The World At the Brink of War

Since the 20th of September the world is full of loud war-cries. For many days now this policy keeps being repeated every day and all around the clock in almost all the media and press organs. On Sept. 11th, 2001 two hijacked large airliners rammed the towers of the World Trade Center. In an act of borderless cynicism they were driven, the passengers as part of the projectiles included, into these skyscrapers in which thousands of people were present. From the beginning this occurrence was estimated by many people to serve as a justification for belligerous actions and repression in the world, whoever the originators were, a question which under any circumstances was unclear yet at the time of the first days. And hardly one day after the attack, although nothing had been proven yet and the originators were still uncertain, NATO already declared the alliance to be ready to respond, for the first time in its more than 50 years of history. Rightly the question was put then what was to happen if it had been inner forces of the US which had organized this attack. Against whom was this response of the alliance in fact directed? Is it possible to declare a case of the alliance when the enemy is not yet known at all? Then very soon the conjecture was uttered that the terrorist network of Osama bin Laden, which however is appropriately known to the Western secret services, as we soon shall see, was behind this attack.

In the mess of the first hours quite a lot of statements occurred, the way of which to interpret the occasion gives reason to ponder. Thus, the Israeli foreign minister Peres declared that this attack "showed that there was no means against this invisible enemy". Other accusations were directed against the US for too little engagement in the Middle East (!), and that the reason had to be seen here. A representative of the Israeli secret service stated on Sept. 12 in Berlin that this attack had hit the heart of the superpower. At many points the press expressed the opinion, uttered by renowned authors, that "this crime has changed the world." Several of these remarks in fact contain a certain admiration for the assassins. This indirect, or partly even open acknowledgement for this attack has in fact to be regarded also as an encouragement for such deeds. Of course it is wrong what is said in this vein. The attack has not changed the world but it is itself an expression of the tensions in this world. There were different voices, too, among the official representatives of America. New York's mayor Giuliani, for example, said, to give the gist of his words, that this would not shake the fundaments of society. In fact such an attack is incapable to change the essentials of the political constellation.

The contradictions between the large number of nations which in fact stand on the exploited side and whose population pays a gigantic tribute in order to keep this economic system of today alive, and the small number of beneficiary nations in the middle of which it is again a minority which concentrates the largest part of the wealth, will not in the least be changed by this act. The power structures of the US won't be changed either by such an act. The contradictions between Europe and the US which had become somewhat more loudly noticeable during the last weeks cannot be changed either by such an act, even if the European states at first are in a frenzy of loyalty declarations. And the fact which we have noticed already so many times that the Pax Americana has deep fissures won't be changed by such an attack either. Finally, the economic crisis which accelerated extremely during the past two months is neither essentially intensified nor is it even caused or essentially influenced by such an occurrence. This attack only shows that there are forces who for all they are worth perhaps attempt to help certain military potentials to be applied, which however had been existing previously. It only shows that there are tensions within society which certain circles think they could direct into a certain direction by such an attack.
What happens today, namely that the US plan to occupy Afghanistan and apparently to have a prolonged "stay" there, has been prepared already a long time and was observed in the context of the discussion about war in the Caucasus, about the expansion undertaken by NATO in the very direction of the Caucasus and beyond, in the extension of which just Afghanistan is situated. The resistance put up by large nations like Russia, China, but also India and Pakistan against the US in the world, whatever their domestic regimes may be, still counted among the factors limiting the US' power. An occupation of Afghanistan must be seen as an attempt to influence this state of affairs and at least to attempt to eliminate it. Afghanistan has been in the US' focus for a long time. Since 1979 at the latest the US has strengthened the Islamic fundamentalists there, collaborated with them and erected a regime which from the beginning was unprecedentedly reactionary, and in doing so was successful in driving the other superpower, the Soviet Union, out of the country and in leading it to its breakdown. If the US direct her grip there, this is not new.

