Q & A from Znet who have gone down _due to the number of
hits and the servers have no back-ups!?
A long but informative piece.....



September 11 And Its Aftermath
By Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shalom

We are writing this on September 17, less than a week after
the horrific terrorist attacks against the United States.
We are still dealing with our grief and trauma and we are
still profoundly moved by the many acts of heroism,
generosity, and solidarity that have taken place. Some may
find it inappropriate to offer political analysis this
early, but however discordant some may find it, the time
for political analysis should be before actions are taken
that may make the situation far worse. Critics of war
across the U.S. and around the world are working hard to
communicate with people who, for the moment, mainly seek
retribution. Below we address some of the many questions
that are being asked. We hope the answers we offer,
developed in consultation with many other activists, will
assist people in their daily work.



Who did it?

The identity of the 19 individuals who hijacked the four
planes is known, but what is not yet known is who provided
the coordination, the planning, the funding, and the
logistical support, both in the United States and
elsewhere. Many indications point to the involvement of
Osama bin Laden, but if his role is confirmed, this is the
beginning, not the end, of the inquiry: Were any other
organizations involved and, if so, which ones? Were any
national governments involved and, if so, which ones? The
danger here is that the U.S. government may answer
these questions based on political criteria rather than
evidence.



Who is Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin Laden is an exiled Saudi, who inherited a fortune
estimated at $300 million, though it's not clear how much
remains of it. Fanatically devoted to his intolerant
version of Islam-a version rejected by the vast majority of
Muslims-bin Laden volunteered his services to the Afghan
Mujahideen, the religious warriors battling the invading
Soviet Union from 1979 to 1989. The Afghan rebels were
bankrolled by Saudi Arabia and the United States and
trained by Pakistani intelligence, with help from the CIA.
The United States provided huge amounts of arms, including
Stingers- one-person anti-aircraft missiles-despite
warnings that these could end up in the hands of
terrorists. Washington thus allied itself with bin Laden
and more than 25,000 other Islamic militants from around
the world who came to Afghanistan to join the holy war
against the Russians. As long as they were willing to fight
the Soviet Union, the U.S. welcomed them, even though many
were virulently anti-American, some even connected to the
1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat of Egypt. When Moscow
finally withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, some of these
Islamic militants turned their sights on their other
enemies, including Egypt (where they hoped to establish an
Islamic state), Saudi Arabia, and the United States. Bin
Laden established an organization of these holy war
veterans-al Qaida. In February 1998, bin Laden issued a
statement, endorsed by several extreme Islamic groups,
declaring it the duty of all Muslims to kill U.S.
citizens-civilian or military-and their allies everywhere.



Where is Osama bin Laden?

After some attacks on U.S. interests in Saudi Arabia, Saudi
authorities revoked bin Laden's citizenship. Bin Laden went
to the Sudan and then on to Afghanistan. His precise
location is unknown, since he frequently moves or goes into
hiding. Afghanistan is led by the Taliban, a group of
extreme Islamic fundamentalists, who emerged out of the
Mujahideen. The Taliban does not have full control over the
country-there is a civil war against dissidents who control
some 10-20 percent of the country. Afghanistan is an
incredibly poor nation-life expectancy is 46 years of age,
1 out of 7 children die in infancy, and per capita income
is about $800 per year. Huge numbers of people remain
refugees. Taliban rule is dictatorial and its social policy
is unusually repressive and sexist: for example, Buddhist
statues have been destroyed, Hindus have been required to
wear special identification, and girls over eight are
barred from school. Human rights groups, the United
Nations, and most governments have condemned the policies
of the Taliban. Only Pakistan, and the two leading U.S.
allies in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, recognize the Taliban government.



Why did the terrorists do it?

We don't entirely know who did it, at this writing, so we
can't say for sure at this point why they did it. There
are, however some possibilities worth thinking about.

