This is as usual, very well put, below; we have more or less just ended a
decades long period of warfare, at various levels (aka cold war).  The
Bushes are attempting to institute Cold War II , on 'terrorism';in fact in
part warfare on dissidents and rebel forces.  Those are mainly
anti-capitalist, often Socialistic.  It changes but it remains the same.

At 12:42 PM 9/8/02 -0700, you wrote:
>What Americans have learnt - and not learnt - since 9/11
>
>Date: September 7 2002
>The Melbourne Age
>
>Endless war poses a far greater danger to the United States than perceived
>enemies do, writes Noam Chomsky.
>
>September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had better
>pay much closer attention to what the United States Government does in the
>world and how it is perceived.
>
>Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda
>before. That is all to the good.
>
>It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of
>future atrocities. It may be comforting for Americans to pretend that
>their enemies "hate our freedoms", as President Bush stated, but it is
>hardly wise to ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons.
>
>The President is not the first to ask: "Why do they hate us?"
>
>In a staff discussion 44 years ago, president Dwight Eisenhower described
>"the campaign of hatred against us (in the Arab world), not by the
>governments but by the people". His National Security Council outlined the
>basic argument: the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is
>"opposing political or economic progress" because of its interest in
>controlling the oil resources of the region.
>
>Post-September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same reasons
>hold today, compounded with resentment over specific policies. Strikingly,
>that is even true of privileged, Western-oriented sectors in the region.
>
>To cite just one recent example, in the August 1 issue of Far Eastern
>Economic Review, internationally recognised regional specialist Ahmed
>Rashid writes that, in Pakistan, "there is growing anger that US support
>is allowing (Musharraf's) military regime to delay the promise of democracy".
>
>Today, Americans do themselves few favours by choosing to believe that
>"they hate us" and "hate our freedoms". On the contrary, these are people
>who like Americans and admire much about the US, including its freedoms.
>What they hate is official policies that deny them the freedoms to which
>they, too, aspire.
>
>For such reasons, the post-September 11 rantings of Osama bin Laden - for
>example, about US support for corrupt and brutal regimes, or about the US
>"invasion" of Saudi Arabia - have a certain resonance, even among those
>who despise and fear him. From resentment, anger and frustration,
>terrorist bands hope to draw support and recruits.
>
>We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as a
>terrorist regime. In recent years, the US has taken or backed actions in
>Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few, that meet
>official US definitions of "terrorism" - that is, when Americans apply the
>term to enemies.
>
>In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel
>Huntington wrote in 1999: "While the US regularly denounces various
>countries as 'rogue states', in the eyes of many countries it is becoming
>the rogue superpower . . . the single greatest external threat to their
>societies."
>
>Such perceptions are not changed by the fact that on September 11, for the
>first time, a Western country was subjected on home soil to a horrendous
>terrorist attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of Western power.
>The attack goes far beyond what is sometimes called the "retail terror" of
>the IRA or Red Brigade.
>
>The September 11 terrorism elicited harsh condemnation throughout the
>world and an outpouring of sympathy for the innocent victims. But with
>qualifications.
>
>An international Gallup Poll in late September found little support for "a
>military attack" by the US in Afghanistan. In Latin America, the region
>with the most experience of US intervention, support ranged from 2 per
>cent in Mexico to 16 per cent in Panama.
>
>The present "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is, of course, also
>fuelled by US policies towards Israel-Palestine and Iraq. The US has
>provided the crucial support for Israel's harsh military occupation, now
>in its 35th year.
>
>One way for the US to lessen Israeli-Palestinian tension would be to stop
>refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that calls for
>recognition of the right of all states in the region to live in peace and
>security, including a Palestinian state in the currently occupied
>territories (perhaps with minor and mutual border adjustments).
>
>In Iraq, a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure has strengthened
>Saddam while leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis -
>perhaps more people "than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass
>destruction throughout history", military analysts John and Karl Mueller
>wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1999.
>
>Washington's present justifications to attack Iraq have far less
>credibility than when President Bush No. 1 was welcoming Saddam as an ally
>and a trading partner after the Iraqi leader had committed his worst
>brutalities - as in Halabja, where Iraq attacked Kurds with poison gas in
>1988. At the time, the murderer Saddam was more dangerous than he is today.
>
>As for a US attack against Iraq, no one, including Defence Secretary
>Donald Rumsfeld, can realistically guess the possible costs and consequences.
>
>Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will kill
>many people and destroy much of the country, providing recruits for
>terrorist actions.
>
>They presumably also welcome the "Bush doctrine" that proclaims the right
>of attack against potential threats, which are virtually limitless. The
>President has announced that: "There's no telling how many wars it will
>take to secure freedom in the homeland". That's true.
>
>Threats are everywhere, even at home. The prescription for endless war
>poses a far greater danger to Americans than perceived enemies do, for
>reasons the terrorist organisations understand very well.
>
>Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence,
>Yehoshaphat Harkabi, also a leading Arabist, made a point that still holds
>true. "To offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians, respecting
>their right to self-determination - that is the solution of the problem of
>terrorism," he said. "When the swamp disappears, there will be no more
>mosquitoes."
>
>At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtual immunity from retaliation within
>the occupied territories that lasted until very recently. But Harkabi's
>warning was apt, and the lesson applies more generally.
>
>Well before September 11, it was understood that, with modern technology,
>the rich and powerful would lose their near-monopoly of the means of
>violence and could expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.
>
>If America insists on creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitoes,
>with awesome capacity for destruction.
>
>If America devotes its resources to draining the swamps, addressing the
>roots of the "campaigns of hatred", it can not only reduce the threats it
>faces but also live up to ideals that it professes and that are not beyond
>reach if Americans choose to take them seriously.
>
>American academic Noam Chomsky is the author, most recently, of the
>bestseller September 11.