Part
1: 2001/09/12 - 2001/09/29
Part 2: 2001/10/01 - 2001/12/28
Part
3: 2002/01/08 - 2002/06/28
Part
4: 2002/07/01 - 2002/08/30
Part 5: 2002/09/03 - 2002/09/30
Part 6: 2002/10/03 - 2002/11/30
Part 7: 2002/12/01 - 2003/01/15
Part 8: 2003/01/17 -
September 2001
"The algebra of infinite justice"
(Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, 2001/09/29)
"The fascist sympathies of the soft left"
(Christopher Hitchens, The Spectator, 2001/09/29)
"Roots Of Rage" (Lisa Beyer, TIME,
from the 2001/10/01 issue)
"The New Anti-Americanism of the Academic Left"
(Candace de Russy and Winfield Myers, FrontPageMagazine.com, 2001/09/28)
"The roots of hatred" (The Economist,
2001/09/27)
"Many American Right-Wing Racial Extremists
Applaud Sept. 11 Attacks" (Jim Nesbitt, Newhouse News Service,
2001/09/26)
"The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky"
(David Horowitz, FrontPageMagazine, 2001/09/26)
"U.S. just as guilty of committing own violent
acts" (Robert Jensen, HoustonChronicle, 2001/09/26)
"And our flag was still there" (Barbara
Kingsolver, San Francisco Chronicle, 2001/09/25)
"'I
felt like someone delivered from the grave...'" (Special
Dispatch No. 275, MEMRI, 2001/09/25)
"In Europe, Some Say the Attacks Stemmed From
American Failings" (Steven Erlanger, The New York Times,
2001/09/22)
"Whooping It Up - In Beirut, even Christians
celebrated the atrocity" (Elisabetta Burba, The Wall Street
Journal, 2001/09/22)
"An open letter to the President of the United
States" (David Duke, Stormfront.org, 2001/09/21)
"Anti-Americanism blinds the left to what's
at stake" (Anne McElvoy, Independent.co.uk, 2001/09/19)
"Blaming the U.S., whitewashing terror"
(National Post, 2001/09/19)
"Fear
and loathing" (Martin Amis, The Guardian,
2001/09/18)
"The
End of Innocence" (Joel Rogers, The Nation, 2001/09/17)
"First
Reactions" (Susan Sontag, The New Yorker, 2001/09/17)
"No
greater hate: What inspires the Muslim kamikazes?" (Martin
Kramer, Tel Aviv Notes, 2001/09/16)
"Anti-Americanism
creates some strange bedfellows" (Anne
Applebaum, The Sunday Telegraph/anneapplebaum.com, 2001/09/16)
"Where
the violence comes from" (Michael Lerner, Tikkun.org, 2001/09/16)
"On the Bombings" (Noam Chomsky,
zmag.org, 2001/09/16)
"God Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell
Says" (John F. Harris, The Washington Post, 2001/09/14)
"The furies of foreign lands"
(Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, 2001/09/14)
"The anti-globalizers' lowest moment yet"
(Peter Beinart, The New Republic, 2001/09/13)
"Judgment Day in Mystery Babylon?"
(Anthony C. LoBaido, WorldNetDaily, 2001/09/13)
"A
Volatile Neighborhood - A Guide to Countries Where Islamic Anger Against
the United States Is Strongest" (The Washington Post, 2001/09/13)
"Anti-Americanism: a new world power"
(Derek Brown, The Guardian, 2001/09/12)
"A policy of neglect and cowardice, a pay-off
of death" (Bill Israel, The Massachussets Daily Collegian,
2001/09/12)
"When Will We Learn?" (Harry Browne,
Antiwar, 2001/09/12)
"The
algebra of infinite justice" (Arundhati
Roy, The Guardian, 2001/09/29)
A longwinded editorial, which perfectly captures the algebra of moral
equivalence, equating Bush with bin Laden: "But who is Osama bin
Laden really? Let me rephrase that. What is Osama bin Laden? He's America's
family secret. He is the American president's dark doppelgänger.
The savage twin of all that purports to be beautiful and civilised.