One explanation points to a long list of grievances felt by
people in the Middle East-U.S. backing for Israeli
repression and dispossession of the Palestinians, U.S.
imposition of sanctions on Iraq, leading to the deaths of
huge numbers of innocents, and U.S. support for autocratic,
undemocratic, and highly inegalitarian regimes. These are
real grievances and U.S. policy really does cause
tremendous suffering. But how do these terror attacks
mitigate the suffering? Some may believe that by inflicting
pain on civilians, a government may be overthrown or its
policies will change in a favorable direction. This belief
is by no means unique to Middle Easterners-and has in fact
been the standard belief of U.S. and other government
officials for years. It was the belief behind the terror
bombings of World War II by the Nazis, the U.S. and
Britain, and behind the pulverizing of North Vietnam and
the strikes on civilian infrastructure during the Kosovo
war. It is the same rationale as that offered for the
ongoing economic sanctions against Iraq: starve the people
to pressure the leader. In addition to the deep immorality
of targeting civilians as a means of changing policy, its
efficacy is often dubious.

In this case, one would have a totally inaccurate view of
the United States if one thought that the events of
September 11 would cause U.S. officials to suddenly see the
injustice of their policies toward the Palestinians, etc.
On the contrary, the likely result of the attacks will be
to allow U.S. leaders to mobilize the population behind a
more uncompromising pursuit of their previous policies. The
actions will set back the causes of the weak and the poor,
while empowering the most aggressive and reactionary
elements around the globe.

There is a second possible explanation for the September 11
attacks. Why commit a grotesquely provocative act against a
power so large and so armed as the United States? Perhaps
provoking the United States was precisely the intent. By
provoking a massive military assault on one or more Islamic
nations, the perpetrators may hope to set off a cycle of
terror and counter-terror, precipitating a holy war between
the Islamic world and the West, a war that they may hope
will result in the overthrow of all insufficiently Islamic
regimes and the unraveling of the United States, just as
the Afghan war contributed to the demise of the Soviet
Union. Needless to say, this scenario is insane on every
count one can assess.

But even if provocation rather than grievances is what
motivated the planners of the terror strikes against the
U.S., this still wouldn't mean grievances are irrelevant.
Whatever the planners' motives, they still needed to
attract capable, organized, and skilled people, not only to
participate, but to give their lives to a suicidal agenda.
Deeply-felt grievances provide a social environment from
which fanatics can recruit and gain support.



How should guilt be determined and how should the
punishment be carried out?

The answers to these questions are all important. In our
world, the only alternative to vigilantism is that guilt
should be determined by an amassing of evidence that is
then assessed in accordance with international law by the
United Nations Security Council or other appropriate
international agencies.

Punishment should be determined by the UN as well, and
likewise the means of implementation. The UN may arrive at
determinations that one or another party likes or not, as
with any court, and may also be subject to political
pressures that call into question its results or not,
as with any court. But that the UN is the place for
determinations about international conflict is obvious, at
least according to solemn treaties signed by the nations of
the world. Most governments, however, don't take seriously
their obligations under international law. Certainly,
history has shown that to U.S. policy makers international
law is for everyone else to follow, and for Washington to
manipulate when possible or to otherwise ignore. Thus, when
the World Court told the U.S. to cease its contra war
against Nicaragua and pay reparations, U.S. officials
simply declared they did not consider themselves bound by
the ruling.




Why us? Why the U.S.?

The terrorists wreaked their havoc on New York and
Washington, not on Mexico City or Stockholm. Why?

George W. Bush has claimed that the United States was
targeted because of its commitment to freedom and
democracy. Bush says people are jealous of our wealth. The
truth is that anti-Americanism rests on feelings that the
U.S. obstructs freedom and democracy as well as material
well being for others. In the Middle East, for example, the
United States supports Israeli oppression of Palestinians,
providing the military, economic, and diplomatic backing
that makes that oppression possible. It condemns conquest
when it is done by Iraq, but not when done by Israel. It
has bolstered authoritarian regimes (such as Saudi Arabia)
that have provided U.S. companies with mammoth oil profits
and has helped overthrow regimes (such as Iran in the early
1950s) that challenged those profits. When terrorist acts
were committed by U.S. friends such as the
Israeli-supervised massacres in the Sabra and Shatilla
refugee camps in Lebanon, no U.S. sanctions were imposed.
But about the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iraq, leading to
the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent children,
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright could only say that
she thought it was worth it. When the U.S. went to war
against Iraq, it targeted civilian infrastructure. When
Iran and Iraq fought a bloody war, the United States
surreptitiously aided both sides.

