FYI

David

www.j-n-v.org
[A] The London Blasts: An Anti-War Response - a proposal from Justice Not
Vengeance and Voices in the Wilderness UK
[B] How to Stop Bin Laden, JNV briefing #75, 21 Jan 2005
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[A] THE LONDON BLASTS: AN ANTI-WAR RESPONSE
Today’s horrific events in London demand an active response from the
movements for peace and justice.
Justice Not Vengeance and Voices in the Wilderness UK are proposing that
anti-war and other groups around  the UK hold silent vigils in their town
centres at some point over this weekend (in Hastings, a vigil is being held
in front of the town hall at
6pm on Friday), on the following themes (please amend as you see fit):
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SOLIDARITY with those who are suffering directly as a result of the London
atrocities – and all those who have suffered violence in the course of the
“war on terror”
> We stand silently to remember those who have lost their lives, those who
> have been injured, and those who have been bereaved by the terrorist
> attacks in London. We also remember all those who have died as a result
> of violence in the course of the “war on terror” - in the United States,
> in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Indonesia, in Spain, and elsewhere.
SOLIDARITY with those who are now threatened with a violent backlash
> We stand silently to express our determination to defend the Muslim
> community, Arab communities, and other groups who face abuse and violent
> attacks in the wake of these outrages in London. We condemn all attempts
> to hold Islam itself responsible for the attacks in London or for any
> other acts of terrorism.
COMMITMENT to true security and justice
> We are determined to resist military retaliation against other nations,
> believing that military action undermines our security rather than
> strengthening it.
> We resolve to resist repressive legislation which deepens grievances
> rather than building justice and reconcilation.
****
If you hold a vigil, please let the press/radio know in advance (take your
own photograph and send it in to your local paper if they don't send a
photographer) AND please also send a report to us at <[log in to unmask]>
There will be more materials appearing on the JNV website (www.j-n-v.org)
over the next 48 hours.
Best wishes
Maya Evans
Milan Rai
Justice Not Vengeance
www.j-n-v.org
Gabriel Carlyle
Voices in the Wilderness UK
www.voicesuk.org
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[B] HOW TO STOP BIN LADEN: The World Needs Justice, Not More Terror
JNV briefing #75, 21 January 2005
[A PDF version of this briefing, to print out and distribute, is available
on-line at
http://www.j-n-v.org/pdfs/JNV%20077%20How%20To%20Stop%20Bin%20Laden.pdf]
EXPLAINING AL QAEDA—THE WRONG ANSWERS
Five days after the 11 September attacks, President Bush said that Osama bin
Laden was ‘the prime suspect’. He added, ‘Now, I want to remind the American
people that the prime suspect’s organization is in a lot of countries—it’s a
widespread organization based upon one thing: terrorizing. They can't stand
freedom; they hate what America stands for.’
Addressing Congress on 20 Sept. 2001, President Bush said, ‘Al Qaeda is to
terror what the mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money; its
goal is remaking the world—and imposing its radical beliefs on people
everywhere.’ He added, ‘Americans are asking, why do they hate us? They hate
what we see right here in this chamber—a democratically elected government.
Their leaders are self-appointed. They hate our freedoms—our freedom of
religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and
disagree with each other.’
Prime Minister Blair told the House of Commons on 14 Sept. 2001 that
Parliament had been specially recalled because ‘these attacks were not just
attacks upon people and buildings; nor even merely upon the USA; these were
attacks on the basic democratic values in which we all believe so
passionately and on the civilised world’.
EXPLAINING AL QAEDA—THE REAL ANSWERS
The US Government’s official ‘9/11 Commission’ reported that bin Laden’s
grievance with the United States ‘started in reaction to specific US
policies’. Bin Laden and his group ‘say that America had attacked Islam...
Americans are blamed when Israelis fight with Palestinians, when Russians
fight with Chechens, when Indians fight with Kashmiri Muslims, and when the
Philippine government fights ethnic Muslims in its southern islands.’ The US
is also ‘held responsible for the governments of Muslim countries, derided
by al Qaeda as “your agents”.
Such charges, says the Commission, ‘found a ready audience among millions of
Arabs and Muslims angry at the United States because of issues ranging from
Iraq to Palestine to America’s support for their countries’ repressive
rulers.’ (The 9/11 Commission Report, New York: Norton & Co, 2004, p. 51)
WHAT THE CIA’S BIN LADEN EXPERT SAYS
The Commission’s analysis may have drawn on the writings of Michael Scheuer,
who served in the CIA for 22 years, and who headed the CIA Counter-Terrorism
Centre’s bin Laden task force (1996–1999). Scheuer, who retired in Nov.
2004, wrote two recent books as ‘Anonymous’: Through Our Enemies’ Eyes and
Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. (He was unmasked
in the Boston Phoenix Scheuer contests the view put forward by George W.
Bush and Tony Blair: ‘We in the United States and the West make a mistake
when we argue, as has [New York Times columnist] Thomas L. Friedman, that
bin Laden’s attacks are “not aimed at reversing any specific U.S. foreign
policy,” or, as Steve Simon and Daniel Benjamin did in Survival in early
2002, that bin Laden has “no discrete set of negotiatiable political
demands”.’ (Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, p. 256)
Scheuer argues that Osama bin Laden has ‘clear, focused, limited and widely
popular foreign policy goals’, including: ‘the end of U.S. aid to Israel and
the ultimate elimination of that state; the removal of U.S. and Western
forces from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Muslim lands; the end of U.S.
support for the oppression of Muslims by Russia, China, and India; the end
of U.S. protection for repressive, apostate regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Egypt, Jordan, et cetera; and the conservation of the Muslim world’s energy
