The war at home
It's not just about peace – it's about surviving.

By nessie

I'm back. But enough about me. Let's take a look at this war.

By now even the dumbest American realizes there's a war on. But to believe that it started on Sept. 11 is as patently absurd as to believe World War II started on Dec. 7. This war has been going on for a long time, and if you've been paying attention at all, you know it.

Still, 9-11 was a significant escalation. The introduction of anthrax was an even greater escalation. A line has been crossed, and the whole world is stampeding headlong toward the next one. The next one is the edge of the cliff.

It took nearly four years for WWII to escalate from Pearl Harbor to Hiroshima. It took only a month for this war to escalate from the World Trade Center to anthrax. What's next, smallpox? Ebola? Marburg? Or maybe somebody will bomb a reactor. Then there's those missing Russian suitcase nukes. Is the (formerly) unthinkable also avoidable? We'd better make it so. Wars never decide who's right, only who's left. This war could conceivable leave very few of us left indeed.

So what are we going to do about it? First of all, we have to stop thinking of ourselves as "left" or "right." We have to start thinking of ourselves as what we all really are, targets. We need to set aside our differences and save one another's lives.

The only way we can ever build an effective antiwar movement is if we hold our noses, and our tongues, and unite to march side by side with people we hate. Get used to it. We have no other choice. It's that or risk our own deaths and the deaths of our families. This war isn't just about "our boys" coming home in a box. This war is about us coming home in a box. That's the single most important factor of this war. It's the one thing we all have in common. And the antiwar movement has so far failed to address it. Perhaps there's a reason.

So far, the antiwar street demonstrations have been dominated by leftists. By and large, leftists are well-meaning people. But they are incredibly shortsighted, narrow-minded, and cliquish. In their hubris, they imagine that they alone are the antiwar movement. Like it or not, nothing could be further from the truth. A significant part of the right wing opposes this war. Even stranger, a significant part of the left supports this war. This is new. This is weird. This is going to take some getting used to. It requires new ways of thinking. The old paradigm doesn't apply anymore. The new paradigm isn't left, right, or even political at all. The new paradigm is survival. This isn't even about right or wrong, let alone right or left. It's about living and dying. Left and right divide us. Living and dying do not. They're the two things we all have in common.

In many of the other things of this life, left and right are still factors. Sometimes they are the only factors. That hasn't changed, nor could it, nor should it. But they are not a factor in who likes this war. That's how it is now. Adapt your tactics or fail.

This goes double for the antiwar right. Come out of your chat rooms and into the street. We know you're in there. We read what you say. About this war, at least, you're making a whole lot of sense. Log off and come march in the street. Don't be afraid of the left. Leftists don't bite. They're annoying sometimes, but so are you. You can't imagine how annoying the both of you can be sometimes. Both of you, please, for the sake of humanity's very survival, put it on hold. Reach out to one another. You both need all the help you can get.

Count heads, people. Politics is numbers. Only a broad-based antiwar movement can be effective. It must represent all segments of society: left, right, center, and other. The longer we fight among ourselves, the more this war will continue to escalate, and the sooner more of us will die. Stop bad-mouthing potential allies just because they disagree with you over things that have nothing to do with stopping this war. It's not worth alienating them. Your lives and the lives of your families are at stake. While we fight among ourselves, innocent children are dying. If we don't stop this war soon, our own children's lives could be next. That's far more important than politics.

Don't let the war mongers divide us into wings and set us against one another. Learn from history. The only reason the Nazis were able to plunge the world into the last world war is because the opposition was too busy fighting among itself to stop them. If we're stupid enough to make that mistake twice, we deserve what will happen.

The antiwar movement as it stands today is inadequate to its task, both in its size and in its savvy. It frames this war in political, moral, and economic terms. This is an enormous and potentially fatal mistake. Politics, morality, and economic theory are subject to widely varying and wholly subjective interpretations. Survival is not. We all want to survive. It's time to stop bickering over politics and address our common interest in surviving this war.

