Bcc: XX
These were sent by a friend (XX). Name omitted since they were not
sent directly to the list.
rkm
btw> I am still on Kauai awaiting my return flight to Ireland.
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Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2001 20:46:42 -0700
To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••>
From: XX
Subject: CNN coverage
Richard,
I do not know if you can get the same CNN in Ireland as we get here. But they
just had Richard Reeves and Sen. John McCain both talking about how the US can't
wield power over other countries and push our values on their people and expect
those people to love us.
The commentators then proceeded to build on that theme, flogging their own
medium for focusing on stories of illicit sexual affairs while ignoring the
simmering resentment that our foreign policy has caused.
There is growing awareness in this country that as we enter a war that we have
no choice but to fight in self defense, that we must also understand what
provoked that war and that we must find and end to it that removes the causes or
it will never really end. We paid a high price to learn the lesson, but it
appears that we may have learned it very quickly. Maybe it is because the elders
of our time lived through Vietnam.
My own view is that the war will end not in any surrender but in a multilateral
negotiation of unprecedented scope. The sooner we begin the diplomatic work, in
parallel to the military work, the fewer lives will be lost and the less time it
will take for the coming unfathomable wounds to heal.
XX
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Delivered-To: •••@••.•••
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 15:34:30 -0700
To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••>
From: XX
Subject: Re: misc items re/our apocalyptic situation...
Richard,
All of those war provocations did involve cover ups of intelligence. But the
Japanese DID bomb Pearl Harbor. And some people DID crash planes into U.S.
buildings.
It is true that the intelligence services received warnings before these
incidents. But they receive warnings all the time. We libertarians who constrain
their budgets and activities force them to prioritize their investigations.
Michel Chossudovsky's piece appears accurate as far as I know. The message I
sent you yesterday, the "view from Israel", explained why we habitually arm our
destructors.
The Islamic Middle East is far from unified. There are longstanding rivalries
between various countries and factions. Radicals try to build unity by creating
common enemies: Britain, France, the USA, Israel, Russia. When we "enemies"
perceive a threat by any one country or faction, we identify the opponents
within the region of those who threaten us. We ally with them, not only
forgetting that they, too, see us as an enemy, but giving them the skills and
equipment--not to mention the motivation--to attack us. Israel has become used
to this winless situation, and has no choice but to live with it. Britain,
France, the USA and Russia don't treat it as the full-time preoccupation that it
deserves to be.
XX
P.S.: The Nostradamus "prediction", which smells like a hoax,
appears to be one:
CNET | Digital Dispatch
Beware hoaxes that prey on our fears
September 13, 2001
Vol. 7, No. 37
Words fail us at times like this. They can mislead us as well. In
the wake of Tuesday's tragedy, I received a few copies of a
horrific piece of e-mail: a verse attributed to 16th century
prophet Nostradamus. The eight lines seem to predict the World
Trade Center attack and the subsequent start of World War III. If
you've received this e-mail, please don't forward it: it's a
malicious hoax. Some of the words do indeed come from Nostradamus
(though they've been spliced, diced, and rearranged to form a
coherent prediction). But the most worrisome specifics--lines
such as "In the city of York there will be a great collapse, two
twin brothers torn apart by chaos" and "The third big war will
begin when the big city is burning"--are fabricated whole cloth.
Shame on those who would spend their energies spreading fear
while we're all so vulnerable.
--Steve Fox, editor in chief, CNET.com
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Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 14:31:46 -0700
To: "Richard K. Moore" <•••@••.•••>
From: XX
Subject: Three good pieces especially the third
September 12, 2001
Your Excellency,
I am deeply shocked by the terrorist attacks that took place involving four
apparently hijacked aircrafts and the immense devastation these caused. It
is a terrible tragedy that so many innocent lives have been lost and it
seems unbelievable that anyone would choose to target the World Trade Center
in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. We are deeply saddened. On
behalf of the Tibetan people I would like to convey our deepest condolence
and solidarity with the American people during this painful time. Our
prayers go out to the many who have lost their lives, those who have been
injured and the many more who have been traumatized by this senseless act of
violence. I am attending a special prayer for the United States and its
people at our main temple today.
