The government of the United States (USA) initiated its offensive on October 7, dispatching all its military, economic and political might with the support of the United Nations (UN), the European Union (EU), the Community of Independent States (CIS), the Organization of American States (OAS), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) among other alliances. “The collective will of the world is behind us,” Bush affirmed. But as in all wars, alliances are not eternal. They all have the immediacy of a common enemy and everyone contributes something: air space, airports, access to territory, money, influences, arms, troops, etc. Now, even Germany is sending troops. But once the objective -- of overthrowing the Taliban or capturing bin Laden “dead or alive” as Bush says -- is achieved, each party returns to its own interests and will resume looking for control of territory, gas and petroleum, or benefits from drug trafficking. Meanwhile, the nearby countries will watch their internal contradictions mount. The war will leave behind other conflicts. In Palestine and Israel the violence sharpens; in Pakistan the people want to lynch their president for supporting the United States.

The world governments have the opportunity to blame the world economic crisis not on the neoliberalism that is now accelerating its consequences, but on the terrorist attacks. The official definition of “terrorism” for the United States in 1986 was “the illegal use of violence against people or property to advance political or social objectives (…) intimidating or coercing the government, individuals or groups to modify their actions or policies.” That also defines quite well the economic forces of the market, concretely the most powerful transnational corporations.

Afghanistan has endured 23 uninterrupted years of war. But even before the war, in the 19^th century, England left defeated in 1842 and had to abandon Afghanistan, losing 4500 soldiers. In the 20^th century, it was the Soviet Union’s turn to withdraw in 1988, losing 15,000 soldiers and suffering 35,000 wounded or mutilated. Today, in the 21^st century, the United States hurls itself into battle together with the defeated of the past and the stubborn of today against one of the poorest people of the world. Afghanistan is a country with 26,813,000 inhabitants with a life expectancy of 45 years. 20% of the children do not reach five years of age, and 90% of the women and 50% of the men are illiterate. 60% of the population suffers from tuberculosis and there are 200 distinct ethnic groups that speak around 30 languages. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on the planet and has a territory of 652,000 square kilometers (almost a third of the Mexican territory, or equal to the territory of Chihuahua and Coahuila together, or equivalent to the North American state of Texas). Today the bombing continues and intensifies. Millions of displaced and hungry people may die as winter begins.

Let us look at some examples of the worldwide consequences that this war has brought in just the first two months that mark worrisome tendencies.

ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES

Now the economy is even more unpredictable. The laws of free market trade do not apply here because there is no free market. There is only dependency and the relation of many complex factors, especially investor's and consumer's confidence – elements that are volatile in the context of war. With this conflict, according to the UN, the growth of the world economy is dropping with a loss of 350 billion dollars, sharpening the crisis in the US, the European Union and Japan. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) announced that the economies of Brazil, Mexico and Argentina will be the most affected in Latin America, and that the growth of the entire region will not be more than 1%, the US 1.3%, the European Union 1.8%; although China will achieve a 7.5% growth. This could be a sign that the economy will emerge stronger once the war has ended, if China enters the World Trade Organization (WTO). According to its own statistics, the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Commission (CEPAL) reduced its estimates of growth of the Gross National Product (GNP) for the region from 2.0% to 0.5%.

The total cost of the terrorist attack in the US has been calculated in the first days following, in losses amounting to 100 billion dollars, that includes losses of profits and salaries of the dead, 34 billion dollars for the reconstruction of the Twin Towers, 5.3 billion for the damaged buildings, 9 billion to replace infrastructure, 4 billion for the Metro of New York City, 15 billion for telephone lines and communications, 7.5 billion in stock exchange losses, 2.3 billion for the loss of tourism income in the first few days and 5 billion in airline losses that could reach 25 billion by mid-2002. The figure also includes 390 million for the four hijacked aircraft, 5 billion dollars for the suspension of air traffic, 800 million to repair the Pentagon (daily spending), and other factors. It has been calculated that more than 100,000 job losses resulted in the first few weeks, compounding the unemployed registered in the U.S. in months previous to September 11.