Right from the beginning a lot of questions posed themselves as to how this occurrence was possible at all; questions which at first must be directed at scrutinizing the conditions in the US herself. How could it happen that four planes started practically at the same time, and without intervention by the American air defense could be lead to their goals in three cases? In the fourth case it was the resistance by the passengers which prevented this. How could it happen that, although the terrorist networks who do such things are known, they were able to organise such things in the US at the airports and in the air operations? How at all could one drive the machines at 500 mph so well-aimedly with narrow maneuvers into the towers? Experienced pilots of the German airforce said they are convinced that only professional pilots are capable of something like that. The hijackers switched off the transponders of the machines. If this happens with four planes approximately simultaneously, the highest degree of alert should have been triggered in the offices, but the measures which were undertaken lagged far behind the necessities. Later it was said, using it as a reason for the immediate suspicion, that Osama bin Laden had announced a heavy attack already three weeks ago. But if this was the case, why didn't one become especially cautious, keeping in mind that he had already carried through attacks with mass casualties against US institutions? Therefore, also from the prime facts of the attacks themselves the question is directed at the US herself. Over and above that, as we could state in a leaflet the next day, the whole of the experiences gained in Germany and Italy about terrorist campaigns point to connections with institutions of the state itself. And the circumstances in the case being gave a lot of hints to look into this very question. But this was not done.

In Germany the events lead to such unequivocal and far-reaching declarations of support already on the 12th and 13th of Sept., that one had to ask oneself if all of this happened only spontaneously because of a single, although grave and spectacular incident. The politicians of all parties in the German Bundestag (except for the PDS), the parliament, stated their agreement with the case of the alliance. Besides the chancellor Schroeder, for example the minister for consumers' protection, Kuenast of the Green party, declared on the 13th of Sept.: "The defence case is here." And Schroeder talked about "unconditional support" for the US. Commentators said that one had to be prepared to many innocent deaths, and that one must let the German army march without obstacles into such a war with such phenomena. This caused considerable unrest. On the abovementioned 13th the defence minister Scharping attempted a backward motion and said that the case of the alliance was not the case of defence, and that it was not necessary to calculate a war. It was attempted to calm down the population with qualifying remarks. Simultaneously, though, in reality the preparations for a war started which the US was to begin.
It was very astonishing. Within only two days this nation was in the preparatory stage of the state of war, and this because of an event the originator of which was not even known yet. Already the postulation alone that the NATO alliance which comprises the largest industrialized nations except Japan, declares war especially to a single person sitting in the Afghan mountains and to a terrorist network subordinated to this person, must produce a lot of question marks. Our country's parliamentarism, though, is subject to pressure, it verbally submits immediately to the demand for alliance.
Since then we are incessantly hearing in the media: "The US has been attacked, we must fight back!" "The whole civilized world has been attacked and it must fight back!" Every hour, in dozens of TV programs as well as in the radio and the press it is going like that. And the character of the monstrous attacks of New York indeed makes many people willing to call for protection. Consequences must in fact be taken. Therefore the uncovering of the political frame of all what is happening is of prime importance. Based on its longtime observations our group was able to publish an appeal still in the night after the incident which pointed to the connections of the US to the terrorist organisations, the neoislamic forces and also to Osama bin Laden who temporarily maintained closest connections with the secret services of the US. In spite of the largely uniform canon these facts subsequently could not be concealed any longer completely, neither in the media. They became a point of discussion which since then increasingly occupies the public. And in fact it is worthwhile to go deeper into the details here.

The long trace of the alliance

Who knows the political incidents knows that between the US and the Islamic fundamentalists there has been a longtime profound relation. Already in 1965 the overthrow in Indonesia was pushed through by means of the Islamic religion and the Islamic fanaticism. The feelings of this religion were stimulated in the people, and the existing mystical and fatalistic inclinations for submitting to the rulers were furthered; the communists were pointed at, because they do not participate in this belief, up to the murder of 1,5 million people. The US already then were stirring this overthrow, and already then military men who themselves were not at all in the center of these religious efforts, as the general Suharto and his surroundings, pushed forward this counterrevolutionary overthrow and used the religion in doing so. Saudi-Arabia represents a power which has been in closest relation with the oil monopoly and the policy of the US for decades and which by its whole substance is fundamentalist. From its ranks came also that Osama bin Laden. Further examples are Afghanistan and Iran, with the US in both cases supporting the overthrow in the neo-Islamic direction, gladly accepting into the bargain that these religious representatives shouted "Death to the American devils!" at public gatherings, while simultaneously sponsoring them nevertheless because they engineered the repression by corresponding means in their own countries and, for example, deflected the revolution against the Shah into a theocratic regime. And all Islamic-fundamentalistic, religiously fanatic organisations have in common the hatred against the modern society, against education, connections, modern means of communication and informations. The methods of mass-slaughter have for a long time had their predecessors when buses were attacked and tourists were shot by submachine guns. In general the method of taking the passengers of civil aircraft as hostages has revealed a corresponding contempt.
The US who plays the enlighted and the modern, has therefore its longtime coalition with Islamic-fundamentalistic forces. But even more glaring is the fact that they have close connections also with the most extreme representatives of this misanthropic religious fanaticism and until recently collaborated with that organisation of Osama bin Laden in the Kosovo, in the Albanian region as well as in Bosnia. The German government's present attitude, its submissiveness to the US, as well as the conformity of the media and the omnipresent relentless propaganda concerning belligerous actions become ridiculous in the face of these connections. When NATO intervened in Yugoslavia these forces were directly allied with the KLA which used to carry US flags wherever it appeared. This, as already mentioned, is not surprising, as Osama bin Laden in the past had already distinguished himself as one of the closest partners of the US, as fighter against the Soviet Union, against the Soviet rule in Afghanistan. These people don't have an inhibition to carry through such a policy.

