NP 911

[Doug Millison]

Sept 11
by Robert Jensen

September 11 was a day of sadness, anger and fear.
Like everyone in the United States and around the
world, I shared the
deep sadness at the deaths of thousands.

But as I listened to people around me talk, I realized
the anger and
fear I felt were very different, for my primary anger
is directed at the
leaders of this country and my fear is not only for
the safety of
Americans but for innocents civilians in other
countries.

It should need not be said, but I will say it: The
acts of terrorism
that killed civilians in New York and Washington were
reprehensible and
indefensible; to try to defend them would be to
abandon one's humanity.
No matter what the motivation of the attackers, the
method is beyond
discussion.

But this act was no more despicable as the massive
acts of terrorism --
the deliberate killing of civilians for political
purposes -- that the
U.S. government has committed during my lifetime. For
more than five
decades throughout the Third World, the United States
has deliberately
targeted civilians or engaged in violence so
indiscriminate that there
is no other way to understand it except as terrorism.
And it has
supported similar acts of terrorism by client states.

If that statement seems outrageous, ask the people of
Vietnam. Or
Cambodia and Laos. Or Indonesia and East Timor. Or
Chile. Or Central
America. Or Iraq, or Palestine. The list of countries
and peoples who
have felt the violence of this country is long.
Vietnamese civilians
bombed by the United States. Timorese civilians killed
by a U.S. ally
with U.S.-supplied weapons. Nicaraguan civilians
killed by a U.S. proxy
army of terrorists. Iraqi civilians killed by the
deliberate bombing of
an entire country's infrastructure.

So, my anger on this day is directed not only at
individuals who
engineered the Sept. 11 tragedy but at those who have
held power in the
United States and have engineered attacks on civilians
every bit as
tragic. That anger is compounded by hypocritical U.S.
officials' talk of
their commitment to higher ideals, as President Bush
proclaimed "our
resolve for justice and peace."

To the president, I can only say: The stilled voices
of the millions
killed in Southeast Asia, in Central America, in the
Middle East as a
direct result of U.S. policy are the evidence of our
resolve for justice
and peace.

Though that anger stayed with me off and on all day,
it quickly gave way
to fear, but not the fear of "where will the
terrorists strike next,"
which I heard voiced all around me. Instead, I almost
immediately had to
face the question: "When will the United States,
without regard for
civilian casualties, retaliate?" I wish the question
were, "Will the
United States retaliate?" But if history is a guide,
it is a question
only of when and where.

So, the question is which civilians will be unlucky
enough to be in the
way of the U.S. bombs and missiles that might be
unleashed. The last
time the U.S. responded to terrorism, the attack on
its embassies in
Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, it was innocents in the
Sudan and
Afghanistan who were in the way. We were told that
time around they hit
only military targets, though the target in the Sudan
turned out to be a
pharmaceutical factory.

As I monitored television during the day, the talk of
retaliation was in
the air; in the voices of some of the
national-security "experts" there
was a hunger for retaliation. Even the journalists
couldn't resist;
speculating on a military strike that might come,
Peter Jennings of ABC
News said that "the response is going to have to be
massive" if it is to
be effective.

Let us not forget that a "massive response" will kill
people, and if the
pattern of past U.S. actions holds, it will kill
innocents. Innocent
people, just like the ones in the towers in New York
and the ones on the
airplanes that were hijacked. To borrow from President
Bush, "mother and
fathers, friends and neighbors" will surely die in a
massive response.

If we are truly going to claim to be decent people,
our tears must flow
not only for those of our own country. People are
people, and grief that
is limited to those within a specific political
boundary denies the
humanity of others.

And if we are to be decent people, we all must demand
of our government
-- the government that a great man of peace, Martin
Luther King Jr.,
once described as "the greatest purveyor of violence
in the world" --
that the insanity stop here.

------------------------- Robert Jensen School of
Journalism University
of Texas Austin, TX 78712 rjensen at uts.cc.utexas.edu
office: (512)
471-1990 fax: (512) 471-7979
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~rjensen/home.htm



__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email alerts & NEW webcam video instant messaging with Yahoo! Messenger
http://im.yahoo.com