I am confident that the United States as a great and powerful nation will be
able to overcome this present tragedy. The American people have shown their
resilience, courage and determination when faced with such difficult and sad
situations.
It may seem presumptuous on my part, but I personally believe we need to
think seriously whether a violent reaction is the right thing to do and in
the greater interest of the nation and the people in the long run. I believe
violence will only increase the cycle of violence. But how do we deal with
hatred and anger which are often the root causes of such senseless violence?
This is a very difficult question, especially when it concerns a nation and
we have certain fixed conceptions of how to deal with such attacks. I am
sure you will make the right decision.
With my prayers and good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
The Dalai Lama
His Excellency Mr. George W. Bush
The President
The white House
Washington, DC 20500
USA
Minnie Cancellaro
Executive Director
Tibet Justice Center
formerly International Committee of Lawyers for Tibet
2288 Fulton Street, Suite 312
Berkeley, CA 94704
Some thoughts from Deepak Chopra.
The Deeper Wound
As fate would have it, I was leaving New York on a jet flight that took off
45 minutes before the unthinkable happened. By the time we landed in
Detroit, chaos had broken out. My wife and son were also in the air on
separate flights, one to Los Angeles, one to San Diego. My body went
absolutely rigid with fear. All I could think about was their safety, and it
took several hours before I found out that their flights had been diverted
and both were safe.
Strangely, when the good news came, my body still felt that it had been hit
by a truck. Of its own accord it seemed to feel a far greater trauma that
reached out to the thousands who would not survive and the tens of thousands
who would survive only to live through months and years of hell. And I asked
myself, Why didn't I feel this way last week? Why didn't my body go stiff
during the bombing of Iraq or Bosnia? Around the world my horror and worry
are experienced every day. Mothers weep over horrendous loss, civilians are
bombed mercilessly, refugees are ripped from any sense of home or homeland.
Why did I not feel their anguish enough to call a halt to it?
As we hear the calls for tightened American security and a fierce military
response to terrorism, it is obvious that none of us has any answers.
However, we feel compelled to ask some questions.
Everything has a cause, so we have to ask, What was the root cause of this
evil? We must find out not superficially but at the deepest level. There is
no doubt that such evil is alive all around the world and is even
celebrated.
Does this evil grow from the suffering and anguish felt by people we don't
know and therefore ignore? Have they lived in this
condition for a long time?
One assumes that whoever did this attack feels implacable hatred for
America. Why were we selected to be the focus of
suffering around the world?
All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't
something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop
in the name of God? Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka,
India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of
America?
Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying
cause? Is there not a deep wound at the heart of
humanity?
If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone?
When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and
biological warfare, who first developed these weapons?
Who sells them? Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned
against us?
If all of us are wounded, will revenge work? Will punishment in any form
toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a
tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and
crippled?
Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been
magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to
an end? Is patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this
another form of tribalism?
What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we
afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer?
Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our
collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without that is
also from within?
When we have secured our safety once more and cared for the wounded, after
the period of shock and mourning is over, it will be time for soul
searching. I only hope that these questions are confronted with the deepest
spiritual intent. None of us will feel safe again behind the shield of
military might and stockpiled arsenals. There can be no safety until the
root cause is faced. In this moment of shock I don't think anyone of us has
the answers. It is imperative that we pray and offer
solace and help to each other. But if you and I are having a single
thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we
are contributing to the wounding of the world.
Love,
Deepak
A World Out of Touch With Itself: Where the Violence Comes From
by Rabbi Michael Lerner
Editor, TIKKUN Magazine
There is never any justification for acts of terror against innocent
civilians--it is the quintessential act of dehumanization and not
recognizing the sanctity of others, and a visible symbol of a world
increasingly irrational and out of control.
