-- Mike (uyk7@hotmail.com), November 02, 2001.

Thank you. I have great admiration for Arundhati Roy and appreciate the opportunity to read this. It IS vital that we reassess how we present ourselves to the world. America tends to do things in a grand way... great good and great evil. We can't respond to thoughtful criticism in a knee-jerk fashion. She's not cheering for terrorists, but even if some people do, we have to look closely at what they say. Hotheaded anger cannot smooth our path.

-- witness (witness@hotmail.com), November 02, 2001.

Hey JT,

I am not opposed to free speech, and that includes posting my name.

Since this post is obviously political in nature, and the poster (JOJ) based on his usual posts is obviously biased; I ask again what is the point? Is there a point?

JT if you have a point, why not make it and then if you have what it takes just put your name on it. If not then you can continue to hide behind your initials only approach to this political jabber.

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), November 02, 2001.

Thank you, Jumpoff Joe! I really appreciate you sharing this well-thought-out analysis of the situation, especially on this forum which has so many conservative flagwavers on it. Arundhati Roy is right on target. (She's female, by the way.) I wish people would simply read these things and even if they disagree just say, hmmn--that's food for thought...and THINK about it. It's quite ironic that this is a forum for people who reject the notion that modern consumptive materialism is the best way to live and many of whom consistently swear they don't trust the "Guvmint", and yet many of these same people blow off as "hot air" this analysis by someone who has much in sympathy with the very notion that where we are and how we got here will not get better by pursuing the current course. The current course of action is inefficient, misdirected, scattershot, wasteful and only going to make it worse. Yet some people say, Well, but we must do something --and if you haven't got another strategy, then put up & shut up! It's like we have a tumour growing in our brain that we can't actually get to, so better we saw off our foot than do nothing at all. Terrific.

-- snoozy (bunny@northsound.net), November 03, 2001.

I love your analogy, snoozy! Might I just add: and saw off the feet of several of our neighbors, as well.

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), November 03, 2001.

To assign blame to the US, for the attacks in NYC seems to be a little off track. Yes the US has done unwise things in the past that we are paying for now, but that does not mean we should do nothing regarding this activity now. It is a matter of survival for us to remove terrorists from the world at this point, even if we funded them in the past. They will continue their obscene acts against us and others, unless they are challenged and defeated. It is inevitable. Just watch bin Laden tapes or read the proposed Palistinian constituion. Both want to eliminate a group of people. Genocide is not the waqy to go.

Julian,

You mentioned that some say we do not have enough evidence on bin Laden. Well they are probably wrong. If the government is smart they will not give out all the evidence now. If bin Laden was to come to trial wouldn't it really be something if he got off because he could not get a fair trial anywhere because the US let out all the evidence they had against him. We all know that it has hppened in the US before.

Talk to you later.

-- Bob in WI (bjwick@hotmail.com), November 03, 2001.

THANKS, joj! And I agree with Snoozy.

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), November 03, 2001.

Well shoe ma hoss and call me silly! I take a short hike up in the woods to get a breath of fresh air and come back to the stink of JOJ an those like em stickin out them hypocritical ears ta get boxed (that's what my granny did when we younguns was bein plum stupid! We'd git our ears boxed real good that's fer sure!) Ya all what love this country and want to see it git the BACKBONE back it once had really only need to do one thang to take care of the ones hiding behind the liberty that our fightin boys and girls have and still are buyin fer em in their own blood - just realize before ya start yackin at em that they aint got the wherewithal ta know which side their bread is buttered on. Now me - I even try to talk sense to my ol mule so i rekon the same goes here. I said it afore an I will say it agin - how fast you gonna start shootin ifn they starts rollin up your road killin what you love and hold dear in life??? If you got the mind to shoot the crap outta whatever is hurtin you and yours but you are on here sayin we outta be all wishy-washy about blowin their brains out for killin our loved ones and tryin to take away our way of life, you aint doin nuthin fer me but tellin me ya got standards fer you an yours, but me an mine can rot and git shot. Might be a lil far fetched thar, but it all boils down to what kinda mask ya be wearin - just how hypocritical are ya? Ifn you want us to quit shootin them bastards what came over here and killed our folks, then when they give ya that anthrax crap don't you go runnin for the pill bottle and don't spect nobody to stop em from blowin the plan/train/car/hoss & buggy up that yer ridin in. Just sit back and let em spread yer guts all over yer place and don't git all bent out a shape when yer neighbors don't come runnin to try ta help ya! they all knows you ain't for killin them what kills you, so they probably figure you don't want them screwin up yer way of handlin thangs!

