Invading Afghanistan was a clear war crime, despite the tendency to term it the “good war” by so-called antiwar voices in the West. Instead of treating the 9/11 attacks as a unique crime and cooperating with the international community to arrest Bin-Laden and his acolytes, Bush launched his Global War on Terror and invaded Afghanistan on flimsy grounds despite the awareness that an invasion of the country would place millions at risk of starvation and widespread suffering. But this mattered little to a country gripped in an rage of narcissistic compassion.

As Gilbert Achcar wrote within months of 9/11:

[W]hat was so truly extraordinary about the terrorism of mass destruction that took 3,300 lives … on September 11? On the scale of carnage for which the US government is directly responsible, and has never expressed the least regret for, it was all in all a pretty ordinary massacre. (Clash of Barbarisms, 2002, p. 19)

Nothing really changed on 9/11 – the canard that so many continue to repeat – despite what was justified in its aftermath. In fact, the only thing unusual about 9/11 was that Americans experienced a tiny fraction of the terror they have exported abroad for the better part of the last century – and continue to export in places like Afghanistan.

So as the US entered the ninth year of occupation in Afghanistan yesterday, what has been accomplished apart from mass suffering? The US-led forces have not been able to expel the reactionary fundamentalist organization it tacitly supported during the mid-1990s: the Taliban. Obama has now spread the war to Pakistan, a move that will potentially push the North-Western tribal region into an alliance with the Taliban. 90% of the hundreds killed in unmanned drone attacks have been civilians, yet these attacks have increased under Obama’s watch. Meanwhile, women continue to be subjected to widespread repression and violence, outside of the militarized bubble that is Kabul. And the puppet Karzai regime is powerless and corrupt, apparently capable only of rigging elections and granting legal immunity against warlords and rapists.

This is not the “good war”. It is a continuation of an illegal and unjustified invasion.

Have you contacted the widows and other family members who lost loved ones on that terrible day and asked them if they recant wondering why, for example, New York City and the Pentagon — the fucking Pentagon! — were defenseless on that morning more than a month after the would-be president was informed that Osama bin Laden was determined to attack the United States? Have you asked them if they are as disloyal, or as nuts, as Van Jones for signing that petition? Have you an answer for that and other questions on that petition, which were never discussed by the mainstream media when it piled on Jones at Beck’s behest? (more…)

Tomorrow’s US media coverage will refer to the winning coalition as “pro-Western.” Tell them that Khalid Daher (a staunch pro-Bin Ladenite from Tripoli who was a major campaigner for recruits for Zarqawi in Iraq) won on Hariri list in North Lebanon. (more…)

Well, let’s begin with the elections. The word that the rolls off of everyone’s tongue is historic. Historic election. And I agree with it. It was an historic election. To have a black family in the white house is a momentous achievement. In fact, it’s historic in a broader sense. The two Democratic candidates were an African-American and a woman. Both remarkable achievements. We go back say 40 years, it would have been unthinkable. So something’s happened to the country in 40 years. And what’s happened to the country- which is we’re not supposed to mention- is that there was extensive and very constructive activism in the 1960s, which had an aftermath. So the feminist movement, mostly developed in the 70s-–the solidarity movements of the 80’s and on till today. And the activism did civilize the country. The country’s a lot more civilized than it was 40 years ago and the historic achievements illustrate it. That’s also a lesson for what’s next.

What’s next will depend on whether the same thing happens. Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below. And the answer to what’s next depends on people like you. Nobody else can answer it. It’s not predictable. In some ways, the election—the election was surprising in some respects.

Going back to my bad prediction, If the financial crisis hadn’t taken place at the moment that it did, if it had been delayed a couple of months, I suspect that prediction would have been correct. But not speculating, one thing surprising about the election was that it wasn’t a landslide. By the usual criteria, you would expect the opposition party to win in a landslide under conditions like the ones that exist today. The incumbent president for eight years was so unpopular that his own party couldn’t mention his name and had to pretend to be opposing his policies. He presided over the worst record for ordinary people in post-war history, in terms of job growth, real wealth and so on. Just about everything the administration was touched just turned into a disaster. (more…)

In Sunday’s interview with “60 Minutes,” President-elect Barack Obama reaffirmed that “it is a top priority for us to stamp out al-Qaida once and for all,” adding, “and I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al-Qaida.” Obama argued that the Saudi terrorist “is not just a symbol” but is rather “the operational leader” of the organization, which he said is still planning attacks against U.S. targets.

Obama’s quiet seriousness of purpose is a welcome contrast with George W. Bush’s swaggering pronouncements about bin Laden being “wanted dead or alive,” or his darkly comic standard answer to the question of why bin Laden has not yet been caught. “He’s hiding,” Bush likes to say.

And for those who believe Bush, obsessed with Iraq, has either not tried very hard or has secretly avoided capturing bin Laden, Obama’s words are probably reassuring. Now American attention will return to the real author of 9/11, and a more determined effort might yield fruit. But the question is whether the new president should really focus his attention on bin Laden, and spend his political capital in a renewed attempt to bring him to justice. There are many reasons why a stepped-up and publicized pursuit of bin Laden may prove costly to Barack Obama.

The first is the danger of failing, just like his predecessor. After the bravado of the early post-9/11 period, and vows to catch his quarry, Bush came up empty. An enemy who struck at the beginning of his first term is still at loose in the Pakistani-Afghan borderlands at the end of his second. (more…)