Some Theses on the Coming War by Joe Hamill -- September 15, 2001 1. America is going to war. That is a given. Try to prevent it. Try to limit it. Try to restrict it. Try to shape and restrict its aims. But, it is coming. That is simply a fact. 2. The massacre of thousands of civilians by Osama bin Laden's forces at the World Trade Center in New York City on September 11, 2001, was evil. Intentional harm to the innocent is the definition of evil. 3. The fanatical hatred revealed in these attacks has many sources, primarily the rotten minds and souls of the people who did it. But, as hard as it is to look at, or even to think about, in times like these, there is at least one other source that cannot be ignored forever: reckless US acts of war and arrogant imperial policies in the middle east. The animals who crashed the planes are principally and directly responsible for this latest carnage. But, in a very important way, our own leaders have brought this tragedy on us with their provocative pro-Israeli policies. For years, our own leaders have been behaving like a bully bar bouncer swaggering around the bar punching out little guys so often that one of them, one day, was bound to be unstable enough to go home and get a gun and come back and shoot up everyone in the bar. 4. The amazing thing is that 99 out of 100 little guys the US has beat up havenít done the same. But there is a reason for that: During the last 40 years of invasion, sabotage attacks, and blockade, has Cuba done this? No. During the long decade when hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese civilians were dying at the hands of the US government, did the Vietnamese communists do this? No. Did the Sandinistas do this? No. Why? Because they -- and many other similar groups and countries that the US defames as 'terrorist' -- had a class analysis of US imperialism which held only the American ruling class, not its working classes, responsible. Though US imperialism declared war against the entire Cuban or Vietnamese or Nicaraguan people, their leaders did not reciprocate: they did not declare war back against all the American people, only against US imperialism: the ruling class and military. The American people are lucky that up until now the enemies chosen by the US government have been as sane and honorable as they have been. 5. But, now, on the other hand, Osama bin Laden has declared that this colossal crime is part of a jihad, a religious holy war, in which it is the duty of Moslems to kill Americans: any Americans, all Americans. He targets the American working class and national minorities (the World Trade Center), just as much as purely military or ruling class targets (the Pentagon). He has declared war on, and carried out violent acts of war against, the American working class and national minorities. He and his Taliban regime backers are therefore self-declared enemies of the American working class and national minorities, and must be treated as such. This is something that has not been experienced since World War II: an enemy that is a common enemy of both imperialism and the working class. 6. Osama bin Laden is not a force for national liberation against imperialism. His forces are right-wing extremists. They may be anti-American nationalists, but they are right-wing, fascist, narrow nationalists, not revolutionary nationalists. So, any ultra-left defense of Osama bin Laden or the Taliban regime of Afghanistan is untenable. Once they engaged in an act of war against the entire American people, they forfeited the protection of sovereignty. If you start a war, you cannot hide behind the defense of sovereignty. The only thing you can hide behind is your ability to win the war. If you canít win it, then you deserve your doom. 7. War is politics by other, more violent, means. The politics behind Osama bin Ladenís military attacks are right-wing, conservative, religious totalitarianism. They are enemies of democracy. They are enemies of socialism and social equality. They are enemies of televison, music, dancing, pleasure, free thought, doubt, dissent, womenís freedom, or any opposing views. They are sectarian religio-national-fascists. They are part of the new wave of sick fundamentalist theocracy that is spreading throughout the Moslem world. 8. These fundamentalist Islamic theocratic forces, from those in Algeria, Egypt, Somalia, Sudan, Iran, Kashmir, the Philippines, Malaysia, Chechnya, Dagestan, Mindanao, to Hezbollah, Hamas, and Osama bin Ladenís Al-Qaeda and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, are evil enemies of all civilized mankind. They are active in forty or fifty more countries. The suicidal fascist lunacy of the recent intentional attack against masses of American civilians at the World trade Center demonstrates that if such forces got their hands on chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons of mass destruction, they would not hesitate to use them. Combined with this, the fearful and massive spread of such theocratic forces has attained such power, support, and deadly counterrevolutionary influence -- has so negatively altered the balance of forces in the post-Cold War era against the