On top of specific Middle Eastern concerns,
anti-Americanism is also spawned by more general
grievances. The United States is the leading status-quo
power in the world. It promotes a global economic system
of vast inequality and incredible poverty. It displays its
arrogance of power when it rejects and blocks international
consensus on issues ranging from the environment, to the
rights of children, to landmines, to an international
criminal court, to national missile defense.

Again, these grievances may have nothing to do with the
motives of those who masterminded the terror strikes of
September 11. But they certainly help create an environment
conducive to recruitment.



Isn't it callous to talk about U.S. crimes at a time when
the U.S. is mourning its dead?

It would be callous if the people talking about U.S. crimes
weren't also horrified at the terror in New York and if the
U.S. wasn't talking about mounting a war against whole
countries, removing governments from power, engaging in
massive assaults, and evidencing no concern to discriminate
terrorists from civilian bystanders.

But since critics are feeling the pain and the U.S. is
already formulating its notions of justice in precisely
those unconstructive terms, for critics to carefully point
out the hypocrisy, and the likely consequences even as we
also mourn the dead, feel outrage at the carnage, and help
relief efforts, is essential. It is how we help avoid
piling catastrophe on top of catastrophe.

Suppose bin Laden is the mastermind of the recent horror.
Imagine he had gone before the Afghan population a week or
two earlier and told them of the U.S. government's
responsibility for so much tragedy and mayhem around the
world, particularly to Arab populations as in Iraq
and Palestine. Imagine that he further told them that
Americans have different values and that they cheered when
bombs were rained on people in Libya and Iraq. Suppose bin
Laden had proposed the bombing of U.S. civilians to force
their government to change its ways. In that hypothetical
event, what would we want the Afghan people to have
replied?

We would want them to have told bin Laden that he was
demented and possessed. We would want them to have pointed
out that the fact that the U.S. government has levied
massive violence against Iraq's civilians and others does
not warrant attacks on U.S. civilians, and the fact
of different values doesn't warrant attacks of any sort at
all.

So isn't this what we ought to also want the U.S. public to
say to George Bush? The fact of bin Laden's violence,
assuming it proves to be the case, or that of the Taliban,
or whatever other government may be implicated, does not
warrant reciprocal terror attacks on innocent civilians.



By talking about U.S. crimes abroad, aren't we excusing
terrorist acts?

To express remorse and pain, and to also seek to avoid
comparable and worse pain being inflicted on further
innocents (including Americans) is not to evidence a lack
of feeling for the impact of crimes against humanity, but
instead indicates feelings that extend further than what
the media or the government tells us are the limits of
permissible sympathy. We not only feel for those innocents
who have already died, and their families, but also for
those who might be killed shortly, for those we may be able
to help save.

U.S. crimes in no way justify or excuse the attacks of
September 11. Terror is an absolutely unacceptable response
to U.S. crimes. But at the same time, we need to stress as
well that terror-targeting civilians-is an absolutely
unacceptable response by the United States to the genuine
crimes of others.

The reason it is relevant to bring up U.S. crimes is not to
justify terrorism, but to understand the terrain that
breeds terrorism and terrorists. Terrorism is a morally
despicable and strategically suicidal reaction to
injustice. But reducing injustice can certainly help
eliminate the seeds of pain and suffering that nurture
terrorist impulses and support for them.




Bush has said that the "war on terrorism" needs to confront
all countries that aid or abet terrorism. Which countries
qualify?

The current thinking on this topic, promulgated by Bush and
spreading rapidly beyond, is that anyone who plans, carries
out, or abets terrorism, including knowingly harboring
terrorists, is culpable for terrorist actions and their
results-where terrorism is understood as the attacking of
innocent civilians in order to coerce policy makers. Some
people might argue with some aspect of this formulation,
but from where we sit, the formulation is reasonable
enough. It is the application that falls short.

