Roberto J. González, Anthropologists in the Public Sphere
                                       (edited by Univers. Texas Press, Austin, 2004)
 

     We can not help applauding both the aim of this book and the matters selected. Moreover, engagement of anthropological scholars into political issues is welcome and commended. However, profound as it may be for political scientists, for anthropologists it may be found lacked of depth. As a matter of fact the book is a political scream on political issues, though written by anthropologists, who have the right and duty to do it.

      We have nothing to add to expressions such as: Neither reductionism nor ethnocentrism. If we study native people, we must do it from the native’s point of view. Good anthropologists integrates culture, language, biology, history, archeology… to answer questions about humans and the societies they have built on. Anthropologists like barrios, ghettos, streets, lobbies, theaters, bars. “To be uncommitted is not to be neutral, but to be committed –consciously or not- to the status quo”, said C.Wright Mills. Wade Davis in We Need a Global Declaration of Interdependence (2002) plainly says:

      (North)Americans have always looked inward. The actual US president had never travelled abroad. 25% of the Congressmen don’t even hold passports. The US with less than 5% of the world’s population produces more than 20% of the world economic output. 1.3 billion people get by on less than $ 1 a day. The majority of the world population has never had a phone call. Disengagement with the rest of the world is a cultural myopia. Al Qaeda is not an isolated phenomenon but a manifestation of a deeper and broader conflict between countries who have and others who have not. We need a global declaration of interdependence.

      As to the issues considered, R.M.Hayden seems Serbian-side rather inclined in works 9-10; A.Simons, whose right to express herself about Somalia noone can deny, asks from us an act of faith in 11-13; W.Tate, when describing the situation in Colombia, is bold enough to deserve our trusting in 14-15; Marc Edelman wakes us up in chapter 17 screaming at the polemic issue of globalization; Palestinians situation is the subject of 18 to 20; Afghanistan is analysed in 22 and Iraq in 24-25; Muslim women humiliation is dealt with in 26-27; oil is expressed as a key motivation of foreign policy in 28; works 29-32 look into deep causes of terrorism; Afghanistan is paid more specific attention in 34-38; 41-46 analyse the “war on terror”, while 49-51 advise us about new currents of McCartyst censorship.

      As a briefing and deduction from its reading, one dares to resume this book as a criticism of the US culture contradictions (hypocrisy in American deeds versus American words). See for instance David Harvey and others, Local Horror/Global Response (2001).

      So:

      - while words like peace are widely and loudly proclaimed, funds and weapons of all kinds are supplied by the US administration everywhere throughout the world encouraging and maintaining hundreds of wars uninterruptedly for unknown or bastard interests, see Catherine Lutz, Our Legay of War (2001): although invisible to most Americans, the US has been in a permanent state of war since the 1940s, but abroad. From September 11, 2001, war has finally come home, or Barbara Nimri Aziz, Gravesites –Environmental Ruin in Irak (1997): after 40 days of continuous bombing… diseases in Iraq have sharply increased, among them abnormal births (earless, genitalsless, eyesless…), leukemia, typhoid and malta fever, abortions and breast cancer in women under thirty, or Margaret Mead, Warfare as an Invention, not a Biological Necessity (1940), or Pierre Bourdieu, Abuse of Power by the Advocates of Reason (1998);

- while equality is pretended to be highly valued, half of the North American wealth is owned by 1% of the population;

      - while funds are said to be given to help peace, they are used to finance wars. Thus, regarding Colombia narcotraffic and guerrillas, drug production has been doubled (protected by paramilitary forces) and farmers’ legal harvests are destroyed in order to push them out of the guerrilla’s area, see Winifred Tate, Increased US Military Aid to Colombia Won’t Curb Drug Traffic (1999) and Colombia, Rules of the Game (2001), or Beatriz Manz, Dollars That Forge Guatemalan Chains (1985), with regard to Guatemala, or Anna Simons, No Exit from Somalia (1991), concerning Somalia, or Ali Qleibo, How Two Truths Make One Tragedy (2000), or Jeff Halper, After the Invasion, Now What? (2002), both dealing with Palestinians;

