Anarchism

Anarchafeminism

Anarchist University

@narchist Talking Points

Version 1.0

AGAINST WAR! AGAINST THE STATE!

WHY ANARCHISTS OPPOSE THE "WAR VS. TERRORISM"

We're not anti-war because we disagree with the need to defend oneself against oppression and attack. As anarchists, we're anti-war because war is an instrument for only one thing: extending the power of the State. The so-called "war against terrorism" may be the biggest power grab yet by the most powerful State in human history: the USA.

- "War is the health of the State."

Every war in human history has resulted in an increase and extension of the power of the State. War is the State's greatest excuse to register, regiment, and regulate its citizens. It promotes the concentration of economic and political power with a small elite and conditions everyone else to uncritically - even enthusiastically - obey their directives.

The US "war on terrorism" is no different. Among the major new laws passed after Sept. 11 is the "PATRIOT Act." This monstrous power play lets the CIA conduct domestic investigations through the FBI. It allows police to search people's homes without a warrant. It allows the State to exclude or expel non-citizens for even vague connections with groups on its "terrorist" list - a list that's constantly expanding. The US Senate passed the PATRIOT Act on a 98-1 vote - because it's wartime, y'all!

- This is not a war against terrorism. It's a war to extend the American Empire and its brutal economic system.

States don't launch wars to avenge terrorist attacks or help people suffering under cruel regimes. They launch wars because they believe they have something to win.

The USA is not bombing Afghanistan, abridging Americans' civil liberties, and beefing up its police and military because it's concerned about the World Trade Center victims or the rights of women in Kabul. It's bombing Afghanistan because it wants to extend its power into Central Asia, ensure a "secure" flow of oil, and open that region to capitalist development by US corporations.

- This may be the most perfect war the State has ever devised.

In the future, Orwell predicted in 1984, we will always be at war. Now, his prediction is coming true. Terrorism is a tactic, not a political ideology or a government. So a "war against terrorism" is a vague, open-ended circus act that can be redefined, redirected, and extended in any way the State wishes.

In fact, this war fits the State's purposes even better than the Cold War did. That's because there isn't just one enemy: instead, "the enemy" can be redefined as anyone it fits the State's interests for it to be at the moment. It could be the Taliban ... or Osama bin Laden ... or Iraq ...or Muslim insurrectionists in the Philippines or Indonesia ... or domestic anti-globalization activists of an anarchist persuasion. A British general recently suggested this "war" could go on for 50 years. Whether 50 or 100, there will always be an "emergency" requiring "extraordinary" measures - and little or no discussion of alternatives.

- The State is the biggest terrorist of all.

Every State has its international chamber of horrors, but the US has an especially crowded one. There's the School of the Americas, the training ground of choice for our client armies in Latin America and elsewhere. There are the billions we supply to our Middle Eastern allies - principally Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt - to keep their subject populations in line. There's US support of Turkey's genocide against the Kurds. And there's the support of vicious military and paramilitary thugs in countries like Colombia, Nicaragua, and Peru.

Now, thanks to the "war on terrorism," these have been joined by tacit US acceptance of the brutal Russian war in Chechnya and China's cultural genocide against its Muslim and Tibetan populations - all in the cause of "cementing" our alliance against the Taliban. Like the US, China and Russia are States built on violence. Naturally, a gang of fundamentalist thugs called the Northern Alliance are the saviors they're backing to rescue a nation from the Taliban. What good can the Afghan people hope for from such a combination?

- The State is using this war to reward corporations too (surprise!).

The Bush Administration's pet measure, repeal of the Alter ative Minium Tax, would award $1.4 billion to IBM, $833 million to General Motors, $671 million to General Electric ... should we go on? The excuse: a dubious theory that these shameless handouts will stimulate the economy.

As anarchists, we're quite skeptical of "libertarian," free-market theories of economics. In practice, corporations never have to play by these rules: if they did, they'd never last. The free market's for the little people - the ones who go bankrupt and can't expect a bailout courtesy of some high-priced lobbyists' intercessions. These handouts won't stimulate the economy much, but they'll serve quite well to increase the power of corporations over the State, further cementing our oppressive capitalist regime.

- The State has plenty of means to respond to terrorism in a non-oppressive manner if it wants to. But it doesn't want to.

The State as an instrument for enforcing peace, justice and social harmony is a joke and failure. The more powerful it is, the less likely ever to use its own resources to pursue these ideals.

Recently, an International Criminal Court was proposed to try cases of terrorism and crimes against humanity. The US refused to endorse it. United Nations peacekeepers have had some success restoring peace in war-torn Mozambique by disarming the warlords and paying their followers to surrender their weapons. But the US has crippled the UN and rejects all suggestions for intervention that aren't completely under US military control.

In fact, the US refuses to consider any response to terrorism that would not help it to increase its power. There's plenty of precedent in international law to help countries that have been attacked by terrorists devise a response that can bring in assistance from other countries. But the US always believes it must act unilaterally, violating international law at every turn.

A good deal of evidence suggests that current law enforcement organizations in the US and other countries had the resources and information to stop the bin Laden network before Sept. 11, but were too incompetent to catch these murderers. Since then, nevertheless, they have used the terrorist tragedies to demand more funding and sweeping new powers - just as they have after every one of their failures. We are not surprised: nothing can rein in a State as powerful and ruthless as the US, except the determined opposition of the people themselves.

