Sept. 11-Another View from
the Philippines

War Cry Masks US Role in Global Terrorism
By Nicanor Perlas*

Without warning, terrorists struck at the symbols of US economic and
political power: the World Trade Center and Pentagon. US authorities
estimate around 5000 dead. Together with the world, we mourn the waste
of human lives and condemn the acts of terrorism. Images of people
leaping from the higher floors of the World Trade Center to their
death and other dramatic pictures of violent death continue to haunt
us.

As we mourn, however, we are also starting to become concerned. The
US, in the words of President Bush, is mobilizing for the "first war
in the 21st century". And most heads of states are supportive. Yes,
justice must be pursued. Yes, terrorists must be held accountable. But
there is a growing sense that this does not mean engulfing the world
in war and making it hostage to a vicious cycle of escalating
violence.

History teaches us. Violence begets violence and a greater capacity
for more violence. In the present case, how will the US contain the
retaliatory strikes of the victims of its "first war in the 21st
century"? A "star wars" defense system will be totally useless against
biological warfare weapons created through genetic engineering and
spread on selected US targets. How about sophisticated attacks on US
nuclear power plants? Or chemical poisoning of water systems? Or the
poisoning of the food chain? Terrorist bombings incarnate evil in the
world. A scorched-earth policy will only hasten the incarnation of
greater evil in the world.

Bush announced that he will not make a distinction between terrorists
and the countries which harbor them. But one can ask. Did the children
and the citizens of these countries really make the decision to harbor
terrorists? An Afghan, Tamin Ansary, captures the futility and
destructiveness of this blind, angry approach to containing terrorism.

"Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their
houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done.
Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? Cut
them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did
all that. . . . Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In
today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to
move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe the bombs would get
some of those disabled orphans. They don't move too fast, they don't
even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs
wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this
horrific thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the
Taliban--by raping once again the people they've been raping all this
time."

Chris Buckley, Program Officer of Christian Aid for Afghanistan,
shares a similar sentiment.

"The real Afghanistan is one where 85 per cent of the population are
subsistence farmers. Most Afghans don't have newspapers, television
sets or radios. They will not have heard of the World Trade Centre or
the Pentagon, and most will have no idea that a group of zealots has
attacked these icons of western civilisation. There isn't even a
postal service.

"Now, in these isolated villages, families are down to their last few
weeks of food and already men women and children in the bulging
refugee camps are dying of cholera and malnutrition. I have spoken to
orphans with swollen bellies. I have spoken to men who have no money
to hire trucks to escape the drought and make it to the camps. I have
spoken to families who say they will wait in their villages for
death."

One-sided reporting also does not help the situation. It glorifies
half-truths, thereby encouraging action on the basis of illusion. The
US wants to lead the global war against terrorism. But is it morally
qualified?

US policies have created terrorist groups and have resulted in de
facto terrorism against hundreds of thousands of innocent lives. The
CIA trained Osama Bin Laden and other terrorists groups to serve its
interests in Afghan war versus the USSR. In the process, the US
military resurrected jihad or "holy war", a concept that was last used
in the 10th century. If you hear jihad in the Mindanao war, you have
the US military operatives to thank for proving a moral basis for
terrorist kidnappings.

To hurt Bin Laden, after he turned against US interests, the US
military bombed a "chemical weapons factory" in Sudan, destroying half
of the country's pharmaceutical industry. Tens of thousands of Sudan's
poor died for lack of medicines. Yet the US blocked a UN investigation
of their terrorism against the Sudanese. These are terrorist acts by
the US, yet we rarely get to know about them, much less to mourn the
death of thousand innocent Sudanese children and parents. Are our
heartaches only reserved for people of specific color and status in
the world?

The US stresses the close relationship between the Taleban and Bin
Laden. Yet the Taleban are the product of those US and UK-supported
holy warriors once praised for stopping the USSR. There is still
another bizarre connection of the Teleban with US covert military and
economic policies. The military government of General Musharaf, the
self-declared president of Pakistan, protects the Taleban. But the
military of Pakistan have long benefited from the financial and
technical support of the Pentagon and the State Department - the same
departments now reeling from enemy attack and espousing a global war
on terrorism.

Half-truths also whip up emotions. Imbalanced reporting is fueling
division and hatred against innocent Muslims and those that look
"Arabic". In the US, Pakistani taxi drivers are being stabbed. Deli
owners of Middle East origin are being forced to close shop. Mosques
are being shot at and defiled with blood. This last is ironic given
that the CIA often used mosques as fronts for their recruitment of
Muslim fighters during their clandestine war with the Russians in
Afghanistan.

Superficial media reporting is also encouraging a narrow,
materialistic response to the tragedy. Trauma, especially a national
one, requires sensitive handling. There has to be an in-depth, sober,
objective process of taking stock of the root causes of global
terrorism and developing an appropriate response to it. Without
justifying the current terrorist attack on the US, we can ask the
following questions.

Is the US reaping the terrorist policies it has sowed? Why the intense
hatred for the US? Will the ordinary US citizen awaken to the global
impacts that US government policies are having, policies that are
crafted by a few in power? Are US economic policies that one-sidedly
glorify competition and profit over equitable human development,
resulting in massive poverty, de facto terrorist policies?

If the present hysteria for bloody revenge continues and the media
continues to fan the flames of hatred, then we can only expect more
evil, violence and devastation to be sown in the world.

On the individual level, humanity has been forced to cross a
threshold. The sense of security is gone. US friends write that they
no longer feel secure. They now join others, all over, who know that
physical safety is an illusion in today's world.

This situation forces us all to re-evaluate where our hearts are. Do
we place all our trust in physical security? Or shall we now learn to
live in this lack of security and the attendant sense of homelessness
in order to awaken our spirit to fill the desolate void that can no
longer filled with materialistic self-assurance. And what world
policies will emerge if we learn to view the present tragedy from the
perspective of active non-violence?

There is a bright spot in the dismal state of affairs. Global civil
society organizations, including those in the US, are starting to give
a different, more-balanced picture. As the independent cultural force
in their societies, they are starting to counter one-sided political
and economic reporting and are providing alternative analysis and
action on the US tragedy. They are also bringing into discussion the
quality of soul needed to confront the global trauma.

The terrorist attack in the US is tragic and needs a measured
response. But an irrational, self-righteous pursuit of war, including
the attendant intrusion of privacy and the possible rebirth of the
totalitarian state, will be even more tragic. It will drag humanity,
including government leaders who blindly follow the US war policy,
into the abyss.

*Nicanor Perlas is President, Center for Alternative Development
Initiatives (CADI) and Co-Convenor, Global Network for Social
Threefolding (GlobeNet3)

--
Center for Alternative Development Initiatives
110 Scout Rallos Street
Timog, 1103 Quezon City
PHILIPPINES

Tel: +63-2-928-3986
Telefax: +63-2-928-7608
http://www.cadi.ph