The Spirit of the Internet Weekly

Click here for opinions from prior weeks.

[Note: The following news and opinions primarily came from email sent by our friends. Thank you Sirius and all the others who have forwarded these messages to us. Due to the large volume of email we are receiving, we can only post a sampling here, but we thank everyone for sending stories like this. We read them all and post what we can as time permits.]

Foreign Tourists Beware!
Is the Attorney General the New King of the United States? (Reggie Rivers, Denver Post, November 8, 2001)
“Were you aware that the attorney general of the United States now has the power to arrest someone without probable cause, hold that person without presenting evidence, and ultimately give that person a life sentence without ever having a trial? . . . Under this legislation, a French citizen vacationing in New York could be arrested, ‘certified’ without evidence, jailed without trial and incarcerated for the rest of his life without ever being charged with a crime. . . . Even if he were able to get a hearing before a judge who determined that there was no evidence of terrorism, the legislation specifically undermines the judge's authority by giving the attorney general permission to maintain custody of the alien regardless of ‘any relief from removal granted the alien.’ ”

Already there are nearly 1,200 people being held by the Justice Department, but nothing about their identities or charges against them is being released.

Ali Baghdadi: God ‘Died’ in Afghanistan, Palestine and Iraq (Ali Baghdadi ArabJournl@aol.com)
“I dare to say God cannot be alive! If God is not dead, wouldn't he bring an end to oppression and tyranny? He has done it before? He did it to Sodom and Gomorrah. He did it to the Babylonian, Persian and Roman empires. God even did it to His ‘Chosen People’. He scattered around the world after they disobeyed his commandments. Only a half of a century ago, God destroyed the British Empire on which the sun for hundreds of years did not set. . . . Our current empire of rich corporations, the only remaining empire today, is leading the American people and the world into annihilation. It is time to wakeup and see where we are all heading. We have already reached the edge of the cliff. Unless we change course, it would take our world only a little puff to fall into a real hell.”

This raging colossus (Madeleine Bunting, The Guardian, November 19, 2001)
“And yet, it's not even those Jalalabad warriors that have made the last week's events so troubling, but the growing appreciation of just how ruthless and ambitious the US is likely to become in its war against terrorism. What the events of the past few days have starkly revealed is that the US had only one interest in this war in Afghanistan, capturing Bin Laden and destroying al-Qaida; that imperative outstripped all considerations of Afghanistan's future. So the timing of the attack was decided by US military preparedness rather than any coherent political strategy for the region, and the US war aim determined the crucial switch in tactics around November 4 when the US decided to throw its weight behind the unsavoury Northern Alliance by bombing the Taliban frontlines. . . . To increase the danger, the US actions are unchecked by fear of another superpower and, at present, unchecked by its usually vibrant civil society where debate about the purposes or methods of the war against terrorism has been cowed into virtual silence in the mainstream. The result is that an ugly ruthlessness is creeping into US political culture.”

War On Terror: False Victory (John Pilger, The Mirror (London), 16 November 2001, found on ZNet)
“There is no victory in Afghanistan's tribal war, only the exchange of one group of killers for another. The difference is that President Bush calls the latest occupiers of Kabul ‘our friends.’ . . . They are the same people welcomed by similar scenes of jubilation in 1992, who then killed an estimated 50,000 in four years of internecine feuding. The new heroes so far have tortured and executed at least 100 prisoners of war, and countless others, as well as looted food supplies and re-established their monopoly on the heroin trade. This week, Amnesty International made an unusually blunt statement that was buried in the news. It ought to be emblazoned across every front page and television screen. ‘By failing to appreciate the gravity of the human rights concerns in relation to Northern Alliance leaders,’ said Amnesty, ‘UK ministers at best perpetuate a culture of impunity for past crimes; at worst they risk being complicit in human rights abuse.’ The truth is that the latest crop of criminals to ‘liberate’ Kabul have been given a second chance by the most powerful country on earth pounding into dust one of the poorest, where people's life expectancy is just over 40. . . . There was, and still is, no ‘war on terrorism’. Instead, we have watched a variation of the great imperial game of swapping ‘bad’ terrorists for ‘good’ terrorists, while untold numbers of innocent people have paid with their lives: most of one village, whole families, a hospital, as well as teenage conscripts suitably dehumanised by the word ‘Taliban’.”

Al-Jazeera accuses US of bombing its Kabul office (Matt Wells, The Guardian, November 17, 2001)
“The Qatar-based satellite television channel, al-Jazeera, claimed yesterday that its Kabul office had been targeted by United States bombers. . . . Speaking by telephone to the News World conference of media executives in Barcelona, Mr Hilal said he believed that al-Jazeera's office in Kabul had been on the Pentagon's list of targets since the beginning of the conflict but the US did not want to bomb it while the broadcaster was the only one based in Kabul. . . . However, after receiving assurances from the Northern Alliance that he would be safe, the reporter decided to stay. He did not tell Qatar of his decision - that night, his office was bombed. At the time, Reeve was being interviewed on BBC World from his bureau in the same street. Pictures of him diving under his desk to avoid fall-out from the blast have been shown on BBC television. . . . Mr Hilal said he believed the attack was deliberate and long-planned.”

America's hyperreal war on terrorism (Anis Shivani, DAWN the Internet Edition, 5 November 2001)
“The best way to understand ‘America's new war’ is as a convenient legitimizing rubric to extend American economic and military power abroad, and to complete the repressive domestic agenda already set in motion during the post-cold war years in the guise of the ‘war on drugs.’ . . . In both instances, corporate globalization's increasingly intolerant attitude toward dissent of any kind is implicated. This is not so much a war against ‘terrorism,’ but a pre-emptive strike against domestic and international opposition to the hegemony of transnational capital in the early years of the twenty-first century. . . . The First, Fourth, and Eighth Amendments are being destroyed to complete the destruction of the Bill of Rights brought about by the ‘war on drugs.’ . . . The usurpation of the voters' will in the 2000 election was a test-run: since this judicial coup engendered no noticeable dissent among the intelligentsia, press, and common people, the stage was set for an all-out assault on the remaining liberties of the people.”

Forget the cliches, there is no easy way for the West to sort this out (Robert Fisk, The Independent, 17 November 2001)

The Progressive Interview with Robert Fisk (Matthew Rothschild, The Progressive)

Deluded and manipulated by the system (Noam Chomsky)

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