by Anthony B. Robinson

In a column I wrote just days after Sept. 11, I worried that America might take its cue for its response to the terrorist attacks from the movies. We might turn, I feared, to "Terminator"-type movies as our guide and launch all-out reprisals.

I was wrong. Not, it turns out, in my apprehension that we would turn to the movies. No, I just had the wrong movie. It isn't "Terminator." It's "Dumb and Dumber."

Or maybe you found more comfort and reassurance than I did in the story that the Pentagon has established the equivalent of national suggestion box for the war on terror?

"Send us," announced the Pentagon, "your best ideas for fighting terrorism." "Classified proposals (up to SECRET) must be appropriately marked, sealed and mailed," specify the Pentagon instructions. For all others you can use e-mail.

Please. Tell me we aren't turning this into a radio station give-away contest. "Best idea for the war on terrorism wins a trip for two to Disneyland!"

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by Mark Weisbrot

President Bush has declared a "war onterror," and political leaders such as Houseminority leader Dick Gephardt insist that "this isnot a strike against the people of Afghanistan."

But the evidence is accumulating that ourcurrent military campaign is indeed, as most ofthe world sees it, being waged against the Afghanpeople.

Consider this statement from AdmiralMichael Boyce, Chief of the British DefenseStaff. Referring to the bombing campaign, hesaid, "The squeeze will carry on until the peopleof the country themselves recognize that this isgoing to go on until they get the leadershipchanged."

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by Katha Pollitt

We've been at war "against terrorism" for a month now. Do you feel unified, patriotic, full of eager collective purpose? Writing on the New York Times Op-Ed page ("A Better Society in a Time of War," October 19) Robert "Bowling Alone" Putnam hopes Americans will say goodbye to lonely nights dropping gutter balls down the lanes of life and come together in "civic community" as they did during World War II. (World War II? Uh-oh. Wasn't this supposed to be one of those little quickie mini-wars?) He writes nostalgically of "victory gardens in nearly everyone's backyard, the Boy Scouts at filling stations collecting floor mats for scrap rubber, the affordable war bonds, the practice of giving rides to hitchhiking soldiers and war workers." Those would be certified heterosexual, Supreme-Being-believing scouts, I suppose, and certified harmless and chivalrous hitchhiking GIs, too--not some weirdo in uniform who cuts you to bits on a dark road.

Putnam quotes approvingly a passage from an oral history of the war: "You just felt that the stranger sitting next to you in a restaurant, or someplace, felt the same way you did about the basic issues." Like the importance of keeping black people out of that very restaurant, perhaps, and of putting Japanese-Americans in internment camps. As for war bonds, give me a break! You'd have to be a true masochist to buy war bonds today, given that President Bush has just engineered, under the guise of economic stimulus, another gigantic tax cut for wealthy corporations and the rich, and an airline-bailout package that underwrites the multimillion-dollar salaries of industry executives while offering nothing to the nearly 100,000 who've lost their airline jobs.

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Days before the Kabul regime killed him, Afghan leader Abdul Haq argued against the American raids
by Abdul Haq

Probably the US has already made up its mind what to do, and any recommendations by me will be too late. However, military action by itself in the present circumstances is only making things more difficult - especially if this war goes on a long time and many civilians are killed. The best thing would be for the US to work for a united political solution involving all the Afghan groups. Otherwise there will be an encouragement of deep divisions between different groups, backed by different countries and badly affecting the whole region.

I am not sure that the air campaign will work. Before the attacks started, the Taliban's people were very nervous, and their support in the population was very low. Everyone was afraid. But once the bombing started, people began to say: "Well, it's not so bad. We have known worse. We can stand it." This is something I have often seen in battle. The soldier runs away, terrified. Then he realizes he is not in immediate danger. He stops and faces the enemy, and his courage comes back.

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by Daniel F. Becker

WASHINGTON -- As chairman of the Ford Motor Company, William Clay Ford Jr. said all the right things about the environment. As its new chief executive officer, he'll have the power to put his words into action. His challenge is to prove that an enlightened executive can turn Ford into a responsible corporate citizen.

Unlike many other corporate executives, Mr. Ford not only recognizes how his business harms the environment; he admits it and says he wants to fix the problems. His tenure offers real hope for progress on issues like global warming.

Because he is chief executive of the country's second-largest automaker, his statements and decisions have measurable impact on the industry. As chairman, Mr. Ford pulled the company's head from the sand in December 1999 by quitting the Global Climate Coalition, a cabal of polluting companies that denied the scientific research proving global warming. Within four months, General Motors and DaimlerChrysler also left.

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by Seth Sandronsky

What if honesty was the policy of the U.S. mainstream news media? Then, the Iraqi people would be sources of news. They would tell their stories about life under the U.N. economic sanctions to the American people. However, this is not the case. So Kathy Kelly and Hans von Sponek have toured the West Coast to give a voice to the voiceless people of Iraq.

Kelly, co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, an anti-sanctions group based in Chicago, has led 39 delegations of American and British citizens to Iraq. There, they have seen the horrific effects on the civilian population of Iraq since the sanctions began August 6, 1990, disrupting that nation’s economic relations with the outside world.

“Passionate commitment is needed now more than ever to get the sanctions story out in light of Sept. 11,” Kelly said.

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by John Robbins

When there is as much terror afoot as there has been since September 11th, it is hard to see how love might prevail.

This is how it is with us human beings when we are afraid: We contract. Our breathing becomes shallow and constricted. Concerns for our immediate survival push everything else out of the picture. In the throes of terror, our thinking is narrowed and short-term. The world is divided into two kinds of people, those who are threats and those who can help us defend against the threat. Everyone else is seen as irrelevant, and might as well not exist. All our attention is focused on protecting ourselves from the immediate danger. Our thoughts become dominated by "fight or flight," triggering the reptilian part of our brain to take over. If we can't successfully flee, then we must fight. It's kill or be killed. Nothing else matters.

That's the mindset of terror. That's what fear does to us. It's a state of consciousness that's been widespread in our nation since the horrifying and tragic attacks of September 11th.

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