It is not only the US who supports these forces. The Federal Republic of Germany has since long had a domestic alliance with Islamic fundamentalist forces, which enjoyed a great freedom here and exert an influence upon the Turkish citizens in Germany relatively much larger than in Turkey itself. And the Soviet Union, too, and several successor states of the Soviet Union, they themselves cherished the overthrow in Iran towards the theocratic regime at that time as a liberation coup and as an alleged national revolution, and some of its representatives not too rarely were eager to assert that these peoples necessarily must undergo a phase of this reaction. And in the Central Asian region where there are a lot of small states forming a belt between Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Iran, the China of today has no inhibitions to collaborate with the Iranian mullah regime, although Islamic fundamentalists attempt also within China to instigate their reactionary unrest.

There is a lot of contributions like from the Canadian professor Chossudovsky, and from many organisations which point to the collaboration of the CIA with the Taliban and their predecessors in Afghanistan, to the drug regime which stood in closest connection to the US, to the Islamistic regime in Pakistan which also was active in furthering this ultra-reactionary wave into Afghanistan, namely also with support from the US. Also in Pakistan a fundamentalism is raging which was covered by the US. The connections of the US to the fundamentalists in Kosovo and Bosnia, too, are a subject which has been examined already a hundred times.

Numerous commentators stress that the CIA closely collaborated with the fundamentalists in Afghanistan, that it even took part in creating them in order to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, after the latter had committed a gross miscalculation in intervening there. Equally gladly the US collaborates with these terrorists in the Kosovo in order to enhance the Muslim influence. Even after the attacks on the embassies in East Africa to which hundreds of people fell victims, this collaboration with the Islamists continued. (Note 1)

But this is not the whole story, there is an even more important aspect. When the US collaborated with fundamentalism she also worked against the Afghan people itself. She used the religion and the seclusion in order to bar the Afghan people from any modern development and to force it into submission under the militias, the military and a drug economy, Afghanistan definitely becoming one of the largest drugs producers in the world during this phase.
Today the Taliban, these Islamists bordering to absurdity, are deeply estranged with the fundamentalists of Iran. The Taliban were able to tie up to the decomposition of the economy which had started already in the whole 80ties, to the emerging of a drug culture, and erect their regime, incredible for modern times, depriving the population, especially the women of their rights. Without the support from the US they cannot at all be imagined. The opposition in Afghanistan is absolutely right in speaking about the Taliban as a regime which has been forced upon the country from abroad. Their regime which is unable to offer a higher economic development could persist not even in Iran where there is anyway a modern industry. The Shiite mullahs must at least pretend to adapt to modern times. But they were equally initially launched by the US. A monarchy, the Shah's, was replaced by a theocracy in the end of 78/the beginning of 79. The Shah who had for many years been a follower of the US and Great Britain, in the seventies had the nerve to put up some demands against them and to demonstrate independency at least in some points. In this he was encouraged also by the revolutionary China until the middle of the seventies. In 1975 Iran and Iraq concluded a vital agreement about the Schatt-El-Arab, the mouth of the Euphrates river, which strengthened both sides against the US but also the Soviet Union. The aristocratic and absolutist regime of the Shah, though, itself had its inexorable contradictions against the modern age, the agriculture was in a crisis which seemed hopeless. The media in his country were controlled by the US, many intellectuals hated his regime because of the repression and did not pay attention to the fact that the US and the European countries in which many of them were students, had more irons in the fire and among other things were capable of coming to an arrangement with the Islamists.

