Alternative Voices:  What CNN Isn't Telling You
(this update is best viewed with the "Blackadder ITC" font)

"Good-hearted Americans will mourn these innocent and horrible deaths with dignity and with respect. Media analysts and politicians, however, will soon use pictures of the rubble to seek increased police and military spending and greater state interventionary and surveillance powers. They will intone that killing civilians is cowardly and warrants swift and merciless punishment. They will however ignore having themselves supported the recent assault on Yugoslavia that terrorized that country’s civilian population to  topple its despised government. They will also ignore that the U.S.-led embargo of Iraq has caused hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, again  to destabilize a hated government. Today’s terrorism was horrendously vile. It arose in a terror-infected world."
-A prophetic Michael Albert, 9-11-01

"The terrorist attacks were major atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people (no one knows, because the US blocked an inquiry at the UN and no one cares to pursue it). Not to speak of much worse cases, which easily come to mind. But that this was a horrendous crime is not in doubt. The primary victims, as usual, were working people: janitors, secretaries, firemen, etc. It is likely to prove to be a crushing blow to Palestinians and other poor and oppressed people. It is also likely to lead to harsh security controls, with many possible ramifications for undermining civil liberties and internal freedom."
-Noam Chomsky

"We abhor terrorism -- unless we're the ones doing the terrorizing. We paid and trained and armed a group of terrorists in Nicaragua in the 1980s who killed over 30,000 civilians. That was OUR work. You and me. Thirty thousand murdered civilians and who the hell even remembers!"
-Michael Moore

"One of the most durable features of the U.S. culture is the inability or refusal to recognize U.S. crimes. The media have long been calling for the Japanese and Germans to admit guilt, apologize, and pay reparations. But the idea that this country has committed huge crimes, and that current events such as the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks may be rooted in responses to those crimes, is close to inadmissible."
-Edward S. Herman

"An elite group of less than a billion people now take more than 80 per cent of the world's wealth. In defense of this power and privilege, known by the euphemisms "free market" and "free trade", the injustices are legion: from the illegal blockade of Cuba, to the murderous arms trade, dominated by the US, to its trashing of basic environmental decencies, to the assault on fragile economies by institutions such as the World Trade Organization that are little more than agents of the US Treasury and the European central banks, and the demands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund in forcing the poorest nations to repay unrepayable debts; to a new US "Vietnam" in Colombia and the sabotage of peace talks between North and South Korea (in order to shore up North Korea's "rogue nation" status).  Western terror is part of the recent history of imperialism, a word that journalists dare not speak or write. It is only a few years ago that the Islamic fundamentalist groups, willing to blow themselves up in Israel and New York, were formed, and only after Israel and the US had rejected outright the hope of a Palestinian state, and justice for a people scarred by imperialism.  Their distant voices of rage are now heard; the daily horrors in faraway brutalized places have at last come home."
-John Pilger

"I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States.  We must be careful not to embark on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused target."
-Congresswoman Barbara Lee

I found the message below posted in a newsgroup by a man named Dave.  I agree with him 100%, and would like to congratulate Congresswoman Barbara Lee for the courage she displayed in being the sole member of Congress to vote for freedom, rather than for tyranny and revenge.
-Alex

Some of you may know there was one dissenter in today's "All Necessary
Force" vote today on Capitol Hill, Congresswoman Barbara Lee of Oakland, CA.

This woman is probably now getting tons of hate mail; the fact that she's an
African-American will only make her more prone to abuse. So some email of
appreciation would help counterbalance this likely ugliness. Her email
address is: *her email has been removed, most likely due to piles of hate
mail*.

What follows is a copy of the email I sent to her tonight. I live in
California but I'm not one of her constituents.

Dear Congresswoman Lee:

I greatly respect the restraint and courage you showed in voting against the
sweeping blank-check "All Necessary Force" measure today in Congress.

By standing alone, as the sole dissenter in the face of often irrational and
jingoistic saber-rattling, you showed great conviction and integrity. As a
patriot and true American, you have put conscience above politics in making
this rational (albeit probably unpopular) decision.

In this time of national mourning, the worst possible course now would be a
"shoot first, ask questions later" posse that could kill many innocent,
oppressed people in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan in a bloodthirsty
rush for vengeance. Sadly, as recent history has demonstrated repeatedly,
the villains in such countries often use innocent children and women as
shields and thereafter usually escape unscathed. "Defending freedom" does
not mean killing scores of innocent people who themselves long for freedom.

Hopefully, there will be more people like you, in the trying days ahead, who
stop to look before leaping.

Sincerely yours,

Dave
Shadow Hills, California

Email

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