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October
3, 2001
Ariel
Dorfman:
America
the Wounded
Lennie
Brenner
Dr.
Watson in Afghanistan
Steve
Perry:
Ashcroft's
Scare Tactics
October
2, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn:
Inside
an Afghan Hospital
Richard
Manning:
A
Vietnam Vet on Patriotism
St. Clair/Cockburn:
Tarnished
Star,
Tom Ridge in Vietnam
October
1, 2001
Noam
Chomsky:
Memo
to Hitchens
Hizam
Bitar:
Refuting
Michael Kinsley
David Grenier:
The
Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
Douglas
Valentine:
Homeland
Insecurity
Carl
Estabrook:
Stop Bush's Killing
Mahajan/Jensen:
Food,
Fear and War
Patrick
Cockburn:
Ready
to Strike
Cockburn/St.
Clair:
Things
Could Be Worse
Terry
Allen:
Early
Profit-taking and 9/11
September
29, 2001
Steve Perry:
The
Pentagon's Blueprint
Patrick
Cockburn:
When
Will the Missiles Fall?
September
28, 2001
Edward Said:
Backlash
and Backtrack
John Troyer:
When
Language Fails
Patrick
Cockburn:
In
Afghanistan, Waiting for the Real War to Start
Steve Breyman:
War,
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October 5,
2001
The Trap
The Events of 9/11
and
The Crisis in Black Leadership
By Kevin Alexander Gray
It's impossible not to feel for the family and
friends of those who died so violently on 9/11. The pain will
linger for many years to come. Still, while I understand and
feel anguish, pain and uncertainty I can't support more killing
as a response to killing. And the prospect of an expanding war
horrifies me.
I've cried with more people who've lost
love ones at the hands of another than I can remember. The autopsied
body of a teenage boy, shot in the back of the head by police,
haunts me to this day. I can still see him lying on that stainless
steel slab. I remember Sam Owens, a mentally-ill man killed by
a rural sheriff's deputy and Mickey McClinton, his body chained
to the back of a vehicle, set afire burned and dragged down a
country road by the Klan. Those young men died because someone
thought that they were "no account." I remember my
anger when more than 15 cops acting on a John Doe warrant surrounded
my then 13-year-old son with guns drawn and ready to kill. If
my son had been killed or injured physically I don't know exactly
how I would have responded. But my first thought was of revenge.
I know the face of terrorism and what it makes one feel.
Since September 11th, several people
have asked for my thoughts and offered their opinions about what
is facing us. What I encountered touches on a number of concerns
such as "when does one fight?" or "what is the
good fight?" Others are unsure as to who the enemy is -
a country or counties, Muslims, Arabs, the Taliban or just Osama
Bin Laden? Some bluntly ask the race question, "Is this
a black man's fight?" A white friend of mine asked me, "I
hope you're not calling this a white man's war?" Before
I could catch myself I responded, "It is!" And almost
immediately after the words came from my mouth I thought: those
planes didn't distinguish by race. But then again, America distinguishes
by race.
Many expressed concern as to what happens
to all of the other issues, quarrels and matters of enormous
importance. What are we to do about the conflict, division and
dialogue during this time of general unity? Yes, our nation and
our individual lives are different now. They are affected by
these events but the other stuff isn't gone. Everything isn't
different. It's arguable, even, that nothing political is different
at all. These problems and issues are not less important. Less
pressing, maybe, but not less present.
Young men of the hip-hop generation have
had their world-view shaped by racial profiling and an abusive
relationship with police, society and each other. In a protracted
war with the possibility of a draft, they have the most to lose
-- their lives. One young brother, a victim of a public cavity
search by police provided a comment I found both funny and insightful,
"If those people had wanted to hurt black people they would
have bombed the penitentiary, he joked. Maybe having a criminal
record isn't so bad after all" thinking it might help him
escape military service.
There is an effort by some blacks to
completely detach themselves from the arrogance of white America.
It is as though they view the attack as having happened in some
strange or foreign country. I suspect it is an expression of
the dualism that W.E.B. DuBois often wrote about- that blacks
want to be accepted but know they'll never be so they consciously
or subconsciously root for the underdog no matter how vicious
the dog might be. I see many of those folk in the same light
as those that support the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro.
The fact that Castro is a dictator is irrelevant to the fact
that he stood up to America.
Immediately after the attack I encountered
several people who expressed the sentiments such as "why
am I not surprised?" or "the chickens coming home to
roost" or "reaping what you sow" or "America
had it coming." I've heard more than one person say, "at
least everybody isn't afraid of this country" and "it's
time someone stood up to them." While I was on a local radio
show, Anton Gunn, the brother of a black man killed on the USS
Cole called in to say Americans needed to look at what our country
represents to those in other countries. He seemed to infer that
his brother died in vain. Some are more cautious with their remarks
but still seem to express a kind of uneasy, fantasy-like solidarity
with the terrorists. More than once I heard, "They (whites)
can't hear or feel black people's pain or demands right here
in America." Conversely, Cornel West said, "White folk
now know what it feels like to be a nigger."