He has been sculpted from the spare rib of a world laid to waste by
America's foreign policy... ... Now that the family secret has been
spilled, the twins are blurring into one another and gradually becoming
interchangeable."
"The
fascist sympathies of the soft left" (Christopher
Hitchens, The Spectator, 2001/09/29)
"The very first step that we must take, therefore, is the acquisition
of enough self-respect and self-confidence to say that we have met an
enemy and that he is not us, but someone else. ... But straight away,
we meet people who complain at once that this enemy is us, really. Did
we not aid the grisly Taleban to achieve and hold power? ... I have
no hesitation in describing this mentality, carefully and without heat,
as soft on crime and soft on fascism. No political coalition is possible
with such people and, I'm thankful to say, no political coalition with
them is now necessary. It no longer matters what they think."
"Roots
Of Rage" (Lisa Beyer, TIME, from the 2001/10/01
issue)
"But to get to the virulence of antipathy
exhibited by the kamikaze 19 and their abettors and apologists, another
element is required. That element is the idea that the U.S. is not just
the enemy of the Arabs or even of Muslims generally but also the enemy
of God. It is an idea encouraged by the Ayatullah Khomeini, who proclaimed
the U.S. "the Great Satan," spread by Islamic extremists throughout
the Arab world and now given potent expression by, it would seem, the
biggest player among all such militants today, Osama bin Laden."
"The
New Anti-Americanism of the Academic Left" (Candace
de Russy and Winfield Myers, FrontPageMagazine.com, 2001/09/28)
"Yet our nations day of death, September 11, has given the
academic left new reason to live. Enraged that a people could so unite
behind their president and flag, left-wing professors, students, and
vagrant activists are holding rallies, teach-ins, demonstrations, and
vigils to protest Americas will to defend herself against the
war the terrorists have brought to our shores."
"The
roots of hatred" (The
Economist, 2001/09/27)
"Whatever its mistakes, the idea that America
brought the onslaught upon itself is absurd. ... America defends its
interests, sometimes skilfully, sometimes clumsily, just as other countries
do. Since power, like nature, abhors a vacuum, it steps into places
where disorder reigns. On the whole, it should do so more, not less,
often. Of all the great powers in history, it is probably the least
territorial, the most idealistic. Muslims in particular should note
that the armed interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo, both led by America,
were attacks on Christian regimes in support of Muslim victims. In neither
did the United States stand to make any material gain; in neither were
its vital interests, conventionally defined, at stake. Those who criticise
America's leadership of the world's capitalist system - a far from perfect
affair - should remember that it has brought more wealth and better
living standards to more people than any other in history."
"Many
American Right-Wing Racial Extremists Applaud Sept. 11 Attacks"
(Jim Nesbitt, Newhouse News Service, 2001/09/26)
Interesting how closely related the sentiments among racial extremists
and some left-wing liberals are: "In newsgroup postings, Web site
articles and Internet radio broadcasts, they have expressed everything
from outright admiration for the Arab terrorists to more measured communiques.
The latter condemn the terrorists, but blame the attacks on an American
foreign policy that unabashedly backs Israel, calling for an "America
First" shift toward isolationism. ... There is also a parroting
of the anti-free trade, anti-global capitalism rhetoric commonly found
among the left-leaning street protesters who have hounded meetings of
the World Trade Organization and World Bank, sparking riots in Seattle
and in Italy, experts say.
"The
Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky" (David Horowitz,
FrontPageMagazine, 2001/09/26)
"Without question, the most devious, the most dishonest and --
in this hour of his nation's grave crisis the most treacherous
intellect in America belongs to MIT professor Noam Chomsky. ... For
forty years, Noam Chomsky has turned out book after book, pamphlet after
pamphlet and speech after speech with one message, and one message alone:
America is the Great Satan; it is the fount of evil in the world. In
Chomsky's demented universe, America is responsible not only for its
own bad deeds, but for the bad deeds of others, including those of the
terrorists who struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon."
