'Taliban bases may be attacked within 48 hours'

The United States and Britain plan to attack bases controlled by Osama Bin Laden, prime suspect of the terrorist assaults on New York and Washington, within 48 hours, newspapers reported here Sunday.
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Afghan chaos explodes across region

As thousands of Afghans yesterday attempted to flee across the borders into Tajikistan, Pakistan and Iran, the first accounts of how the Taliban are involved in ethnic attacks against their own people began to emerge. The violence being dealt out within the country's closed borders, and the resulting refugee crisis, were yesterday plunging into chaos a huge swath of Central Asia that could have devastating consequences for the rest of the world. ">
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And...Just what is a terrorist?

When is a terrorist not a terrorist? It depends...
If they are friends, they're freedom fighters. It's all just propaganda

The results of these double standards have been to render the word virtually meaningless, one that is useful only for propaganda purposes. Or, as that battle-hardened journalist Robert Fisk put it in his book Pity the Nation more than decade ago: 'Terrorism no longer means terrorism. It is not a definition, it is a political contrivance. "Terrorists" are those who use violence against the side that is using the word.'
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"Though written several years ago, the following article is an excellent introduction for anyone looking to understand the United States' role in the Middle East since the end of the Cold War:"

The Containment Myth

The doctrine of dual containment was first introduced in 1993, two years after the allied victory in the Gulf War. Conventional balance-of-power theory had held that the region's natural leaders, Iraq and Iran, should be pitted against one another to prevent either from becoming dominant and jeopardizing the flow of oil to the West. By choosing to isolate both nations, however, the Bush administration committed itself to an ambitious program requiring an expanded U.S. military and political presence in the Gulf. Dual containment had two immediate consequences, both of which contradicted the president's putative vision for a New World Order: U.S. military force had to be deployed in the Gulf for an extended period to maintain constant pressure against Iran and Iraq; and Saudi Arabia-heretofore a second-tier proxy behind Washington's ally of the moment-had to be transformed, along with its Gulf neighbors, into a credible military counterweight in its own right. Thus, military force remained as necessary under the new dispensation as it was before.
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thanks to wood s lot

A most eloquent commentary from Arundhati Roy.

[Arundhati Roy is a novelist from India. Her book, The God of Small Things is an absolutley amazing book. A must read.]

The algebra of infinite justice

Here's the rub: America is at war against people it doesn't know, because they don't appear much on TV. Before it has properly identified or even begun to comprehend the nature of its enemy, the US government has, in a rush of publicity and embarrassing rhetoric, cobbled together an "international coalition against terror", mobilised its army, its air force, its navy and its media, and committed them to battle.

The trouble is that once America goes off to war, it can't very well return without having fought one. If it doesn't find its enemy, for the sake of the enraged folks back home, it will have to manufacture one. Once war begins, it will develop a momentum, a logic and a justification of its own, and we'll lose sight of why it's being fought in the first place.

What we're witnessing here is the spectacle of the world's most powerful country reaching reflexively, angrily, for an old instinct to fight a new kind of war. Suddenly, when it comes to defending itself, America's streamlined warships, cruise missiles and F-16 jets look like obsolete, lumbering things. As deterrence, its arsenal of nuclear bombs is no longer worth its weight in scrap. Box-cutters, penknives, and cold anger are the weapons with which the wars of the new century will be waged. Anger is the lock pick. It slips through customs unnoticed. Doesn't show up in baggage checks.
(...)

For strategic, military and economic reasons, it is vital for the US government to persuade its public that their commitment to freedom and democracy and the American Way of Life is under attack. In the current atmosphere of grief, outrage and anger, it's an easy notion to peddle. However, if that were true, it's reasonable to wonder why the symbols of America's economic and military dominance - the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon - were chosen as the targets of the attacks. Why not the Statue of Liberty? Could it be that the stygian anger that led to the attacks has its taproot not in American freedom and democracy, but in the US government's record of commitment and support to exactly the opposite things - to military and economic terrorism, insurgency, military dictatorship, religious bigotry and unimaginable genocide (outside America)? It must be hard for ordinary Americans, so recently bereaved, to look up at the world with their eyes full of tears and encounter what might appear to them to be indifference. It isn't indifference. It's just augury. An absence of surprise. The tired wisdom of knowing that what goes around eventually comes around. American people ought to know that it is not them but their government's policies that are so hated. They can't possibly doubt that they themselves, their extraordinary musicians, their writers, their actors, their spectacular sportsmen and their cinema, are universally welcomed. All of us have been moved by the courage and grace shown by firefighters, rescue workers and ordinary office staff in the days since the attacks.
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thanks to also not found in nature