On September 11^th, the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in it history.  Thousands of innocent people died in New York and Washington.  The whole world condemns these types of criminal acts just like any other terrorism of the state.

THE GOOD

From 1900 until 2001 the U.S. has had 19 Presidents, from McKinley until Bush today.  Out of them, 85% of them have been in a state of war (16 Presidents).  From1938 until the present, none of the Presidents have stopped being in war, and all of the wars have taken place in other lands, except for Bush who finally faces an “act of war” on U.S. territory of such unimaginable magnitude for the people of the U.S. and of the world.  After what has occurred, governments all over the world fear that anything could happen in their own territories.

The United States has sown the seeds of war and hate in every corner of the world.  Nine major wars plus twenty smaller ones, and around 15 violent conflicts, since its war of independence and against the Indians who they exterminated on their own lands.  In this manner, the U.S. government and army (and not all of the North American people are guilty for this) has caused thousands of deaths, tortures, displaced population, disappearances, coups and military dictatorships to defend U.S. interests.  They have invaded territories and bombed cities, towns and villages leaving thousands of civilians dead, they have trained Latin American and Caribbean soldiers who have led the bloodiest repressions against the peoples of the Americas.

Among the U.S. military adventures for democracy and liberty, were the two appalling world wars. We also remember the Korean War and the deaths in Vietnam, the raids in Cambodia, Mayaguez, Lebanon, Libya, Granada, and the bombing of the medicine factory in Sudan, as well as the invasion of Panama and the bombing of Barrio El Chorillo, where thousands of civilians lived.  Also the internal war against Nicaragua and its 15 invasions, and in the civil war in El Salvador where North America spent millions of dollars a day. The support to the military coup against Allende in Chile or those that occurred in Argentina, Peru, Uruguay and Bolivia, among many others in Latin America as well as those perpetrated in Africa.  We also cannot forget the wars in Kosovo, Indonesia, Cyprus and Bangladesh.  Neither can we neglect the attacks, bombings and/or raids against Cuba, Puerto Rico, Iraq, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Yugoslavia and Haiti.  Or the deaths in the Persian Gulf and Iraq and now the Colombia Plan that will deploy new troops and military bases in Peru, Ecuador, Curacao, Argentina, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.  We can’t neglect the inhabitants of Vieques, Puerto Rico, who watch as their children are born with illnesses from the contamination and indiscriminate bombings of their territories, and the high level of contamination that the presence of the U.S. army has caused.

In 1991, the intervention of the U.S. in Iraq, ordered by Father Bush, caused the deaths of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and thousands and thousands of Iranians died from the arms and money provided to Sadam Hussein.  More thousands of Afghanis died with the help of the U.S., thousands and thousands of Japanese died from the atomic bombs detonated by the U.S. on Hiroshima and Nagazaki.  In the U.S. bombings of Baghdad, more thousands and thousands of people died.  In the attempted assassination of Kadafi in 1986 by an air raid where his youngest daughter died, France refused to participate, prohibiting the use of air space for the planes that left from England.

The U.S. did not want to overthrown Hussain for fear that radical Muslims would take power.  For the U.S., when tyrants stop being useful for U.S. interests, they destroy them.  Bin Laden was trained by the CIA, which is now searching for him.  In this way, the U.S. government in one moment has trained and brought to power authoritarian and terrorist military regimes and then later have denied it, waving the flag of democracy.  As if this were not enough, as if this were only illustration, the U.S. has not signed treaties on biodiversity or the Kyoto Protocol against pollution, while being the principal polluter in the world.  The U.S. also did not sign the treaty to abolish landmines, which have caused thousands of deaths, mostly of children.   The U.S. has also ignored the Hague International Tribunal regarding their participation in conflicts such as the case of Nicaragua, and the U.S. also wants to build an anti-missile shield instead of cooperating in world disarmament and the reduction of nuclear weapons.  These are only some examples.   On an international level, the U.S. conducts itself in a unilateral manner, that is arbitrary and illegal.  The U.S. does whatever it wants to do without respect to the other nations of the world, and today the U.S. is asking all of the other countries to embrace their cause, their war.