- If we want to end terrorism, we must build a more just society from the ground up.

Osama bin Laden's followers come from communities that have been disempowered and oppressed for decades by client regimes of the US - Saudi Arabia and the other Arabian peninsula States, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey. Saddam Hussein built his repressive regime with full US assistance. Even Iran's fundamentalist regime was built on an organizational structure established with US aid under the Shah.

No wonder they hate America. The logic of this country's imperial expansion demands that more and more nations accept US military "assistance" and corporate penetration. It's up to them to resist and revolt against the American Empire. It's up to us to tear down the State and build a new society here that can live cooperatively and in peace with the rest of the world. But we can't do that unless we first resist, reject, and ultimately force the "war on terrorism" to end.

- Americans - especially white Americans - must end their cultural isolation.

As anarchists, we're working for a world where cultural, economic and social diversity are honored and encouraged, and where the melding of cultures, when it takes place, is not achieved by force. Yet the US has created the most powerful State in the world, on a society that's culturally isolated, racist, sexist, and homophobic, and that rigidly insists that outsiders conform to "American values." This is why over a thousand people can be swept up by police following Sept. 11 and held without trial - and the public sees nothing wrong with it.

This cultural myopia has to end if we're going to create a society that doesn't retaliate with its own kind of terrorism when an attack comes from a different society. That means, for one thing, understanding Islam, the world's second largest religion. Muslims are diverse, culturally sophisticated, and politically complex - just as are African Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, and other groups that the US devalues. Anarchists should be in the forefront of learning and teaching respect for diversity and fighting against racism and other forms of cultural oppression that reinforce the State.

- This war is being fought to sustain an unsustainable economy.

A sustainable, diverse, environmentally healthy economy is a corollary of mutual aid and one of the goals we work toward as anarchists. But the US has created a gigantic economy dependent on a single dwindling, nonrenewable resource. Under George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and their cronies, the State and Big Oil aren't just allies - they're one and the same.

One goal of the US war of aggression against the people of Afghanistan is to extend the life of our unsustainable energy system. Thousands, or even millions, of deaths in Central Asia and the oppression of millions more under US client regimes in the Middle East is, presumably, a price worth paying if it nets the US a few more decades hooked up to the petroleum IV. And puts off the day when we can start considering renewable energy sources that don't require massive, vertically integrated organizations to produce them.

- This war makes enemies of people who have no quarrel with each other.

New York City firefighters and Afghan peasants are not enemies. Neither, during the Vietnam War, were African American draftees and Vietnamese peasants. But war and the State teach people to self-identify with a phony nationalism that only serves the ruling classes, rather than joining forces to create a better world. Now, American working people are being told that in the name of "national unity," we must support a US government dominated by executives of oil companies and military contractors in a foreign adventure against a small, defenseless, ravaged country.

- An alternative to the corporate media is needed now more than ever.

The vast majority of Americans get their news from programs and publications put out by a tiny group of corporate producers with an ideological stake in supporting and legitimizing the State. None has an editorial structure that's willing to question the military response to the Sept. 11 tragedies. Creating and nurturing independent media sources - produced in an open, nonhierarchical structure - is essential if Americans are to learn the truth.

- Maybe the revolution won't start tomorrow. But we can demand that the State stop its terrorist war.

As anarchists, we recognize that terrorism will never really end as long as the State continues to enforce its will - both in the US and in other countries. We're working toward the day when the State itself will end. In the meantime, we can demand the following:

* That the bombing stop now and that international humanitarian aid to the Afghan people resume immediately.

* That international military aid to all Afghan warlord factions end now. This means cutting off the supply of weapons flowing in from the US, Pakistan, Russia, China, India, and other States. Unless it ends, the Afghan people will have no chance to retake control of their lives and communities.

* That the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Asian Development Bank, and all other institutions that force neoliberal economic policies on developing countries stay out of Afghanistan and spare it from capitalist exploitation. Let the Afghans determine their economic future.

* That the US end the "war on drugs." Poverty-stricken Afghan farmers, struggling to make a living growing opium poppies, shouldn't pay the price for America's drug habit.

* That the US end its support of oppressive regimes in the Middle East - Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and others - and discontinue its military occupation of the Persian Gulf and the Saudi State.

* That the US keep hands-off the front-line nations that border Afghanistan - Uzbekistan, Tajikstan, and Turkmenistan - and stop attempting to extend its military and corporate influence in Central Asia.

* That the PATRIOT Act and all other oppressive "anti-terrorist" legislation passed since Sept. 11 be rescinded, and full disclosure immediately be made of law enforcement agencies' abuses - especially against persons of Middle Eastern origin - since the terrorist attacks. The State must not be allowed to use these tragedies as an excuse to clamp down.

- The US is not us!

"We" are not making this criminal war. It's the creation, from beginning to end, of a State that we, as anarchists, do not accept and refuse to obey. We were not asked if we thought that bombing a nation of starving, impoverished people was the correct response to the Sept. 11 attacks (opinion polls, with their manipulative questions, don't count). We are free to oppose the "war against terrorism" as loudly and vigorously as we can! Our job is to educate people everywhere to understand this also applies to them.