Annotated State of The Union

And, tragically, created still more, including thousands of Afghan civilians.

It would indeed be wonderful if the federal government were really beginning to rebuild New York and other decaying urban areas, where public health, mass transit, schools, housing, and basic infrastructure are notably inferior to those of other Western industrialized nations; this is largely the result of decades of excessive military spending and fiscal policies favoring the wealthy, trends being accelerated by the Bush administration. Unfortunately, the rebuilding of New York is largely limited to areas of the financial district in lower Manhattan near where the World Trade Center once stood.

While most of the world can not help but come together in the face of the threat from terrorism, the coalition that President Bush claims to have rallied is hardly united over U.S. policies. Even our strongest allies, not to mention Islamic governments whose cooperation we need in tracking down and breaking up terrorist cells in their countries, have raised strong objections over the following U.S. actions: the use of excessive force in Afghanistan; the backing of autocratic regimes and occupation armies; the threats to attack other nations; the violation of the rights of captured fighters and of immigrants; the efforts to undermine international treaties--such as the creation of an international criminal court and those attempting to control small arms, biological weapons, and money laundering--which could be powerful tools against terrorists; and, the refusal to serious address the political, social, and economic conditions which breed terrorism.

While U.S. forces have indeed "captured, arrested, and rid the world" (the final piece a euphemism for killing) of thousands of people in Afghanistan and elsewhere, the number who could actually be considered terrorists, even by a very liberal definition, is probably only in the hundreds. Most of the others were Afghan soldiers and civilians, most of whom were neither terrorists nor supporters of terrorism.

These so-called "terrorist camps," unlike bases of conventional armies, are not very significant strategically, since they house few if any heavy weapons, sophisticated communications technologies, or other strategic assets that cannot be quickly made portable. Most of these camps were evacuated long before the bombing commenced and much of the weapons and ordinance was moved as well. In dealing with a decentralized network of terrorist cells, success cannot be adequately measured by the destruction of deserted "camps." Ironically, a number of these camps were actually constructed by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the 1980s.

According to most development groups, the U.S.-led war greatly exacerbated the level of malnutrition in the country by creating enormous refugee flows at the onset of winter, preventing food convoys from entering the country, and disrupting herding and agriculture. With the reduction of the air war in December, relief supplies are now getting in again. It remains to be seen if the factious coalition of warlords and others now in power will do a better job than the Taliban in insuring the basic food needs of the population are met. The much ballyhooed U.S. food drops were extremely small relative to the need and relative to the additional food shortages resulting from the U.S. air war.

The overthrow of the Taliban, a regime initially coddled by the United States, was no doubt welcomed by most Afghans. However, there remain questions as to whether these theocratic extremists would have survived much longer anyway due to internal pressures, whether they could have been dispatched more efficiently than through ten weeks of heavy bombing, or whether the new regime--which includes some notorious warlords and militia leaders--will not themselves engage in further repression.

The American flag had flown in Kabul under a number of repressive regimes in the past and the U.S. presence has contributed little to creating a more just and democratic Afghanistan.

Al-Qaeda terrorists found sanctuary in Afghanistan, but to say they "occupied" Afghanistan is a bit of an exaggeration. It may also be an exaggeration to call the outdoor cages in which prisoners are held "cells." Finally, U.S. control over Guantanamo Bay, which came as a result of a century-old treaty of dubious legality, is considered by many to be an occupation in itself.

Unfortunately, few are probably running for their lives at this point, but are underground in other countries planning new attacks.

Given the refusal of the United States to join the multinational peacekeeping force and the rather limited contributions to economic development thus far, this may be an overly optimistic assertion.

Unfortunately, relatively few are trained in the kind of commando and paramilitary operations necessary for counterterrorism. Most are trained in conventional warfare, which tends to be a very blunt and not particularly effective means to fight terrorists.

"And tonight, thanks to them, we are winning the war against terror.

If justice has any meaning--and is simply not a euphemism for revenge--it would include some form of due process, which has thus far been denied to those targeted in the war. It is also ironic, given that the Bush administration opposes the creation of international legal institutions, such as the international criminal court.

It is significant the President Bush only mentions Islamic groups by name. The most notorious terrorist groups in terms of lives lost are non-Muslim groups in Africa. The Tamil Tigers--made up of Sri Lankan Hindus--hold the world record for suicide bombings. In addition, there are the various right-wing Latin American terrorists, some of whom got their training in the United States, including at the infamous School of the Americas at Fort Benning, which many human rights activists consider to also be a "terror training camp."

This appears to be a threat against nations that refuse to "heed our call," essentially giving the United States the unilateral right to define who is a terrorist. Furthermore, there is nothing in international law that says that timidity is valid grounds for military intervention. Certainly, governments that harbor what are generally recognized as terrorists should be held accountable. Yet the vehicle for such accountability is the United Nations, not any single government.

Apparently this does not preclude America or its friends and allies from threatening others with weapons of mass destruction--or from being an obstacle to efforts to strengthen existing international treaties like the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions.

The Bush administration has broken off disarmament talks with North Korea and scaled back food aid.

