Documents analysing the

World Trade Center / Pentagon Terrorist Attack
Sept. 11, 2001

(Last Updated 11.18.01 2:45  p.m. EST)

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I have found these statements and analyses on the Internet or received them by email from mailing lists and friends. I hope they are helpful.

Please email me with more analyses that may prove useful in understanding the events of Sept. 11.

-- Grover Furr, English Dept., Montclair State University
furrg@mail.montclair.edu


Washington Post article on anti-war demonstration, Sat. 9/29

Early Articles

What We Should Do -- A Start

Start the Anti-War Movement Now!, Richard N. Hutchinson

New York City Bombing Proves: When Bosses Fight Bosses - Workers Die!, Sept. 11

Terrorism Is Anti-Working Class, 9.13.01

Osama Bin Laden Created by the US, various articles detailing the role of the US and CIA in creating, training, and arming OBL and others like him, 9.13.01


Analyzing and Refuting the Racist 'Clash of Civilizations' Argument

"Folks Out There Have A "Distaste Of Western Civilization And Cultural Values", by Edward Herman (also here).

On the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ argument -- critique of Hitchens, by Priyamvada Gopal

"The Myth of Global Ethnic Conflict,", by John R. Bowen (1996) -- critique of Huntington et al.

Edward Said, "The Clash of Ignorance", from The Nation, Oct. 22, 2001. This is a shorter, and updated, version of  "The Clash of Definitions," the final chapter in Said's book Reflections on Exile and Other Essays. (Also here).

"Welcome to the Warnacular," by Laura Flanders, Znet.

Musirul Hasan vs. 'Clash of Civilizations' Myth, New Delhi 9.22.01

John Michael vs. 'Clash of Civilizations' Myth, 9.23.01


The Role of Oil in US MidEast Policy and in the 9/11 Terror Attack

Articles on the "Oil Motive" for the US War on Afghanistan, and American Imperialism in the Middle East Generally

Some further articles from Challenge, and other sources on oil -- the motive behind the Gulf War, the war in the Balkans against Yugoslavia, and American policy in the MidEast generally.


Richard Ehrlich, "Depleted Uranium Toxicity in Afghanistan," from Ehrlich's home page. Ehrlich writes for the Washington Times and other publications, about Asia.

Thomas Nagy, "The Secret Behind the Sanctions How the U.S. Intentionally Destroyed Iraq's Water Supply", from The Progressive. Horrifying, with hyperlinks to the original Department of Defense documents proving this case. Also here.

"Iraq: Ten Years After the Gulf War", by Steven Zunes. This article details the horrors inflicted upon the Iraqi civilian population by US sanctions. It includes the following paragraph:

"The sanctions have brought great hardships on the Iraqi people, as food prices are now 12,000
times what they were in 1990. It is Iraq’s poor, particularly the children, who have suffered the
most. Estimates of the total number of Iraqi deaths from malnutrition and preventable diseases as a
result of the sanctions have ranged from a quarter million to over one million, the majority being
children. UNICEF estimates that at least 4,500 Iraqi children are dying every month as a result of
the sanctions. Indeed, perhaps there has been no other occasion during peacetime when so many
people have been condemned to starvation and death from preventable diseases due to political
decisions made overseas.
The unseen impact of these sanctions on the social fabric of Iraq is
perhaps even more severe." [emphasis added -- GF]

"The Price; or, 'Was It Really Worth It, Mrs. Albright?", by Alex Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, from Counterpunch. See their page of links below. Hard-hitting about how the media, especially the liberal media, are trying to keep us from thinking about the historical context behind Sept. 11.

"The price is worth it", by Edward Herman. The propaganda agency of the mass media examined: little publicity about the deaths of children in Iraq directly caused by the US -- 500,000 by 1996, much more today -- and the huge publicity around the 6000 deaths at the WTC/Pentagon/PA crash.

September 11, by Robert Jensen

Howard Falk (Green Party) Statement

Capitalism: The Real Cause of Terrorism, from SUNY Binghamton PLP

John Pilger, "Inevitable ring to the unimaginable", Sept. 13 2001.


