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October 29, 2001
Alexander Cockburn
The Left
and the Just War
John Pilger
Hidden
Agenda
of the War on Terror
David Krieger
Nukes on
the Loose
Jack McCarthy
Neo-Nazis
and 9/11
Marina Kalashnikova
The Brzezinski
Interview
Richard
Manning
Terrorism:
a definitive history
October 27, 2001
Edward
Said
A
Vision to Lift the Spririt
October 26, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Genocide
Scholar Gagged
Over Comments on the
Bombing of Afghanistan
Rahul
Mahajan
Poisoning
the Well
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why I Opposed
the
Anti-Terrorism Bill
John Troyer
Put
the War to a Vote
Norman Madarasz
What It
Means to be
Against the War
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance Attacks
US Bombing Strategy
Richard Lloyd Parry
Terrible Images
of a "Just" War
October 25, 2001
Ghassan
Andoni
Raid
on Bethlehem
N.D. Jayaprakash
From
Hiroshima to NYC
Evan Schultz
Memo
to Ashcroft:
Read Marbury
The Sunshine
Project
Assault
on the BioWeapons
Convention
Sarah
Turner
Cashing
In on Patriotism
Latin American Colloquium
on Systemology
The Meridia Manifesto
Noam Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
October 24, 2001
Michael Colby
Radioactive
Mail?
Lori Allen
Life
in an Occupied Land
During Wartime
Peter
Swire
New
Anti-Terrorism Bill
Poses Old Risks
Irina
Malenko
A
Non-Western Voice
David
Vest
Welcome
to Web Hell
Patrick Cockburn
Battle
of Mazar Gets Nasty
October 23, 2001
Steve
Perry
Anthrax,
Cipro and the Bailout of Bayer
Carl Estabrook
Just War
or
The Rule of Lawlessness?
Patrick
Cockburn
Errant
Bombs at Bagram
George
Monbiot
War
and Oil
Robert
Jensen
Crushing
Academic Dissent
October 22, 2001
Hamit
Dardagan
The
New Newspeak
Tom Turnipseed
War
on the Poor
Patrick Cockburn
Killing
Mullah Omar's Child
David
Vest
The
War on Women
Shepherd
Bliss
Advice
from a Vietnam Vet
Hani Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
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How the Bin
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The New Intifada:
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Responses to 9/11:
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October 30,
2001
We're All Afghans Now
Why We Should
Support RAWA, Afghan Women and a Less
Terrorized Global Future
By Dr. Susan Block
When the bombing began, I was cooling my spiked
heels, sitting tight on the frontlines of the New War on Terrorism
in a 747 bound for glory, devastation or Frankfurt airport, steeling
myself to actually use one of those lethally sharp high heels
as a weapon, should the Enemy--any enemy--try to steer our plane
into a building, any building. Lucky for me (and my travel wardrobe),
airport security has yet to classify spike heels on par with
menacing nose hair clippers.
And thank goodness, goddess and god that
I didn't have to use them. We arrived safe and sound in Frankfurt
without terrorist attack, jet fighter escort or even a false
alarm. Actually, it was a pleasant flight, complete with free
drinks and unusual passenger bonhomie, exploding in a climax
of giddy applause for our blessedly competent pilot when we landed.
I did spend a somewhat challenging 10.5
hours sitting next to a very sweet Iranian gentleman named Nasser
who regaled me with tales of how in his country--so much more
civilized than poor, wretched Afghanistan--an adulterous woman
is, as a rule, buried up to her neck, then pelted with stones
by the faithful.
In Afghanistan, he informed me, I would
be arrested for wearing my spike heels, not because they could
be used as weapons, but because they made a sound when I walked
that could be heard by men in a place in which women must not
be seen or heard.
Of course, sweet Nasser did manage to
reassure my palpitating heart by summarily condemning the 9.11
attacks as "terrible, just terrible," speaking nearly
perfect English, showing me photos of his very American-looking
children eating pizza in LA and giving me his business card,
which stated he was a civil engineer (Whoa, wasn't Mohammed Atta
a civil engineer?). My paranoia fluctuated with my desire to
reach out to peace-loving Muslims and show them we Americans
weren't Nazis ready to brand them all as fiends.
