Message to SOA protest
'Fight U.S. terrorism'
Excerpts from a speech by Sarah Sloan of the
International ANSWER Coalition to the Nov. 17 protest at Ft.
Benning, Ga.
Bush has signed an executive order creating secret military
courts to try those arrested in relation to the Sept. 11
attacks. These people will have no due process and no access to
legal counsel. They'll be tried, sentenced and possibly
executed in secret.
And who will make sure to verify and let us all know that
these are terrorists?
Not surprisingly, it's George Bush and members of his
administration. They've all, since Sept. 11, realized the most
accurate and scientific definition of a terrorist--and that is,
anyone they say is a terrorist.
In fact, all of us who have been protesting the SOA for
years are fighting terrorism. Of course, we probably won't see
any SOA trainees appearing before any of Bush's secret military
courts. The U.S. government's definition of terrorism has
everything to do with whose interests it's serving.
What is terrorism if not the CIA/Pentagon operations staged
from Chile to Nicaragua, Guatemala to El Salvador? There is a
considerable laundry list of the CIA's work around the world.
And their longest operation in history was in Afghanistan.
What was the result?
Today, the people of Afghanistan have a life expectancy of
43 years. Only 13 percent of the people have access to drinking
water. Per capita income is an average of $180 per year.
For the last five weeks, this poor and devastated country
has had over 6,000 bombs and missiles dropped on it. This has
included carpet-bombing, cluster bombs and fuel air explosives
that asphyxiate and incinerate a five-football-sized area in
seconds.
The Red Crescent has been bombed not once, not twice, but
three times. Hospitals, villages and mosques have been targeted
and destroyed. This so-called war on terrorism is, in fact, a
terrorist war.
While we fight this war abroad, we must also be aware of the
war being waged by the U.S. government against Arab, South
Asian and Muslim people inside the U.S. Over 1,100 people have
been detained in U.S. jails since Sept. 11. Over 200 colleges
have turned over the names and records of students so they can
become the subjects of FBI investigations.
At least 5,000 young Arab men have been targeted for FBI
investigation--not for what they've done, but for who they
are.
How can there be a Civil Rights Act of 1964 if racial
profiling has been legalized?
As we wage this campaign in solidarity with the first-line
targets of this repression--Arab, Muslim and South Asian
people, many of them immigrants--we do so with the knowledge
that the intent of the U.S. government is to expand these
repressive measures to include everyone in the U.S.
The intention is to reverse the gains made by the powerful
Civil Rights movements of the 1960s. So our task is to build a
powerful movement that stands up and fights back now--not in 10
years after all our rights have been eroded.
This Jan. 31-Feb.5, the multi-millionaires and billionaires
of the world will gather to show their support for the U.S. war
machine at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in
New York City.
As 100,000 New Yorkers are laid off, as working people are
evicted and foreclosed upon, as the people of Afghanistan live
on $180 per year, the red carpet will be rolled out for these
banking and corporate elites, politicians and media
pundits.
These are the people who profit off the terrorist CIA wars
waged against the people of the world, the benefactors of U.S.
military and economic domination of the world. These are the
people driving the war against Afghanistan, the ones who stand
to make trillions off of the U.S. domination of Afghanistan and
the Caspian region.
Let's all pledge today that there will be tens of thousands
of people outside that meeting to say this is not the world we
want, to say that it is absurd and unacceptable that 440
billionaires and multi-millionaires have as much wealth as the
300 million poorest people on the planet, because the rich have
looted and pillaged the world with the fist of the Pentagon to
back them up.
War should not be waged against our sisters and brothers in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Latin America or anywhere. War should be
waged on unemployment, mass layoffs and poverty. Let's all be
in New York City on Feb. 2 for a major protest against those
who plan and profit off of U.S.-sponsored terrorist wars around
the world.
Reprinted from the Nov. 29, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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