Here's my thoughts:

1) We don't need a conspiracy to see that we have been engaged in a certain
kind of war for a long time, and that the rules of that war are changing.
Throughout the cold war, we had an agreement with USSR to stay within
certain parameters of engagement. We maintained nuclear arsenals, generally
stayed away from one another's hemispheres, and supported insurgents with
money.

Our tactics during this period included training and arming guys like Bin
Laden. They also include supporting/creating puppet dictators in countries
that have resources or strategic positions we want. (In fact, if we look
under the surface, our support of Jordan's intentionally repressive monarchy
is much more objectionable than our support of Israel's attempted democracy.
Alas, the Palestinians don't have any idea how hated they are by the
so-called Arab community.) The result of US policy is that dictators and
terrorists are created, who eventually turn on us or our interests.

And all of this is being extremely well reported by mainstream media
channels like NYT, NBC, CSPAN, etc. (If Fox news is focusing on patriotism
and Olympic-games-like heartwarming narratives, so be it. That's what
old-style right-wing media is for.)

A few embassy bombings were not enough to show us what we had created. The
WTC was. We have made terrible mistakes in our ongoing war effort. And the
very people that the USSR and the USA were fighting over are now fighting
against us.


2) What this does mean, however, is that the cold war is truly over, and
another war has begun. Nation states against terrorist factions. Our weapons
of war have turned against us.

But whatever role we historically played, and however ineffectual our
strategy, what we have been aiming to support over the past couple of
centuries is creativity and free will. All of the relativistic angst and
political critique expressed by we highly educated internet-literate
computer users has been made possible by the Western system, born in the
French and US revolutions.

In order to maintain this system, we have done some very questionable
things. And these weren't always the best solutions to the real and seeming
threats to our security and well-being. But they were better solutions than
most nations employed, and we are getting better all the time. What other
nation experienced a civil rights movement, or shifted from slavery to
affirmative action as quickly as we did? What nation developed an economic
system so robust that it is capable of helping almost any other nation out
of crisis? And what nation gives such aid?

Yes, we are crippled by our own brands of fundamentalism (to the point where
we can't even make our pledge to the United Nations) and our own economic
extremism (preventing us from signing Kyoto) to our own misunderstanding of
global PR (keeping us from the racism conference). We are addicted to oil,
blind to many of the plights of others, and spiritually confused.

But we are also the economy and military that has maintained this soft cushy
society -- from no-nuclear zones like New Zealand all the way across the
hated United States and around through Europe. We have been the military
brunt behind a society dedicated to Judeo-Christian ethical development and
Hellenist idealism. You want the truth? You can't handle the truth. (No
irony intended.) We can't handle the truth.

3) I'm on our side in this conflict. Yes, there are sides. There is the side
of pluralism, creativity, and free will, and there is the side of
intolerance, dogma, and repression. American idealism has its problems, but
it's meant to be about freedom, not decrees.

So far, the rhetoric against the United States has come from three main
camps:

1- The extreme fundamentalists who perpetrated the attacks, as well as their
extremely under-educated and impoverished supporters

2- The extreme fundamentalists within our own borders, who blame the sins of
females, homosexuals, and civil libertarians for the WTC attack, and who -
like the terrorists - suggest that we are being punished by God.

3- The hyper-intellectual neo-communists of the Nettime list (from which I
have now unsubscribed) who snicker at our losses, and believe that America
deserves such an attack as revenge for its actions in Kosovo (saving a race
from genocide), or the corporate policies of the Gap.

All three groups are fundamentalists, who are clinging to a world view that
tolerance, media, and - yes - capitalism tend to erode. We are all in this
together. Abortionists and mothers, Arab and Jew, libertarian and communist.

Take a good hard look at who is attempting to create structures within which
everyone can live in peace, and who is not. Which looks more like pluralism
to you? Old Jerusalem or Jordan? New York or Tehran?

4) Introspection and self-loathing are extremely positive when they can be
used to make real changes to one's outlooks and behaviors. But they can be
crippling when taken too far, or when they're indulged at the wrong moment.

Similarly, fist-waving and hyper-patriotic rhetoric seems, to me, like a
retreat into the symbols of an ancient war rather than an expression of the
values we aim to defend.

This is an opportunity take our ongoing struggle for plurality and human
creativity to the next level. For more consciousness, not less. For the
dismantling of a war machine that is, in part, our own creation.



In closing, I don't hear any calls for the kinds of reprisals that so many
people fear. I hear it from a few radio DJ's and other firebrands. From Bush
- except during the first day or two - and from Powell, I've heard what
could be called restraint.

The war will be fought on a cultural and ideological level. We must begin to
develop cultural and spiritual tools - spiritual bombs - that prevent people
from becoming so programmed that they want to kill so many people, including
themselves. This means understanding why people are often willing to
surrender their free will (poverty, isolation, etc.) and how people can be
led to devalue human life.

And these, my friends, are ultimately questions of media literacy.