[1] When somebody declares “War on Terrorism” any counter-war should come as no surprise. War is a two-way street as Anglo-Americans and Israelis with their punishment expeditions and military intervention against peoples unable to hit back are now learning. Today they hit back, military and civilians against military and civilians; USA-UK killing by far most. Terrorists possess less destructive force than the state terrorists, but their societies are more vulnerable. Thus, a nonviolent Muslim strike in some of them will have a major impact.
[2] This also applies to members of the “US-led coalition” with military deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq like Spain. The 11-M Madrid-Atocha atrocity is in this category although other issues handled badly by Spain like Ceuta-Melilla may play a role. US stupidity has generalized a simple 9/11 attack to a real clash, including with Australian sex, also pedophile, tourism in Bali.
[3] Spain is now making history, defying the US Empire by withdrawing troops (1,300), with Honduras (1,200). Thailand, Portugal, Ukraine and Kazakhstan will not replace troops. South Korea, Poland, El Salvador, Bulgaria and Singapore have doubts. A coalition bought by spoils and fed with lies is unravelling, and more quickly so the more obvious the imminent defeat. They will negotiate withdrawal against promise not to attack.
[4] To correct a grave mistake, like joining the US Empire fight for oil control, geo-political goals of the Mackinder type (Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Eurasia. then the world) , and missionary activity, under pretexts like links to Al Qaeda and WMD (watch for US plants though), against 92% of Spain, in the name of Democracy, is not giving in to terrorism, nor a sign of being weak. The weak person is incapable of rectifying mistakes and gives in to pressure. The strong person changes his course.
[5] USA and Israel live in a virtual reality, pretending they are only up against some special groups in Iraq and Palestine. Look at the map, look at history. There has been in-fighting among Arabs and Muslims, but almost all borders between the 22 Arab and the 56 Muslim countries are established by Christian and one Jewish colonizer. US/Israel state terrorism reinforces the old idea of one Arab nation of more than 300 million, and one Islamic nation of more than 1,300 million from Casablanca to Mindanao. The divisions in Islam are in time rather than space, between khalifats, dynasties. The Crusades, with the Mongols, killed the Abassid dynasty in the Baghdad 1258 massacre. The khalifat movement is now growing again thanks to Bush & Co.
[6] The present Crusade, with missionaries and bibles, even unifies Sunnis and Shia, Arab and non-Arab Muslims. But Western unitary nation-states overestimate the cohesion inside countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, and underestimates the cohesion with other Arab/Islamic countries. For both federations along Swiss, not US lines, with linguistic/religious borders, are meaningful; so are confederations with Arab and Muslim neighbor countries. What Christians do in the EU Arabs/Muslims might also like to do [7] Iraqis and Palestinians with other Arabs and Muslims fight Anglo-American geo-fascism alone on behalf of the many dozens of countries intervened militarily by the US Empire. With the US Empire causing that much killing and exploitation all over the world they are fighting on behalf of all of us, with major rise in the conversion to Islam in Africa and Asia, Europe and USA.
[8] The peace movement, mainly in Christian countries, is long on critique, numbers, ritualistic marches and demos that impress no geo-fascist, and short on constructive alternatives and real struggle against the US Empire. Hopefully civil society boycott of US consumer products (like colas, burgers and gasoline), capital goods (like Boeing aircraft for travel when there are alternatives; Boeing being a major death factory) and financial goods (dollars, stocks, bonds) is on the way. The average profit of a US company abroad is about 6% so not much boycott is needed. Always to be combined with dialogue. We are fighting two fundamentalisms like we once fought two superpowers.
[9] Many cling to the hope that US atrocities depends on Bush. But interventions, killing and exploitation is bipartisan, slightly higher under the Democrats as Republicans have been more “isolationist”. The participation of John F. Kerry, the Democratic presidential candidate, in “rebuking” Spain shows both lack of judgment and sharing of the imperial pursuit when he could have built a bridge to the nucleus of Europe. Of course this is Bush’ Vietnam as Edward Kennedy has pointed out. But it would have been even better if he had voted against the war and not left that essentially to the wonderful icon Barbara Lee.
[10] Condi Rice complained that the intelligence contained no when, where and how of a 9/11 attack. Ask what the USA has done in 240 interventions, and the ask why. There is more to come.
[11] The US project in Iraq is still-born in spite of a US deployment of 110,000 public and 18,000 privatized soldiers (“security civilians”) and the UK 8,700 UK; none of the others are reliable as defeat looms more clearly on the horizon. Of course there may be lulls in the violence. There is no Iraq to receive sovereignty, only a puppet regime, and what cannot be handed over because it can only come from the struggle of the Iraqis themselves will not be handed over anyhow, with the USA keeping an “embassy” with 5,000 employees in the “Green Zone”, 14 bases, and no plan to withdraw. The war will continue. 30 June/1 July may become quite something. These people fought centuries against the Ottomans and 40 years against UK regime.
[12] The Israeli project in Palestine is also still-born. State terrorism, even targeted on religious leaders by the Israeli militarocracy, is a formula for collective Israeli suicide.
[13] The TRANSCEND list of alternatives includes:
– Conference for Security and Cooperation in the Middle East, CSCME
– Iraq possibly as a federation, with a capital outside Baghdad
– UN-led reconstruction/development
– UN-led peacekeeping; all coalition troops out
– A major role for the Organization of the Islamic Conference, OIC
– Confederated Kurdish autonomies in Iraq, Iran, Turkey, Syria
– A 6-country Middle East Community, MEC: Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (242 and 338), Israel, Jordan and Egypt, with the EC as a model.