This war is not about politics, morality, and economics. It's about biology. This is biowar, and it could as easily make nuclear winter look like a day in the park. If certain plagues that have been developed are released in the course of this war, our entire species could die. It's also a nuclear threat, and I don't just mean the suitcase nukes or Pakistan's missile fleet. If even a single reactor is bombed, every genome on the planet will be altered forever. Wasn't Chernobyl bad enough? Do we really want this thing to evolve beyond anthrax? These are really important questions. Can a tiny handful of privileged elites to be trusted to answer them for us? Don't believe it. Look at their track record. They do not have our best interests at heart, or even each other's. That's not their only fault. They are also inveterate liars.

In every war in all of history, every time, without exception, both sides have lied through their teeth about what has happened, what is happening, what will happen, and why. If you have any doubts whatsoever about the remote antiquity of this practice, read all three versions of what happened at battle of Kadesh. Even by then, it was already a highly refined art. War is the mother of lies. Deception is the essence of warfare.

There is no reason to believe that this war is any different. We don't even know for sure who the real enemy is. Bush, Blair, and Powell tell us who the enemy is, but they offer no proof. Bush and Blair are professional politicians. Politicians lie for a living. It's part of the job description. Only fools take politicians at their word.

Bush and Blair are particularly repugnant examples of the breed, but Powell is just as bad. He has always been more of a politician than a soldier, but when he was a soldier, he helped cover up of the My Lai massacre. Once a guy has done something like that, he can never be trusted again. Remember that the next time he looks you in the eye on the six o'clock news.

People will tell you that to question our leaders in times like these is wrong. This is a load of crap. Sorry, there is no polite way to put it. Crap is crap is crap, and this particular brand of crap is weapons grade. If enough of us ingest it, it could get us all killed. If ever there is a time you're supposed to question your leaders, it is when you have been led into a trap and its jaws are closing behind you. Of all people, Americans should know this best. Even in times like these, especially in times like these, Americans have more than the right to question our leaders. We have the duty. It is the very essence of what it is supposed to mean to be an American. Keyword: supposed. America was supposed to be different. America was not supposed to be like other countries. Oh well, so much for that.

But this is not a purely American problem, and there is no purely American solution. This is the whole world's problem, and we're all going to have to solve it together. If we wait for our leaders to solve it for us, it won't happen. We'll die first. It's only a matter of time. We're going to have to solve this ourselves. We're going to have to do it one step at a time. Of all the world's people, it is Americans who most need to take the next step. For all our sakes, it had better be the right one.

This means we are going to have to ask some difficult questions, ugly questions, questions whose answers we'd rather not hear. Then we're going to have to deal with the answers. First and foremost, we must find out what really happened on Sept. 11. The official version is simply not believable. It's too full of holes to stand up to scrutiny. There is, for example, no evidence whatsoever that Osama bin Ladin was involved in any way. The corporate-government complex's lapdog media proclaimed him guilty within hours, long before even the most basic rudiments of preliminary investigation were done. The propaganda mill has been repeating line this ever since, 24-7. That does not make it true.

Evidence would make it true, but where is the evidence? There is none, at least not that we have been shown. This doesn't mean he didn't do it. Maybe he did. But it does mean we don't know for sure. To pretend that we do is pathological denial. In view of this, the Taliban's refusal to turn over bin Ladin is perfectly reasonable. How would you like it if the United States government turned you over to the Taliban without proof you had done anything, just because they said you were guilty of a crime?

This doesn't mean the Taliban aren't scum. Clearly, they are. Some of us have been saying this for years. Too bad it took the rest of you so long to catch on. As far as I'm concerned, hanging's too good for 'em. Gut shot and left in the sun is more like it. But it has to be done by other Afghans. If Americans do it, revenge will be taken on other Americans. It won't be pretty, either. Don't kid yourself about that for a minute. This war can't be won. It can only be lost by more people.

