|
Eating
The Sword
October
31, 2001
by William Rivers Pitt
"Pointed threats they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks
are torn From the fool's gold mouthpiece The hollow horn plays
wasted words Proves to warn That he not busy being born Is
busy dying."
- Bob Dylan
On every car and every porch flutters an American flag, symbol
of pride and strength for the people of this nation. Bumper
stickers make declarations of unity, and lapel pins speak
wordlessly for citizens who still weep at the thought of the
dead and the lost. As the sun prepares to set on the second
month of this war, however, it is becoming clear that those
symbols, so proudly displayed, represent a nation racing towards
ignominious defeat.
We are losing this war, not because of the actions of a clever
enemy, but because of dangerously poor leadership in Washington
D.C. As William Shakespeare said, "When valour preys on reason,
it eats the sword it fights with." There is little reason
for the actions George Bush's government has taken to date,
valorous or otherwise. In the end, we may all be forced to
eat the sword he is wielding in so cumbersome a fashion.
In the newest barrage of attacks upon Afghanistan, errant
U.S. munitions struck yet another civilian village. Eight
members of a family were wiped off the face of the earth while
gathered at the breakfast table. The mother, lone survivor
of the attack, was quoted by BBC reporters: "What shall I
do now? Look at their savageness. They killed all of my children
and husband."
This is but one instance of the ravaging effect of this war
upon non-combatants in the region. United Nations relief workers
are anticipating between 300,000 and one million refugees
coming to them in dire straits as the winter begins to wind
a death shroud around the country. These relief workers are
helpless before the tide, trapped by the knowledge that they
will be unable to do much of anything to prevent massive death
and misery in the coming weeks.
Beyond the toll this horror will inevitably take upon the
soul of this nation, the tactical outlook is bleak. Defense
Secretary Rumsfeld and his generals have expressed surprise
at the resilience and strength of the Taliban warriors who
have been the main focus of our attacks. The fact that history
has time and again proven Afghan warriors to be quite good
at defeating foreign invaders while fighting barefoot in the
snow apparently has made no purchase within the Pentagon.
Rumsfeld and his warriors have taken great pains to inform
the Afghan populace that this war is not being waged against
them. This message is blunted by an effective Taliban propaganda
campaign that uses deaths like those described above to good
effect. Many fighters in Pakistan do not even need to hear
well-crafted messages within the media. They can look across
the border to Afghanistan and see the thousands of civilians
living in filth after fleeing the bombs.
10,000 Pakistani warriors have left their homes to join the
Taliban forces. Armed with Klasnikov rifles, rocket launchers,
missiles, grenades, anti-aircraft guns and even swords, members
of a militant group called Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat Muhammadi
have surged across the border and headed for Kabul. Joining
their ranks are some 4,000 ordinary villagers who volunteered
for duty.
This is the nightmare scenario, one whose rise was all too
apparent. Every time we kill a civilian, every time we level
a house, every time we strike terror into the innocents in
Afghanistan and cause them to flee into misery and death,
we give birth to new warriors for the Jihad. Every one of
these new volunteers must be killed, according to the Bush
battle plan, and their deaths will give rise to more and more
warriors seeking revenge for a lost loved one.
The Greeks feared the Hydra for a reason. Every time one
head was cut off, another rose snarling in its place. We are
creating, every day, more enemies who will die in the fight
against us. It is clear that the order of battle, comprised
in haste and fear by the Bush administration, is not only
failing to defeat the chosen foe, but is in fact making the
task more difficult by orders of magnitude.
Even more disquieting is the waning moon, sign that the Muslim
holy month of Ramadan is fast approaching. Our propaganda
has failed to sway nations already hardened in hatred against
us. Rumsfeld and Bush now seem prepared to continue the bombing
right through this holy season. The wrath and vitriol aimed
at us thus far will pale in comparison to what will come if
we defile these sacred days. The ranks of the Taliban and
Al Qaeda will swell yet again with men who become convinced
by our actions that this is, in fact, a war against Islam
itself.
Amazingly, the failures of leadership in Washington are even
more evident on the home front. The administration, in concert
with the CDC, decided to publicly play down the threat of
anthrax contamination, despite the fact that a virulent strain
made its way through the postal service to Senator Daschle's
office. Two dead mailmen later, we see the result of this
folly.