From the middle of 1978 on a campaign for the neo-Islam and against the Shah started in Iran, which lead to success in February 1979 without any considerable resistance by the alleged communist parties and the intelligentsia.

Today Islamism in Iran plays the enlightened and "solid" business partner of Western banks and companies, as compared with the Taliban. But in reality its repression also means the stoning of the women and the suppression of any independent thinking, the deprivation of the whole labouring population of their rights. Enormous sufferings have been inflicted upon the peoples of Iran and Afghanistan, and both these regimes could not have come to power and stayed in power without the activities of the US and her close allies. Similar things are true with respect to Pakistan. And Islamism which likes to act the godfearing and severe is absolutely not immune against corruption and crime, an experience made for a long time by these nations. The present threats of war by the US are completely detrimental also with regard to the domestic conditions of these states, because they again stage the Islamists and give a lift to their demagogy as defenders of national independence.
Thus Afghanistan at first got the civil war, under active support by the US and the then Soviet Union, then the regime of the drug barons and finally that of the Taliban, and now the country is to be sacrificed for the Taliban, for the consequences of the policy the US has to blame herself for, because who helps such regimes to power is responsible also for the deeds resulting from it.

Frequently the question is asked whether there is something like the clash of civilizations.
Yes, it really exists, and actually with regard to Islam which is threatened by the modern society. The modern communication, knowledge which is acquired at school, sciences are death to Islam, as to any other larger religions belief in general. The dissemination of the theory of development about the human development cannot in the long run coexist with a so-called word of God which allegedly is written down in certain books. Communication breaks the bars of these religions, goes into the villages and thus destroys their base. In this respect it is not at all surprising that the fanatic Islamistic forces on the one hand make use of the modern technology and attempt to place themselves within, and on the other keep back their population in the most brutal Middle Ages. They are waging a war against the culture because this modern development, that is to say the modern culture in these countries destroys them. And if it can be heard now that Islam is not like the terrorists, it is our opinion that Islam cannot be equated with the Islamic fascist forces, but that because of the threat to its outdatedness it tends to produce this fanaticism. It is detrimental to the cause of independence of the nations, and now it is to be used by the US to achieve fundamental hegemonistic advantages, if she implants herself in Central Asia under the pretext of fighting it.

II. The terrorist base cannot be only abroad the US

The contradictions with regard to the alleged terrorist originators are obvious, many people in the US herself see them. That this terrorism comes from the very Islamistic soil the CIA itself has fertilized, is in itself a point nobody must disregard. But is this sufficient for the examination? Is it possible to imagine an international network which proceeding from the Islamic countries intervenes so deeply into the US' structures that attacks of this dimension are possible? We think that such an analysis is incomplete.

If we summarize the core point of the considerations we meet one necessity again and again: within the US herself there must be a correspondence to these machinations, taking part in supporting this whole political direction of intensification in a very special sense; there must be a grouping within capital which takes part in supporting this matter. At that it is not necessary that these people in the background are identical with those who themselves commit the terrorist acts and are the executives. This grouping, connected to Bush or not, can calculate that by the US' reaction a corresponding imperialistic policy is initiated which they, too, want. Without such a grouping it cannot be imagined that the whole conspiratorial network in the US carries, that it holds its ground against the gigantic American secret service. For these forces these attacks are part of their political calculations, however badly they may hit single cities or regions.

All the experiences with this kind of terrorism, in particular in Germany and Italy, show that it had part of its anchoring in the country itself, in the institutions of the state, as it was the case with the Federal Republic of Germany, in the cultural institutions as for example the media, but also the churches, as well as it was also directly sponsored by foreign forces, as it has been really perfectly proven in Italy. Also in the case of the German "RAF" ("Red Army Fraction") a connection abroad, to Soviet revisionism, and later to the secret service of the German Democratic Republic was obvious, as proven by the organised and lasting accommodation of these people in the former German Democratic Republic, which had at least the blessing by the West German secret services, if it was not organised by them. That is to say that domestic as well as foreign forces take part in carrying such a terrorism, and there is no reason to suppose that the structures look different in the case of this new terrorism organised on a large scale. It makes no sense that these terrorist structures are said to be anchored only in other countries, but we must assume that they have their anchoring also in the US herself.

