Bcc: contributors ============================================================================ From: C [name withheld] To: •••@••.••• Subject: Re: stipend to continue... Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 Richard: It's en route as of today. Hope it helps a bit. I have followed your writings and that of others (i.e., Michel Chossudovsky) with great interest even before Sept 11th. I have two questions that have been bugging me. I hope you can help me either from your own knowledge or by directing me to other sources. Question 1 is a tactical one: What was in the wing of the Pentagon that was attacked on Sept 11? I ask because (a the attacks were clearly deliberate in choice of target; (b the plane apparently did a 360 around the site before hitting the west side at wedge 1-2, floors 1-2. Of course, it could have been random, but overall the events of that day seem anything but. Hence, if not random. why there? Question 2 is strategic: why Sept 11th at all? A case can be made that the globalization strategy of global capitalism was succeeding and that a slow steady approach would lull enough people until they were in over their heads. Why this massive assault with a 'permanent war', loss of civil liberties, and privatization frenzy? Having served in a military, I can see what 'they' are doing: it's called the 'manoeuvre doctrine' of warfare. But why use it when they were winning already? Or, were the anti-globalization forces more successful than we knew? Peace and solidarity, C =================== Dear C, First, thanks for the donation... much appreciated. Second, I'm glad to see you're moving on to 'Why did Bush do it?' instead of getting stuck on 'If'. As for the Pentagon... One report I received said the wing of the Pentagon was undergoing construction. And I haven't seen any news reports that anything critical was destroyed there. So my guess is they picked the least important section, and moved out anything of strategic importance before the incident (under the pretext of the construction). Obviously, hitting the Pentagon gave the incident greater psychological impact. One can only wonder where the fourth plane was headed. Perhaps it was the White House, where Daddy Bush was hanging out. That would have moved Baby Bush out from under his daddy's shadow, and further enhanced the psychological impact. It wouldn't be the first time a new emperor did away with papa (or that an ex-leader who knew too much was liquidated.) Your second question is a more interesting one. In the Seattle-Genoa sequence of protests, the movement was comparable to the anti-Vietnam movement at about 1968, with the Democratic Convention. At that point, it was still mostly an activist affair. But only a few years later it had grown to majority proportions, and Eugene McCarthy's campaign shook the establishment in a major way. I don't see any reason to assume the anti-globalization movement could not have developed similarly. 911 set it back big time, and the new fascist legislation provides good insurance in case the movement manages to revive itself. The clear fact is that globalization will inevitably make life much worse for everyone everywhere, except at the very top of the pyramid (where the eye is on the dollar bill, above "new world order" in Latin). Hence, the movement would have gained new kinds of recruits, from many segments of society. In this sense, 911 was a preemptive strike against the possibility of a democratic uprising. Yes, I'd say the movement was more successful than we knew. But that's only part of the story. There's also the geopolitics and the economics. Economics: Global capitalism has reached the stage where it's like a junkie with a $100/day habit. Corporate profits are higher than they have ever been in history, and every quarter they must grow still greater, lest the whole system collapse. Just as a junky gets more and more desperate to keep his habit going, so does our ruling elite get more and more desperate in trying to provide ever more room for capital growth. Keeping the airlines going strong, seizing Caspian oil, looting Social Security and Enron, more privatization - these are all means of keeping the pyramid scheme called capitalism going a bit longer. Geopolitics: In order to pursue these perceived economic necessities, the regime must gain control over all the world's resources, and it must tighten its grip still further over the global economy. And these things must be done with increasing urgency. The need for accelerated military aggression is quite clear. In this war, there are big fish to fry and little fish. Bush's imaginary Evil Axis are the little fish. Their economic and military significance are minimal in the global scheme of things, and none of them offers any significant threat to American interests. The main reason Bush wants to clobber them is to prepare public opinion for the bigger fish - Russia and China. (The temporary alliance with Russia has no more significance than did Hitler's similar alliance.) in my humble opinion, rkm See article: "China vs. Globalization the Final War and the Dark Millennium" at: http://cyberjournal.org/cj/rkm/ND/jul97NWOChina.shtml PS> You are encouraged to forward postings to other lists which might find them useful. Please do so in entirety, with headers.