The U.S. State Department has a list of states that support
terrorism, but it is-as one would expect-an extremely
political document. The latest listing consisted of Iran,
Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and
Sudan-significantly omitting Afghanistan. Cuba is included,
one suspects, less because of any actual connection to
terrorism, than because of longstanding U.S. hostility to
the Cuban government and the long record of U.S. terrorism
against Cuba. If we are talking about terrorism of the sort
exemplified by car and other hand-delivered bombs,
kidnappings, plane hijackings, or suicide assaults, we can
reasonably guess that most of the countries on the State
Department list, along with Afghanistan, Pakistan, and some
other poor nations would qualify with varying degrees of
culpability.

On the other hand, if we are talking about terrorism of the
sort exemplified by military bombing and invasion, by food
or medical embargoes affecting civilians rather than solely
or even primarily official and military targets, by hitting
"soft targets" such as health clinics or agricultural
cooperatives, or by funding and training death squads, then
we would have a rather different list of culpable nations,
including such professed opponents of terrorism as the
United States, Britain, France, Russia, and Israel.

At times the parties engaged in either list point to the
actions perpetrated by those on the other list as
justification for their behavior. But, of course, terror
does not justify subsequent terror, nor does reciprocal
terror diminish terror from the other side.



Do Palestinians support the attacks, and, if so, what is
the implication?

There have been reports of Palestinians in the West Bank
and Gaza cheering the attacks, and similar reports
regarding Palestinians in the United States. Fox News has
played over and over the same clip of some Palestinians in
the occupied territories celebrating. But the media fails
to explain that they are showing only a small minority of
Palestinians and that official Palestinian sentiment has
expressed its condemnation of the attacks and sympathy for
the victims. The media have been especially remiss in not
reporting such things as the statement issued by the
Palestinian village of Beit Sahour movingly denouncing the
terror, or the candlelight vigil in Arab East Jerusalem in
memory of the victims.

There is no reason to doubt, however, that some
Palestinians-both in the U.S. and in the Middle
East-cheered the attacks. This is wrong, but it is also
understandable. The United States has been the most
important international backer of Israeli oppression of
Palestinians. Politically immature Palestinians, like the
Americans who cheered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima or
many lesser bombings such as that of Libya in 1986, ignore
the human meaning of destroying an "enemy" target.

But that some Palestinians have reacted in this way, while
disappointing, should have no bearing on our understanding
of their oppression and the need to remedy it. In fact,
given that Israel seems to be using the September 11
attacks as an excuse and a cover for increasing assaults on
Palestinians, we need to press all the more vigorously for
a just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.



What is the likely impact of the attacks within the U.S.
policy-making establishment?

The catastrophic character of these events provides a
perfect excuse for reactionary elements to pursue every
agenda item that they can connect to "the war against
terrorism" and that they can fuel by fanning fears in the
population. This obviously includes expanding
military expenditures that have nothing whatever to do with
legitimate security concerns and everything to do with
profit-seeking and militarism. For example, even though the
events of September 11 should have shown that "national
missile defense" is no defense at all against the most
likely threats we face, already the Democrats are beginning
to drop their opposition to that destabilizing boondoggle.
Amazingly, certain elements will even extrapolate to social
issues. For example, our own home grown
fundamentalists-like Jerry Falwell-have actually declared
(though retracted after wide criticism) that abortion,
homosexuality, feminism, and the ACLU are at fault. Others
hope to use the attacks as a rationale for eliminating the
capital gains tax, a long-time right-wing objective. But
the main focus will be military policy. In coming weeks, we
will see a celebration in America of military power, of a
massive arms build-up, and perhaps assassinations, all
touted as if the terror victims will be honored rather than
defiled by our preparing to entomb still more innocent
people around the world.




So what is the likely U.S. response?

U.S. policymaking regarding international relations (and
domestic relations as well) is a juggling act. On one side,
the goal is enhancing the privilege, power, and wealth of
U.S. elites. On the other side, the constraint is keeping
at bay less powerful and wealthy constituencies who might
have different agendas, both at home and abroad.

Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has had a
problem-how to get the public to ratify policies that don't
benefit the public, but that serve corporate and elite
political interests. The fear of a Soviet menace, duly
exaggerated, served that purpose admirably for decades. The
ideal response to the current situation, from the elite
standpoint, will be to replace the Cold War with the
Anti-Terror War. With this accomplished, they will again
have a vehicle to instill fear, arguably more credible than
the former Soviet menace. Again they will have an enemy,
terrorists, whom they can blame for anything and
everything, trying as well to smear all dissidents as
traveling a path leading inexorably toward the horrors of
terrorism.