hopes for a renewal of democracy, socialism, or social justice -- as to make them the modern-day equivalents of Fascism in the 1930s and 40s. 9. The defeat of such religious fanatics will be a holding-action triumph for post-Enlightenment humanity -- for secularism, science, critical thinking, and democracy, and is an urgent priority to preserve democracy, even bourgeoisie democracy, as a superior form of government within which the working class can fight for its ultimate objectives. It is the equivalent of the bourgeoisie democratic revolutions in Europe against monarchy, feudalism, aristocracy, and religious intolerance. Democratic, secular republics were an historical advance over the old regime in Europe, over Fascism, and will be such an advance over Islamic fundamentalist theocracy. Such a democratic struggle must also overwhelm America's 'allies' in Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf States, and Pakistan (all of which are practitioners of, and neck-deep supporters of, various strains of Islamic fundamentalism). 10. This barbarous attack on the World Trade Center was just as great an act of war against all American people as Pearl Harbor, and it has so outraged the American people, including the working class, that a similar response as that to Pearl Harbor will have massive popular support. 11. But the wholly legitimate and justified shock, horror, grief, and outrage that Americans have been feeling since September 11th are the same wholly legitimate and justified feelings that the average working people of Serbia and Iraq felt under unjust US military 'smart' carpet bombing. Politicians and pundits have been intoning, 'Now, everything is different.' That is a lie. It is not different. It is the same. The same feelings that victims of US imperialism have been feeling for decades. The only thing that is different is that now we too are feeling them. There is an element of deep-seated chauvinism -- a sort of selective master-race grief -- in much of the current outrage. One major element is simply racism. We have seen it for years: the murder of five white nuns in Rhodesia made headlines one week in the 1970s the same week the massacre of 600 Africans by racist troops was a squib on page 13. The death of an Israeli child in a bombing makes an anguished page one, while the deaths of a dozen Palestinian children get buried in the last graf. Long sheltered behind the barrier of two oceans and US military superiority, most Americans have felt so immune to such sufferings as to think that they deserved to be immune from them. As if they had some god-given right to be so immune. For decades, a hundred thousand or a million non-white people could perish at the violent hands of US imperialism, but most Americansí reaction has been, 'What's for lunch?' Now, however, somehow 'everything is different.' 12. So, how do progressive anti-imperialists -- who are also justifiably and legitimately feeling shock, horror, grief, and outrage -- not get swept away in the tidal wave of jingoistic chauvinism unleashed by this recent savagery? How, in the course of experiencing these legitimate feelings, do we not pith our own brains like lab frogs with the sharp needle point of compulsory, uncritical, double-standard American nationalism? Perhaps only by pointing out the truth. And by defining our own war aims. 13. These fascist fundamentalist Islamic theocratic forces should be fought and crushed, even if it involves US war against the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, and other Islamic fascist states. This crushing of religio-national-fascists as world players would be a tremendous improvement in the world situation, creating a better democratic basis for the further struggle for social justice and equality -- both in the middle east and throughout the world. The triumph of, or even the continued existence of, such Islamic theocratic forces, will be an incalculable defeat for democracy and socialism. It is urgent, for any future society or world that genuine democrats or socialists want to live in, for these Islamic fascists to be destroyed. Anti-imperialists and socialists need to step back from their often knee-jerk Cold War model responses, and deeply and personally recall why they became socialists to begin with. What kind of world do they want to live in? Would they like to live under a Taliban regime? Do they remember what fascism really is? Do they forget that even bourgeoise democracy is better? 14. At the same time, the genuine democratic revolutionary forces in Afghanistan (if there are any) and the middle east should be viewed as allies and friends of the American working class, and deserve their support. Despite the fact that most of them are treated as enemies by US imperialism, and (understandably) vice versa. They are the clearheaded, class-conscious, revolutionary good guys out there who we should be rooting for. Moreover, the American working class has absolutely no reason to support the racist regime in Israel. In fact, we are being held hostage to the consequences of Israelís wild rampages by American Zionists who are more loyal to the interests of a foreign power than to the genuine national interests of America. 