The fortunes of the 15 riches US citizens were reduced by 64 billion dollars due to the plummeting of the stock market. Insurance companies have lost another 100 billion dollars. Now genetically modified products, cyber-terrorism and bio-terrorism are some of the risks that insurance companies do not want to insure, as they cancel contracts to initiate new products under the new terms. Furthermore, demand for security-related companies has demand by 20%. The US alone has earmarked 500 million dollars to increase the security in the cockpits of their planes.

Unemployment is increasing worldwide. In New York, 50,000 men and women were without work after the attacks. Thousands of Latinos and people of Caribbean descent that worked in the economy's basements as sweepers, vendors, waiters, etc. lost jobs. Days after the attack, the stock exchanges of Frankfurt, Paris, London, Milan, Brussels and Madrid among others, plummeted. The Financial Times calculated in August that the investment banks had already fired more than 25,000 people since the beginning of 2001. After the attacks, the banks initiated another unemployment surge. In the US alone, 248,332 jobs were lost in the months of September and October, a historical record breaker.

Ford and General Motors are offering special discounts to sell their vehicles, while Chrysler and Toyota have reduced to a minimum the fabrication of new automobiles. Xerox and Firestone have shown signs of reduced sales and financial crisis since the previous year. Others win, however, such as Calvin Klein which designs Military uniforms.

In Germany, Commerzbank announced reductions in employment by 8.5% of their workforce, and Siemens accumulated 15,000 more unemployed. Companies such as Intel or United Technologies are afraid of losing qualified workers to military recruitment. While, in Germany, Lufthansa Airlines announced a possible firing of 7,500 workers and the Italian airline, Alitalia a reduction of 2500 employees; LAN from Chile 650 workers and Varig from Brazil announced a 10% personnel cut.

The dollar reached higher levels against the euro-dollar. US consumer spending plummeted, though the purchase of some food items increased. The government of the US again lowered the interest rates to induce citizens to buy so that the economy would not stagnate. Immigrants cannot find work in the city of skyscrapers. The tourism industry in Europe and Latin America is suffering. The North American government now wants to obtain generic medicine to combat anthrax. The patent for this medication is held by Bayer under the name “Cipro”, and Bayer is greatly profiting from the sale of the millions of pills that the US is demanding. Now the US knows what the Africans felt when the South African government wanted to fabricate generic medicines to combat AIDS in their country, but was bombarded by suits from transnational pharmaceutical companies who were claiming patent rights. It is inadmissible that governments cannot apply public health measures due to the predatory nature of transnational companies. Maybe the US understands now.

US citizens are not buying, investing or traveling. In Las Vegas, Nevada, hotels have a 50% occupancy rate. The total number of unemployed airline workers in the US has reached near 100,000 and it is calculated that in less than two months, half of the airlines will close. Northwest Airlines fired 10,000 workers. Boeing, the largest aeronautical company in the US, announced that it will let go 15% of their current payroll between October and December of 2002, or 30,000 workers – a pressure measure so that the US government will to the rescue. Boeing is selling the food rations and medicines that have been air-dropped for the refugees in Afghanistan, where more than 10 million landmines are seeded throughout the country, keeping women and children prisoner – food that they simply do not gather for fear of confusing food packets with bombs, not being able to read the warnings in English or French. Facing this crisis, the US government has assigned 15 billion dollars to the aviation industry, while Belgium announced an emergency credit of several million dollars to Sabena.

It is curious that, one day before the attacks, the stock exchange registered 1,535 stock options. This resulted in the stock of American Airlines having a profit gain of  $1.3 million USD just one day before they crashed into the Twin Towers. The stock of Morgan Stanley – a company that rented 25 floors of the Towers -- also registered a profit gain. On the Chicago exchange, the stockholders collected profits of 5 million dollars through the stock of United Airlines, 4 million with American Airlines, 1.2 million with Morgan Stanley and 5.5 million with Merrill Lynch. These are some clues that seem to support the arguments that many companies knew that the attacks were to occur, or were involved directly or indirectly.