In a real sense, many blacks are more
than patriotic; they are "super patriots' still trying to
prove their worth and to be accepted by white America. Blacks
have always been ready to fight and die for this country even
when America didn't even recognize their existence as anything
more than an unpaid work force. Crispus Attucks is a good example.
On March 1770, Attucks, a black man and fugitive from slavery,
was the first to be killed by the British in the struggle for
American Independence.
There are the blindly patriotic who believe
in the adage "my country right or wrong" who will put
on a uniform, pick up a gun and give their life to "defend
the flag" without question. They're pretty much like people
who fly into buildings. The difference being, we call the hijackers
cowards and our soldiers are called patriots and heroes. In reality,
I know that for every single black person against the war, those
in favor of war can trot out 100 to back it. Diana Ross, Whitney
Houston, Ray Charles, Lionel Ritchie and others singing patriotic
songs chill opposition to the war and create the illusion that
blacks are united behind a wholesale invasion of Afghanistan
and the obliteration of Baghdad. The media shows Condelezza Rice
and Colin Powell, in charge of the war planning, as cast against
the picture of Rep Barbara Lee, who was the sole vote in Congress
against the war. And while the World Trade Center and Wall Street
might represent money and power, many of the people murdered
were black, white, brown, Latino and others of color whose only
crime was they went to work or came to help those who had been
hurt.
I want to believe that people who feel
hopeless fly airplanes into buildings. I know it could be both
as simple as that and far more complex. But as we stand on the
brink of war against what George Bush has termed a faceless enemy,
I can't help but feel the futility of our response to this tragedy.
It makes no sense to simply prepare to kill thousands of poor
Afghanis as a response to the horrors of 9/11. And even if you
could target those responsible, it doesn't seem a rational response
to kill people who are already willing to die or feel themselves
to be already dead.
And now there's the call for unity, to
stand together as one nation. But for the past ten years it's
been three-strikes you're out and a non-stop low intensity war
here in America against people of color. Now, there is a real
possibility that black soldiers will fight side by side with
whites and Hispanics and lay down and die, largely in order to
allow the state of Israel to maintain it's system of racial oppression.
Already, Ariel Sharon and others in Israel are calling Yassar
Arafat and the Palestinians terrorists. Although I believe that
Islamic fundamentalism is a danger, if America's new military
role is to wipe out religious fundamentalism, where does it start
and where does it end. The KKK? The 700 Hundred Club? Bob Jones
University?
The idea of any coming war or military
action provokes a very personal and protective response in me,
one that relates more to my experience and life than to any recent
occurrence. As a soldier, a thinker, a father I can't help but
realize that black people will invariably be drawn into the fight
because that's how it's always been. And our current administration
has not proved itself to be a friend. So why, then, and how is
it that are we all on the same side now?
I wish I could simply say that I am against
war. I really do believe that breaking the cycle of violence
is the only way to bring about real security and peace of mind,
body and heart. The only rational position to take is to advocate
peace. Still, I don't have the strength to be a strict pacifist.
I suppose I am anti-certain wars. If I had been alive during
the Civil War, hopefully, I would have been for that war. Then
there are those who believe that the experiences and expectations
of black soldiers returning from World War II helped spark the
Civil Rights Movement of the fifties and sixties. I view World
War II as a fight worth fighting. But there were undeniable horrors,
too. The bombings of Dresden, Tokyo, Nagasaki and Hiroshima were
unspeakable tragedies where civilians paid the price of our blood
lust for their leaders.
The turning point for me came while in
Nicaragua in the mid-80's. I was traveling with a group of activist
from Witness for Peace to the northern area of the country to
see firsthand the ravages of Ronald Reagan's proxy war on the
civilian population. As fate would have it, thirty or more civilians,
riding in the back of a pick up truck, a common means of transportation
in that impoverished and war-torn region, were killed when their
vehicle hit a land mine. Our group had to take the same mountain
road the following day. I was still a reserve combat engineer
captain and I took on the task of preparing the group for the
trip, even riding on the top of the truck trying to spot mines,
nervous as hell every time we hit a pot hole. When we got to
the site of the tragedy we were met by a New York Times reporter
who asked if I could ID the land mine. From the fragments, it
had all the markings of a US-made anti-tank mine. The Nicaraguan
Army didn't have any tanks. When we got back to Managua, we visited
the U.S. Embassy where, to no surprise, we got no answers as
to why the U.S. would aid in the killing of civilians. Instead,
we were met by a marine sergeant with a riot gun who demanded
that we leave the building.