      - while full employment is proclaimed as priority aim, industrial plants and facilities are exported, together with their jobs, to less developed countries where labor costs are cheaper, and there free market policies are imposed despite of lethal short-term consequences, see for instance Marc Edelman, The Price of FreeTrade: Famine (2002);

- while democracy requires respect to minorities, any opposition may be smashed out just calling them terrorists, be they Middle East kurdos or Palestinians, European kosovares, Russian chechenians, African watutsis, Chineese Uighurs or Chiapas zapatists, under new terms such as “coercive harmony”, suggested by Laura Nader, see Marshall Sahlins, Once You’ve Broken Him Down (1965); or Francesca Mereu, War Destroyed Chechnya’s Clan Structure (2002) for the case of Chechens; or William O. Beeman, A War our Grandchildren will be Fighting: Understanding Bin Laden (2001); or David Price, Terror and Indigenous Peoples: War without End (2001): The US semantic “war on terrorism” has been suddenly accepted by Russia, China and Israel, using it as their justificaction to smash Chechens, Uighurs and Palestinians. It might also be used to repress indigenous people and ethnic and religious minorities by other nation-states. Terrorists are being defined as those who are “against us”. The difference between terrorists and fighters for their freedom will depend on the opinion of the owners of newspapers; or David Harvey and others, Local Horror/Global Response (2001): global poverty, backing authoritarian regimes, ignorance of local cultures, confusing freedom with the freedom of the markets, hypocrital proclaiming human rights, the use of World Bank and IMF for political purposes, all that support terrorism;

      - while protection of minorities are used to justify the invasions of Irak or Afghanistan, the real motivation -oil control- is hidden to the public, see William O. Beeman, Follow the Oil Trail –Mess in Afghanistan Partly Our Fault (1998);

      - while constitutional rights are seen as the democracy fundamental pillar, thousands of people living in the US and millions abroad are subjected to unlawful surveillance, prisons and tortures under the cover of a “war on terror’ unilaterally declared in utter disregard of international law;

- while foreign countries are compelled to disarmament, peaceful agreements on international conflicts or to avoid pollution in the atmosphere, US government develops nuclear weapons and rejects since the International Criminal Court to the Kyoto Agreements, see for instance Hugh Gusterson, If US Dumps Test Ban Treaty, China Will Rejoice (2001);

- while in democracy Congressmen should be representative of the people and their changing opinions, politicians practice “guerrymandering” retaining by any means their seats in the House, 90% in 1994, 94% in 1996, 98% in 1998 (in 2002 only 8 representatives lost their reelections), the winning candidates receiving more than 70% of the votes (versus the 50/50 belonging to the main parties in the general elections), something that members of the old Supreme Soviet would really envy;

- while democracy heavily relies on freedom of speech, “war on terror” seems to allow some stenchish censorship that is spreading from books and TV to academic field, see Roberto J. González, Ignorance is not Bliss (2002) or his paper Lynne Cheney –Joe Liberman Groupe’s Black List (2001).

         I. WAR, PEACE AND SOCIAL RESPONSABILITY

    1.  Franz Boas, Scientists and Spies (1919)

Some Anthropologists worked as spies in the I World War. Because of his denounce, Boas was removed from the AAA in 1920.

    2. Margaret Mead, Warfare as an Invention, not a Biological
        Necessity (1940).

War is a cultural phenomenon, not a biological one. Although William James assured our aggressive behavior as necessary, either between groups or between individuals; although many think that violence is the outcome of the Nation-State, struggle for resources and social classes; although for some others aggression springs out of cultural repression of the instincts Most of these repressions do not apply to the pygmy peoples in the Bay of Bengal or to the Australian aborigines, who nevertheless practice war fare. Not so the Eskimos, who lack of possessions, land, cities, or social classes.

The invention works for prestige as much as for collecting wives and slaves, not to talk about possessions, treasuries and crops harvested by the defeated ones.

3.  Marshall Sahlins, Once You’ve Broken Him Down (1965).

American democrat officers in the Vietnam War practice mental torture in the most natural way. Ignoring constitutional rights, they rely on words such as discipline (what the enemies need), power (the only thing the enemies can understand) and history (to prove us right). Should the tortured prisoner die, he would got the last laugh on you, wouldn’t he?