So their response to these recent events is to intone that
we must have a long war, a difficult struggle, against an
implacable, immense, and even ubiquitous enemy. They will
declare that we must channel our energies to this cause, we
must sacrifice butter for guns, we must renounce liberty
for security, we must succumb, in short, to the rule of the
right, and forget about pursuing the defense and
enlargement of rights. Their preferred response will be to
use the military, particularly against countries that are
defenseless, perhaps even to occupy one and to broadly act
in ways that will not so much reduce the threat of terror
and diminish its causes, as to induce conflict that is
serviceable to power regardless of the enlargement of
terror that results.

Already Congress has been asked to give the president a
blank check for military action, which means further
removing U.S. military action from democratic control. Only
Rep. Barbara Lee had the courage to vote "no" on Congress's
joint resolution, authorizing the president "to use all
necessary and appropriate force against those nations,
organizations, or persons he determines planned,
authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that
occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such
organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future
acts of international terrorism against the United States
by such nations, organizations or persons."



What response should the U.S. take instead?

The best way to deal with terrorism is to address its root
causes. Perhaps some terrorism would exist even if the
grievances of the people of the Third World were dealt
with-grievances that lead to anger, despair, frustration,
feelings of powerlessness, and hatred-but certainly the
ability of those who would commit terror, without
grievances to recruit others, would be tremendously
reduced. As a second step, we might help establish a real
international consensus against terrorism by putting on
trial U.S. officials responsible for some of the atrocities
noted earlier.

Of course, these are long-term solutions and we face the
horror of terrorism today. So we must consider what we want
the United States government to do internationally right
now.

The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to be to
assure the security, safety, and well-being of U.S.
citizens without detracting from the security, safety, and
well-being of others. A number of points follow from this
principle.

We must insist that any response refrain from targeting
civilians. It must refrain as well from attacking so-called
dual-use targets, those that have some military purpose but
substantially impact civilians. The United States did not
adhere to this principle in World War II (where the direct
intention was often to kill civilians) and it still does
not adhere to it, as when it hit the civilian
infrastructure in Iraq or Serbia, knowing that the result
would be civilian deaths (from lack of electricity in
hospitals, lack of drinking water, sewage treatment plants,
and so on), while the military benefits would be slight. We
would obviously reject as grotesque the claim that the
World Trade Center was a legitimate target because its
destruction makes it harder for the U.S. government to
function (and hence to carry out its military policies). We
need to be as sensitive to the human costs of striking
dual-use facilities in other countries as we are of those
in our own country.

We must insist as well that any response to the terror be
carried out according to the UN Charter. The Charter
provides a clear remedy for events like those of September
11: present the case to the Security Council and let the
Council determine the appropriate response. The Charter
permits the Council to choose responses up to and including
the use of military force. No military action should be
carried out without Security Council authorization. To
bypass the Security Council is to weaken international law
that provides security to all nations, especially the
weaker ones.

Security Council approval is not always determinative.
During the Gulf War, the U.S. obtained such approval by
exercising its wealth and power to gain votes. So we should
insist on a freely offered Security Council authorization.
Moreover, we should insist that the UN retain control of
any response; that is, we should oppose the usual practice
whereby the United States demands that the Council give it
a blank check to conduct a war any way it wants. In the
case of the Gulf War, although the Council authorized the
war, the war was run out of Washington, not the UN. To give
the United States a free hand to run a military operation
as it chooses removes a crucial check.

We should insist that no action and no Security Council
vote be taken without a full presentation of the evidence
assigning culpability. We don't want Washington announcing
that we should just take its word for it-as occurred in
1998, when the U.S. bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan,
asserting that it was a chemical warfare facility, only to
acknowledge some time later that it had been mistaken.

If-and it's a big if-all these conditions are met, then we
should no more object to seizing the perpetrators than we
object to having the domestic police seize a rapist or a
murderer to bring the culprit to justice. And what if a
state is also found to be culpable or if a state determines
to use military means to protect the terrorists? The
dangers of harm to civilians are much greater in the case
of a war against a state. Military action would be
justified only insofar as it did not cause substantial harm
to civilians.

