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 an average of 6,000 Iraqi children 
> each 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 plane 
  crashed in Pennsylvania total 6,000. [Number corrected after 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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Do you teach in the social sciences?  Consider my SAYING NO TO POWER
(Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999), for course use.  It was written as a
social history of the U.S. for the past three-quarters of a century
through the eyes of a participant observer in most progressive social
movements (I'm 84), and of the USSR from the
standpoint of a Sovietologist (five earlier books) knowing that country
longer than any other in the profession.  Therefore it is also a history
of the Cold War.  Positive reviews in The Black Scholar, American
Studies in Scandinavia, San Francisco Chronicle, forthcoming in Tikkun,
etc.  Chapters are up at http://www.billmandel.net
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