Terrorism and War [Paperback]

Zinn thus creates a false dichotomy between the rational terrorist who would stop if only you would go far enough in meeting his demands, and the crazy person.

But a moments reflection would reveal that terrorists can have political motives and be crazy too. The Nazis for instance.

The DC Sniper who was attacking people this year discussed with a friend in Washington state how unjust US foreign policy was. The DC Sniper claimed that what Al Qaeda did should have been done a long time ago. The DC Sniper travelled to the only synagogue in Tacoma, Washington and shot at it.

Yet the DC sniper was also shooting some people for no reason at all. To say that if one has some political beliefs about injustice then one cannot be killing people at random in an insane manner is contrary to common sense. What about the Manson Family who believed that they were precipitating a race war.

As mentioned, the Nazis were political, and crazy too.

That is why I say that Zinn is namby-pamby. He assumes the best in other people instead of the worst. But in the case of 9-11 is his namby-pamby view of the pure motives of Al Qaeda likely to result in a proper response to the tragedy?

I doubt it. Zinn's response is more likely to result in Neville Chamberlain-like "peace in our time" declarations accompanied by a sacrifice of modern-day Czechoslovakias.

He says that it might make alot of difference if people could see close up the suffering of the victims of our bombing as we have seen constantly in the media about the victims of 9-11. He quotes from several backpage stories in the media from reporters on the scene describing kids blinded with amputated legs, people who are lone survivors from villages destroyed, parents who have lost their children and their spouses and children who have lost their parents. Or the refugee who have been fleeing their villages and cities by the hundred of thousands who have been bombed. Or the red cross warehouse twice bombed by the U.S. which was supposed to be bombed a third time but hit a residential neighborhood instead. Or the camp at Maslakh camp near Herat where dozens of people are dying every day from starvation and exposure. It is such an idea which made him circulate a letter to him by an Iraqi exile doctor in London about the time of the bombing of Iraq which started in December 1998. His brother and father had been killed by Saddam Hussein but in this bombing an American cruise missle struck his mother's home on the outskirts of Baghdad, killing his mother and his brother's widow and there three children. Saddam Hussein started the killing of his family and Bill Clinton finished them off. This adds the human face to bombing defenseless people rather than seeing it through statistics and explosions from thirty thousand feet.

He has some interesting things to say about "why they hate us." And he says that there is a very simple test. Why did Bin Laden like us before 1990 when we were helping him and his bandits destroy Afghanistan and dislike us after that time. Well, after that time, U.S. troops occupied Saudi Arabia and we just about completely destroyed Iraqi civillian infrastructure and our murderous sanctions have increased that destruction. Zinn, remarks that though Bin Laden invokes "religous symbolism and Islam" he expresses great rage about these things and U.S. providing arms to Israel to slaughter Palestinians. He notes that while medieval religous fanatacism played an influence in the Sept 11 attacks, there is obviously something deeper there. You don't just commit terrorism like that because you're just a lunatic. He notes that there are millions of people out there in the world who are enraged about U.S. policy but are not yet willing to commit terrorist acts. Though this could change if we keep perpetrating death and destruction against their countries.

He responds to our president's pieties about how we are a "peaceful nation" with god on our side and all that. Of course, he notes we have been an extremely warlike nation, particluarly since World War II. There was Korea, where we killed about two million civillians, then Vietnam where we killed a couple million more, then a couple thousand in Pannama, and invading the Dominican Republic and Grenada, destroying Iraq, bombing civillians in Yugoslavia, bombing medicine factories in the Sudan, providing crucial support to killers like General Suharto of Indonesia get into power by slaughtering hundreds of thousands of people then a couple hundred thousand more in East Timor after 1975. We actively train terrorists at places like the School of Americas.

As to how Zinn would have responded to Sept 11, he mentions the International criminal court but he notes, the U.S. dosen't want that because people like Henry Kissinger might possibly be at risk for the massive war crimes they committed. He talks a great deal about his theory of what a "just war" might be.

He notes the planned drastic cuts in health care and housing programs in the midst of Bush's 1.3 trillion dollar tax cut and demands for another 50 or 70 billion dollars to be added to our 300 billion dollar annual military budget. This is not to increase our security but to enrich the military industrial complex which the Bush administration and the rest of our politicians serve. And there is of Course the Patriot Act and the military tribunals. He quotes economist Edward Alexander as saying that the richest one percent in this country own 38 percent of the household wealth and 47 percent of the financial wealth. Real unemployment is rising and the number of homeless on the streets is quietly rising. He speculates that this might come back to haunt Bush Jr's administration once the "War on Terrorism" loses its Public relations momentum, as economic malaise came to trouble Papa Bush after the Gulf war.