4. Gerald D. Berreman, Contemporary Anthropology and Moral Accountability (1973).

Berreman denounces again the anthropologists work to assist the US military as well as neutrality in science which he qualifies as illusory. He allignes with Chomsky on saying that those who pay the work to be made, they set the parameters and aim of the studies, and we do  not know so far any study on how poorly armed guerrillas might more effectively resist a brutal and devastating military technology. It was Alex. Leighton who said that administrators use the findings of social scientists as a drunk man uses a lamp post –for support rather than for illumination. And Edmund Bourke reminds that te only thing necessary for the Evil triumph is for the good informed men to do nothing. The intellectual ought to be the moral conscience of his society, at least with reference to the value of truth. Anthropologists must impose the framework of their studies and the way they’ll do it. Not to comment on human behaviour (“value free”) would make them irresponsible indeed.

      5. Laura Nader, Two plus Two Equals Zero (War and Peace)
          (1983).

      Short-term interests of politicians and military jeopardize the long-term survival of Humanity

      6. Beatriz Manz, Dollars That Forge Guatemalan Chains (1985).        

      Nationalization expelled from Guatemala The United Fruit Company in 1951. A military coup supported by the CIA in l954 left the country in hands of military dictatorship. Paramilitary forces killed more than 200.000 people, mainly native, in the next 40 years. The anthropologist Myrna Mack was assasinated in 1990.

      7. David Price, Anthropologists as Spies (2000)

      For third time (see above 1 and  4) the same issue, now in the II World War. No wonder that every nation will look  with distrust upon the visiting foreign investigators.

      8. Pierre Bourdieu, Abuse of Power by the Advocates of Reason
         (1998).

      In 1995 Frankfurt Book Fair described “terrorist violence” as a revolt against the modern-day “imperialism of international (multinational?) bodies”. The monopoly of reason leads to a world policemen exerting the monopoly of legitimate violence togeteher with economic coercions. Abuses of power are masked under the appearance of reason, and such reason is used as a weapon to consolidate arbitrary decisions.

           II. PRESCIENT ANTHROPOLOGY, CRISES ABROAD.

 9. Robert M. Hayden, West Must Correct its Mistakes in
         Yugoslavia (1992).

In the II World War the fascist Croatia, that included Bosnia, practices genocide against the Serbs. Borders within Yugoslavia were mistaken. Struggles inside Yugoslavia were not civil but international. Recognition of Bosnia with its existing boundaries is another error since it includes Serbian and Croatian cantons. Having rejected multinational Yugoslavia, the EC and the US cannot create a multinational Bosnia.

10. Robert M. Hayden, NATO Fuels the Balkan Fire (1999)

Under Tito, Kosovo -inhabited by ethnic Albanians- was granted autonomy since 1974 to 1989. In 1997 Serbian police and civilians were attacked by the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) and that gave rise to Serbian retaliation. On March 24th, 1999, the EC and the US started a bombing attack against Serbian troops who increased their atrocities against the Kosovar population. In Macedonia  the Slav majority is uneasy with Albanian minority.

11. Anna Simons, No Exit from Somalia (1991).

Like Afghanistan, Somalia was heavily armed by the US during the 80s for the alledge purpose of deterring Soviet expansion. Somalis, like Kuwaitis, are Muslims.

12. Anna Simons, Our Abysmal Ignorance About Somalia (1992).

Simons deplores our unknowledge on this country.

13. Anna Simons, The Somalia Trap (1993).

Rather than helping them and trying to impose law and order, our interests there concern oil, a military base, a stop to Islamic fundamentalism and affirmation of the US superpower status.

14. Winifred Tate, Increased US Military Aid to Colombia Won’t
          Curb Drug Traffic (1999).

War on drugs may be a cover for destroying opposition groups and insurgents, as well as union organizers. As plain as that. Right-wing paramilitary groups, linked to the Colombian security forces, are deeply involved in drug trafficking.

15. Winifred Tate, Colombia, Rules of the Game (2001).

Alternative agriculture projects to grow cash crops other than coca were destroyed by fumigation. Paramilitary forces are responsible for the ¾ of the politically motivated civilian murders. Only in the first 18 days of January 2001 these murders amounted to 26. The Colombia Plan was sold to the Americans as a counter-drug plan, while the truth is that this is the fifth decade of a counterinsurgency struggle. Drug cartels work under protection of paramilitary forces. In this matter, Colombians lose, Human rights lose, Peace loses, the Region loses. And the Americans are cheated.