In addition, if the goal of a proposed military action is
to enhance U.S. security rather than to wreak vengeance,
such envisioned benefits would have to be weighed against
the prospects of driving thousands of others in the Islamic
world into the hands of terrorism. In other words, military
action needs to be the smallest part of the international
response. More important are diplomatic pressures, cutting
off funding for terrorist organizations, reducing the
grievances that feed frustration, and so on.

It is critically important to also note, however, that even
non-military actions can cause immense civilian suffering
and that such options too must be rejected. Calling for
Pakistan to cut off food aid to Afghanistan, for example,
as the United States has already done, would likely lead to
starvation on a huge scale. Its implications could be far
worse than those of bombing or other seemingly more
aggressive choices.



What should we do to protect ourselves from these sorts of
attacks?

Beyond pursuing the implementation of international law
through appropriate international channels and beyond
trying to rectify unjust conditions that breed hopelessness
and despair that can become the nurturing ground of terror,
it is also necessary to reduce vulnerability and risk.

Some things are far easier than the media would have us
believe. If we don't want to ever see a commercial airliner
turned into a missile and used to destroy people and
property, we can disconnect the pilots' cabin and the body
of the plane, making entry to the former from the latter
impossible. Likewise, it is significant that the U.S.
airline industry has, up until now, handled airport
security through private enterprise, which means low-paid,
unskilled security personnel with high turn-over. In
Europe, on the other hand, airport security is a government
function and the workers are relatively well-paid, and
hence much more highly motivated and competent.

Other tasks will be harder. What we should not do, however,
is curtail basic freedoms and militarize daily life. That
response doesn't ward off terror, but makes terror the
victor.



How do we respond to what seems like militaristic
flag-waving?

To harshly judge the way some show their feelings for the
U.S. in times of crisis can be callous and unconstructive.
The image of firefighters running up stairs to help those
above is heroic and deserves profound respect. The vision
of hundreds and thousands of people helping at the scene,
working to save lives, donating, supporting, is similarly
worthy and positive. Even the flag waving, which can at
times be jingoistic, should not be assumed to be such.The
important thing is to increase awareness of the relevant
facts and values at stake, the policies that may follow and
their implications, and what people of good will can do to
influence all these.



What should progressives do?

Change depends on organized resistance that raises
awareness and commitment. It depends on pressuring decision
makers to respect the will of a public with dissident and
critical views. Our immediate task is to communicate
accurate information, to counter misconceptions and
illogic, to empathize and be on the wavelength of the
public, to talk and listen, to offer information, analysis,
and humane aims.


----------

The United States and Middle East: Why Do They Hate Us?

The list below presents specific incidents of U.S. policy.
It minimizes the grievances against the U.S. because it
excludes long-standing policies, such as U.S. backing for
authoritarian regimes (arming Saudi Arabia, training the
secret police in Iran under the Shah, providing arms and
aid to Turkey as it attacked Kurdish villages, etc.). The
list also excludes actions of Israel in which the U.S. is
indirectly implicated because Israel has been the leading
or second-ranking recipient of U.S. aid for many years and
has received U.S. weapons and benefitted from U.S. vetos in
the Security Council.

1949: CIA backs military coup deposing elected government
of Syria.

1953: CIA helps overthrow the democratically-elected
Mossadeq government in Iran (which had nationalized the
British oil company) leading to a quarter-century of
dictatorial rule by the Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlevi.

1956: U.S. cuts off promised funding for Aswan Dam in Egypt
after Egypt receives Eastern bloc arms.

1956: Israel, Britain, and France invade Egypt. U.S. does
not support invasion, but the involvement of NATO allies
severely diminishes Washington's reputation in the region.

1958: U.S. troops land in Lebanon to preserve "stability."

1960s (early): U.S. unsuccessfully attempts assassination
of Iraqi leader, Abdul Karim Qassim.

1963: U.S. reported to give Iraqi Ba'ath party (soon to be
headed by Saddam Hussein) names of communists to murder,
which they do with vigor.

1967-: U.S. blocks any effort in the Security Council to
enforce SC Resolution 244, calling for Israeli withdrawal
from territories occupied in the 1967 war.