Because of this, if a North American has no historical memory, we can understand why some people assert that, “We feel anxious because of the possible response of our government to terrorism.  We are confused… We don’t understand why they hate us so much.”  We don’t either.  It is the U.S. that hates the world, hates democracy, autonomy and sovereignty in other countries, hates when the people decide the route that they want their own country to take.  In the context of all the pain in the world that we live in for all of the innocent deaths in the recent attacks, the previously discussed facts hurts more. Thousands of U.S. citizens know that this is a fact, those who have protested and continue protesting in the streets, demanding an end to the war.  Thousands of them are conscious in spite of the manipulation that they are subject to by the media.  These thousands are those who have maintained struggles in solidarity with the people of the Third World against the aberrations of their government and army.

The United States harvested what it has provoked for so many years.  In this way, September 11^th resembles its objective:  the twin towers of the World Trade Center fell down from the impact of two commercial airplanes. 

Another plane hit the Pentagon.  It is possible that the airplanes were destined for each one of the symbols of the U.S. empire:  1) The economic power represented by the 110 story high twin towers which housed the most powerful transnational corporations of the world, and which 150 tourists visit daily.  2) The military power located in the Pentagon, which was constructed in 1941 on 120,000 square meters in the city of Washington, and supposedly them most secure place in military terms,  which now has suffered its first attack.  3) and the political power in the White House, which President Bush evacuated from for fear that there it would be another target for attack.  Just three airplanes used as bombs that were carrying fuel for large journeys achieved their objective on two of the targets.  Another airplane fell in the countryside, and in one moment another one full of passengers was supposedly shot down by the U.S. army, of which no more information was given, just pure speculations.  This was one of the worst offenses for the empire:  an act of war in their own house, with their own airplanes, that left from their own cities, with suicide pilots trained by their own businesses, and in the most strategic symbols and places for the imperial power.

Approximately 7,000 people died in the twin towers and just a few more than 250 were rescued and not all of them are identified.  Among the dead were foreigners of dozens of nations, among them Mexicans (to see the list of disappeared Mexicans go to www.tepeyac.org.  Many U.S. citizens now live in hate and are thirsty for vengeance.  Paranoia and insecurity have arrived  instantly.  The feeling of vulnerability has horrified people who organize secret cultural events, buy large amounts of food and emergency supplies in panic, acquire gas masks, and nationalism and xenophobia are resurrected with force. 

Everywhere, people are looking around them suspiciously, and security means are increased in the entire North American territory.  The media manipulates the information and the images and launch a crusade for the defense of their country and of their liberty.  The movement against globalization is paralyzed and the media is associating them with terrorism in order to immobilize them, but soon they will return to protest in the streets.  They never thought that they would experience the feelings of war in their own house, as indigenous people and campesinos (small farmers in the country, “peasants”) and other common citizens have for many years, when their towns, neighborhoods and cities have been bombed.  Now something unites us even more with the North Americans, the feeling of horror of war.  It is the moment that we see that it is necessary to construct another world for everyone where we all fit, not only the North Americans or only the Muslims.  Another world is possible. 

There are some memorable phrases from the President that question the supposed democratic system that brought him to power, and with which this war aims to generate public consensus in the U.S. that they did not give in the ballot boxes.  Bush stated that the terrorists, “Hate what they see here in this Congress hall:  a democratically elected government… They hate us because of our liberties….”  More likely, it is the liberties the U.S. takes that take them outside of international law.  Bush has also said, “We are a country that woke up facing danger and is calling for the defense of liberty”, and this is, “a war of good versus evil.”  For Bush, “ The United States will find those responsible for these crimes and punish them.” He also said that in other invasions where thousands of civilians died: “The U.S. respects the people of Afghanistan, but we condemn the Taliban regime.”  Ex-Governor Tom Ridge, current head of the National Security Office who was inaugarated just a few days ago by Bush, affirmed that, “ This is a world war, a war for civilization. ...We urge all of the other nations to help us… liberty and fear are at war.”