16. Lesley Gill, Unveiling US Policy in Colombia (2002).

The Colombian hole is also swallowing six neighboring countries. The US aerial fumigation policy, in fact undertaken to displace peasants from the guerrilla FARC area, is destroying the livelihood of peasant farmers in the name of counterterrorism. The promised development aids to grow up crops other than coca, are never received. The real aim of spray fumigation is the guerrilla stronghold. Coca cultivation, however, has increased rather than decreased. Both parts use it for their financing, the drug-traffickers being protected by paramilitary forces.

Colombian military uses AUC paramilitary forces to fight against leftists. The FARC guerrilla insurgents, who control nearly half of the national territory, are labeled as “terrorists” (evil doers) to justify against them any action whatsoever. The US policy ignoring AUC lets them free to expanse their power and murder civil people, since war on terror targets the FARC.

This 40-year-old domestic conflict should no longer be in the scope of global terrorism.

17. Marc Edelman, The Price of FreeTrade: Famine (2002).

Free trade agreements with Central America are expelling peasants from their farms. The World Bank and IMF policies encouraging coffe cultivation in Vietnam and Indonesia leaves little room for central Americans coffe farmers to survive. Same thing happens to corn producers that see their local markets flooded with US corn (by the way, heavily subsidised by tax-payers). In Central America 700.000 people face starvation and nearly one million suffers serious food shortages.

Famine is not the natural outcome of lack of land to produce food but rather of economic policies and political decisions. Only 35% people in Honduras, 24% in Nicaragua, 21% in Salvador and 16% in Guatemala, feel satisfied with their political democracy. Emigrants to North are no longer escaping from war or repressions but rather from global trade and dumping of the US grain. Public sectors eviscerated by privatization and subsequent budget cuts can not meet the inequalities produced by global trade.

18. Ali Qleibo, How Two Truths Make One Tragedy (2000).

On September 27, 2000, Ariel Sharon, responsible for the Sabra and Shatila massacres in 1982, entered the holy Islamic shrine of the gold Dome of the Rock, permitted to the jweish, provoking the outrage of the present Palestinians. Arab East Jerusalem has been under illegal Israeli occupation since 1967.

If Palestinians would not fight, they soon would be overlooked. Israeli occupation has become the status quo, in which Palestinians are harassed, their liberty of moving is restricted, their land confiscated, unemployment being high and their salaries low.

19. Jeff Halper, The Matrix of Control (2001).

The provocativ visit of Sharon in the year 2000 to the Islamic shrine of Haram-al-Sharif, in East Jerusalem, gave rise to the second Palestinian intifada. The Isareli estrategy for a permanent control upon the West Bank and Gaza is based on a matrix of roads, waterways, settlements and others to segment the Palestinian territory. Palestinians don’t accept the devolution of the 94% of the occupied lands if the 6% resting prevents the West Bank and Gaza from being a contiguous territory. Although Israel does not comply with UN Resolution 242, the US finances the Israeli policy with more than 3 $ billion annual aid, most of it for military purposes.

The matrix has a physical basis (links and nodes) as well as burocratic (building licenses, confining population and restricting their movement liberty), not to mention violence (imprisonment and torture, pressures on families to sell their lands). By simply declaring a zone a “closed military area”, any movement within Palestinian territory would be paralyzed. Narrow lanes, wide enough to let a jeep get through, contribute to the matrix of control. Palestine is becoming a new Bantustan.  

20. Jeff Halper, After the Invasion, Now What? (2002)

Bloody invasions of the West Bank and Gaza beginning in March 2000 were retaliated with Palestinian bomber suicides within dense populations. Demolition of hundreds of houses and massive expropriation of farmland, induced emigration of thousands of families. Israel is looking for a Palestinian figure willing to be president of a new Bantustan. The 480 kmts of highways and roads linking the settlements, while creating massive barriers to Palestinian movement, have a cost of $ 3 billion entirely funded by the US. The US Congress support is a shield against international pressures to force Isarel to abandon the occupied territories. Interim agreements rather than a final status settlement will preserve de facto control over the Occupied Territories. After 7 years of negotiation the Palestinians are being confined to tiny “islands” while Israel has doubled its settler population.