"U.S.
just as guilty of committing own violent acts" (Robert
Jensen, HoustonChronicle, 2001/09/26)
Yet another study in moral equivalence and anti-Americanism: "Like
everyone in the United States and around the world, I shared the deep
sadness at the deaths of thousands. But
as I listened to people around me talk, I realized the anger and fear
I felt were very different, for my primary anger is directed at the
leaders of this country and my fear is not only for the safety of Americans
but for innocent civilians in other countries. ... For more than five
decades throughout the Third World, the United States has deliberately
targeted civilians or engaged in violence so indiscriminate that there
is no other way to understand it except as terrorism."
"And
our flag was still there" (Barbara Kingsolver,
San Francisco Chronicle, 2001/09/25)
Since the terror attacks many anti-American comments have used the words
"terror" and "terrorist" to describe the American
society: "Patriotism threatens free speech with death. It is infuriated
by thoughtful hesitation, constructive criticism of our leaders and
pleas for peace. It despises people of foreign birth who've spent years
learning our culture and contributing their talents to our economy.
It has specifically blamed homosexuals, feminists and the American Civil
Liberties Union. In other words, the American flag stands for intimidation,
censorship, violence, bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and shoving the Constitution
through a paper shredder? Who are we calling terrorists here?"
"'I
felt like someone delivered from the grave...'" (Special
Dispatch No. 275, MEMRI, 2001/09/25)
Translated
editorial by Syrian Arab Writers Associations chairman 'Ali 'Uqleh 'Ursan
about his feelings after the terror attacks in the US: "When the
twin towers collapsed and the New York skyline, which had been obstructed
by them, was revealed to me I felt deep within me like someone
that was delivered from the grave; I [felt] that I was being carried
in the air above the corpse of the mythological symbol of arrogant American
imperialist power, whose administration had prevented the [American]
people from knowing the crimes it was committing
My lungs filled
with air and I breathed in relief, as I had never breathed before."
(Al-Usbu' Al-Adabi)
"In
Europe, Some Say the Attacks Stemmed From American Failings"
(Steven Erlanger, The New York Times, 2001/09/22)
Report on Anti-American sentiment in Europe: "Dario Fo, the Italian
playwright and satirist who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1997,
said bluntly in a widely circulated e-mail: 'The great speculators wallow
in an economy that every year kills tens of millions of people with
poverty so what is 20,000 dead in New York? Regardless of who
carried out the massacre, this violence is the legitimate daughter of
the culture of violence, hunger and inhumane exploitation.'"
"Whooping
It Up - In Beirut, even Christians celebrated the atrocity"
(Elisabetta Burba, The Wall Street Journal, 2001/09/22)
"Soon came reports of Palestinians celebrating. The BBC reporter
in Jerusalem said it was only a tiny minority. Astonished, we asked
some moderate Arabs if that was the case. 'Nonsense,' said one, speaking
for many. "Ninety percent of the Arab world believes that Americans
got what they deserved." ... Once at the mosque I donned a black
chador, but our Lonely Planet guide attracted the attention of a hard-looking
bearded guy all the same. "Are you Americans?" he asked in
a menacing tone. Our quick denial made him relax. ... "My people
have been crushed under the heel of American imperialism, which took
away our land, massacred our beloved and denied our right to life. But
have you seen what happened in New York City? God Almighty has drawn
his sword against our enemies. God is great - Allah u Akbar," he
said."
"An
open letter to the President of the United States" (David
Duke, Stormfront.org, 2001/09/21)
It seems some peaceniks and leftwing liberals have something in common
with the infamous white supremacist David Duke: "The attack on
September 11 was certainly not about people hating our freedoms. It
was purely in response to America's foreign policy; and it was primarily
about our monetary and military support of Israel. As
strange as it may sound to Americans, those who attack us do so because
they view our nation's leaders in exactly the same way as we view them.
They believe that you and all of America's recent leaders are the real
terrorists."
"Anti-Americanism
blinds the left to what's at stake" (Anne McElvoy,
Independent.co.uk, 2001/09/19)
"Terrorists committed a mass execution of American citizens. This
must, of course, be America's fault. It had it coming for being arrogant.
