=
Some of the smallthing in the world do kill us, say Jennifer and Julu,
but we will not be moved, we do love all smallthing, and there are
so very many of such as them
You will find them flying and loving, say Alan and Nikuko, look at
gossamer wing light as any traveller's web
Do not be afraid, say Jennifer and Julu, and Alan and Nikuko, do
look down from the height and up from this wonder earth, there
is loving earth and loving sky, we do find many swimming and
many crawling, many running and many leaping, many gliding and
many soaring
Some of the smallthing do make small singing and whirring, say
Jennifer and Julu, and some of the smallthing do make buzzing
and humming, say Alan and Nikuko
Do listen to the singing of the world, say Jennifer and Julu
Do listen to all smallthing humming and leaping, say Alan
and Nikuko, do not be afraid, they say, do not be afraid
=
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 17 Oct 2001 22:39:32 +0100 (BST)
From: martin dodge <ucfnmad@ucl.ac.uk>
To: m.dodge <m.dodge@ucl.ac.uk>
Subject: Cyber-Geography Research Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 08, 17th October 2001
===========================================================================
== Cyber-Geography Research Bulletin, Vol. 2, No. 08, 17th October 2001 ==
== < http://www.cybergeography.org/bulletin-2-08.html > ==
== < ISSN 1471-3489 > ==
===========================================================================
SPONSORED BY
C O R P E X
DOMAIN NAME REGISTRATION
WEB HOSTING E-COMMERCE
Tel: +44 (0)20 7430 8000
Email: service@corpex.com
Web: http://www.corpex.com
Welcome to the Cyber-Geography Research Bulletin. This is a regular, free,
email bulletin to inform you of changes and new additions made to the
Geography of Cyberspace Directory and the Atlas of Cyberspaces on the
Cyber-Geography Research web site. The bulletin is distributed every
couple of months, depending on how much time I have available for my
cyberspace exploration.
This bulletin is available on the Web at
http://www.cybergeography.org/bulletin-2-08.html
I am happy to acknowledge the support of CORPEX. They are kindly
sponsoring the Cyber-Geography Research web site.
=====================================
The Geography of Cyberspace Directory
=====================================
* http://www.cybergeography.org/geography_of_cyberspace.html *
* http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/casa/martin/geography_of_cyberspace.html *
New for the "Mapping the Internet" section:
* Danesh, A., Rubin, S.H., Smith, M.H. and Trajkovic, L., 2001, "Mapping
the Internet", paper presented at IFSA/NAFIPS 2001, July 2001, Vancouver,
Canada. (pdf format)
( http://divine.eecs.berkeley.edu/~ljilja/papers/nafips2001.pdf )
* Internet Topology Project, useful research by Ramesh Govindan and
colleagues in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science, University of Michigan. ( http://topology.eecs.umich.edu/ )
New in the "topology Maps" section:
* CAIDA's core AS Internet graph is available to buy as a large wall
poster. ( http://www.3dce.com/internetmap/ )
* Global Communications Cable and Satellite Map 2002, September 2001.
( http://www.telegeography.com/products/maps/cable/index.html )
* The First Maps of the Internet poster by Peacock Maps presents a range
of maps and diagrams of ARPANET and other packet networks from the 1970s
and 80s. ( http://www.peacockmaps.com/ )
New for the "Visualising Information Spaces" section:
* Fiore, A. and Smith, M., 2001, "Tree Map Visualizations of Newsgroups",
Technical Report MSR-TR-2001-94, 4th October 2001 (Word doc format).
( http://research.microsoft.com/%7Emasmith/
CHI%202002%20-%20Tree%20Map%20Visualizations%20of%20Usenet%20-%20Final.doc
)
You can also try out their treemaps of Usenet at Netscan.
( http://netscan.research.microsoft.com/ )
* Gibbs, W.W., 2001, "A Wide Web of Worlds: New Internet Browsers Add an
Extra Dimension - But Little Depth", Scientific American, October 2001.
( http://www.sciam.com/2001/1001issue/1001technicality.html ) Also, see
the follow-on discussion thread on Slashdot about 3D Web browsing.