The Jingoism of the "Responsible" Crypto-Fascist Right

Want to see an example of "responsible Conservative thought" at work? Read this opinion piece by Ann Coulter, an editor of The National Review. The link is to the whole article, but note the remarks at the end, including these:

"This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response [to the attacks]...We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war."


The Media's Role in the Warmongering Analyzed

"The Media Marches To War" (Sept. 17) by Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR), shows how much of the mass media immediately began to echo the Bush Administration's war-mongering, xenophobia, and bloody-mindedness. Other good pieces on media coverage of the 9/11 terror attack and responses at FAIR's home page.


Important and Useful Web Pages of Essays and Links

redball.gif (326 bytes) Steve Rosenthal's Page

Steve has a home page with some good essays on it, including the one above, and the following (you can also get them from his page directly):

Check Steve's page for other essays, not duplicated here.

  The Cursor, alternative news.

redball.gif (326 bytes) Counterpunch, the on-line magazine by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, has a useful list of Counterpunch articles on the terror attack.

redball.gif (326 bytes) Janet Gray's Page

Janet Gray, Women's Studies, TCNJ, also has a page with some good essays (not duplicated here).

redball.gif (326 bytes) The International Action Center Page has information on demonstrations, including the anti-war demonstration scheduled for Sept. 29 in Washington, DC.

redball.gif (326 bytes) Talking Points Page

From Znet: thoughtful answers to questions you and others will have. An example: "Why Us? Why The US?", and the link provided there, "Why Do 'They' Hate 'Us'?"

redball.gif (326 bytes) Centre for Research on Globalisation

Links to many very informative articles, including John Pilger's "Islamic peoples are already victims of US power" and essays by Michael Chossudovsky.

redball.gif (326 bytes) The Emperor's New Clothes Page: "Piercing A Fog of Lies"

Originally created to cover the US-NATO war on Yugoslavia from a pro-Serbian point of view, it nonetheless has expanded to cover the lies and duplicity of American foreign policy generally.

It has essays analyzing the economic motives of American foreign policy, especially control of oil and oil pipelines routes. One example is "Washington Wants Afghanistan," which explores that country's strategic location in the midst of the Mideast oil fields (also linked above).

redball.gif (326 bytes) Alternet.org

Liberal peace and anti-war articles, without class analysis but some with good information.


The US under terrorist attack, by Clement Leibovitz, 9.12.01

"They can't see why they are hated": Americans cannot ignore what their government does abroad, by Seumas Milne (The Guardian, Sept. 13, 2001)

"Anti-terrorism and United States hegemony" lists some of the many, many instances of American imperialist aggression in two lists, since 1890 and since 1945.

Capitalism Has Brought Centuries Of Mass Murder -- U.S. Bosses Lead By Far In The Body Count. From Challenge 10/3/01.

Terrorists are made, not born, from Salon magazine 9.12.01

"The Unknown Enemy," by Joseph Sobran, Sept. 11, 2001.
(Sobran is part of the radical right, but an isolationist.  Since he has associated with racists, including anti-semites, in the past, I want to make clear that I don't endorse Sobran at all! But he does not shy away from pointing the finger at US imperialism).

Letter by Dave Cline, National Co-ordinator, Vietnam Veterans Against the War Sept. 12, 2001

Beyond the Attacks of September 11 in the USA, by Comunistes de Catalunya, 9.12.01

Statement of the Political Bureau of the Workers' Party of Belgium regarding the attacks in the United States of America (translation)

Statement from War Resisters League


The Independent, London, UK, publishes the articles of two correspondents whose material is often very useful. Here are the links to the articles by Phil Reeves and Robert Fisk. These experienced Middle Eastern reporters are not blinded by, or censored according to, pro-Israeli propaganda as is the case with the American mass media.


Noam Chomsky on the Terrorism of Sept. 11, 2001 (revised 9.14.01)

Interview with Noam Chomsky on Radio B92, Belgrade, Yugoslavia (about 9.16.01) NEW!

Statement from the International Action Center on Events of September 11, 2001

"The political roots of the terror attack on New York and Washington", from The World Socialist Website, Sept. 12.

End All Terrorism! -- leaflet distributed in Bronx NY by some members of Progressive Labor Party Sept. 12