[Peace-political] Octopus Column

[C. G. Estabrook]

On Thu, 20 Sep 2001, Jerry Landay wrote:

> Today the Octopus publishes my article on the current crisis.  I want
> to share it with you...

Jerry--

Your column and mine share a page in this week's 'Pus, and things are so
bad that I largely agree with what you write.

I do have one question, though.  You write, "The Quaker practice of
'shunning' ... suggest[s] the total isolation, politically and
economically, of all nations that succor terrorists.  Nations that pledge
support should join the quarantine, or themselves face shunning."  Now
since US officials have been responsible, just in the last decade, for
numerous massacres, each of which killed more (some many more) people than
died in New York -- in Panama, Iraq, Somalia, Serbia, Turkey, Colombia,
Lebanon, Palestine, Timor, Sudan (ten in ten years) -- and Clinton,
Kissinger, etc., are clearly being succored by the US, would the US face
shunning? And what would that mean?

As you say, "We are hated for reasons that must be addressed."

Here's another suggestion of what should be done:

"When IRA bombs were set off in London, there was no call to bomb the US,
the source of most of the financial support for the IRA.  [Indeed, I could
tell you which neighborhoods in Boston. --CGE]  Rather, efforts were made
to deal with what lay behind the resort to terror. When a federal building
was blown up in Oklahoma City, there were calls for bombing the Middle
East, and it probably would have happened if the source turned out to be
there. When it was found to be a militia-based bombing, there was no call
to obliterate Montana and Idaho. Rather, there was a search for the
perpetrator, who was found, brought to court and sentenced, and there were
efforts to understand the grievances that lie behind such crimes and to
address the problems. Just about every crime -- whether a robbery in the
streets or colossal atrocities -- has reasons, and commonly we find that
some of them are serious and should be addressed."

Instead, those clowns in Washington mean to have a war.  Like the War on
Crime or the War on Drugs, it's primarily a way to criminalize and
incarcerate dissident populations. The policy has worked at home -- we
imprison far more of our fellow citizens proportionately than any other
country -- and now we're extending it to the dangerous classes abroad.

So it looks like they'll get their war.  That leaves us with one
overriding question: How can they be stopped?

It certain we can't count on the congressional liberals. I've rarely seen
a more sickening sight than the fiery liberal spirits of the congress
fawning over Bush's speech last night.  They leapt to their feet, clapped,
and sat in unison.  It looked like archive film of a legislature in a
communist state circa 1950.  And then they surged forward to be chucked
under the chin by George. Disgusting.

The Vietnam War ended for three reasons: [1] the courageous resistance of
the Vietnamese; [2] the revolt of the American expeditionary force in
Vietnam; and [3] the slow but steady growth of awareness and opposition at
home.  By the end of the war, 80% of the US public agreed in polls that the
war was not a blunder but a crime, not simply mistaken but immoral.  
 
In this case, we can count on [1].  The Bush War is the answer to Bin
Laden's prayers.  It will produce resistance from those whom the US has
oppressed and exploited throughout the Middle East.  (The morning news
brings accounts of anti-US riots in Pakistan, where Bin Laden has sympathy
within the military.)

But [2] will not be much of a factor.  The US learnt in SE Asia (as the
French had learnt there before) that you can't run a colonial war for long
with conscript troops.  So the US went to a "volunteer" military (an
economic draft, to be sure).  And then we have the "Powell Doctrine" (a
war crime as stated) -- "Only attack weak enemies and do it from the air,
targeting civilians and infrastructure, so you don't lose troops."  Under
these conditions, the US military is "reliable," as it wasn't in Vietnam
thirty years ago.

So it comes down to [3] -- telling the truth and shaming the devil, as
Hotspur says.  The Pentagon and the putative president announced that this
will be the most secret war ever: it won't be secret from those whom the
US attacks, but, yes, it has to be secret from those our government most
fears -- the US public.  A correspondent writes, "I think we can be
reasonably confident that if the American population had the slightest
idea of what is being done in their name, they would be utterly appalled."

That's what makes the IMC's work so important.

Regards, Carl