COME ON NOW! Even an ol big gut hillybilly like me knows unless yer just plain YELLER yer gonna protect you and yours and ifn ya don't then yer a bigger monster than those what took over them planes on the 11th of September. So quit cryin bout all the waste and all the innocent lives and all the *who we fightin against* crap and be thankful we live in a country where we have the power and might to kick the crap outta them what hurts our people. You don't like the way it's playin out over here ... move to rag-head country an see how long ya last! As for the plan of action, ol Cap has it in a nutshell - kick the @#it out of whoever messes with us and kick em HARD so that anybody else thinkin bout messin with our great country might just think twice!

As fer jump of joe, you outta come visit me sometime ... I got a big ole sow with 10 fairly new youngens. ya could git right off in there and pet them babies an that thar ol sow - well she might get a bit testy, but ya sound like ya could handle yerself! COME ON OVER!

-- Cap'n (cptnktal@yahoo.com), November 03, 2001.

I have to say I am with Snoozy and Earthmama on this one. Why is everyone so afraid of speaking out against the government? We are certainly allowed to disagree with the president. Isn't that what voting is all about?

Threatening others because you disagree with them is bullying behavior....just like the USA right now. Oh, yeah, right, it is patriotic to be bullying right now......

-- Anne (HealthyTouch101@wildmail.com), November 03, 2001.

American foreign policy reminds me of the "Hatfield-Mc Coy feud", they shoot one of ours, we shoot two of theirs, and on and on and on....

Revenge killing never ends, there ARE NO RIGHTEOUS DEATHS ever, for Pete's sake, even the Christians have trouble following the Ten Commandments, which I guess they take as the "Ten Suggestions If You Care to Follow Them" Commandments.

Basically, our foreign policy sucks, and the sooner we all realize we are not the World Police, the sooner the bloodshed will end, including the terrorism.

We have to start respecting other countries and cultures for what they are, and quit trying to raise and hold everyone else to our standards.

Thank you Julian, for your insight into better understanding the Muslim world and culture.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), November 03, 2001.

Here is an apt quote from Dr Martin Luther King:

"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

And to Cap'n, who for some reason seems to think his messages will have more impact in dialect, I have a response to your contention that peace lovers are either cowardly or hypocritical: horsepucky.

The examples both from this very day and throughout history of those who stood for non-violent resolutions of all problems, be they tiny or huge, consistently display immeasurable courage, at least commensurate with, and often surpassing, that of those who chose violent means. To stand against the seemingly powerful tide of vengeful human passion requires unshakable conviction to the principles which our conscience tells us is our truth. We risk the physical manifestation of the ire generated by words such as you have just displayed. Your words are hate speech, pure and simple, and although I support your right to say them, I would hold you accountable for their results.

As to hypocracy, when 'they start rolling down your road killin what you love', no, I for one will not 'start shootin', for I refuse to become that which I deplore in others. Your proclivity for name- calling notwithstanding, I stand by my values of non-violence, period. Call me what you will.

Peace,

-- Earthmama (earthmama48@yahoo.com), November 03, 2001.

Thank you EM, I can never say things with words as nicely as you do.

I believe that I can love my country and disagree with government policy. BECAUSE I love my country I will continue to challenge a policy that will, IMHO, eventually destroy it.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), November 03, 2001.

Isn't it ironic that the United States government is encouraging Ireland and Israel to cease fighting claiming that violence is not solving their dilemmas, and yet when our own country is threatened, we react violently. We can talk the talk, but can we walk the walk? I have to admit though, I am truly glad that I'm not in charge.