THE BAD

For the U.S. the evil now is not communism, but Muslim terrorists from the Islamic world, and the U.S. invites the whole planet to respond with a “Democratic War” against the “Holy War.”  The U.S. blames the attacks on the Muslim Osama Bin Laden, even though there are 1,300 million Muslims in the world.  Who is the person capable of destabilizing the world?

Osama Bin Laden’s father, Muhamad Bin Laden, originally from Yemen and nationalized as a Saudi, had 11 wives and 54 children.  He was a government official in Saudi Arabia and controlled multiple construction contracts in many Arab countries.  His children, among them Osama Bin Laden, engineer by profession and 45 years old, inherited his fathers’ financial empire, now called,  “Bin Laden Brothers for Contracting and Industry” which has investments and businesses in many countries and employs approximately 40,000 workers.  There are representatives of various European businesses, British, Dutch and others.  Its business “La Sico” has an office in the Dutch Antilles and Curacao (where the U.S. has a military base), but also in London.  They have financial relations with U.S. companies.  From here comes the speculation that the big businesses knew about the attacks beforehand.  

The Bin Laden brothers were invited by French President Jaques Chirac, to a dinner offered during their official visit to Saudi Arabia in 1996.   In 1998, the brothers constructed a base for U.S. soldiers in the Persian Gulf.   They charged 50 million dollars to the Saudi Arabian government for the construction of houses for the U.S. soldiers who lived in tents.  They also received contracts for the reconstruction of Kuwait after the Gulf War.   They own airplanes and property of the company Bin Laden Aviation.  They are owners of supposed dummy companies like Asma United and of philanthropic organizations in London and the Balkans. 

Osama Bin Laden has capital in European banks where more than 700 million dollars are invested in short term financial markets in Belgium, Bulgaria, Italy and Holland.  Supposedly he has inverted in London, Paris and the French Blue Coast, as well as 15 million dollars in Swedish businesses specialized in medical equipment.  In addition, he has investments in Norway, in the paper and wood industry, and in markets in Iraq, Jordan and Egypt.  He has bank accounts in Africa, Pakistan, Cyprus and the U.S.   In 1983, the Bin Laden Clan received a contract for 3,000 million dollars to restore the holy places of Medina and Mecca, and Osama received a commission for 30 million dollars possibly located in Switzerland, Luxemberg or the United Arab Emirates. 

Osama Bin Laden recruited thousands of volunteers to resist the communist invasion of Russia in Afghanistan in 1979, who were trained by Egyptian officials and financed with more than 285 million dollars from the U.S. government.  In Pakistan he constructed a strong resistance movement and in Afghanistan he controlled tunnels and subterranean galleries that are now a headache for the U.S. army that will test new bombs to destroy them.  Osama Bin Laden created his own organization called Al-Qaida (the base, or rank and file), a radical Islamic movement supported by Egyptians that was later called Brotherhood Bin Laden.

After 10 years of occupation, the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, but Afghanistan remained a communist regime.  In 1990 the U.S. demanded that the Saudis end their subsidies and logistical support to the Arab-Afghanis, thus ending the alliance between the U.S. government, Saudi Arabia and Bin Laden, who did not abandon the resistance but now financed it with his own fortunes and took refuge in Sudan and later in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime.   However, other sources affirm that the U.S. continued giving arms and money to Islamic groups after the Soviets withdrew, as well as the participation of North American mercenaries together with the extremists in Afghanistan, a country that occupies first place worldwide in the production of opium. 

After the anti-communist crusade, Osama Bin Laden launched a crusade against the United States.  In 1997, Bin Laden stated that, “If Russia could be destroyed, the United States could also be decapitated.”  According to some sources, Osama Bin Laden is not a military or religious leader, but thousands of followers are willing to give their life to please him with terrorist actions against the U.S. empire.  Leaders of large Islamic groups sympathize with Osama, and those who try to establish Islamic republics in all of the Arab countries or eliminate Israel.  The World Islamic Front for Holy War declares that it is the duty of all Muslims to, “kill U.S. citizens- civilians or soldiers- and their allies, wherever they are.”