Besides, I genuinely liked the guy. My
heart went out to him when he told me he was interrogated like
a criminal at LAX. I was touched by his gratitude that we Americans
hadn't thrown him into jail because of his nationality. But I
sidestepped his ardent invitation to visit him in Tehran. "It
is a beautiful city. You must come! You can stay with my family...but
I must warn you, if you are caught showing your elbows in public,
you will be beaten," he explained as I smiled nervously,
rubbing my naked elbows.
Nasser and I did manage to agree that
life for women and a lot of men was probably most repressive
under the supremely hypocritical, decadent yet puritanical oil
sheiks of Saudi Arabia. Here's a place dripping with money and
opportunity, and the women aren't even allowed to drive! Evidence
is mounting that the Saudis, our coy and coddled "allies"
whom we defended against that other "Evil One" Saddam,
provided much of the financial support for the recent terrorist
attacks. Just look at the passports: At least six of the purported
hijackers were Saudi (none were Afghan). Osama, their alleged
leader, is Saudi (being stripped of his Saudi citizenship seems
to have been but a cosmetic spanking for his bad-boy ways). Much
of the money behind Al Queta and those Afghan and Pakistani religious
schools where boys learn to subjugate girls and hate America
is Saudi. So why wasn't America mounting attacks against those
who truly "harbor and support terrorists," rich, old-slick
Saudi Arabia, instead of poor, decrepit Afghanistan? Nasser and
I looked into each other's sad eyes, and realized we'd just answered
our own question.
So there I was, so preoccupied with womaning
my own battle position in the Terror War, calming my jitters
by having my own little "peace talks" with Nasser,
that I sort of missed the commencement of the Bombing Campaign.
Maybe I lost track of time with the jet lag, but suddenly, there
we were, bombing the poop out of a country that barely has any
poop in it, as remote from Nasser's and my 747 as an Afghan sock
from a silk stocking.
Now, I should explain that while I may
talk tough about bombing Saudis, when it comes to conflict on
a personal or global scale, I'm unfashionably peace-mongering.
I believe in the Bonobo Way. For more on that subject, please
see Beyond Terror and Sex, Terror, Jerry bin Foulwill & Raving
Castrati. But I am also a realist. At least, I try to be. And
now that the 9.11 tragedy has metamorphosed into BOMBS AWEIGH
for America against Afghanistan, I'd just like to weigh in with
my view of which Afghan fighters we should throw our support
behind.
Obviously, we're against the Taliban.
And for good reason. Though I'm not for bombing them into a Stone
Age they're already in, I don't have much good to say about this
rogue, Saudi-greased, so-called "government" that beheads
prostitutes without blinking an eye, even in the dust-laden Khyber
breeze. The fact that the Taliban are protecting or pretending
to protect Celebrity Terrorist Osama (like Madonna, he now needs
just the one name for worldwide recognition) is only the most
famous of these fundamentalist religious thugs' offenses against
humanity. Their treatment of women as chattel in the true medieval
sense of the word underlies their brutal approach to life in
general. This is not to demonize them as the "Other"
that we could never be. Indeed, the Taliban serve as a stark
warning to us as to where our own society might go if we allow
it to be overtaken by our own fundamentalist Bible-bangers.
So, Jerry bin Foulwill notwithstanding,
we're against the Taliban. Rhymes with Caliban, that brutish
monkey-man in Shakespeare's "Tempest." But whom are
we for, besides ourselves and our oil? Currently, we are flirting
with the Iran-backed Northern Alliance, bedazzled by their swashbuckling
courage, their sexy fighting pajamas and the simple fact that
they're anti-Taliban (as of now, that is; some of those noble
moujahedeen switch sides like I change hats). Wounded as we are
and looking for allies on the inside, we're giving these Northern
Alliance guys our hearts, our good press, our guns and our money,
hoping against hope that they won't turn on us like so many we've
armed before. Odds are they will. Plus, in terms of women's rights,
word is that the Northern Alliance isn't much better than the
Taliban (or the Saudis). In power, they could be even worse.