21. Hugh Gusterson, If US Dumps Test Ban Treaty, China Will
          Rejoice (2001)

Clinton signed the Test Ban Treaty in September 1996 but the Senate refused to ratify it. Out of this, China, India, Russia and Pakistan may as well develop their nuclear testings and stockpiles. The Reagan’s intensification of arm race in the 80s caused the largest street protest-demonstration of the American history, hundreds of thousands of people, New York city, 1982, where 1.300 civilians were arrested. The Us Stockpile Maintenance Programme receives $ 5 billion a year.

                                    III. PRE SEPTEMBER 11^th.

      22. Ashraf Ghani, Cut Off the Arms Flow and Let Afghans Unite
            (1989)

      In January 1989 the Soviet army retreated from Afghanistan, after ten years of helping the government against resistance groups, many of which were armed by the US-backed Pakistani intelligence agency. Osama Bin Laden belonged to the mujaheeden -“holy warriors”, resistant group in the North, supported by Pakistani and Saudi governments- and sought to spread Wahhabism in Afghanistan. At the end of 1994 a new and radical Islamic organization appeared, the Taliban, instructed in Pakistani religious schools called madrassas. The Taliban got the power in 1996 and ruled Afghanistan for 5 years, until US invaded the country after the 9-11 disaster.

      23. James Merryman, US Can Strengthen African Ties in Wake of
          Terrorism with Aid, Clear Policies (1998).

 On August 7, 1998, two car bombs exploded by the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Nearly 300 people died (mostly Africans) and 5.000 were injured. Bin Laden was thought the author.

      24. Robert Fernea, Egyptians don’t like Saddam, But… (1991)

      On August 2, 1990, Iraq’s armed forces invaded Kuwait. US policy so far had been backing Saddam even after he ordered his army to use poison gas against Kurdish people in his own country in 1988. UN resolutions gave Iraq a last date, January 15, 1991, to withdraw from Kuwait. Two days later Iraq was attacked by an international coalition under UN umbrella. The author of this paper wonders about similar actions against Israel since both conditions, occupation and Un resolutions against it, are similar in both cases.

      25. Barbara Nimri Aziz, Gravesites –Environmental Ruin in Irak
          (1997)

      More than one million iraqis died in 6 months as result of strict economic sanctions imposed by the UN in August 1990, after te Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Retreat from Kuwait took place on February 28, 1991. In the second invasion of Iraq, on March and April 2003, US and British forces depleted uranium shells, 300 tons, according to the Sunday Herald (Scotland).

      Iraq has land and water enough for self-sufficiency, but the economic siege has left the country without fertlizers, herbicides, pesticides, and dairy herds had done down 40% since 1990 to 1995. Poultry system has been wiped out by the bombing of this cowardly secret war.

      Fumes created by bombings of more than 380 oil wells produced toxic gases and acid rain. The resulting ionization of 40 days of continuous bombing of the country will have radiation effects over a period of more tan 10 years, equal to 100 Chernobyls. Dangerous gasses escaped from bombed cement factories.Therefore diseases in Iraq have sharply increased, among them abnormal births (earless, genitalsless, eyesless…), leukemia, typhoid and malta fever, abortions and breast cancer in women under thirty. New 14 crop diseases are reported which were never recorded in Iraq.

      26. Fadwa El Guindi, UN Should Act to Protect Muslim Women
          (1998)

      In ten years of the Algerian civil war in the 80 decade, more than 100.000 people were killed. The FIS opposed the governmental FLN and in 1993 first democratic multiparty elections were to be held. But then it was apparent that FIS would win it and the government declared a state of emergency. From 1993 to 1998 more than 60.000 people have reportedly been killed by security forces and state-armed militias. Rape is used to break Muslims by dishonoring their families and humiliating Muslim men (as it happened again in the Serbian attacks on Muslim Bosnians).