It had it coming for supporting Israel. They had it coming for being
so big and rich. In short, it had it coming for being America. ... There
is something profoundly distasteful in the posture that the US must
"look at" what it might have done to deserve the annihilation
of thousands of its citizens, as if blame could be evenly shared out.
... I hear sensible people say that they are more worried by President
George Bush's actions than by anything Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein
have done or might be considering. Really, truly?"
"Blaming
the U.S., whitewashing terror" (National Post,
2001/09/19)
"At the heart of the propaganda campaign against the United States
is a moral equivalence conflating what is evil with what is merely imperfect.
In the Cold War, this tactic took the form of the argument that the
United States was just as dictatorial as the Soviet Union because poor
Americans were allegedly not "free" from injustice, racism
and want. Now that we have entered a new kind of war, this fatuous argument
has been recycled: Yes, Islamist maniacs slaughter thousands of innocents
... but think of the psychic pain inflicted on the Middle East by Taco
Bell and the Backstreet Boys. Who is to judge which is more inhumane?"
"Fear
and loathing" (Martin Amis, The Guardian, 2001/09/18)
According to Amis, it is the American government, rather than Saddam
Hussein, which is responsible for the suffering in Iraq. Thus, the hatred
for America is "intelligible". He also maintains that American
"national characteristics" have "created a deficit of
empathy for the sufferings of people far away": "Terrorism
is political communication by other means. The message of September
11 ran as follows: America, it is time you learned how implacably you
are hated. ... It will also be horribly difficult and painful for Americans
to absorb the fact that they are hated, and hated intelligibly. How
many of them know, for example, that their government has destroyed
at least 5% of the Iraqi population? How many of them then transfer
that figure to America (and come up with 14m)? Various national characteristics
- self-reliance, a fiercer patriotism than any in western Europe, an
assiduous geographical incuriosity - have created a deficit of empathy
for the sufferings of people far away. ... Violence must come; America
must have catharsis. We would hope that the response will be, above
all, non-escalatory. It should also mirror the original attack in that
it should have the capacity to astonish. ... Then terror from above
will replenish the source of all terror from below: unhealed wounds.
This is the familiar cycle so well caught by the matter, and the title,
of VS Naipaul's story, Tell Me Who to Kill."
"The
End of Innocence" (Joel Rogers, The Nation,
2001/09/17)
Yet another anti-American tirade using the moral equivalence trick:
"The first is that our own government, through much of the past
fifty years, has been the world's leading "rogue state." Merely
listing the plainly illegal or unauthorized uses of force the US was
responsible for during the long period of cold war, and continued during
the past decade of "purposeless peace"--assassinations, engineered
coups, terrorizing police forces, military invasions, "force without
war," direct bombings, etc.--would literally take volumes. And
behind that list reside the bodies of literally hundreds of thousands,
if not millions, of innocents, most of them children, whose lives we
have taken without any pretense to justice."
"First
Reactions" (Susan Sontag, The New Yorker, 2001/09/17)
Sontag's first reaction was to blame American foreign policy: "Where
is the acknowledgment that this was not a "cowardly" attack
on "civilization" or "liberty" or "humanity"
or "the free world" but an attack on the world's self-proclaimed
superpower, undertaken as a consequence of specific American alliances
and actions? How many citizens are aware of the ongoing American bombing
of Iraq? And if the word "cowardly" is to be used, it might
be more aptly applied to those who kill from beyond the range of retaliation,
high in the sky, than to those willing to die themselves in order to
kill others. In the matter of courage (a morally neutral virtue): whatever
may be said of the perpetrators of Tuesday's slaughter, they were not
cowards."
"No
greater hate: What inspires the Muslim kamikazes?" (Martin
Kramer, Tel Aviv Notes, 2001/10/16)
"Those who killed thousands in New York and Washington had a different
agenda, many levels above resentment at any specific American policy.
Their grievance combines all grievances and supersedes them. The problem,
as they have diagnosed it, is not what America does, but what America
is. By Americas very nature, they believe, it is a power arrayed
against Islam. Those who went happily to their deaths at the helm of
four airliners were striking a blow against Satan incarnate - centers
of a vast economic and military conspiracy to subordinate and enslave
over a billion Muslims. Their message to America was this: cease to
exercise your power now, or we will overpower you. An audacious agenda?
