9/11 in Context: The Strategy of Tension Gone Global

Finally, an anarchist interpretation of 911 that doesn’t involve “blowback”. I say “finally” only because I just came across these two articles by Tod Fletcher, posted under the pseudonym Max Kolskegg.

In his interview with Guns and Butter, available here:

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/media/2007/01/360935.mp3

…he also draws attention to the infiltration of the black bloc in Genoa, Italy. Anarchists are a very easy target for provocateur action (suffice it to say that dressing up like a Zapatista is not difficult), and are thus frequently smeared as instigators of violence. Indeed, it wouldn’t even matter if the black bloc was abandoned as a tactic by the small number of anarchists who engage in it, they would simply be replaced (and frequently are, I imagine) by fascists working for the state. The important thing is not to confuse a philosophy bearing an extremely broad back with the actions of a few people.

Anyway, here are the two articles on 9/11. Definitely worth a read, if only to see 911 from a different angle – not one you necessarily agree with on every point but valuable nonetheless.

"9/11: A Desperate Provocation by U.S. Capitalism"

http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2002/01/21075.html

Excerpt:

The "War on Terrorism" is indeed a fraud, as Australian film and print journalist John Pilger has repeatedly pointed out. "Terrorism" is simply taking the place of "Communism" during the Cold War as the propaganda line spewed by the state and the corporate media to rally a confused and fearful population against "enemies" who supposedly threaten them. This most effective form of social control was recommended by Hitler's chief propagandist, Josef Goebbels. The purpose of the "War on Terrorism" is to maintain carte blanche for the ever more desperate agenda of American capital: the domination of the continent of Eurasia (the critical sector of which is Central Asia, precisely where the "War on Terrorism" just happens to have begun), and the crushing of the Left worldwide, especially its explicitly anti-capitalist core.

In the face of this juggernaut the Left has shown a potentially fatal lack of intellectual rigor as well as nerve. The evidence that the attacks on September 11 were in all likelihood a black operation of the US intelligence services, a state "provocation" designed as a pretext to launch the global "War on Terrorism", is very substantial. It is also painful to consider, but the task must not be shirked. The purpose of this essay is to consider its relevance to the future of the only force which holds any hope of saving humanity and the planet from the megadeath capital is preparing, the anti-capitalist Left.

and "9/11 in Context: Plans and Counter Plans".

http://colorado.indymedia.org/newswire/display/3877/index.php

Excerpt:

Essentially the "strategy of tension" has gone global. As before,
the perceived threat to which it is a response is a growing "crisis
of democracy", with working people increasingly demanding a full
say in the ordering of their lives and their societies, and rejecting
the exploitation and domination of capitalism. In Italy, the worldwide
events of 1968 set in motion a long period of radical questioning
and contestation by large sectors of the society, which profoundly
undermined the post-war regime installed by the U.S. Fear of where
the radicalism would lead and the complete inability to put a
stop to it in any other way led to the selection of a campaign
of fake terrorist bombings to provide the pretext for a massive
crackdown on dissent. For the purposes of the U.S. and the Italian
elite, direct naming of the enemy, communism, was sufficient.

Now, however, in a similar, but global, situation, the planners
of world capitalism have come up with a more sophisticated and
flexible approach. The core elements are the same, fake terror
as the pretext for draconian measures, but the stakes and stage
are vastly expanded. Now the real enemy is not named, but a fake
enemy is substituted to cause maximal confusion and open up a
global theater of military operations. "Terrorists" are everywhere;
they must be eliminated everywhere. The first phase in the "War
on Terrorism" is to go after the Islamic Fundamentalist Terrorists
(that is, to go for the world's oil resources); later, the assault
on other kinds of terrorists, like anticapitalists, can get seriously
underway. The mass murders of September 11, the "war" in Afghanistan,
and the coming U.S./Israeli attack on Iraq/Iran/Saudi Arabia/Syria/Lebanon
demonstrate that there are simply no limits now on what measures
our rulers are prepared to take to crush our aspirations and actions
for a world worth living in for all, not just a few.

--

He ends:

To defend itself under the new conditions imposed by the state, the Left must organize and exert itself to the utmost, starting now:

* First, we need to loudly and widely reject all the propaganda which is pouring out of Washington DC and London, and out of the mass media: the "War on Terrorism" is a fraud.

* We must articulate a clear, strong analysis of what capital is doing: seizing resources and preparing to crush the working class resistance to its totalitarian domination worldwide.

* We need to publicly demand in all our anti-war and anti-capitalist demonstrations and writing that the criminals who launched the fake terror on September 11 be brought to trial: not Osama Bin Laden but the secret operatives and strategizers in the US government. The criminality of what they have done can be used as a powerful weapon against them and against capitalism, which is inherently criminal.

* We must loudly reject both capitalist war and capitalist "peace", and practice total non-cooperation with both poles of the capitalist agenda.

* And clearly, like the men and women at this moment in Argentina, we need to focus on self-defense measures, and plan for what may very well be a fight to the death. There is no time to be lost.