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AFTER MATH

By Adam Porter

- London, 12th September 2001 -

And you think to yourself, is this it? Is this all we did? Is this the end of the world? Two passenger aeroplanes slam into the side of the World Trade Centre's so-called Twin Towers. They are twin towers no more. Like millions of others before them ordinary citizens die horrific deaths as a result of American foreign policy. But this time the deaths are American and in America.

The level of hyperbole drives through the ceiling, fear and sanctimony are everywhere, uncertainty rules. Tony Blair can't talk to the Unions at the TUC Conference as he is too moved. The TV and the media, unsurprisingly are over majoring on it. The U.S.-Mexican border is sealed. All flights over the US are cancelled. The internet service providers get bogged down under the weight of the news junkies desperate for knowledge of what had happened. Mobile use in the USA imploded. All flights over London are cancelled. The creator of Frasier dies. Like the White House, Disneyworld in Orlando was evacuated. And after all that, who did it? And why?

Well, listen, you can take your pick. America has been rocked not only by the explosions themselves but by the fact that Americans may have died at the hands of a deliberate audacious extra-ordinary attack. They seem shocked that anyone would want to make their political point through such destruction. They are bemused, yes really, that America should be the target of such ruthless, bloody anger. They are amazed that someone could kill innocent people in order to make itself known.

The news rampaged around the world. Flicking across Europe's channels every one bar MTV had the images of the smoking stacks blazing out across the airwaves. It was like a Manga movie, a disaster epic. Every stunning, shocking minute that went by you were battling with reality, sure they would announce that a giant green lizard had been spotted off the coast of NY, NY. They didn't but still it doesn't seem completely real. Four planes? At once? Destroying three huge buildings in the heart of New York and roughing up the Pentagon? Are we awake?

But this is reality. The loss of innocent lives is more disgusting than words can express. The murder of men, women and kids to get a political point across is outrageous. The office workers, the cleaners, the lift repair men from Ace Lifts who worked in the World Trade Centre. People gossiping, drinking a coffee from a foam cup, avoiding the first bit of work of the day. The people who jumped to their deaths perhaps hoping against hope that they would somehow survive, wracked with unimaginable fear. Those incinerated in the building by thousands of gallons of aircraft fuel. Ordinary U.S. citizens just like you and me, just like ordinary people in Paris, Amsterdam, Bangkok, Tripoli and Baghdad. But look, and look hard, this is what men of violence do to cities, what British and American planes did to Basra in Iraq, what British and American planes did to parts of Belgrade.

When I spout on about missiles slamming into the side of escaping Kossovan women, children and pensioners packed into a train I mean it. They died terrible, flesh ripping deaths. When you fire cruise missiles into packed shelters full of women and kids in Bahgdad they too died terrible deaths. When you kill 5.8 million Vietnamese, carpet bombing their rudimentary homes whilst leaving the centre of Hanoi and Saigon clear so you had somewhere nice to stay when you invaded (a tactic the Nazis employed on London) they too died terrible deaths. When you rounded up every socialist and liberal in Indonesia, Algeria, Iran, Malaysia, Greece, Turkey and more and had them killed and tortured they too died terrible deaths. We can add Panama, Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, Israel. The American death machine. Ordained by God.

So ask yourself something. Do you object to violence? Really? Or do you object to "their" violence. Will you object to the American military striking back? Bombing Kabul or Khartoum or Tripoli. A tactical nuke on northern Afganistan? Will you object if the Israelis open up on the Palestinians? Will you?

Because what is the alternative? More bombs? More security? More cameras in the streets? More phone taps? More subsidy to the arms industry? More dead foreigners whose minute of lives are never reported on CNN they way the Trade Centre's demise has been. Is that where we are going? On a race to the bottom trapped between GW Bush and the CIA-created Osama Bin Laden? Because it seems that what is wanted.

James Rubin, former White House playboy and spokesman said, "They have attacked every civilised country in the world," Tony Blair said that we must "eradicate this evil completely" and that the perpetrators of the attacks were "indifferent to the sanctity of human life". Within hours General Wesley Clark of the Kosovo campaign said it was "only one" group who could have done this, of course, "it's Osama Bin Laden." But remember that James Rubin also said that "Tibet is part of China, that's settled. Tibet is part of China" (Radio 5 Live), Tony Blair ordered British involvement in a major war without any recourse to international law and General Wesley Clark carried out that war in the full knowledge that the commencement of that war would lead to an increase in Kosovan deaths, as he put it that "was entirely predictable."

Then Tom Clancy on CNN tried to be a bit liberal and balanced. Islamic people he informed us "were not all madmen." Of course he meant that men who commit this kind of violence must be mad. Try telling George W Bush who mimicked his first woman victim on TV. "Please save me Mr Bush," he squealed in a 'white trash' high pitched voice, giggling at her imminent death. Try telling Clinton, the cruise missile king or the 'great statesman' Henry '1-800 Bomb Cambodia' Kissinger who declared it "an act of war" before he even knew who he was at war with. Because they will be too busy scheming, plotting, advising "the great democracies" (James Rubin) how to strike back.

One furious senator on CNN busted his spleen. "We are at war," said the completely-not-madman. "The priority of this country isn't healthcare or nurses, it is security, defence."

So much killing, so many men of war, so few men of peace.

And you think to yourself? Is this it?

from www.yearzero.org