I, like everyone else, sat glued to the television on Tuesday morning, trying to shake the terrible hallucinations I was having, but it didn't work. Even though no-one I know was near the plane crashes, I feel a wrenching pain from the pictures I saw on television.
   Now, I think I am moving on to the next stage, anger. Yes, the people directly responsible for this should be destroyed. However, I feel as if the U.S. is as responsible for causing this disaster as if it had launched its own cruise missiles directly at Manhattan.
   Why do we keep arming only the most lunatic, violent people in the world? During the cold war, we pumped millions of dollars of weapons and training into Afghanistan, especially favoring those insurgents who were the most radical. The Taliban is, in many ways, our creation. The training given to terrorists is our training, the bunkers they use to avoid our cruise missiles are our bunkers. Watch a copy of Rambo 3 for a shocking contrast between today's propaganda and that of 15 years ago, when we were training and arming these people.(useful background) In Israel, the radical Islamic militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah are directly our and Israel's creation. Israel, with U.S. support, funded these groups to destabilize the more rational Palestinian groups that were gaining popularity. (Read Noam Chomsky for more details)
   Not only do we directly arm and train these terrorists, we lead by example. When it is suggested that the U.S. intervene in the cause of human rights, we reply that it is not the job of the U.S. to play policeman to the world. The rest of the world knows that is a lie, and knows that we are a particularly brutal and corrupt policeman. In the middle east, we allow Israel to continue its program of assassination and repression, using American Military hardware. In Iraq, we continue to slaughter civilians who are unfortunate enough to have survived the massacre that was committed during the gulf war. In retaliation for another string of terrorist attacks, we bombed a medicine factory. To many people around the world, America is viewed quite rightly as the enemy. Our guns murder nuns in central America, our tanks and helicopters crush minority groups in East Timor and the Philippines. We lead by example, and that example is that violence is the first recourse.
   This week's tragedy should not create more violence. We cannot continue to lash out at the world like some frightened, oversized child. With all probability, we will begin bombing Afghanistan soon. Although the government there is admittedly horrific, the women who are kept in shackles by the Taliban's insane interpretation of the Koran will be killed by our bombs along with the Mullahs. Afghanistan is a country that cannot be bombed into the stone age, it has already arrived there, with much help from us. In the New York Times today, leaders from Afghanistan pleaded with us not to attack, saying that "There is no factory in our country that is worth as much as even one of your missiles." Not only would attacking them be inhumane, it would waste lives and money. Look what happened to the Russians.
   What we should be doing with our outrage is what New Yorkers have been doing, working to help other people. This should be a wakeup call to try to build a society based on peace, compromise and concession. Instead, we are a country that thrives on greed - gas stations in the Midwest were gouging up to $5.00 a gallon yesterday; Racism - Arabs are already receiving threats; and militarism - all talk is of "punishment" and "retribution." The whole world cannot support our quest for the wealth and privilege of the few at the expense of the many. It is clear why the world trade center has been such an icon for those who feel wronged by the U.S. Our true power was in those towers, the power of gigantic, wealthy corporate interests who use the federal government as their world wide police.
   We have to turn back from the direction that we are heading. We must learn to work together, to be a co-operative nation, not a competitive one. We must dismantle our military and its culture of force and violence. If we don't, things will only get worse, and more people will have to suffer and die needlessly. We can not allow that to happen.
Some more useful background:
Robert Fisk
Some other organizations' views on peace:
Howard Zinn (author of A People's History of the U.S.)
Global Exchange
Green Party
Amnesty International
The Nation
Honey Bear Records
Michael Moore (Director)