15. Progressive anti-imperialists can barely, just barely, critically support the equivalent of a temporary anti-fascist united front (like the US-Soviet alliance against Nazi Germany and fascist Japan). They can give very conditional and limited, critical support to a US war against Osama bin Laden, the Taliban regime of Afghanistan, and other potential religio-national-fascist countries (e.g., the regimes of Sudan, Somalia, etc.). But, only if they target and topple the regimes, not if they extend the war to massive civilian ìcollateral damageî or genocide. And only if the war aims are limited to toppling the regimes, helping new democratic secular republics take over, followed by prompt military withdrawal, and economic aid. And only if the peoples of those countries are allowed to exercise genuine self-determination in a way that insures their new governments are truly independent, and not simply puppet regimes of US imperialism. Short, decisive, democratic, and independent. 16. A tall order. One imperialism will never comply with willingly. They must be forced into it by popular pressure within America. The war aims of imperialism will be different from the war aims of the American working class and national minorities. These will clash and lead to an anti-imperialist protest movement, an ideological and political struggle to define the goals of America. Not so much an anti-war movement, as such, but an anti-imperialist war aims movement. The disruption of everyday routines caused by war, the focusing of attention, the concentration on and debate about politics, the heightening of social dynamics and ideological fluidity, wherein decades of ordinary social development can be telescoped into a period of months, will also provide a structure and framework for merging with other demands: with those of the workers movement, the anti-globalization movement, the national liberation movements within the United States, and others. 17. But, this immediate struggle should only be viewed as an inseparable part of a long-term, genuinely democratic, revolutionary struggle against US imperialism, and every crime and hypocrisy of imperialism should be continually exposed. 18. Osama bin Laden's, and the Taliban's, religio-totalitarian, narrow-nationalist-fascists are NOT representative of the vast majority of groups and peoples that the United States labels as 'terrorist'. 19. Most of the groups and peoples that the US labels as 'terrorist', around the world, including in the middle east, are indeed legitimate anti-imperialist, national liberation forces. 20. Any US attempt to spread the struggle against the right wing religio-national-fascists to attacks on legitimate national liberation struggles (especially in Palestine), should be aggressively opposed. 21. After all, in the long term historical sense, imperialism is a bigger threat, menace, and murderous force against the people of the world than Osama bin Laden or the Taliban regime of Afghanistan. Despite the collapse of the Soviet economic-command-police-state model of socialism, the fundamental critique of capitalism as a mode of production outlined by Karl Marx is still true: it is based on the exploitation of labor, the private appropriation of socially produced wealth, the exploitation of the many by the few. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Imperialism, the international extension of capitalism, is based on the same dynamics: the super-exploitation of foreign labor and resources by the ruling classes of the imperialist countries, the structural draining of wealth from the poor nations to the rich. The rich nations get richer and the poor nations get poorer. 22. Despite the collapse of the Soviet model, the imagined alternative to imperialism must still be symbolized by the word 'socialism'. Whatever it will look like, it will be based on a more fair and just ownership of the means of production and distribution of the resulting wealth, both amongst and within countries. Doesn't it make sense that such an innocent and common-sense aspiration remains a better alternative than the current unjust system? Or, has the 'End of History' really occurred? 23. The long history of imperialism has shown that part of the enormous superprofits reaped by imperialism from foreign super-exploitation have been allowed to trickle down even to significant sections of the working class, primarily as a means of social pacification and social control and domination. It has bought the loyalties of the better-off sections of the working class, the labor aristocracy, traditionally (but not exclusively) represented by the labor lieutenants of the ruling class: the majority of the trade union leadership. But, it has also created a swollen middle class of salary-earning professionals tied to the success of the interests of imperialism (stock exchange employees, financial workers, software developers, the vast bulk of the entertainment and news media, engineers and technicians in the weapons industries, etc.). These forces will fully support imperialismís war aims, and must be exposed, challenged and opposed by the real interests of the working class and national minorities. 