These same extremists believe that they single-handedly brought down
another world power, the Soviet Union, by their steadfast jihad in Afghanistan.
As a result of their deeds, so they believe, Soviet forces retreated,
the Soviet Union collapsed, and hundreds of millions of Muslims trapped
in the Soviet empire gained their freedom. Islams extremists believe
that the fall of the Soviet Union was a triumph of Islamic belief over
communist atheism. America, to them, represents the other face of unbelieving
materialism; like the Soviet Union, America too will tumble."
"Anti-Americanism
creates some strange bedfellows" (Anne Applebaum,
The Sunday Telegraph/anneapplebaum.com, 2001/09/16)
"The initial goodwill did not last. Within about 36 hours, I began
to detect the beginnings of a second reaction, less widespread, but
very distinct. In The Guardian, Seumas Milne wrote of the "unabashed
national egotism and arrogance that drives anti-Americanism among swaths
of the world's population". While hastily declaring that his organisation
did not support terrorism, a member of the British Green Party told
the Today programme that it was possible to understand the "logic"
behind the attacks. As if to prove that the Right is no less immune
to such sentiments than the Left, Andrew Alexander, the veteran Daily
Mail columnist, after explaining that he means in no way to justify
terrorism (reminiscent of those who say "I-am-no-racist-but . .
.") then went on to denounce the "self-sought imperial role"
of the United States, which he said had rightly "made it enemies
of every sort across the globe". ...
Of course I realise that the anti-globalisation movement and Islamic
fundamentalism have completely different origins and different goals,
not to mention different kinds of supporters. Nevertheless, the anti-globalist
critique of American cultural imperialism, international capitalism,
and the hypocrisy of bourgeois democracy does sound, at times, startlingly
like what comes out of the mouths of bin Laden and his ilk."
"Where
the violence comes from" (Michael Lerner, Tikkun.org,
2001/09/16)
According to Lerner the violence came because of U.S. saying no to the
unrealistic Kyoto-treaty: "Similarly, if the U.S. turns its back
on global agreements to preserve the environment, unilaterally cancels
its treaties to not build a missile defense, accelerates the processes
by which a global economy has made some people in the third world richer
but many poorer, shows that it cares nothing for the fate of refugees
who have been homeless for decades, and otherwise turns its back on
ethical norms, it becomes far easier for the haters and the fundamentalists
to recruit people who are willing to kill themselves in strikes against
what they perceive to be an evil American empire represented by the
Pentagon and the World Trade Center."
"On
the Bombings" (Noam Chomsky, zmag.org, 2001/09/16)
Noam Chomsky comments on the terror attacks betrays his anti-American
obsession as soon as possible: "The terrorist attacks were major
atrocities. In scale they may not reach the level of many others, for
example, Clinton's bombing of the Sudan with no credible pretext, destroying
half its pharmaceutical supplies and killing unknown numbers of people..."
"God
Gave U.S. 'What We Deserve,' Falwell Says" (John
F. Harris, The Washington Post, 2001/09/14)
A
fundamentalist response to a fundamentalist attack: "Television
evangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, two of the most prominent
voices of the religious right, said liberal civil liberties groups,
feminists, homosexuals and abortion rights supporters bear partial responsibility
for Tuesday's terrorist attacks because their actions have turned God's
anger against America. ... 'I really believe that the pagans, and the
abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are
actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People
for the American Way - all of them who have tried to secularize America
- I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.''"
"The
furies of foreign lands" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com,
2001/09/14)
"'The snake is America,' the Saudi-born financier of terror, Osama
bin Laden, tells acolytes and recruits. 'We have to cut off the head
of the snake.' Sadly, there is a deadly receptivity to this message.
For nearly a quarter century, ever since the tribune of the Iranian
revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, appeared as a pied piper of
the disinherited, a wrath has blown through vast stretches of the Muslim
world. ... The experts will pick over what we missed, the failure of
our human intelligence, the failure to read this or that hidden message
that bin Laden sent in our direction. But we should not lose our way:
There is a generalized hatred that nourishes the terrorists, grants
them indulgence, sees them as just avengers."