There are approximately 29 most important terrorist organizations, of which 14 are of an extremist Islamic tendency.  Some sources say that these groups have a presence in more than 30 countries of the world, and others say in more than 60.  Of these, we know there are transnational decentralized mafias, with various sources of finance backing and diversification of self-financing.  These groups have the support of various countries, among them Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iran, Libya and Syria.  Their common objective is to attack the U.S. and for others to also attack Israel.  Others also oppose the peace process in the Middle East.  They have recruits, arms, and combatants by the thousands and have operations in Albania, Kenya, Tanzania, Pakistan, Great Britain, and in the heart of the U.S., New York City. 

These 29 groups were responsible for the 423 attacks of “international terrorism” committed in 2000 world-wide.  Of these attacks, 169 were U.S. targets like embassies, ships, airplanes and other equipment.  The terrorist attacks caused 233 deaths in 1999 and 405 in 2000 according to the Global Report on Terrorism, published by the U.S. State Department in past months. 

Osama Bin Laden is suspect in attacks against North America including:  the bombing of the twin towers in 1993, another attack against a military base in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the destruction of the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Africa in 1998, the attack against the Navy destroyer in Yemen in 2000.  He shot down U.S. helicopters and killed personnel in service of the U.S. in Somalia in 1993.  He directed bombings against U.S. troops in Yemen in 1992, etc.  Other Muslim groups allied with Bin Laden have perpetrated attacks and others were not successful like the assassination attempt against Pope John Paul II in Manila in 1994 and against President Clinton in the Phillipines one year later.  In the same manner, there were a dozen attempted air attacks against U.S. flights in 1995. 

International terrorism of Islamic fundamentalism is found in the entire world with thousands of people capable of putting actions into operation in any moment and in any corner of the world.  Some international analysts believe that these reactions could also include the use of chemical weapons, bacterial or nuclear.  In this context it is not a coincidence that projects of biopiracy of plants and animals, the rights that governments award to “first world” companies of patents on life, or the recent interest of the Israeli government to visit the Organization of Indigenous Doctors of the State of Chiapas (OMIECH) in San Cristobal de Las Casas with the objective of trading plants for technical assistance.  This biopiracy generates biopolitics and biomilitarization. 

The Muslim religion could unite thousands of people and many Islamic nations around the same objective:  “the Holy War” against the U.S., which could become a world war.  The terrorists are also globalized just as the U.S. globalized their state terrorism.  The space of war is not focused only in Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden is supposedly being protected, but he is also in all parts of the world, in the soul of the terrorists who are willing to die for his cause, and in the transnational businesses that he owns.  International terrorism has the three basic pillars necessary to wage a war:  military power (armament, thousands of recruits, training, etc.), economic power (businesses, speculative investments, petroleum, commercial alliances and routes, etc.) and religious power (mysticism, elements of unity and cohesion).

The two wars (“holy” and “democratic”) are both equally absurd.  The forceful imposition of fundamentalist Islam as well as what the U.S. wants to impose on everyone, their style of life and their interests.  Both wars invade countries, impose dictators, oppress people, pillage and destroy, bomb and strengthen their economic and military power.  The world is becoming more polarized.  Bush has affirmed that this is a war of good versus evil.  For Bush, the U.S. is good and Islam is evil, and this evil could be contagious in the world if all countries don’t unite for his cause.  Both are fanatics, with the same hate, the same blindness, and the same thirst for vengeance and blood.  Through this kind of thinking, we will not arrive anywhere.  Who has the moral authority to say who is good and who is evil?