      27. Zieba Shorish-Shamley, Women under the Taliban (2001)

      In March 2001 the Taliban destroyed two colossal statues of Buddha in Afghanistan. One of them was dated VII century b.C. and measured more tha 50 ms high. The international outrage that came out of this gave rise to the more important issue of women in Afghanistan prohibited to work out of their homes, prohibited to cure in public hospitals, prohibited to teach in public schools, prohibited to be seen (veiled by the burqa), prohibited to read, prohibited to learn. More than voiceless, more than invisible, they just don’t exist, they are nonbeings.

      28. William O. Beeman, Follow the Oil Trail –Mess in Afghanistan
          Partly Our Fault (1998)

                                            IV. SEPTEMBER 11^th.

      29. Catherine Lutz, Our Legay of War (2001)

      Although invisible to most Americans, the US has been in a permanent state of war since the 1940s, but abroad. From September 11, 2001, war has finally come home. Duvalier, Pinochet, Suharto, Noriega, Bin Laden… were instructed by the US military and intelligence agencies.

      30. David Harvey and others, Local Horror/Global Response
          (2001)

      Global poverty, backing authoritarian regimes, ignorance of local cultures, confusing freedom with the freedom of the markets, hypocrital proclaiming human rights, the use of World Bank and IMF for political purposes, all that support terrorism.

      31. W.O.Beeman, A War our Grandchildren will be Fighting:
          Understanding Bin Laden

     Anger and frustration due to restrictions of self-determination backs terrorism. Also helps it the deteriorated relationship between the Us and the Islamic countries. The US policy about economic sanctions to foreign countries to make their people suffer and therefore overthrow their rulers, is wrong, moreover they may, and often do, join the population supporting their leaders..

      32. Janet McIntosh, What Have the Investigators Overlooked?
          (2002)

     US hypocrisy can fan the flames of terrorism. “War on terror” will exacerbate anti-US sentiments in the long run. The US administration was ill informed about the 9-11 events.

      33. Wade Davis, We Need a Global Declaration of
          Interdependence (2002)

      (North)Americans have always looked inward. The actual US president had never travelled abroad. 25% of the Congressmen don’t even hold passports. The US with less than 5% of the world’s population produces more than 20% of the world economic output. 1.3 billion people get by on less than $ 1 a day. The majority of the world population has never had a phone call. Disengagement with the rest of the world is a cultural myopia. Al Qaeda is not an isolated phenomenon but a manifestation of a deeper and broader conflict between countries who have and others who have not.

       V. AFGHANISTAN, CENTRAL ASSIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

34. Robert Canfield, Nation is Home to Afghans, Mujahedeen,
          Taliban, Afghan-Arabs, to Name a Few (2001)

Complexity in Afghanistan is linguistic and ethnic as much as religious and political. Two dozen languages are spoken by Sunni, Shia, Ismaili Muslims, Cristians, Hindus… The term “Afghan” comes from the tribal “Pashtums”, whose origin is more Pakistani than Afghan. The Talibans (mostly pashtums) were the result of fanatic teaching religion to children war refugees, lodged and fed in Pakistani madrassas.

35. Ashraf Ghani, The Folly of Quick Action in Afghanistan (2001)

36. Nazif Shahrani, Afghanistan Can Learn from its Past (2001)

Centralized government is due to abuses of power if the country is marked by ethnical divisions. The Afghanistan disaster is the outcome of considering the Pashtums as the rulers of the country. Pakistan influence and mujadehedeen groups must be avoided in the new Afghanistan.

37. Zieba Shorish-Shamley, Women in the new Afghanistan
          (2001)

 … wearing the burqa prevents afghanistan women from taking sunshine and gives rise to an increase of the rate of tuberculosis…

38. David B. Edwards and other, Enlisting Afghan Aid (2001)

Afghans are not the enemies, but Talibans. Terrorism is an outcome of economic and political dispair.

39. Kamran Asdar Ali, Pakistan’s Dilemma (2001)

The Pakistani ISI (Intelligence services) employ more than 90.000 people and has a power on its own within the state. Islamization of the country is the aim of the madrassas. From there and with Pakistani support (aided by the US) the Talibans took the power in Afghanistan in 1995. A stable Taliban-led Afghanistan would permit US, Pakistan and petroleum companies, be assured an oil pipeline from Central Asia up to Pakistani ports on the Persian gulf. The Talibans now are recruited by Pakistani military force for the war in Kashmir. Health and education in Pakistan are among the lowest in the world.

