Subject: A LONG VIEW


               by William Mandel
               Oakland, California

9/11/01 5:36 PM

               The attacks on the Pentagon and the World
Trade Center are the most important event in world history
since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

               The disappearance of the USSR ended a half
century in which two powers dominated the world. The
casualties in New York, Washington, and in the skies made an
end to the belief that the United States could continue
waging wars costing us no blood, whether in no-fly zones
over Iraq, in Kosovo, or anywhere else on any continent.

               For fifty-six years Washington has
successfully conducted mass murders of noncombatant
civilians from the air with no fear of retaliation. In 1945,
when Japan could no longer strike back, there was Hiroshima,
75,000 killed. Then Nagasaki, 40,000 killed. The Korean War
cost that country, with no possible means of harming the
United States, 4,000,000 dead [Encyclopedia Brittanica]
versus 34,000 Americans, or more than 100 Koreans per
American. Most of the Korean deaths were caused by American
carpet bombing (white phosphorus, napalm, explosives)to
break the will to resist, and therefore were predominantly
civilian.

               The numbers in the Vietnam War were of the
same orders of magnitude."Desert Storm" has slaughtered
6,000 Iraqi children per month since the end of the
fighting, due to the embargo against necessities.

               Until now the vast majority of Americans have
clucked their tongues over these things and gone about their
business. No more.  The deaths in the collapsed New York
towers, the Pentagon, and the crashed airliner are 6,000
[number corrected post 9/11]. The super-expensive space and
information age espionage technology of the National
Security Agency, as well as the more conventional activities
of the CIA and FBI are now the laughing stock of the
world. As to the Defense Intelligence Agency in the
Pentagon, I wonder if it was accidental that the plane
striking that building hit exactly the section where that
agency was housed.

               There is simply nothing Washington can do to
restore the situation existing before this morning. Even if
it decides to blame Saddam Hussein, and nukes Baghdad off
the face of the earth, it will accomplish nothing in a world
of suicide bombers and underground organizations capable of
working in complete secrecy and with perfect
coordination. Undoubtedly U.S."intelligence"(?!)operations
will be multiplied.  That guarantees absolutely nothing.

               The Korean War was accompanied by the rise of
McCarthyism. It is possible that today's events may bring
similar hysteria and suppression of civil liberties. Not
only would that further diminish the civil liberties that
are one of this country's proudest achievements, but by so
doing it would reduce the ability of the citizenry to ask
the necessary questions about the policies responsible for
the hatred of the United States expressed in this
catastrophe.

               The time has come to realize that the
motivation that brought about our Revolutionary War in 1776
is the strongest single force active in the world
today. Peoples will be independent, no matter what
Washington, Wall Street, and Silicon Valley want to do with
and in their countries.

               The United States must either adapt to that
or suffer the fate of ancient Rome.

William Mandel, Oakland, California
(37 years [1958-1995] on Pacifica Radio stations

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