Do you think ordinary people are being told the truth about the war in Afghanistan? Far from it. This is clear from material that emerged in the US recently. A lot of the military operations have been exaggerated, lied about and totally faked as a public relations exercise.
US Defence Secretary William Cohen claimed during the Balkan War two years ago that 100,000 Albanian men of military age were missing, adding, "They may have been murdered." The media, and even some people on the left, dutifully repeated the wartime propaganda.
Sections of the US media are trying to create a climate where the FBI and CIA can get away with torturing anyone they accuse of terrorism. Jonathan Alter, a columnist on Newsweek magazine, wrote earlier this month, "In this autumn of anger even a liberal can find his thoughts turning to torture." He added that he was not necessarily advocating the use of "cattleprods or rubber hoses"-only "something to jumpstart the stalled investigation of the greatest crime in American history".
The packed lecture hall could have been anywhere in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people have taken part in similar meetings, counter-conferences and teach-ins to build an international anti-capitalist movement. What was crucial about the World Forum on the WTO in Beirut in Lebanon last week was that for the first time the anti-capitalist movement had come to the Middle East.
What happened on 11 September was a historic event-not, unfortunately, because of its scale. It is unpleasant to think about, but the scale was not that unusual. It's a historic event because there was a change in the direction in which the guns were pointed.
Three decades ago a mass movement against the Vietnam War shook the US ruling class to its core. At its height 750,000 people marched in Washington and 100,000 in London. The growth of that movement holds vital lessons for the struggle against the US-led war on Afghanistan today.
In 1995, in the first wave of local elections after the end of apartheid, he was elected as an African National Congress (ANC) councillor for Pimville in the giant township of Soweto near Johannesburg. He served for four years, and was then suspended for speaking out against privatisation.
"Are you a socialist?" I asked a fellow speaker at an anti-war rally the other day. I knew the answer was yes. The speaker had taken the whole of his time exposing the dreadful gap between the world's rich and poor, between the handful of billionaires on the one hand and the "world pining in pain" on the other. He had said more than enough to convince me that he didn't believe these frightful facts were caused by accident or sent by god. On the contrary-they were connected. The poor are poor because the rich are rich, and vice versa.
The horror of the war has become clear in just the first few weeks. No one knows the precise course it will take. It is by nature unpredictable. But opposition to the war is developing internationally, and in Britain has already gone further than in the last two major US-led imperialist wars-in the Gulf in 1990-1 and in the Balkans in 1999.
The movement against the war is spiralling. Even the mainstream media feels forced to reflect the growing opposition to Bush and Blair. Meetings and protests took place in cities and towns across Britain last week. All were focused on raising the anti-war banner locally, and mobilising single-mindedly for the mass national anti-war demonstration in London a week on Sunday.
George W Bush and Tony Blair say they are waging war against "terrorism" and for "democracy" and "civilisation". In private their language and motives are very different. Long before 11 September the US state was clear that its real aims are those of global military and economic dominance.