40. Francesca Mereu, War Destroyed Chechnya’s Clan Structure
          (2002)

Chechens live in more than 150 clans (taips, extended families) guided by a council of elders, with a total population about 1.2 million people. Each taip is composed by 9 tribes (tukums) and works as a political-military union in cases of emergency (threats or aggression) and only so long as this happens to last. Two wars with Russia have cut its population by half, 600.000, having dead 50.000 in 94/96. The capital Grozny has come down from 400.000 to 40.000. During the Stalin period 14.000 Muslims were arrested, deported or executed, and most of the 800 mosques were closed, leaving only 5 open (and near 300 clandestine). Today  the Sunni branch of Islam in its Sufi mystic form is gaining more and more adepts, through the fundamentalist group called Wahhabism. Masive unemployment gave rise to criminal structures and the elders have lost all respect for younger generations who betray even their burial tradition, since they have to borrow money for funeral feasts.

               VI. MILITARISM AND THE “WAR ON TERROR”

41. William O. Beeman, Us Antiterrorist Message Won’t Fly in
           Islamic World (2001)

Right after the British withdrawal in 1972, the US stepped up its presence economically supporting local rulers in Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabiia and Kuwait, among others, to counteract Soviet influence. Many people in the Islamic world see the US “war on terror’ as a continuous with centuries of colonial domination and perceive America’s words to be at odds with its words. Adding insult to injury was a perceived contempt on the part of Europeans for Middle Eastern civilization. Europeans are reminded as partners of corrupt local rulers with the aim of exploiting local people. The Americans credibility between Islamic people amounts to nothing. And it will continue to be so unless military forces will be really international and the Palestinians issue will be lastly solved.

42. David Price, Terror and Indigenous Peoples: War without End
          (2001)

The US semantic “war on terrorism” has been suddenly accepted by Russia, China and Israel, using it as their justificaction to smash Chechens, Uighurs and Palestinians. It might also be used to repress indigenous people and ethnic and religious minorities by other nation-states. Terrorists are being defined as those who are “against us”. The difference between terrorists and fighters for their freedom will depend on the opinion of the owners of newspapers. The UN is supporting antiterrorism policies even though this term will remain long undefined, for its ambiguity being convenient to some governments that may use it to repress their ethnic or religious minority populations, be Kurdish in Iraq/Turkey or Zapatists in Chiapas, or Tamils in Sri Lanka.

43. John Burdick, Afghan War could be Recruiting Tool for
          Terrorists (2001)

Every day more and more people are convinced that “war on terror” is a war against the Muslims. That can turn out in a general arabian jihad against the US.

44. Dale E. Eickelman, First, Know the Enemy, then Act (2001)

45. John Burdick, Sept.11 Exposes Futil Search for “Perfect”
          Missile Defense (2001)

46. Roberto J. González, Ignorance is not Bliss (2002)

In the Persian gulf war the Pentagon maintained strict control over access to battle zones and asked reporters to submit materials for review. Since October 11, 2001, it has purchased exclusive rights to all satellites images from the company Space Imaging. War on terrorism is presented by TV more as entertainment than as a news. War images resemble video games. Semantics help: “good versus evil”, “dead or alive”, reminding white western deeds.

47. Mahamod Mamdani, Turn off your Tunnel Vision (2002)

48. Thomas McKenna, The Roots of Muslim Separatism in the
           Philippines (2002)

                    VII. ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND CIVIL LIBERTIES.

49. Roberto J. González, Lynne Cheney –Joe Liberman Groupe’s
          Black List (2001)

In October 2001 the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), presided by Cheney’s wife, issued a document Defending Civilization which accused US Universities of “failing America”. Books and TV shows are being subjected to censorship. In the McCarthyst blacklist of 117 anti-American “evidences” are named 40 professors who may become targets for retaliations. The fascist report represents a sort of academic terrorism.

50. David Price, Academia under Attack (2001)

51. Hugh Gusterson, Lynne Cheney’s Free Speech Blacklist
           (2002)

This report is calling for more compulsory American history on campus. “Academic freedom does not mean freedom from criticism”. Once again, in propaganda you impute your own sins to the other side. The more intimidating -the brasher-, the better. People as group love despotic leaders.