In all history there is no war which was not hatched by the governments, the governments alone, independent of the interests
of the people, to whom war is always pernicious even when successful. - Leo Tolstoy
THE ENEMY WITHIN - THE ILLUSION WITHOUT by Ivan Fraser (a view from the UK)
On September 11th 2001, the world was numbed by not only 'the largest terrorist attack', but also the biggest media event,
in history.
Hollywood, it seems, has come true!
Within minutes, they were comparing the attack on America
with Pearl Harbour; the massive blockbuster movie of the same name only recently having left the 'big screen' and still fresh
in the minds of millions. 'It's like a movie,' was the initial response of millions of stunned onlookers.
There is an old saying, "Generals fight the most recent war." This is not correct. Generals fight the most recent
war that they have won. When they wan a war, they get promoted. Those who imitate them also get promoted. So, the next war
is a replay of the most recent victorious war.
The belief in the possibility of a short decisive war appears to be one of the most ancient and dangerous of human illusions.
- Robert Lynd
Another Meaning To September 11th by Butler Shaffer
The shocking attacks upon the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have struck far deeper into our conscious and unconscious
minds than any of us has begun to imagine. The anger that has now settled into the minds of most of us is certainly understandable,
deriving as it does from a fear of our vulnerability and a failure of expectations that our political systems would protect
us from such harm. This anger, driven by a desire for revenge, does not subside, for the perpetrators of this crime are dead,
and it is unclear to most of us who else might be implicated. So intense is this anger that those among us who fail to voice
it with sufficient heat, or resist the cries of "war," themselves become subject to attack.
Thousands dead. Since some 50,000 people worked at the World Trade Center, set the floor at
10,000 and start climbing. Combine the workers, defense employees, firemen and plane passengers and our floor begins to sound
like wishful thinking.
Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of
war. - B.H. Liddell Hart
America At The Bloody Crossroads by Novakeo
September 11 2001, a day which will forever burn itself into American consciousness, sadly, is the price that the American
people are paying in blood and suffering for the foreign policy of Imperium. It is this very policy that has resulted in the
extreme hatred for the United States that culminated in the horrendous and dastardly attack upon the shores of America. It
is the price of empire, which the founding fathers warned against. This nation is now at a bloody crossroads. It can lash
out at any declared enemy or it can re-evaluate its position in the world by fundamentally changing its foreign policy which
creates and fosters belligerence against this nation. The United States must return to the foundations of a constitutional
republic, if we are to avert further tragedies like Sept 11.
War: a wretched debasement of all the pretenses of civilization. - Omar Bradley
Pat Buchanan on Hannity and Colmes - 9/19/01
I'm saying -- no, I'm saying we are the Roman Empire. We are the British Empire. And terrorism and attacks are the price of
empire. We got to pay these guys back, get every one of them. But then let's reflect whether we want to be an empire or whether
we want to be a republic.
We have a solution for war. It is to expand the sphere of liberty. - Rudolph Rummel
Dehomogenizing the Antiwar Movement by William L. Anderson
As was to be expected, the various factions following the horrific attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon are
becoming more etched in stone - and are the targets of each others wrath. Those of us who have written for LewRockwell.com
have made arguments that seem to be similar to those made by people like Ramsey Clark and others, who have been professional
leftists for the past half century, along with the newest leftists who wish to recapture the "glory years" of the
anti-Vietnam War protests.
America must rediscover values to reclaim identity by GERALD WARNER
AND then there was none. Last Tuesday, the only superpower remaining from the old world order of the 20th century collapsed
into the debris of Manhattan and the Pentagon. For once, the instinct of American commentators to embrace the most apocalyptic
interpretation of events was right: nothing will ever be the same again.
An Eye for an Eye: Not the Answer by David Dieteman
Perhaps you remember that Osama bin Laden blew up the USS Cole in Aden harbor. Perhaps you have noticed that the US has not
yet retaliated for this attack on a military target.
At the time, in an article entitled "Warmongering Defined,"
I wrote that there are those commentators who are too ready to beat the drums for war, and to send others to their deaths.
Again, for the record, my brother-in-law was an officer on the Cole. He survived the attack and the ensuing ordeal.
Every time we have a major bout of war hysteria, a few libertarians bite the dust and, under the pressure of a highly emotional
atmosphere, go over to the War Party. Myles Kantor, a columnist for LewRockwell.com, is the latest war casualty, finally coming
out of the closet as a chest-thumping warmonger with a screed directed not only at me, but at Harry Browne, past standard-bearer
of the Libertarian Party. I'll let Harry take care of himself, since he's perfectly capable of dealing with such a transparent
ploy. You see, Kantor also writes a regular column for Frontpage, David Horowitz's internet soapbox, and his piece, "Soft-Pedaling
the Barbarians," is an attempt to score points with the neoconservatives: "Oh, puh-leeze be assured I'm not a libertarian
in the same sense as that radical Harry Browne, and that awful Justin Raimondo!" For some reason, he doesn't mention
Lew Rockwell, and his fellow columnists at LewRockwell.com, whose views are roughly consistent with mine. But then again,
that wouldn't help his career all that much. Oh, but don't worry, Myles, we never did think your libertarianism was anything
other than an affectation, and now our suspicions have been confirmed.
The terrorist attacks against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn't be a surprise.
It is well known
that in war, the first casualty is truth - that during any war truth is forsaken for propaganda. But sanity was a prior casualty:
it was the loss of sanity that led to war in the first place.
One can understand the shock, the horror, the unbelief as the war most Americans didn't know was going on or didn't choose
to acknowledge came home in such a brutal, deadly fashion in lower Manhattan and the Pentagon. This was obviously a coordinated
attack, carried out with skill and stealth. Its success reflects a failure of Intelligence and intelligence on a massive scale.
IMPERIAL PARALYSIS The fragility of American power by Justin Raimondo
Although it is far too early to tell, it looks like the grand-scale invasion of Afghanistan and virtually the entire Middle
East envisioned by our more aggressive warhawks is not about to happen. While the President's speech to Congress clearly
identified the Taliban as a threat right up there with "fascism, Nazism, and totalitarianism" (this latter a euphemism
for Communism), his secretary of state is ratcheting down the bellicose rhetoric and focusing in on the fundamental military
problem of how to respond to the September 11 atrocity. "With respect to the nature of the regime in Afghanistan, that
is not uppermost in our minds right now," he said. "I'm not going to say that it has become one of the objectives
of the United States government to either remove or put in place a different regime."
A tyrant...is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader. - Plato
Imperial Conservatives by Jimmy Cantrell
On Monday September 10, 2001, a George Will column, "The Edge of a Moral Sleuth," was posted at Jewish World Review.
It is a fairly typical Will piece on literature, its writers, and its readers: praising the mid-brow, and perhaps high low-brow,
for transmitting qualities that Will somehow manages to see as 'conservative.' The Moral Sleuth in question is P. D. James,
or, as Will gushes to inform of the best-selling mystery writer, Baroness James of Holland Park.