THE UGLY

President Bush is polarizing the world and declaring war: “We will not distinguish between the terrorists who have committed these acts, and those who give them refuge”, and later sends a message to all of the countries of the world, “either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists.”  With this, he obliges the governments to position themselves in favor of the U.S. or they could become targets of military, political or economic attacks, as they have already done in the world and continue doing now.  This is the case in the Blockade/Embargo of Cuba, as well as the closing of borders to Mexican products in violation of NAFTA    However, we do not forget that England, Spain, France, and all of Europe have a large Muslim population, so their governments will not easily bend to the whims of the U.S. because this “Holy War” could easily break out in their own countries.  Because of this, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfield stated that, “What we are doing will be very different from the second World War, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, Kosovo, Bosnia….It will not be directed like before, as if it were a campaign against a specific country, or in a definite period of time”, but it will be a war declared, “in different places, in different times and forms.”

According to some analysts, this is the start not only of the first war of the 21st Century, but also of the Third World War.  According to others, this is an exaggeration, and it will only be a short, limited war.  Nevertheless, the U.S. rarely formally declares war, so that the Geneva Agreements will not be applied and they can act without limits or international controls.  They achieve military, diplomatic, political and economic pressure on the governments of the world in order to close ranks and make their own cause the cause of other countries in their own war.  This is an attack “against America” say those who live in the north of the American Continent.  NATO, the United Nations, and the OAS bend to the will of the United States.  And it is that, as we see it, not only are there terrorists all over the world, but also the United States invades the entire world.  The war is everywhere, it can present itself in any place, in any embassy, and in any U.S. military base or installation in the entire world.

Whoever stays outside of the alliance declares war on the United States, and vice-versa.  Whoever does not submit to the will of the Muslim alliances of the “Holy War” will be bombed.  We can see hostages of both forces.  The Taliban regime in Afghanistan will not turn over Osama Bin Laden to the U.S. unless they give proof that he is responsible for the attack.  Bin Laden already said that he was not responsible, that the U.S. should prove it, and that he will be willing to face the consequences.  The U.S. does not believe him.  So, both parties are preparing for war, and are also dragging the rest of the world into the war.  If the U.S. wants a war, it knows that it has to do it quickly, before the winter comes to Afghanistan, or they will lose. 

Some Conclusions:

The U.S. should act prudently, understanding that the war they are about to unleash will generate more wars and more deaths.  We will all lose, and not just the civilians who unfortunately lost their lives in the attacks in New York and Washington, but also civilians that will die on both sides if the response is more violence.  We can’t just talk about the thousands of soldiers who have been deployed in air, sea and land.  Peace will not come just with the capture of Bin Laden, because with his capture the problems will not be resolved.  Among the causes of the problems are state sponsored terrorism that is provoked by the governments of the world, as well as intolerance of differences, and ambition for power and control of the planet.

Neither of the two parties can demand that governments position themselves further than necessary to combat the evils of terrorism outside as well as inside the U.S.  The U.S. people should reflect about the meaning of the lamentable losses of human life, and, even though it hurts, understand why other nations lift up voices that say, “Now you know how we feel.” 

Why did it happen?  That is the question. 

Sources: Proceso, La Jornada, El Financiero, Milenio, Cuarto Poder, CNI, Televisa, TV Azteca, among many others ... and the dead of history.

Note: If you wish to be placed on a list to receive this English version of the Bulletin, or the Spanish, or both, please direct a request to: ciepac@laneta.apc.org and indicate whether you wish to receive the bulletin in plain text or as a Word 7 for Windows 95 attachment.

Note: If you use this information, cite the source and our email address. We are grateful to the persons and institutions who have given us their comments on these Bulletins. CIEPAC, A.C. is a non-government and non-profit organization, and your support is necessary for us to be able to continue offering you this news and analysis service. If you would like to contribute, in any amount, we would infinitely appreciate your remittance to the bank account in the name of:

CIEPAC, A.C.
Bank: Banamex
Account number: 7049672 Sucursal 386
San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México.
You will also need to use an ABA number:
BNMXMXMM

Thank you! CIEPAC

Telephone:
in México: 01 967 674 5168
from outside Mexico:: +52 967 674 5168