In other areas, Boeing and General Electric, among other companies, are winning large contracts for the war machines that the Pentagon needs and that they produce. Jeffrey Immelt, current president of GE, manifested that he “was president of GE for only two days when the planes equipped with my motors crashed into a building that I had insured, and everything was covered by my news agency (NBC) and – even so – the profits of the companies are up 11%. The truth is that things are going quite well for us. We see this lamentable tragedy as a form of strengthening our company.”  Furthermore, GE and Yahoo, Inc. achieved maximum profits while Microsoft lost, and was attacked by the Anthrax mailings. Construction companies and gold mines also are on the winning side.

Faced with the critical panorama, the US government injected 120 billion dollars to rescue the economy, when just weeks before the G-8 countries (group of eight most industrialized countries of the planet), boasted of donating 1.3 billion dollars for the fight against AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa. On the other hand, before the attacks, Bush promised to lower taxes by 1.35 billion dollars during the next ten years to reactivate North American consumerism, and thereby rescue the economy already in crisis. But with the attacks, nearly 10% of the assistance was lost. After September 11, business people were the ones soliciting tax breaks of 80 billion dollars for their corporations. But to do that, resources are necessary. North Americans could obtain 50 billion dollars in credit that the IMF and the US government would supply for the rescue,.

Along the border between the US and Mexico, the passage of undocumented workers, merchandise and transportation is being controlled more strictly, affecting the economy of both nations. It must be taken into account that each year, between 300 and 500,000 people from Mexico migrate to the U.S.  Approximately 350,000 vehicles and 30,000 commercial trucks cross through one of the 150 border checkpoints between US and Mexico and US and Canada.

Argentina's debt increased by 26% and the country is on the edge of economic collapse with strong political and economic repercussions, which may lead to social and military repercussions. Furthermore, the crisis of the external debt in Latin America in general has sharpened. As if that weren’t enough, the North American embassy has opened an office in Brazil to detect the laundering of money to support terrorism. Brazil and Venezuela, as other countries, are monitoring international bank transfers. Guatemala proposed a law against money laundering and Hong Kong has proposed laws to freeze bank accounts associated with al Qaeda. Germany, Holland, France and other European countries are already hunting down similar bank accounts. England froze 90 million dollars in movements linked with the Taliban and the US froze 6 million dollars, blocking 50 bank accounts of the al Qaeda – prompting that nearly a billion dollars a day was routed to Europe and other regions during the first 30 days after the attacks.

When the war ends and the dust of violence settles and allows us to see the horizon, we will realize who were the ones that most benefited, and who has tried to form an empire. For now, Israeli companies sell more gas masks and protection against chemical and biological arms in bulk, due to fear of further bio-terrorist activity. It is calculated that in the US more than 20,000 masks are sold every three days.  The reconstruction industry will also make juicy profits for contractors, and vendors of concrete, wood, steel beams, windows, doors, sanitary systems, and electrical machinery, just as they profited in Kosovo where it is calculated that $20 million dollars was spent. The military industry is growing at an alarming rate.

In spite of all this, George Bush affirmed recently “the terrorists tried to weaken the confidence in the world economic system but they failed. They hoped to destroy the markets, but the markets have proved their resistance and their fundamental strength” … or fundamentalist. It is not strange, then, that Bush – when he was campaigning for President, confused the Taliban with a rock group.

POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES

The presence of anthrax spores in letters in the US has generated panic, psychosis and paranoia not only in the US, but also in many countries of the world. Educational, governmental, and communication institutions have had to close, in Germany, France, England, Yugoslavia, Belgium, Lithuania, Estonia, Brazil, Argentina and others – due to the presence of anthrax or of “suspicious powders.” This biological weapon has already infected dozens of people, and several have died. In Washington it caused the closing of the Capitol, neutralizing the image of the most powerful legislative power on earth. Anthrax also entered the offices of the governor of New York, the Senate, communications offices, etc. Many North Americans cross the border to Mexico to buy “Cipro”, the anti-anthrax medicine, and the US government has asked their embassies to obtain this medication in the countries where they are located. Mail is checked with masks, gloves and other security measures – even in the Vatican. In the US, billions of pieces of mail circulate, and any of them could contain the white powder.