The International Atomic Energy Agency and other monitoring bodies have strongly questioned the U.S. assertion of such an aggressive pursuit of weapons of mass destruction by the Iranian government. Similarly, there has been a major reduction in Iranian support for terrorist groups since the 1980s. The internal struggle by elected moderates against the largely unelected hardliners has been greatly hampered by the U.S. refusal to support the moderates by ending the U.S. sanctions and military threats against the Iran.

American companies, with U.S. government support, exported the first anthrax strain to Iraq in the early 1980s and supplied key components for Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, all evidence indicates that Iraq's chemical and nuclear weapons program was destroyed during the Gulf War and subsequent inspections regime and there is no clear evidence that it has since been resurrected.

At the time of the Halabja massacre and other atrocities in the 1980s, where the Iraqis slaughtered thousands of Kurdish civilians with chemical weapons, the U.S. helped cover up for Saddam Hussein's regime by refusing to acknowledge Iraqi responsibility. American officials began bringing this up only after the U.S. ended its appeasement of the Iraqi regime following its 1990 invasion of the pro-American emirate of Kuwait.

The inspection regime was imposed by the United States following Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. Furthermore, the UNSCOM inspectors were not kicked out, but were withdrawn under strong U.S. pressure in 1998. In response to a series of heavy air strikes against Iraq soon afterwards, the Iraqis decided not to allow them back in.

More likely, it is another cynical--but effective--attempt by Saddam Hussein to provoke a confrontation with the United States to enhance his political standing at home and elsewhere in the Arab world.

None of these states are among the most heavily armed countries in their regions, let alone the world. Similarly, unlike such U.S. allies as Morocco, Israel, and Turkey, none of these states currently occupies any neighboring country. It is particularly disturbing that Iran, in its significant if uneven steps toward greater political pluralism and rapprochement with the West, is linked with the hostile totalitarian regimes of Iraq and North Korea.

The United States has consistently opposed calls for the creation of a zone free of weapons of mass destruction for both East Asia and the Middle East. The Bush administration is continuing the U.S. policy of nuclear apartheid, where the United States may bring nuclear weapons into the region on its planes and ships and U.S. allies like Israel, Pakistan, and India are able to develop nuclear weapons, but other countries can not. While all three of these countries singled out by President Bush have been linked to terrorist groups in the past, none have ties to Al-Qaeda and there has been no evidence to support the contention that they would pass on weapons of mass destruction to individual terrorists.

By far the best strategy would be to support calls for universal disarmament, so such materials and technology would not be available for anyone.

It is hard to imagine how a missile defense system could prevent a nuclear attack by terrorists.

A worthy goal, except that there is no evidence that these regimes have such weapons to threaten us with or are anywhere close to procuring them. There are far more real dangers to be concerned with facing America and the world already, including AIDS, environmental destruction, growing inequality, and other threats which were not even mentioned in the president's address.

When does a "war on terror," like the "war on drugs," ever end, and at what costs? Similarly, what is the definition of "terror" and who defines it? It is doubtful that President Bush has in mind the right-wing paramilitaries in Colombia or the Jewish fundamentalist settlers in the West Bank who terrorize nearby villagers, not to mention the security forces of several American allies, which reputable human rights groups have accused of terrorizing whole populations.

While the proportion of civilian casualties relative to military targets struck in the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan was certainly an improvement from air campaigns of previous decades, there were still thousands of civilians killed, people just as innocent as those who died September 11. This call for still more weapons will likely mean more innocent people dying.

A careful look at President Bush's proposed military budget shows that only a small percentage is geared toward counterterrorism. Far more is spent, for example, in building unnecessary and expensive weapons systems originally designed to counter Soviet weapons that no longer exist.

This from an administration which provides large-scale military, economic, and diplomatic support to the reactionary, misogynist, fundamentalist regime in Saudi Arabia, not to mention Israeli occupation forces in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and Moroccan forces in occupied Western Sahara. Indeed, according to Amnesty International, the majority of recipients of arms transfers from the United States engage in a pattern of gross and systematic human rights violations. Regarding the denial of imposing culture, one only need look at U.S. pressure at the World Trade Organization to eliminate safeguards protecting indigenous film industries and other cultural institutions from U.S.-based multinational corporations.

This includes quiet support for Russian repression in Chechnya, Chinese repression in Sinkiang Xinjiang and Tibet, and Indian repression in Kashmir.

There is great irony in the U.S.-backed definition of promoting free trade and free markets, which gives unelected and unaccountable supra-national bodies like the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund power over democratically elected governments in individual nation-states, even to the degree of forcing these governments to rescind their own laws protecting consumers, labor, and the environment. Ironically, the increasing economic stratification and poverty resulting from structural adjustment programs and related externally imposed measures from these U.S.-dominated international financial institutions toward Islamic countries are some the factors encouraging the development of extremist anti-American organizations.

It will be very difficult for freedom to triumph if America's closest allies in the war include such regimes as the family dictatorship in Saudi Arabia, the medieval sultanate in Oman, the crypto-Communist autocracy in Uzbekistan, and the military dictatorship in Pakistan. Indeed, it has been U.S. backing of such regimes which has been partly responsible for the rise of anti-American extremism in those parts of the world.