Of course, if we want some sort of stability
in Afghanistan once we're done tearing up the place playing hide-and-seek
with Osama, we do have to back some homegrown group or other.
My suggestion is that we throw our support behind the most democratic
collection of freedom fighters in the region: RAWA, the Revolutionary
Association of the Women of Afghanistan.
Who is RAWA? RAWA is the woman behind
the veil, the one that all these Taliban, Northern Alliance,
Iranian and Saudi men are desperately trying to hide. RAWA is
the Afghan female fighting for the right to show her face, to
get an education, to love whom she pleases and to live in some
semblance of freedom and dignity. The women and men of RAWA are
dedicated to their struggle against the Taliban fundamentalists
and their foreign masters. They are determined to establish freedom,
democracy, peace and women's rights in Afghanistan, and to launch
an elected secularist government based on democratic values.
Most of them live in the Khaiwa camp of Pakistan's northwestern
frontier, a settlement of 500 Afghan families whose women don't
wear burkas and do learn to read, an island of tolerance in a
sea of misogyny.
The stunningly gorgeous land of Afghanistan
(that I love so much, having spent an unforgettable month there
when I was young) has been battered by foreign invasions and
torn by civil wars, like a beautiful woman beaten by her husband
and whipped by the religious police. The bombs fall, the winter
sets in, the hunger deepens, the terror widens. It is as if the
suffering of Afghanistan has become so intense that it is now
throbbing throughout the world in all of our individual and collective
feelings of anguish and terror. We are all Afghans now.
So, which Afghans do we trust to lead
us from violence to peace? I cast my vote for the ladies, the
political prisoners of Saudi money and Caliban ways. I must admit
that those majestic bearded warriors are quite sexy. Here's a
slightly embarrassing confession: I've had several major orgasms
in the last few weeks just imagining one of those cruelly sensuous
moujahedeen whipping my ass for wearing my burka too short. But
I try not to let my pussy sway my politics. I believe that the
most likely saviors of Afghanistan-and the world--lurk behind
the fluttering grey-blue veils. I call upon our leaders to substantially
and publicly support the brave women and men of RAWA now, the
best hope for Afghanistan to find a freedom they can share with
the world.
There's a marvelous idea I've seen circulating
on the Internet regarding what to do with Osama if we ever manage
to catch him. After all, if we kill the guy, he becomes a martyr,
inspiring every kid with an ax to grind to become a celebrity
terrorist. If we take him prisoner, we give him a forum to air
his deadly views, not to mention putting ourselves at a much
higher risk for terrorist acts from his upset followers. So here's
what we should do, goes the idea: whisk him off to an unknown
hospital in say, Thailand, force him to undergo a complete sex-change
operation, then send him back to the Taliban to live as a woman.
It's a joke, of course, but it rings
with a delicious sense of sexual justice. Plus, it helps heal
that awful castrated feeling so many of us Americans have felt
since our biggest phallic buildings were so painfully cut down.
In that sense, it's a sort of sick but somewhat therapeutic anti-terror
vengeance fantasy.
But enough about psychic healing. As
a sex therapist, I'm a big believer in the curative powers of
fantasy. But fantasies have their limits. Fantasies won't help
much in the face of real bombs, real hunger and the very real
enslavement of the Afghan female. Neither the fantasies of humiliated
American dickheads nor the fantasies of wounded Afghan male chauvinists
nor the fantasies of oily Saudi hypocrites nor even the fantasies
of peace-mongering lady sex therapists.
But the reality of the Afghan women-the
mothers, wives, sisters and daughters-the animas of all these
extraordinary Afghan men-now, that's something we can bank on.
Let us stop the bombing and put our money and our support behind
RAWA, the future of a free Afghanistan and a less terrorized
world.
For more information about RAWA, vist
their website at: http://www.rawa.org
Dr. Susan Block
is a sex educator, host of the Dr. Susan Block radio show, and
author of Being a Woman. Visit her website at: http://www.drsusanblock.com/
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