24. Imperialism drips from head to toe with blood. The blood of MILLIONS. It has no moral superiority over Osama bin Laden. A US war against bin Laden and the Taliban regime of Afghanistan will not be a struggle of good versus evil. It will not even be the struggle against the greater evil. It will only be the struggle against the more immediate and pressing evil. However, in the short run, the destruction of totalitarian religio-national-fascist regimes, and their replacement with democratic regimes, would be a slight (but important) improvement for the international forces of democracy, socialism, and social justice and equality. 25. We must not forget, and must continue to point out, that US imperialism created Osama bin Laden and the religio-national-fascists in Afghanistan. Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Ollie North are the war criminals that created them in their insane obsession with anti-Sovietism. We are reaping the whirlwind sown by the Reagan Doctrine. 26. President Bush should bury his head in shame that his father, and half his cabinet, directly helped create these lunatics. His hypocrisy offends heaven and earth. 27. Israel, a racist settler colony based on land piracy and ethnic cleansing, is the greatest religio-national-fascist force in the Middle East. Far more murderous in absolute kill numbers than Osama bin Laden. Israelís practices of land theft, war, invasion, torture, assassination, home demolitions, and civilian massacres are evil: intentional harm to the innocent. They are also criminally barbaric and uncivilized. 28. US imperialism's support for Israel's racism and fascism has created and fueled the widespread hatred of the United States that has been exploited by the religio-national-fascists like Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, and is ultimately responsible for the dynamics that led to the horror at the World Trade Center. Even though this evil action against innocent civilians is horrendous, and must be punished, it is provoked by the reckless and smug American aggression and Israeli terrorism (backed and harbored -- materially, politically, diplomatically, and spiritually -- by US imperialism). 29. We must demand a US mideast policy that seriously backs away from one-sided carte blanche support for Israel, and defuses the hatred generated among the Arab masses for the US. That is the only way to choke off the supply of nutty terrorist volunteers who are willing to massacre innocents in an act of suicide. This will require throwing the full force of American policy behind forcing Israel to capitulate to a just peace with the Palestinians based on all relevant UN Security Council resolutions: complete and total withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza, the Golan Heights, and East Jerusalem, dismantling of all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, recognition of the right of return of all Palestinian refugees, and release of all prisoners of the conflict. 30. After Osama bin Laden and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan (and other Islamic theocratic states) are crushed, America ought to launch a massive Marshall Plan for the mideast and Asia to help independent, democratic secular states to eliminate the poverty and hopelessness that breed Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. We ought also to establish something like Voltaire Centers for Middle East Secular Studies at middle eastern (and American) universities to train generations of Arabic scholars and government and business leaders in the fruits of the Enlightenment: critical thinking, science, the scientific method, secularism, democratic theory and practice, tolerance, equality, women's equality, civil society, the separation of church and state, etc. Translate the thousands of great works of skepticism and secularism into Arabic and give them away. Fund the production of hundreds of video documentary series in Arabic on the ideas of the Enlightenment. A massive, decades-long campaign of ideological struggle headed up by an international Institute led by democratic secular Arabic scholars. This is not cultural imperialism. The Enlightenment concepts of critical thinking and science and democracy have no nationality. They are universal human achievements. 31. During the war against Islamic fundamentalist theocracy, we ought at every stage to attack the lunacies and outrages of religion in America, including 'faith-based' government spending, encroachments upon the separation of church and state, and any other form of crackpot supernatural ideas. We don't need more prayers. Prayers are what caused this madness. We need more secularism, more sustained public critiques of religion and the mythopoeic and supernatural mind-set of religion. We need a sustained critique of Christian religion in America, and of Jewish religion in America and Israel (starting with the absurd racist claims of the Jews being the 'Chosen People' and that God 'promised them' the land of Israel). 32. We need a new Enlightenment. We need new Voltaires. We need a new Diderot. We need a new Encyclopedia. We a new New Regime.