-- Sheryl in Me (radams@sacoriver.net), November 03, 2001.

Ya know ole Cap gets all riled up an shoots off at the mouth without knowin fer sure how to say what he's tryin ta say with all the flowery speech some of you other folks knows, an I don't ritely know how ta do it much otherwise. Earthmama, yer on the ball and I take my hat off to ya on yer convictions. I am tryin to do somethin here I don't rekon I do much often and talk with soft words. I might even screw that up, but i'm wantin ta try.

I been called full of hate an I been called a biggot and I don't ritely remember what else I been called, an I rekon I done my share of name callin too. Not meant fer it ta come ta that ... just sayin my piece. I try real hard ta live by the golden rule an when folks ain't messin with me, I ain't messin with them. I don't know bout all that foriegn policy stuff yall talk bout, but I got me a feelin bout thangs. I feel like we should be takin care of our own down an out folks before we take on someone elses troubles. I thank we should be sweepin our own back porch off an takin care of business at home instead of stickin our noses in other folks business. And if any of ya thought to check out some of the other thangs ol Cap put on here you would know that I have the same concerns bout our so called leaders as a bunch of you all do. Thang is I don't claim to know what ta do bout much of it cept take care of me an mine and any of my neighbors what wants my help. And if carin enough about my neighbors an lovin my country and my way of life enough ta want to pertect it best way I know how is hate speech like Earthmama said well so be it. At least in yer way of thinkin. My mullin it over is somethin like this

When nobody bothers me I'm sittin on my porch enjoyin the sunset and listin to my hogs talk ta one another and smellin the bread cookin in the kitchen. I'm livin my simple life and bein thankful for every minute of it. But when somebody comes messin with me or my neighbors or my country tryin ta steal from me or hurt folks or mess up my way of livin, I get pretty darn riled up. Some folks calls that hate an some folks calls that patriotic and some folks don't call it nuthin cause they died on September 11th! And that riles me up an I git fightin mad like lots of other folks and I want somethin done about it. Ifn that's a bad thang then I must be bad along with lots of other folks.

I will tell ya this though that them what's tryin to turn this whole thing around and make it out to be our fault just turns my guts. I rekon ya gotta have some way ta sleep good at night with all them thoughts of not wantin ta do whatever it takes ta make our country a safe, secure place ta live in ifn it means fightin fer it. All I know ta say is sweet dreams. It aint our fault and we didn't start it, but I sure hope we end it usin whatever we have to ta get the job done. I rekon I said my sayin. Folks WE ain't the enemy!

-- Cap'n (cptnktal@yahoo.com), November 03, 2001.

Respectfully Cap'n, I have to disaggree with you about us not being part of the problem, "You are either part of the problem, or part of the solution", we, meaning all of us in America and our foreign policy, after all, WE elected those officials, they are just doing our bidding.

I must remind folks that you do not have to carry a gun into combat to be and act patriotic, or to love and uphold your country most dear. The Amish and the Mennonites serve as CO ( consciencous objector status) members of the Armed Forces, and are usually among the first organizations to go into a war torn country to re-build schools, hospitals, and other humanitarian needs after a conflict, with regard to their own safety. The Peace Corp serves the same purpose, and both these groups realize that you cannot achieve world peace until you feed, cloth, and EDUCATE the world's downtrodden peoples.

Education will be what turns the swords into plowshares in this world, an educated people will be most likely to choose the path of peace and fellow understanding among all of Earth's peoples.

-- Annie Miller in SE OH (annie@1st.net), November 04, 2001.

we all have fears and dreams, which one drives our lives is up to us. free speech is GREAT. some people don't have this right(luxury).We must be alert,but not hate, panic, or accept everything we are told as fact.That would make us sheep(nothing against sheep)

-- (thechickenterrorist @ aol.com), November 08, 2001.

asas@shai.com), March 17, 2002.

Whats Really Happening in Afghanistan

-- 2w2w (asas@shai.com), March 17, 2002.