The journalist Juergen Elsaesser who is near to the magazine "konkret", the Deutsche Kommunistische Partei Party (DKP) etc., asserts that men of bin Laden in a connection with certain Albanian people had made a deal especially also with the German imperialism in the Kosovo. This is in fact possible. In Germany there really is the connection with the Islamic fundamentalism and its reaction in an astounding manner, it goes so far as to have enabled the Islamic fundamentalists in their mosques for decades to sing the dirtiest hateful litanies against the majority population in its own country, having the de facto covering by the state of the Federal Republic. This fact which is well-known in the Federal Republic of Germany and has been pushed aside again and again, among others also by the means of the so-called campaign against xenophobia, shows how much all these activities are covered, and it is only now after the terrible incidents that the idea occurs to the authorities of the FRG to take away the so-called privilege of religion and for the first time to initiate major steps against the Islamic fundamentalists, after having collaborated with them for thirty years.

Incidentally, the German population has rightfully got worked up with regard to these fascists and their arrogant behavior in the country. These people come up to a relevant part of the Muslim population in Germany. They tyrannize also the Muslim population, in particular the youth in order to keep it in its reactionary grip.
So also the German inner structures make it clear how closely dovetailed Islamic criminal fascist reaction is with Western state authorities.
There are such connections also in the realm of the so-called Left. For example, it is well-known that the Islamic fundamentalistic leaders call the Turks who have the right to vote in Germany to vote for the "Greens". They are forces who even openly declare that by enhancing their part in the population they want to increasingly get the country into their grip. These groupings, with their arch-rightist and authoritarian structures, in the scene of the political parties stood behind the Greens for whom population reduction and similar things are almost program. People who within their own population show the most severe religious and moral standards, further such forces within the German population who wrote the reduction of the population on their banners. And there is even more: the German rightists, the neonazis, the NPD and their company maintain for a relevant part good relations with these very Islamic fundamentalists. Thus it can be seen that virtually every kind of reaction, from so-called leftists to rightists, of course also the so-called middle parties have made deals with this reactionary ultra-rightist dirt.

As correct as it is to point to the connection of the German strategy with the Islamic fundamentalists in the Kosovo or in Iran, it is equally necessary to point to the longtime connections of these forces within our country, as well as to the silence of the large majority of alleged socialists about this point.

All of this, however, cannot at the same time put into question the US' dominance also in this point. For in the whole international strategy, concerning Central Asia, Afghanistan, Saudi-Arabia, Indonesia, everywhere US imperialism is in the position of a central chainlink. If one supposes that the Germans are the originators of the whole bin-Laden story, one deflects in a dangerous way from the drive of the US to war who uses this matter. The strategic interest is in this case directed to China, India and Russia.

We have thus to start out from the existence of such connections of the state, and is beyond reason to assume that the system is like that, that such connections exist everywhere, but not in the US. On the contrary: this system which favours this terrorism, that is the connection with apparatus of the state, must have its equivalent in the US, too.
To make a comparison with matters of astronomy: If one can notice planets which are revolving around a fixed star, if one has a planetary system which unequivocally proves that there must be a center of gravitation somewhere which keeps everything together, then such a thing exists, even if it cannot be seen yet.

So let us extract once more:

What this whole propaganda wants to insinuate is the following:
The world is no longer governed by the contradictions, the insolubility of the capitalist conflicts which again became apparent just during the last weeks and months, disappears in the void. The breakdown of the promises connected to "turbocapitalism" does no longer find attention. Not the matter-of-fact tasks, the solution of the contradictions are confronting society any more, but an ominous network, an "allmighty enemy" with whom all people now have to deal commonly, from the top of the US, the financial capitalists, to the poorest people of the Third World. The whole of humanity, thus, no longer in the struggle around its contradictions but only against an ominous networking enemy. One needs in fact only to put it into words like this in order to already know what is going on, and to be able to catch an idea where this phenomenon, this all-endangering terrorism comes from.

Editorial staff of Neue Einheit
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Note 1: About this we want to recommend a variety of writings which are to be found on our homepage, among others, or by which one can connect to more.