September 23, 2001
Post Intelligencer
Seattle, Washington
U.S. created conditions for horrendous attack

Dear Editor,

Please, do not wave the American flag in memory of the dead in New York and Washington, D.C. Rather than expressing our grief through nationalism, it is time to examine how the U.S. created the conditions for this horrifying terrorist attack. We must not give our rulers permission for the kind of military interventions that have made the U.S. the most hated
country in the world.

Bush struts his machismo and threatens war against not only the alleged terrorists, but against whole countries. In the names of the thousands of innocent people who died on September 11, he proposes to kill thousands
more innocent people in other lands. Is this what we want?

Do not forget, the U.S. helped install the reactionary Afghani regime which overthrew a more progressive, Soviet-backed government. Do not forget, the U.S. created the demonized Ben Ladin himself through its training of fundamentalist anticommunist guerrillas, its military presence in Saudi Arabia, and its continued backing of Israeli occupation of the Palestinian land.

How can we end the carnage and suffering? How do we appropriately mourn the dead? Not by unthinking patriotism, but by mobilizing the power that only we have to make our country a force for progress and human rights rather than destruction.

Helen Gilbert,
Radical Women