It's understandable why many of us, after grieving and consoling the
mourners, will feel anger. Demagogues will try to direct that anger at
various "target groups" (Muslims are in particular danger, though Vassar
Arafat and other Islamic leaders have unequivocally denounced these
terrorist acts). The militarists will use this as a moment to call for
increased defense spending at the expense of the needy,. Right wing may even
seek to limit civil liberties, end restraints on spying, and move us toward
a militarized society. President Bush will feel pressure to look "decisive"
and take "strong" action--phrases that can be manipulated toward irrational
responses to an irrational attack.
To counter that potential manipulation of our fear and anger for narrow
political ends, a well-meaning media will instead try to narrow our focus
solely on the task of finding and punishing the perpetrators. These people,
of course, should be caught and punished.
But in some ways this exclusive focus allows us to avoid dealing with the
underlying issues. When violence becomes so prevalent throughout the planet,
it's too easy to simply talk of "deranged minds." We need to ask ourselves,
"What is it in the way that we are living, organizing our societies, and
treating each other that makes violence seem plausible to so many
people?"
We in the spiritual world will see this as a growing global incapacity to
recognize the spirit of God in each other--what we call the sanctity of each
human being. But even if you reject religious language, you can see that the
willingness of people to hurt each other to advance their own interests has
become a global problem, and its only the dramatic level of this
particular attack which distinguishes it from the violence and insensitivity
to each other that is part of our daily lives.
We may tell ourselves that the current violence has "nothing to do" with the
way that we've learned to close our ears when told that one out of every
three people on this planet does not have enough food, and that one billion
are literally starving. We may reassure ourselves that the hoarding of the
world's resources by the richest society in world history, and our frantic
attempts to accelerate globalization with its attendant inequalities of
wealth, has nothing to do with the resentment that others feel toward us.
We may tell ourselves that the suffering of refugees and the oppressed have
nothing to do with us--that that's a different story that is going on
somewhere else. But we live in one world, increasingly interconnected with
everyone, and the forces that lead people to feel outrage, anger and
desperation eventually impact on our own daily lives.
The same sense of disconnection to the plight of others operates in the
minds of many of these terrorists. Raise children in circumstances where no
one is there to take care of them, or where they must live by begging or
selling their bodies in prostitution, put them in refugee camps and tell
them that that they have "no right of return" to their homes, treat them as
though they are less valuable and deserving of respect because they are part
of some despised national or ethnic group, surround them with a media that
extols the rich and makes everyone who is not economically successful and
physically
trim and conventionally "beautiful" feel bad about themselves, offer them
jobs whose sole goal is to enrich the "bottom line" of someone else, and
teach them that "looking out for number one" is the only thing anyone
"really" cares about and that anyone who believes in love and social justice
are merely naive idealists who are destined to always remain powerless,
and you will produce a world-wide population of people feeling depressed,
angry, and in various ways dysfunctional.
Luckily most people don't act out in violent ways--they tend to act out more
against themselves, drowning themselves in alcohol or drugs or personal
despair. Others turn toward fundamentalist religions or ultra-nationalist
extremism. Still others find themselves acting out against people that they
love, acting angry or hurtful toward children or relationship partners.
Most Americans will feel puzzled by any reference to this "larger picture."
It seems baffling to imagine that somehow we are part of a world system
which is slowly destroying the life support system of the planet, and
quickly transferring the wealth of the world into our own pockets.
We don't feel personally responsible when an American corporation runs a
sweat shop in the Phillipines or crushes efforts of workers to organize in
Singapore. We don't see ourselves implicated when the U.S. refuses to
consider the plight of Palestinian refugees or uses the excuse of fighting
drugs to support repression in Colombia or other parts of Central
America. We don't even see the symbolism when terrorists attack America's
military center and our trade center--we talk of them as buildings, though
others see them as centers of the forces that are causing the world so much
pain.