After the Gulf War my flimsy trust in
the government diminished even more. It was no secret that the
U.S. government supported Saddam Hussein prior to the dispute
over those Kuwaiti oil fields and that the U.S. mission was predicated
on freeing a country from a dictator only to turn it back over
to a king. Kuwait practiced slavery and black soldiers were fighting
to protect the practice. I was still in the reserves and could
have been called up in the fever of Desert Storm. But I made
up my mind not to fight for the interest of a king or emir, Texaco,
British Petroleum, the Bushes or their oil buddies. I began to
speak out against the war. I was resolved to go to jail, if called
up. And when independent reports surfaced about the turkey shoot
in the desert and the thousands of Iraqi soldiers that had been
killed in retreat on the "highway of death" I was ashamed
of this country and the military. I thought that cowboys didn't
shoot folk in the back. By most accounts the massacre was led
by General Barry McCafferty. When Bill Clinton appointed McCafferty
drug czar I knew that black and brown kids' lives and freedom
were in danger. The dramatic increase in the number of black
men incarcerated during Clinton's term proves the point. In the
Reagan-Bush years, the rate grew from 1,156 prisoners per 100,000
black men to about 2,800 per 100,000. In the Clinton years, the
rate grew to 3,620 prisoners per every 100,000 black men.
The dangers presented by the September 11th acts do not limit
themselves to the external threat. War will mean the massive
suspension of civil liberties in this country. Bush called the
terrorists enemies of freedom. But if Congress approves the so-called
anti-terrorism package freedom will be the first casualty of
the war. The government strips us of our freedoms of speech,
privacy, movement and association. Our rights end up falling
like dominos and all of us become suspects especially the already
perceived enemy within black people. Anyone critical of
government and anyone who challenges their conditions or treatment
will be targets. The only safe group will be white people. A
fellow joked with me about Oklahoma bomber Tim McVeigh. He said,
"When McVeigh committed his crime, first they went after
the Muslims, then they went after blacks. But when all was said
and done and McVeigh was found out, there was no rush to profile
white males."
The Bush Administration is already attempting
to changing laws and regulations to make it easier to conduct
surveillance and to carryout covert operations against potential
opponents of the US and otherwise questionable US policies. We
will see the reinstitution of policies such as the Counter-Intelligence
Program (COINTELPRO) of the 1960s and 70s that was aimed at black
elected officials, activists or those groups such as the NAACP
that offer an opinion different from the majority. The September
11th acts have already used as an excuse to repress and scapegoat
Arab-Americans and Muslims. Rather than reducing the threat of
terrorism, such actions will eliminate basic civil liberties
and strengthen the existing tendency toward a racist and classist
police state. In the aftermath of the attacks there is much talk
about security. For the person of color, life in American has
never been secure. Before the hysteria of MUSLIMS IN OUR MIDST
blacks took the brunt of racial profiling. Before those of Arab
descent were singled out at airports, black women were the targets.
Then there is the matter of revenge.
A friend and I were talking and she said, "If someone murdered
a member of my family or a friend and I plotted to murder the
murderer, if I were arrested, I would be charged with premeditated
murder." Yet this is the policy that many within the media
elite and government hope to adopt. But as a society, how do
we hold individuals to "the rule of law" when government
won't respect it.
Those behind the murder of the 6000 plus
persons on September 11th should be brought to justice. But justice
should follow the rule of law with evidence and an independent
court. The U.S. government must not be allowed to adopt a program
of foreign and domestic assassination and suspension of basic
human rights protections. America citizens must insist that the
government adopt a fair policy in the Middle East and around
the world to include a change in US. - Israeli policy. We must
measure all lives as equally important. White lives and American
lives are no more important than those in foreign lands. And,
as flying planes into building is an act of terrorism, raining
down bombs on civilians in the dead of night is terrorism.
In my lifetime, American foreign policy
has been wrong more often than right. By most accounts, American
racism abroad has resulted in over 8,000,000 dead. And, until
this country becomes what it thinks it is a human rights
leader -- more will die and this country will fall apart as our
"new enemy" Osama Bin Laden predicts.
What is the good fight? The good fight
is about peace, justice, human equality and an end to undo suffering.
The good fight seeks an end to the injustice of exploitation
and unearned privilege. It seeks to provide people with the opportunity
to fulfill their potential and create their own way. That's the
essence of is freedom. A humane and loving society recognizes
the potential of all and is committed to the fulfillment of that
potential. CP
Kevin
Alexander Gray, a frequent
contributer to CounterPunch, is a longtime civil rights organizer
who lives in South Carolina.
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