The envelope to Daschle was passed through the mail system,
apparently spraying spores in all directions. Rather than
rush to determine the scope of contamination possible when
anthrax is passed through a major mail processing system,
we were told to hush, relax, be at ease, shop. Mail carriers
were specifically told there was no danger. The administration's
priorities – calm and soothe before investigation and
fact – are clearly not effective when facing a genuine
threat. One wonders how far the contamination spread because
of these priorities.
One wonders how well they will handle an attack with an agent
like smallpox, which is decidedly more deadly and difficult
to contain. Thus far, the actions of this administration do
not bring a sense of safety and security. That in itself is
a terrible defeat, one that is sure to be magnified if another
attack does come.
In the rush to determine who is responsible for these anthrax
attacks, administration officials have been quick to suggest
that Iraq is a likely suspect. Certainly, the biological weapons
program of that nation is of great concern, and the possibility
that they or another nation might have had a hand in this
attack. Focusing on that one possibility alone, however, may
cause Federal investigators to miss what appears to be the
most likely set of suspects: home-grown American extremists
on the far Right.
The letters mailed to Daschle and to broadcaster Tom Brokaw
were dated September 11th but mailed many days later, an apparently
craven attempt to link their attack to the airplane bombers.
The date itself is written in the American style, 9-11-01,
rather than the European/Arabic fashion, 11-9-01. The handwriting
on the letters slope from left to right; an individual schooled
in the Arabic style would have handwriting that sloped from
right to left.
The extreme American Right, represented by groups like the
National Alliance, the Army of God, and the Aryan Nation,
have long coveted biological weapons of mass destruction.
Survivalist militiaman and microbiologist Larry Wayne Harris
successfully placed an order for Yersinia pestis, the organism
that causes bubonic plague, in 1995. Members of a group called
the Minnesota Patriots Council were arrested in 1994 for making
the toxin ricin. There are many examples of these groups making,
or trying to make, weapons like anthrax.
These groups have greeted the attacks of September 11th with
what can only be described as savage glee. Fearful of a Zionist
world conspiracy, as hateful towards American multiculturalism
as the narrowest fundamentalist Muslim cleric, many of these
groups have decided that the enemy of their enemy is their
friend. It is not so far out of bounds to believe that one
group may have gone beyond angry rhetoric to action.
130 family planning clinics across the country, including
Planned Parenthood and the National Abortion Federation, received
threatening letters that contained an unidentified powder
during the week of October 15th. Several of the letters mentioned
the Army of God, a virulent anti-abortion group that actively
espouses the killing of doctors who provide abortions.
According to Attorney General Ashcroft, any act that threatens
the use of anthrax shall be considered terrorism, and shall
be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Clinics where
women go for prenatal care and gynecological exams, as well
as for abortions, received 130 of these threats. This is by
far the largest terrorist act to take place in this country
since September 11th. Despite his words, no action has been
taken by Ashcroft to determine who is responsible, nor has
the media reported on it at all.
Senator Barbara Boxer was forced to write Ashcroft a public
letter demanding an investigation into these attacks. The
fact that such a demand even needed to be made is a colossal
failure, and quite possibly an indication of the true mindset
of Ashcroft's Justice Department. Mr. Ashcroft is a known
opponent of abortion, and has displayed in several publications
his affinity for causes and ideals shared by many extreme
right groups.
If his political predilections distract him from instigating
an investigation into groups that could well be responsible
for the anthrax threats leveled at Washington and these clinics,
a deadly enemy within will be allowed to range about unpunished
and unrestrained. It is difficult to imagine a worse failure.
Yet imagination is a terrible thing, especially when its
darkest forebodings burst forth into reality. Calls for unity
from the Republican leadership, in concert with an effort
to quash any questions about their handling of this crisis,
may shatter under the weight of their own hypocrisy. Partisanship
must be laid aside, we are told, and the Democratic party
has surged en masse to salute this ideal. They bear throats
begging to be slashed by GOP profiteers who are too happy
to wield the knife.