resources and their sale at higher prices.’Scheuer observes that, ‘Bin Laden
is out to drastically alter U.S. and Western policies toward the Islamic
world, not necessarily to destroy America, much less its freedoms and
liberties. He is a practical warrior, not an apocalyptic terrorist in search
of Armageddon.’ (Imperial Hubris, p. xviii)
Scheuer wrote, while still a serving CIA officer, ‘Bin Laden has been
precise in telling America the reasons he is waging war on us. None of the
reasons have anything to do with our freedom, liberty and democracy, but
have everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world.’
(Imperial Hubris, p. x) Scheuer goes further, arguing that ‘the United
States, and its policies and actions, are bin Laden’s only indispensable
allies’. (Imperial Hubris, p. xi)
WHAT CAN WE DO?
The 9/11 Commission also asked the question, ‘What can we do to stop these
attacks?’ It suggested that, while bin Laden’s campaign had begun in
reaction to US policies, ‘it quickly became far deeper’: ‘To the second
question of what America could do, al Qaeda’s answer was that America should
abandon the Middle East, convert to Islam, and end the immorality and
godlessness of its culture... If the United States did not comply, it would
be at war with the Islamic nation’. (The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 50-51)
The Commission produced no evidence that al Qaeda had such a maximalist
programme. Michael Scheuer vigorously disputes this view, drawing a
distinction between ‘the things a Muslim would find offensive’, and things
which a Muslim might regard as an attack on Islam or on Muslims. ‘Part of
bin Laden’s genius is that he recognized early on the difference between
those issues Muslims find offensive about America and the West, and those
they find intolerable and life threatening.’ (Imperial Hubris, p. 10)
Jason Burke, Chief Reporter for the London Observer, points out in his book
Al-Qaeda, ‘While bin Laden’s discourse may be based on an interpretation of
Islamic history, his power is derived from playing on the current social,
economic and political problems of the Muslim world.’ (Al-Qaeda, Penguin,
2004, p. 25)
In the case of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden and other
non-Afghan Muslims ‘went there to fight the Red Army not because the Soviets
were atheists and communists’ but because of their brutal invasion.
(Imperial Hubris, p. 10) After the invasion was reversed, the mujahideen did
not continue armed action against the atheist and anti-Islamic Soviet Union.
When the grievance ended, so did the mujahideen war.
Scheuer, as already pointed out, argues that Osama bin Laden has ‘clear,
focused, [and] limited’ foreign policy goals. The goal is not the
establishment of an Islamic fundamentalist state in the US, whatever the
9/11 Commission asserts, but deep change in US foreign policy.
WHAT WOULD MAKE AL QAEDA STOP?
After 11 September, bin Laden said, ‘Just as they are killing us, we have to
kill them so there will be a balance of terror... We will do as they do. If
they kill our women and innocent people, we will kill their women and
innocent people until they stop.’ (Cited in Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, p.
247, emphasis added) Intervening in the closing days of the 2004
presidential election, bin Laden told the American people, ‘Your security
does not lie in the hands of Kerry, Bush, or al-Qaeda. Your security is in
your own hands. Each and every state that does not tamper with our security
will have automatically assured its own security.’ (BBC, 30 Oct). This was
translated by CCN as, ‘Any nation that does not attack us will not be
attacked.’ ‘Us’ is meant to refer to the community of Muslim nations and
populations, and ‘attack’ has a broad meaning, as former CIA official
Michael Scheuer explains.
Writing before the invasion of Iraq, Scheuer commented: ‘How will [al Qaeda]
recognise victory? Easy, by forcing drastic changes in U.S. foreign
policy... when U.S. and British forces evacuate Saudi Arabia and the rest of
the Arabian peninsula; when the United States has terminated all aid to
Israel; and when the U.S. and UN embargoes on Iraq are lifted.’ (These
achievements, bin Laden believes, ‘will lead inevitably to destruction of
Israel and what bin Laden has called the regimes of “hypocrites” in Saudi
Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and elsewhere.’) (Through Our Enemies’ Eyes, p. 256)
To these goals, one might add the ending of the US-UK occupation of Iraq and
presence in Afghanistan.
LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES
Underlying these demands are legitimate grievances against the West: Western
support for Israeli oppression of the Palestinians; the invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan; the brutal sanctions imposed on Iraq (now lifted); and US-UK
support for dictatorial regimes in the Middle East. These are immoral
policies which should be reversed because they are wrong. So is the policy
of ignoring—or supporting—oppression in Chechnya and elsewhere.
It so happens that reversing these immoral policies would drain most if not
all of the hatred which fuels al Qaeda. This is how we can stop bin Laden.
War, retaliation and violence simply adds to his appeal.
PUNISHMENT OR SURVIVAL
The governments of Britain and the United States can pursue the path of
punishment and preventive violence, or they can seek to bring this wave of
terrorism to an end. Bringing al Qaeda-style terrorism to an end means,
above all, reducing the motivation that exists to carry out terrorism. This
does not mean ‘negotiating with terrorists’ or ‘capitulating to their
demands’, but seeking justice and human rights for all, including the
peoples of Palestine and Iraq.
The answer to terrorism is justice, not more terrorism. London and
Washington must also stop practising the terrorism of the powerful—invasion,
occupation, and indirect terrorism via oppressive states. We should
recognise that in much of the world the U.S. is regarded as a leading
terrorist state, and with good reason.’ Noam Chomsky (Chomsky, 9/11, Seven
Stories, 2001, p. 23)
Justice Not Vengeance (JNV): t: 0845 458 9571, e: [log in to unmask], w:
www.j-n-v.org

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