We have narrowed our own attention to "getting through" or "doing well" in
our own personal lives, and who has time to focus on all the rest of this?
Most of us are leading perfectly reasonable lives within the options that we
have available to us--so why should others be angry at us, much less strike
out against us? And the truth is, our anger is also understandable: the
striking out by others in acts of terror against us is just as irrational as
the world-system that it seeks to confront.
When people have learned to treat each other as means to our own ends, to
not feel the pain of those who are suffering, we end up creating a world in
which these kinds of terrible acts of violence become more common. And as
we've learned from the current phase of the Israel-Palestinian struggle,
responding to terror with more violence, rather than asking ourselves what
we could do to change the conditions that generated it in the first place,
will only ensure more violence in the future.
This is a world out of touch with itself, filled with people who have
forgotten how to recognize and respond to the sacred in each other because
we are so used to looking at others from the standpoint of what they can do
for us, how we can use them toward our own ends. We should pray for the
victims and the families of those who have been hurt or murdered in these
crazy
acts. We should also pray that America does not return to "business as
usual," but rather turns to a period of reflection, coming back into touch
with our common humanity, asking ourselves how our institutions can best
embody our highest values. We may need a global day of atonement and
repentance dedicated to finding a way to turn the direction of our society
at every level, a return to the notion that every human life is sacred, that
"the bottom line" should be the creation of a world of love and caring, and
that the best way to prevent these kinds of acts is not to turn ourselves
into a police state, but turn ourselves into a society in which social
justice, love, and compassion are so prevalent that violence becomes only a
distant
memory.
--Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of TIKKUN Magazine and rabbi of Beyt
Tikkun
Synagogue in San Francisco. He is the author of Spirit Matters: Global
Healing and the Wisdom of the Soul and most recently (Sept 2001) editor:
Best
Contemporary JewishWriting.
•••@••.•••
Interesting.
This was sent to a friend of a friend, who says that Tamim Ansary is an
Afghan-American writer.
I've been hearing a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone
Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio today, allowed that this would mean
killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity,
but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage. What else can we
do?" Minutes later I heard some TV pundit discussing whether we "have the
belly to do what must be done."
And I thought about the issues being raised especially hard because I am
from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never
lost track of what's going on there. So I want to tell anyone who will
listen how it
all looks from where I'm standing.
I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt
in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York.
I agree that something must be done about those monsters.
But the Taliban and Ben Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the
government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who
took over Afghanistan in 1997. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a
plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think
Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in
the
concentration camps." It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do
with this atrocity. They were the first victims of the perpetrators. They
would exult if someone would come in there, take out the Taliban and clear
out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country.
Some say, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban? The
answer is, they're starved, exhausted, hurt, incapacitated, suffering. A few
years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled
orphans in Afghanistan--a country with no economy, no food. There are
millions of widows. And the Taliban has been burying these widows alive in
mass graves. The soil is littered with land mines, the farms were all
destroyed by the Soviets. These are a few of the reasons why the Afghan
people have not overthrown the Taliban.
We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age.
Trouble is, that's been done. The Soviets took care of it already. Make the
Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn
their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done.
Destroy their infrastructure? Cut them off from medicine and health care?
Too late. Someone already did all that.
New bombs would only stir the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least
get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat,
only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. Maybe
the bombs
would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they
don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs
wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals who did this horrific
thing. Actually it would only be making common cause with the Taliban--by
raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.
So what else is there? What can be done, then? Let me now speak with true
fear and trembling. The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in there with
ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be
done" they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as
needed. Having the belly to overcome any moral qualms about killing innocent
people. Let's pull our heads out of the sand. What's actually on the table
is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting
their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than
that folks.
Because to get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan.
Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be
first. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? You see where I'm going.
We're flirting with
a world war between Islam and the West.
And guess what: that's Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants.
That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right
there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem
ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the
West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those
lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better
from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west
would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and
millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?
Bin Laden does. Anyone else?
Tamim Ansary
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