1970: Civil war between Jordan and PLO. Israel and U.S.
prepare to intervene on side of Jordan if Syria backs PLO.

1972: U.S. blocks Sadat's efforts to reach a peace
agreement with Egypt.

1973: U.S. military aid enables Israel to turn the tide in
war with Syria and Egypt.

1973-75: U.S. supports Kurdish rebels in Iraq. When Iran
reaches an agreement with Iraq in 1975 and seals the
border, Iraq slaughters Kurds and U.S. denies them refuge.
Kissinger secretly explains that "covert action should not
be confused with missionary work."

1978-79: Iranians begin demonstrations against the Shah.
U.S. tells Shah it supports him "without reservation" and
urges him to act forcefully. Until the last minute, U.S.
tries to organize military coup to save the Shah, but to no
avail.

1979-88: U.S. begins covert aid to Mujahideen in
Afghanistan six months before Soviet invasion. Over the
next decade U.S. provides more than $3 billion in arms and
aid.

1980-88: Iran-Iraq war. When Iraq invades Iran, the U.S.
opposes any Security Council action to condemn the
invasion. U.S. removes Iraq from its list of nations
supporting terrorism and allows U.S. arms to be transferred
to Iraq. U.S. lets Israel provide arms to Iran and in 1985
U.S. provides arms directly (though secretly) to Iran. U.S.
provides intelligence information to Iraq. Iraq uses
chemical weapons in 1984; U.S. restores diplomatic
relations with Iraq. 1987 U.S. sends its navy into the
Persian Gulf, taking Iraq's side; an aggressive U.S. ship
shoots down an Iranian civilian airliner, killing 290.

1981, 1986: U.S. holds military maneuvers off the coast of
Libya with the clear purpose of provoking Qaddafi. In 1981,
a Libyan plane fires a missile and two Libyan planes were
subsequently shot down. In 1986, Libya fires missiles that
land far from any target and U.S. attacks Libyan patrol
boats, killing 72, and shore installations. When a bomb
goes off in a Berlin nightclub, killing two, the U.S.
charges that Qaddafi was behind it (possibly true) and
conducts major bombing raids in Libya, killing dozens of
civilians, including Qaddafi's adopted daughter.

1982: U.S. gives "green light" to Israeli invasion of
Lebanon, where more than 10,000 civilians were killed. U.S.
chooses not to invoke its laws prohibiting Israeli use of
U.S. weapons except in self-defense.

1983: U.S. troops sent to Lebanon as part of a
multinational peacekeeping force; intervene on one side of
a civil war. Withdraw after suicide bombing of marine
barracks.

1984: U.S.-backed rebels in Afghanistan fire on civilian
airliner.

1988: Saddam Hussein kills many thousands of his own
Kurdish population and uses chemical weapons against them.
The U.S. increases its economic ties to Iraq.

1990-91: U.S. rejects diplomatic settlement of the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait (for example, rebuffing any attempt to
link the two regional occupations, of Kuwait and
Palestine). U.S. leads international coalition in war
against Iraq. Civilian infrastructure targeted. To promote
"stability" U.S. refuses to aid uprisings by Shi'ites in
the south and Kurds in the north, denying the rebels access
to captured Iraqi weapons and refusing to prohibit Iraqi
helicopter flights.

1991-: Devastating economic sanctions are imposed on Iraq.
U.S. and Britain block all attempts to lift them. Hundreds
of thousands die. Though Security Council stated sanctions
were to be lifted once Hussein's programs to develop
weapons of mass destruction were ended, Washington makes it
known that the sanctions would remain as long as Saddam
remains in power. Sanctions strengthen Saddam's position.

1993-: U.S. launches missile attack on Iraq, claiming
self-defense against an alleged assassination attempt on
former president Bush two months earlier.

1998: U.S. and U.K. bomb Iraq over weapons inspections,
even though Security Council is just then meeting to
discuss the matter.

1998: U.S. destroys factory producing half of Sudan's
pharmaceutical supply, claiming retaliation for attacks on
U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and that factory was
involved in chemical warfare. U.S. later acknowledges there
is no evidence for the chemical warfare charge.







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for constructing films."
                         Bordwell & Thompson