For that reason, the US government has declared indefinite maximum alert throughout the postal system. People are traveling less and more money is being allocated for legally tapping telephones, mail and electronic communication. People in the US are captives of their own paranoia and politics. Due to information leaks, Bush has limited to 8 the number of congress people who receive information about the war. Politically, the US is incommunicado and becoming the toughest neoliberal dictatorship.

From the Cold War we have passed to the Antiterrorist War, and Muslims are suffering the consequences. According to some sources, there are 17 million Muslims in the United States, 16 million in France, and in Russia 20% of the population are Muslims. Their presence is significant throughout the world. Curiously, the American Muslim Alliance (AMA), with a presence in 34 North American states, supported the Bush presidential campaign and gave him 80% of their votes. 152 members gained state and local government posts in the last elections. But this fight against terrorism crosses all borders. The United States pressures the world to align its political interests in the war against the terrorism in which North America wants to lead, impose, direct and define the rules of the game from the UN Security Council. The US has elaborated a list of “terrorist states” that includes Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Cuba, Korea and Sudan – and the list is moving toward Latin America. Nonetheless, they do not include those countries that have applied embargos of food and medicine on entire countries; that have bombed cities, hospitals and clinics; or that have militarily invaded countries or financed death squads. Now Bush throws out another threat to the governments of the world: “Either you are our friends or you are our enemies.” This is inadmissible.

MILITARY CONSEQUENCES

The U.S. defense budget for this year is 296 billion dollars and could reach 400 billion dollars as the year ends, or three times more than the cost of the damage caused on September 11.  This could represent the sixth largest military mobilization in the history of the US. Now the military controls the North American panorama. Bush authorized the Pentagon to shoot down any commercial airline that is hijacked and is threatening to crash in strategic or highly populated areas. Thousands of members of the National Guard have been sent into the streets and to the borders. Military installations such as the Naval Base in San Diego, the nuclear plant in La Mesa, California, and other military bases in El Paso and San Antonio and other points in Texas are being reinforced. Bridges and government offices are being watched. In the US, there were 60 million gun owners before the attacks, but the sale of this type of weapons increased by 75% in the first month after the attacks. The US government has now deactivated its government web pages in order to block access to information regarding oil pipelines, water deposits, chemical plants, military bases, etc.

These types of actions mirror what is happening in other countries of the world. The Italian government decided to multiply its budget for the year 2002 in the area of military and civil intelligence.  Military spending in Latin America was already more than 30 billion dollars in the year 2000. Under the suspicion that al Qaeda terrorist cells linked with Osama bin Laden exist between the borders of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, the region has been militarized in a zone where 30,000 people circulate daily and there are 10 million people of Arab descent. The armed groups of Latin America in Peru, Colombia and other countries, are in the crosshairs of the US anti-terrorist fight that is willing to put its military in action. This will necessarily tend to continue the increase in the military spending of the US toward Colombia and other regions. In fact, the US plans to allocate 50 million dollars to combat terrorism in Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Once again, we see the same kind of war: destroy a country, impose a government in favor of U.S. policies and then promise to reconstruct it (generally these plans have ended in failure, as in the cases of Haiti, Cambodia, Somalia, Bosnia and others).

In France, the nuclear processing plant – the largest nuclear recycling plant in the world – has put their anti-aircraft missile installation system on alert. In the same way, like Mexico, countries have increased their protection measures around their military, strategic and infrastructure installations, faced with the possible threat of terrorist actions.

Thousand more Muslims add their voices each day against the bombing. In the magazine Jane’s Intelligence Review, it is noted that bin Laden possesses an army of 5,000 Saudis, 3000 Yemenites, 2000 Egyptians, 2,800 Algerians, 400 Tunisians, 370 Iraqis, 200 Libyans, and an indeterminate number of Jordanians. The US can mobilize more than 2 million soldiers and NATO another 4.5 million. This favors the military industry that is now in its apogee. Recently the government of the US approved a contract for 2.3 billion dollars with a defense company and 320 million in aid to Afghanistan. Up to now, more than 2 million bombs have fallen in Afghanistan. Billions of dollars have been spent in less than a month, sufficient to end the hunger of millions of poor in the world. It is worth mentioning that the most powerful defense companies, such as Raytheon, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop, were the principal companies that financed the campaigns of the principal US legislators (mostly Republicans, especially those with special posts in the Defense and Procurement commissions) with 2.66 billion dollars and additional support for the presidential campaign of Mr. Bush.  But collecting on the debt with Plan Colombia to increase military spending was not enough.

SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES

According to a report by the World Bank, due to the attacks, 10 million people fell below the poverty line and will have to survive on less than a dollar a day (now poverty is the fault of the airplane attacks). Furthermore, 40 thousand children will die in developing countries. It is predicted that investment flow to developing countries will be reduced by 80 billion dollars in this year, and that the GNP could fall to 0%. The Inter-American Development Bank confirmed that the GNP of Latin America is 100 years behind the richest nations of Europe. The International Labor Organization  (ILO) confirmed that neither Latin America nor the Caribbean nations would be able to resist further economic adjustments imposed by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Terrorist acts have the objective of generating a state of insecurity and uncertainty that produce anxiety and tend to modify the patterns of conduct or a people. The psychological war, or psycho war is being implemented in the US. Bush himself has warned that he would lie regarding war information. Media manipulation and censorship are becoming evident. Many intellectuals, journalists, and TV and radio reporters have been threatened and pursued for presenting even the most minimal criticism of the Bush government and his war, generating a social and psychological low intensity war. The television station Al Jazeera, with headquarters in Qatar, viewed by 35 million people, received 137 million dollars in donations from the Finance Minister of the Arab Emirate. CNN had to pay them 20 million dollars a minute to transmit the declarations of bin Laden. Days later, the U.S. government asked the television stations to not transmit these communications, for fear that they were carrying coded messages to call people to a holy war.

Recent air accidents in Brazil, Milan, Alaska, Russia, Barcelona and others, have increased social and governmental paranoia. Flights have been detoured for various suspicions and Japan has increased its security budget for the Soccer World Cup by 25%. Other governments will do the same during massive social and cultural events.

Today, dissidents against Bush’s politics who are asking for an end to war, pacifists, Vietnam vets, social activists, etc., could be the target of new repressions to eliminate "internal enemies" from the North American system. Furthermore, numerous cases of aggressions against innocent Muslims have been reported in the US. One must not forget that it has been estimated that since it's creation in 1946, the CIA's has carried out 6,000 covert operations in 60 countries- not counting direct military interventions in Vietnam, Korea, Panama and Iraq. The CIA has also spied and carried out covert actions to overthrow governments, impose anti-communist and not anti-terrorist military dictatorships that are favorable to their interests in many countries:  China, Italy, Greece, the Philippines, Korea, Iran, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Middle East, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, Haiti, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union Germany, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic, the Congo, Chile, Argentina, Angola, Nicaragua, Jamaica, Panama, etc.  Among the policies pushed are the application of IMF measures and the construction of U.S. military installations on their territories. The School of the Americas has trained graduates from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and others (see http://www.ciepac.org/bulletins/100-200/bolec181)

Recently Bush defined terrorism as “an activity in which a violent or dangerous act is carried out against human life, property or infrastructure… that seems to have the purpose of intimidating the civilian population and influencing the politics of a government through coercion, or to affect it through large scale destruction, assassinations, kidnappings or hostage taking.” This could define the actions of many governments quite well, and at the same time confuse rock music with the Taliban. We should recall that in the ‘50s the US carried out internal intelligence operations to combat its own dissidents and communists through strong repression. Between 1961 and 1975 the CIA carried out “Operation Phoenix” during the Vietnam War in order to persecute millions of innocents, and arrest any suspected terrorist, violating civil rights in times of war, and as a result, the Geneva Convention.

