This one's important, too

[Guest guest]

We *are* the ones with the WMDs. How can anyone possibly deny this? *We* train

terrorists at the School of the Americas; *we* supplied the current bad guys

with everything they've got (money, weapons, morale); we are the ones who pose

a threat to equity and peace internationally.

How about if we on the left said, "Love IT (PEACE, THAT IS!!) or leave it?!?

I am sick and tired of those with political views not too far off from fascists

a half a century ago telling us we're not thinking through the issues enough.

Anyone who gives *any* leader a carte blanche does not deserve to call himself

or herself an American.

With fierce love,

JIA

Subj: Znet Update &A Harold Pinter Essay

12/12/2002 6:15:46 AM Eastern Standard Time

sysop (AT) ZMAG (DOT) ORG

Reply-to: znetupdates (AT) zmail (DOT) zmag.org

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Hello,

ZNet is updating constantly now, many times daily...and use of the site

is escalating as well. We now have over 101,000 update recipients.

That's you, of course!

Recent changes on the site include many new Venezuela articles added, a

major update of Venezuela Watch, and of course continuing coverage of

on-going issues regarding Iraq, TerrorWar, the Mideast, etc.

There are two new interesting multipiece exchanges -- between Michael

Berube and Edward Herman -- and between George Monbiot and David Edwards

and David Cromwell.

There is a major new article in three parts from Irene Gendzier on oil

and the mideast.

And there is much more, of course.

But I am writing this time to note, celebrate, and congratulate the new

round of anti-war demonstrations across the U.S. and also much of

Europe. While it is the statement by numerous Hollywood actors opposing

war that is getting most media visibility, of course it is what goes on

in the homes and streets and workplaces leading to outpourings across

the country that is most central to the emerging movement. Still, the

Hollywood statement does evidence the remarkably advanced situation of

U.S. antiwar dissent. It was a good six years of organizing, maybe more,

before comparable steps by large numbers of prominent actors were taken

regarding Vietnam. Yet the Hollywood statement does leave room for

further development. For example, perhaps soon, writers and actors and

others in the U.S. will be uttering words with passion more or less akin

to those the Great British Playwrite Harold Pinter just published in

London, evidencing, I think, the direction of developing sentiment

around the world...

Daily Telegraph

December 11, 2002

The American administration is a bloodthirsty wild animal

By Harold Pinter

Earlier this year, I had a major operation for cancer. The operation and

its after effects were something of a nightmare. I felt I was a man

unable to swim bobbing about under water in a deep dark endless ocean.

But I did not drown and I am very glad to be alive.

However, I found that to emerge from a personal nightmare was to enter

an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare - the nightmare of

American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the

most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war

against the rest of the world.

"If you are not with us, you are against us," President George W. Bush

has said. He has also said: "We will not allow the world's worst weapons

to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders." Quite right. Look

in the mirror, chum. That's you.

America is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of

mass destruction" and is prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has

more of them than the rest of the world put together. It has walked away

from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons,

refusing to allow inspection of its own factories. The hypocrisy behind

its public declarations and its own actions is almost a joke.

America believes that the 3,000 deaths in New York are the only deaths

that count, the only deaths that matter. They are American deaths. Other

deaths are unreal, abstract, of no consequence.

The 3,000 deaths in Afghanistan are never referred to. The hundreds of

thousands of Iraqi children dead through American and British sanctions

which have deprived them of essential medicines are never referred to.

The effect of depleted uranium, used by America in the Gulf war, is

never referred to. Radiation levels in Iraq are appallingly high. Babies

are born with no brain, no eyes, no genitals. Where they do have ears,

mouths or rectums, all that issues from these orifices is blood.

The 200,000 deaths in East Timor in 1975 brought about by the Indonesian

government but inspired and supported by America are never referred to.

The 500,000 deaths in Guatemala, Chile, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Uruguay,

Argentina and Haiti, in actions supported and subsidised by America, are

never referred to.

The millions of deaths in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia are no longer

referred to. The desperate plight of the Palestinian people, the central

factor in world unrest, is hardly referred to.

But what a misjudgment of the present and what a misreading of history

this is. People do not forget. They do not forget the death of their

fellows, they do not forget torture and mutilation, they do not forget

injustice, they do not forget oppression, they do not forget the

terrorism of mighty powers. They not only don't forget: they also strike

back.

The atrocity in New York was predictable and inevitable. It was an act

of retaliation against constant and systematic manifestations of state

terrorism on the part of America over many years, in all parts of the

world.

In Britain, the public is now being warned to be "vigilant" in

preparation for potential terrorist acts. The language is in itself

preposterous. How will - or can - public vigilance be embodied? Wearing

a scarf over your mouth to keep out poison gas?

However, terrorist attacks are quite likely, the inevitable result of

our Prime Minister's contemptible and shameful subservience to America.

Apparently a terrorist poison gas attack on the London Underground

system was recently prevented.

But such an act may indeed take place. Thousands of schoolchildren

travel on the Underground every day. If there is a poison gas attack

from which they die, the responsibility will rest entirely on the

shoulders of our Prime Minister. Needless to say, the Prime Minister

does not travel on the Underground himself.

The planned war against Iraq is in fact a plan for premeditated murder

of thousands of civilians in order, apparently, to rescue them from

their dictator.

America and Britain are pursuing a course that can lead only to an

escalation of violence throughout the world and finally to catastrophe.

It is obvious, however, that America is bursting at the seams to attack

Iraq.

I believe that it will do this not only to take control of Iraqi oil,

but also because the American administration is now a bloodthirsty wild

animal. Bombs are its only vocabulary. Many Americans, we know, are

horrified by the posture of their government, but seem to be helpless.

Unless Europe finds the solidarity, intelligence, courage and will to

challenge and resist American power, Europe itself will deserve

Alexander Herzen's declaration - "We are not the doctors. We are the

disease".

The article is taken from an address given by Harold Pinter on receiving

an honorary degree at the University of Turin.

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