by Howard Zinn

I believe two moral judgments can be made about the present "war": The September 11 attack constitutes a crime against humanity and cannot be justified, and the bombing of Afghanistan is also a crime, which cannot be justified.

And yet, voices across the political spectrum, including many on the left, have described this as a "just war." One longtime advocate of peace, Richard Falk, wrote in The Nation that this is "the first truly just war since World War II." Robert Kuttner, another consistent supporter of social justice, declared in The American Prospect that only people on the extreme left could believe this is not a just war.

I have puzzled over this. How can a war be truly just when it involves the daily killing of civilians, when it causes hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children to leave their homes to escape the bombs, when it may not find those who planned the September 11 attacks, and when it will multiply the ranks of people who are angry enough at this country to become terrorists themselves?

This war amounts to a gross violation of human rights, and it will produce the exact opposite of what is wanted: It will not end terrorism; it will proliferate terrorism.

( Read More... | 17280 bytes in body )

by Patricia Williams

The new USA PATRIOT Act has brought into being an unprecedented merger between the functions of intelligence agencies and law enforcement. What this means might be clearer if we used the more straightforward term for intelligence--that is, spying. Law enforcement agents can now spy on us, "destabilizing" citizens, not just noncitizens. They can gather information with few checks or balances from the judiciary.

Morton Halperin, a defense expert who worked with the National Security Council under Henry Kissinger, worried in The New Yorker that if a government intelligence agency "thinks you're under the control of a foreign government, they can wiretap you and never tell you, search your house and never tell you, break into your home, copy your hard drive, and never tell you that they've done it." Moreover, says Halperin, on whose phone Kissinger placed a tap, "Historically, the government has often believed that anyone who is protesting government policy is doing it at the behest of a foreign government and opened counterintelligence investigations of them."

( Read More... | 5352 bytes in body )

by Normon Solomon

After billionaire Michael Bloomberg won the race to become New York's next mayor, the French news agency AFP noted that he "was among the first to see how the information age could serve investors in unprecedented -- and lucrative -- ways." In recent months, Bloomberg's campaign spent at least $50 million from his vast personal fortune, made possible by a media environment teeming with reverence for accumulation of wealth.

Bloomberg News became a far-reaching wire service during the 1990s as financial news gradually loomed larger in mass media. The operative definition of "general interest news" kept tilting. Mainstream outlets steadily shifted resources and priorities to the business of covering business.

( Read More... | 4399 bytes in body )

by Marty Jezer

According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the war in Afghanistan is comparable, and might take as long to win, as the Second World War. Explaining the lack of progress in Afghanistan, Rumsfeld said (N.Y. Times, 11/4) "Consider the historical perspective. After the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, it took four months before the United States responded to that attack....[and] three and a half years, until August 1945, before they accomplished their objectives."

Yes, let’s consider the historical perspective: Japan, at the time of Pearl Harbor, was an imperialist power that had already invaded China. It had a huge, modern army, navy and airforce with an industrial infrastructure to supply its military needs. Afghanistan, by contrast, is an impoverished country with small, warring, tribal armies and no airforce or navy. Lacking industry, it gets its weapons from other countries, most notably the USA. At the beginning of the war, Rumsfeld said that Afghanistan has few "high-value" targets; i.e., there is very little of military significance to bomb. In this he was right; yet, we keep on bombing.

( Read More... | 5520 bytes in body )

by Bernard Weiner

It’s been nearly two months since the September 11 mass-slaughters, and the U.S. response more and more resembles that period when America was beginning its long slide into Vietnam.

I grant you that it’s not an exact comparison -- one obvious difference, because the 9-11 attack took place on our own soil, is that the U.S. public has a better idea why we’re there -- but there are enough similarities to make the skin crawl.

( Read More... | 3540 bytes in body )

by John Kaminski

The USA Patriot Act, now passed and the law of the land, has eliminatedthe Constitutional guarantee ofprobable cause when investigating a crime, and now allows the police —at any time and for any reason— to enter and search your house, your files, your bank account — andnot even tell you about it.

Are you a patriot? Well, the fact of the matter is, you are whetheryou want to be or not. But are you an American or a mindless corporatestooge? Well, that's another question.

The recent passage and signing of the Patriot Act has effectively nullified at least six amendments ofthe Bill of Rights addendum to the U.S. Constitution. As a result ofthis, America is longer America,but a police state, pure and simple. This Patriot Bill is, in fact, amassive violation of the Constitution itpurports to uphold and improve.

Among other things, it mandates that judges give police searchwarrants when they ask for them, forany reason. In fact, judges can't deny these warrants to police, becausepolice don't need a stated reasonto ask for them.

( Read More... | 13578 bytes in body )

by John Chuckman

America at war no longer provides the teary, sweet image of JimmyStewart, charmingly awkward in a lumpy wool uniform, being shipped offto save the world. No, America's version of war has become utterlybizarre fifty-six years after World War ll.

In the War against Terror, our professional soldiers (Our "boyz inhawm's way") are pampered like sumo wrestlers preparing for a big match.It is a lavish style of warfare that only the world's most expensivearmy could possibly afford.

Between greetings to the many on-site television cameras for folks backhome and catching up on the latest flicks, they enjoy hot pepperoni pizza, gulp Bud Light, and peruse Airforce-expressed copies of Playboy -all with an intense awareness of serving the forces of goodness anddecency. Their mission is to wait patiently while the top twenty feet ofAfghanistan are reduced to rubble. They are confident their cause isright knowing that our jets thoughtfully sprinkle the Afghan debris withemergency food packets.

But wartime life in America, away from the Afghan Front, competesfiercely for weirdness.

( Read More... | 4834 bytes in body )

by Robert Fisk

"Air campaign"? "Coalition forces"? "War on terror"? How much longer must we go on enduring these lies? There is no "campaign" – merely an air bombardment of the poorest and most broken country in the world by the world's richest and most sophisticated nation. No MIGs have taken to the skies to do battle with the American B-52s or F-18s. The only ammunition soaring into the air over Kabul comes from Russian anti-aircraft guns manufactured around 1943.

Coalition? Hands up who's seen the Luftwaffe in the skies over Kandahar, or the Italian air force or the French air force over Herat. Or even the Pakistani air force. The Americans are bombing Afghanistan with a few British missiles thrown in. "Coalition" indeed.

( Read More... | 6381 bytes in body )