The danger is not differentiating adequately, and confusing those who defend human rights, social, political and economic rights, with terrorists. The Southern Poverty Law center, indicated in their report for the year 2000, that at least 602 hate group and armed militia exist in the US, divided between the Ku Klux Klan, neonazis, skinheads, some Christian identities, segregationists and neoconfederates, principally located in the states of Michigan, California, Ohio, Texas, Idaho, Florida and Arizona. Of them, 194 groups define themselves as opposed to the New World Order. The FBI divides the groups into the following categories: ultra-right, ultra-left, extremist Puerto Rican and other special interest extremist groups. These groups claim diverse goals: from a Socialist Revolution to the overthrow of the government, including animal rights, respect for the environment, or anti-armament. According to some analysts in the U.S., in 1997 there were 4 million people that sympathized with paramilitary structures – articulations of interests that disagree with the idea of the North American nation-state. The current anthrax attacks in the US are being attributed not to Muslims, but to someone inside the country.

Bush affirmed: “Our enemies are assassins with a global range. They look for arms to kill on a global scale. Each nation should oppose this enemy, or convert itself, on the other hand, into a target.” Nonetheless, in Afghanistan, propaganda information is being thrown to the hungry, that the war is not against them. But bombs are falling on schools in Afghanistan, civilian populations, International Red Cross warehouses, nursing homes, hospitals, humanitarian aid storehouses and residential homes where many, many innocent have died, among them children, including 4 civilian personnel of the UN's anti-landmine campaign. Nobody is respecting the international conventions and the UN only says that it regrets such actions. Today, along with demolished Taliban infrastructure and fallen US helicopters, hundreds of Afghani civilians and some soldiers have died in combat, although both sides refute the information that has been provided.

Of the 22 million refugees in the world, more than 4.6 million were Afghanis at the beginning of 2001. Today, 30% of the world's refugees are Afghanis, and there are thousands of orphans and widows in Afghanistan. Afghan women are not permitted to have their own passport and thus lose their identity. They share the same fate as the indigenous Latin American women that do not have passports or titles to their lands. Therefore, while the US plans to spend 49 billion dollars in technology for 2002, 15% more than they utilized in the previous year in this sector, UNICEF is soliciting 36 million dollars to confront the situation of hunger and misery that million of Afghan children suffer.

Today, more than 3 million Afghanis are displaced from their homes. In the city of Peshawar alone, 15,000 tents were installed to give shelter to 80,000 refugees. More than 150,000 refugees are sheltered in Quetta,, and have not received assistance in several days. Very soon, between 6 and 8 million people could die when winter temperatures fall to 20 degrees (Celcius) below zero. Nonetheless, only 37,500 rations of food are sent daily. In all of the wars since 1945, soldiers have constituted the majority of victims: 8 for each civilian death. At the end of the 20^th century, that statistic has been inverted, to what is now referred to as “collateral damage.” In ten years of war in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union, of the1.3 million dead, 80% were civilians. The Soviet army buried more than 10 million anti-personnel mines throughout the country, that still claim between 20-25 casualties a day, many of them children.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has confirmed that 815 million people in the world suffer from hunger (777 million in developing nations, 27 in free market nations, and 11 million in the rich industrialized nations). Five years ago, the FAO proposed reducing the number of hungry people from 800 to 400 million. In spite of the humanitarian emergency, this organism proposed the postponement of its annual meeting until next year, passing off the issue of hunger to a later date, while the market issues and WTO meetings carry on. With all the drama of this situation, Bush has again confused the Taliban with a rock group when he recently indicated that the forces of creation and the free market “ have brought greater prosperity to more people, quicker, than in any other time in history.”

While today we kill in the name of the market, justice or gratuitously, world civil society is calling for an end to the war, and creating new proposals. In London, 20,000 people marched against the bombing in Afghanistan. Protests have also been carried out in Holland, Italy, Spain, Germany, France, Mexico and other countries. The struggles against neoliberal globalization have not become meaningless, but rather they have become even more necessary and their struggle gains new dimensions. In the same way, the struggles of the indigenous people have increased validity in this context of the new world war. The wealth that everyone desires is in their lands.

Sources: Uno más Uno, Milenio, Crónica, Este País, La Jornada, Proceso, Quehacer Político, Vértigo, Cambio, Proceso Sur, Impacto, La Crisis, Época, Economía Nacional, USA Today, UNICEF, ONU, ILO, UNHCR.

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