Bush and his allies in the House have passed a $100 billion
'stimulus package' that was wrapped securely in the flag and
soaked with patriotic rhetoric. The package is needed, we
are told, to bolster a weak economy further damaged by the
September 11th attack. The fine print of this bill reveals
it to be nothing more than the second half of a financial
windfall promised to Bush's corporate campaign backers.
Only 30% of the money earmarked for this bill will go to
individuals. The rest of the money is being delivered to General
Motors, IBM, and scores of other corporations who were fairing
well in the new economic climate. The effect of this stimulus
plan will be felt most acutely by individual states, who will
lose billions of dollars in tax revenue because of it. How
this will generate an economic revival is a mystery, and a
betrayal of all the states-rights arguments we have heard
from the GOP for generations.
In fact, this package is nothing more than compensation to
corporations and their lobbyists who supported Bush's enormous
and irresponsible $1.35 tax cut bill last winter. That bill
did not do for these corporations what they wanted, and they
are being rewarded for their patience with this one. This
has nothing to do with patriotism, national defense, or the
revival of the economy. This is old-school patronage passed
under the veil of national mourning, and it is a travesty.
This from the people who held up the defense appropriations
bill in the Senate last week in an attempt to force the Democrats
to accept right-wing judicial nominations. The attempt failed,
as will many aspects of this stimulus bill once it reaches
Daschle's desk. The very idea that such attempts are being
made is nauseating, and dangerous. If our political unity
in the face of this terrorist threat is shattered by the greed
of the GOP, the nation's safety will be imperiled even further.
Speaking of imperiled safety, Bush and friends don't want
airline security jobs to become Federally-controlled, because
doing so would swell the ranks of the unions. This is, like
the stimulus package, a partisan decision that affects the
safety and well-being of millions of Americans. Federalized
airport security teams would receive better training and pay,
and would go a long way towards defending the country against
attacks like those that came September 11th.
In Bush's mind, however, more people carrying union cards
are a greater threat to America than airborne bombs made of
jet fuel and people. Better to keep them free of union entanglements.
Better to have people guarding our lives who would, in the
words of Democrat Max Cleland, see a job at a fast food restaurant
as a promotion.
In one wretched way, the terrorists have already won. The
anti-terrorism bill that was recently passed under the horribly
ironic euphemism of PATRIOT gives unprecedented access to
personal phone calls and electronic messages to both the FBI
and CIA. Warrants no longer shall require that a person is
notified if his home and belongings are searched by Federal
investigators. This brazen violation of privacy rights is
something called a "sneak and peek" provision, codified in
section 213 of the bill, and is in direct violation of the
Fourth Amendment.
The anti-terrorism bill deserves a close read by every American,
for within it lies the death and destruction of so much we
hold dear. In many ways, the bill marks the end of freedom
and democracy in this country. We are no longer secure in
thought, word and deed. Our homes are open to invasion and
search without notification. Our email and internet habits
are fodder for clandestine tapping.
We are losing this war. Our bombs in Afghanistan are not
bringing to justice those who perpetrated the acts of September
11th, and are creating more enemies who will fight to see
us die. We are stumbling about like fools trying to deal with
the threat of anthrax while mailmen die and viable suspects
evade investigation. Our tax dollars, vitally needed to defend
the economy and the country, are being spent to reward corporations
for their support of the GOP agenda. Our airports remain sieves
through which more deadly threats may pour unchecked. Our
homes and private communications are made of glass.
There is no guarantee that we will win this fight, no guarantee
that our dead will be avenged by the steady hand of justice.
If matters continue as the have to this point, we are sure
to be defeated. The potential of the next American century,
so bright a year ago, will fall to dust. Our children will
never know the rights we so freely took for granted. Our dead
will rest uneasily.
Elections matter.
- - - - - -
US
bomb kills 10 in Kabul (BBC)
TNSM
supporters head for Kabul (Dawn Newsgroups)
Playing
Down Anthrax Risk Has Cost Us (Los Angeles Times)
U.S.
fringe groups praising terrorist actions (Chicago Tribune)
Letter
from Senator Boxer to Attorney General Ashcroft (Truthout)
An
Economic Stimulus Bill With Corporations in Mind (New York
Times)
Safeguard
the sky (San Diego Union Tribune)
Cyber-liberties
swept away by tidal wave of security concerns (MSNBC)
|