We're told that bin Ladin is a menace. Perhaps he is. But if so, he's not the only one, not by a long shot. And just because he's a menace doesn't mean he was behind Sept. 11. Acting as if it does endangers us all. It also makes us look really stupid. For all we know for certain, he's an actor, hired to play the current bogeyman. Absurd, you say? Not really. It wasn't all that long ago that an actor was hired to play the president of the United States, and almost everyone fell for it. Never underestimate the gullibility of the public or the guile of our rulers. We're a trusting species. That's how we got into this mess in the first place.

But if bin Ladin really is what they say he is, the world will be a whole lot better off when somebody finally blows him away. If an American does it, though, there will be living hell to pay, and Americans will pay it first. We will pay, perhaps quite literally, through the nose. If you think bin Ladin the bogeyman is scary, imagine bin Ladin the martyr. Millions of people will elbow each other out of the way to be first to avenge him. There will be no stopping them. There is no stopping any determined terrorist. It can't be done. It's physically impossible. Even the Russian missile fleet would be easier to stop.

For 40 years we avoided bringing down the Russian missile fleet on our heads because we had enough common sense to know it would spell our certain doom. Where is our common sense today? Face facts, America. We are as vulnerable to terrorists as we are to the Russian missile fleet. We can't push these guys around with impunity. They can push back, and hard. So far, we've had only a taste. Worse it can get, much worse, and quickly and easily, too. It's sad and it's ugly, but it is what it is, and we are and going to have to learn how to deal with it. We can't fight our way out. Fighting makes it worse. It's like trying to struggle your way out of quicksand. You only sink in deeper. It's time to switch to plan B, quick.

Why have we been led into such a no-win situation? That's the easy question. Whatever else war is, it is first and foremost a business. No business, no war. It's as simple as that. It's a risky business and a huge investment. It is not undertaken unless there is a worthy prize. The prize in Afghanistan is access to Caspian oil, encirclement of Russia, and 75 percent of the world's heroin production. This war, like all wars, is being fought over money. Sept. 11 is only a pretext.

So we must then consider the unthinkable. Was this pretext contrived? That's the real question, here. It's an ugly question, made all the uglier by what we must do if the answer is yes. But it might be, so we can't afford not to ask. Was Sept. 11 an inside job? It's well within the realm of possibility. We can't afford not to know for sure.

Was it the result of some kind of conspiracy? Of course it was a conspiracy. Everyone agrees it was a conspiracy. No one disputes that at all. They only differ on who was behind it. Suspects include al-Quaeda, the Mossad, and fascist elements within the Anglo-American ruling class. They all had a motive. They all had the means. They all had the opportunity. For all we know for sure, they were all in it together. Politics has made much stranger bedfellows. Bushes and the bin Ladins, for example, go back a long time together. The paper trail alone stretches decades. And only last spring Bush gave the Taliban $43,000,000. Cheney, Halliburton, and Carlyle must not escape our gaze, either. Follow the money. There are other suspects, too. Some are more likely than others. Every one of them must be thoroughly investigated. Leave no stone unturned. We do not want these guys to give us the slip. If we do, it will come back to haunt us big time, and soon.

As you investigate, you must, as always, ask yourself: Cui bono? Who gains? But remember, the answer is only a clue. To get to the bottom of this will take more than clues. It will take evidence. So far, the evidence against bin Ladin is even flimsier than the evidence against Lee Harvey Oswald. That alone is a clue, perhaps the biggest clue of all. Do not shrink from investigating it just because it's so ugly. The truth is best looked in the face.

Don't sit around waiting for me to come up with answers for you. I don't have any answers, at least not yet. So far, I only have questions. But that's OK. One good question is worth a brace of bad answers. The best one yet? If Osama didn't do it, who did?

I don't know. You tell me.

The nessie files runs periodically on Mondays.

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