"The
anti-globalizers' lowest moment yet" (Peter
Beinart, The New Republic, 2001/09/13)
"'World Trade Centre ... anti capitalism ... anti globalisation
... was it one of us?' So read a Tuesday posting on www.urban75.com,
a site popular with anti-globalization activists from around the world.
... Here are some snippets of the chat at urban75.com, in the first
hours after the attack, while television and the Internet flashed scenes
of the devastation in New York City. From a writer named "Buddy
Bradley": "Can we draw one tiny element of goodness from this,
in that it will maybe make America think again about its apparent invincibility
in the modern age, or will this only serve to make them worse?"
From someone called "twisted nerve": 'Maybe this is what was
needed to make a change for the better??? It was only a matter of time.'"
"Judgment
Day in Mystery Babylon?" (Anthony C. LoBaido,
WorldNetDaily, 2001/09/13)
A
bizarre study in anti-Americanism and moral equivalence: "In the
West, we most often see Islamic people as crazed and irrational. But
have we considered that the Muslims might not be irrational when they
consider America to be akin to Satan? Let's look at the Satanic Bible.
What are the values of Satan? Lust, greed, gluttony, revenge. Hmm. Sounds
like American society. ... Is New York the head of the "Great Satan"?
All that is evil in the world can be found in New York: MTV, the United
Nations, the U.N. abortion programs, the Council on Foreign Relations,
New Age Church of St. John the Divine, Wall Street greed, Madison Avenue
manipulation and of course more confirmed AIDS cases than the rest of
America combined. Let's remember the filthy sodomite gay parade last
summer in New York." (UPDATE: The original link
is down, but it's archived here,
by Wayback Machine.)
"A
Volatile Neighborhood - A Guide to Countries Where Islamic Anger Against
the United States Is Strongest" (The Washington
Post, 2001/09/13)
"U.S. officials investigating Tuesday's attacks in New York and
Washington have focused their suspicions on Osama bin Laden, the accused
Saudi terrorist who has been living in Afghanistan. Any attempt to capture
bin Laden or punish Afghanistan's Taliban rulers for sheltering him
would involve the United States in an unsettled and dangerous part of
the world."
"Anti-Americanism:
a new world power" (Derek Brown, The Guardian,
2001/09/12)
"There is nothing new about anti-Americanism - what is new is that
the anti-Americans are the main players on the world stage at the moment.
... Just as every religion has its zealots, the anti-Americans have
their extremists - and now we have seen the most extreme of them in
action. The parallel with religion may seem odd, to those who have jumped
to the conclusion that the catastrophes in New York and Washington were
contrived by ultra-Islamist militants. But whatever their stated motive,
it was surely was not to advance the cause of Islam. Rather, they were
driven chiefly by an insensate hatred of America and all things American.
That antipathy is shared, though not to anything like the same degree,
by countless millions of people. It's not confined to Arab and Islamic
worlds, nor even to developing countries."
"A
policy of neglect and cowardice, a pay-off of death" (Bill
Israel, The Massachussets Daily Collegian, 2001/09/12)
In contrast to to Browne's piece below, Bill Israel doesn't even bother
to see the attacks as acts of terrorism: "Many commentators are
describing the disasters in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania as
terrorist attacks - the worst since Pearl Harbor 60 years ago. None
I've seen call them what they are: the predictable result of American
policy. ... George Bush said he intends to hunt down the 'terrorists.'"
"When
Will We Learn?" (Harry Browne, Antiwar, 2001/09/12)
An example of an anti-American editorial published the day after the
attacks. As most of these articles, Browne starts out by marking that
he sees the attacks as horrible, but immediately continues to identify
the American leadership as the guilty part: "The terrorist attacks
against America comprise a horrible tragedy. But they shouldn't be a
surprise.
Our foreign policy has been insane for decades. It
was only a matter of time until Americans would have to suffer personally
for it. It is a terrible tragedy of life that the innocent so often
have to suffer for the sins of the guilty."
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