This statement was written from New York City.

Everyone here has been deeply affected by today's events.
The International Action Center extends its most heartfelt
sympathies and condolences to all those who have lost loved
ones today as well as the thousands of workers who were in
lower Manhattan today.

While at this moment thousands of families are in mourning
for the death and injuries of loved ones, the Bush
administration is taking advantage of the tragic human toll
to strengthen the forces of repression while intensifying
the Pentagon's war drive, especially in the Middle East.

Arab and Muslim peoples in the United States are reporting
that they are facing racist harassment in their communities,
on their jobs and at mosques. Anti-Arab racism is a poison
that should be repudiated. We call on all people who oppose
racism to stand shoulder to shoulder with the Arab-American
community in the face of this reactionary frenzy.

After the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City
in 1995, the U.S. government and media were quick to
speculate that Arab and Islamic organizations were
responsible; but as everyone now knows, extreme right-wing
Army veteran Timothy McVeigh was to blame.

New War Danger

The International Action Center urges all anti-war activists
and progressive people to remain on the highest alert in
opposing the Bush administration and the Pentagon's plans to
use this crisis as the springboard for a new round of
aggression in the Third World, especially against the people
of the Middle East.

In August 1998, the Pentagon delivered murderous cruise
missile air strikes against a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan
without any evidence, supposedly in retaliation for the
bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Kenya. The cruise missiles
destroyed the Al Shifa Pharmaceutical factory that provided
most of Sudan's medicines. Thousands of African people
perished as a direct result of the Pentagon's bombing.

President Ronald Reagan ordered the invasion of Grenada in
the Caribbean shortly after a truck bomb exploded at a U.S.
Marine Corps base in Lebanon in 1983. Under Bush senior,
over 2,000 Panamanians were killed in the middle of the
night on Christmas Eve in 1989 under the pretext of the war
on drugs.

In 1986, after pointing a finger at Syria, Iran and several
Palestinian organizations for an explosion at a discothèque
in Germany, U.S. aircraft bombed Tripoli and Benzagi in
Lybia. Hundreds of civilians, including children, died in
their sleep as the U.S. Air Force carried out this nighttime
sneak attack.

We ask activists and the people of this country to be ready
to protest new Pentagon aggression in the coming period.

The Bush administration will use this current crisis as a
means to justify a further expansion of the Pentagon's war
budget at the expense of money for housing, education,
health care, jobs and other human needs.

Danger of More State Repression

Throughout the country, the military, FBI and local police
authorities are now sealing off large urban areas,
blockading bridges, tunnels and roads, and mobilizing a
massive presence of police and the National Guard. All this
reveals an advanced stage of planning for domestic
repression that can be used against the progressive and
labor movements, and the Black, Latino, Asian, Arab and
other oppressed communities.

All the more reason to resist the current efforts to
strengthen police measures under cover of the present
crisis.

Build Solidarity

The people of New York City and the country cannot allow the
Bush administration and the Pentagon to play on their
genuine feelings of shock and disbelief to stir reaction and
strengthen the forces of repression. This will not help the
working and oppressed people of this or any country.

The only way to respond to today's events is to extend
solidarity to the families and friends of those who perished
or who were injured at the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon; build global solidarity with people around the
world struggling against war, poverty and exploitation; and
deepen the movement to protest new Pentagon aggression.

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source:  www.iac.org