( http://slashdot.org/articles/01/09/16/2317231.shtml )
New for the "Statistics" section:
* The Topaz WeatherMap, a custom Internet backbone monitoring service by
Mercury Interactive. Includes map presentation of Internet performance
data. ( http://www-heva.mercuryinteractive.com/products/topaz/
technical/weathermap/ )
* Cockburn A. & McKenzie, B., 2001, "What Do Web Users Do? An Empirical
Analysis of Web Use", International Journal of Human-Computer Studies,
Vol. 54, no. 6, page 903-922.
( http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~andy/papers/ijhcsAnalysis.pdf )
* Packet Geography 2002, a comprehensive report on global Internet
infrastructure. Published TeleGeography, September 2001.
( http://www.telegeography.com/products/books/pg/index.html )
* U.S. Internet IP Traffic Growth, a powerpoint presentation by Lawrence
Roberts, Caspian Networks Inc., August 2001.
( http://www.caspiannetworks.com/library/presentations/
traffic/Internet_Traffic_081301.ppt )
New for the "References" section:
* Branigan, S., Burch, H., Cheswick, B., & Wojcik, F., 2001, "What Can You
Do with Traceroute?", Internet Computing, September/October 2001, Vol. 5,
No. 5, page 96. ( http://computer.org/internet/v5n5/index.htm )
* Economist, 2001, "Geography and the net: Putting it in its place", The
Economist, 9th August 2001, pages 18-20.
( http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_id=729808 )
* Economist, 2001, "The Internet's new borders", The Economist, 9th August
2001, pages 9-10.
( http://www.economist.com/printedition/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=730089 )
* Gillespie, A, Richardson, R and Cornford, J., 2001, "Regional
development and the new economy", European Investment Bank Papers, Vol. 6,
No. 1, pages 109-131. (pdf format)
( http://www.eib.org/ced/eibpapers/y01n1v6/y01n1a06.pdf )
* King A.B., 2000, "Mapping the Unmappable: Visual Representations of the
Internet as Social Constructions", CSI Working Paper No. WP00-05, Center
For Social Informatics Indiana University.
( http://www.slis.indiana.edu/CSI/wp00-05.html )
* Mann C.C., 2001, "Taming the Web", Technology Review, September 2001.
( http://www.technologyreview.com/magazine/sep01/mann.asp )
New for the "Relevant Courses" section:
* Course title: "Virtual Geographies", 2001; Lecturer: Andy Gillespie;
Institution: Department of Geography, Newcastle University.
( http://www.ncl.ac.uk/geography/Department/Modules/geo394.htm )
=======================
An Atlas of Cyberspaces
=======================
* http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/atlas.html *
* http://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/casa/martin/atlas/atlas.html *
* Italian Language http://www.cybergeography.it/ *
New for the "Cables and Satellites" page:
* Africa ONE route map. ( http://www.africaone.com )
New for the "Census Maps" page:
* Internet bandwidth diagrams by TeleGeography.
( http://www.telegeography.com )
New for the "Topology Maps" page:
* Map of a corporate intranet by Lumeta. ( http://www.lumeta.com )
* Internet mapping work of Stephen Coast.
( http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/steve/stuff/ipmap/ )
* gnuTellaVision visualization of the gnutella peer to peer network.
( http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~rachna/gtv/ )
* gnutella graph created using the Gnucleus client.
( http://www.gnucleus.com )
New for the "Information Maps" page:
* The UK academic map provides a geographic directory of websites.
( http://www.scit.wlv.ac.uk/ukinfo/uk.map.html )
* Smithsonian Institute's HistoryWired information map.
( http://historywired.si.edu )
New for the "Information Spaces" page:
* Web Forager 3D information environment.
( http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi96/proceedings/videos/Card/skc2txt.html )
New for the "Historical Maps" page:
* First map of the ARPANET connection between UCLA and SRI.
( http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc4.html )
* USENET geographic traffic map by Brian Reid from 1986.
( http://www.cybergeography.org/atlas/historical.html )
================
Map of the Month
================
* http://www.cybergeography.org/maps/ *
* http://mappa.mundi.net/maps/ *
The Map of the Month columns are now being published online in Mappa.Mundi
Magazine.
* September's column, "Imagining the Inner working of the Internet",
discussed the short anaimated movie Warriors of the Net.
( http://mappa.mundi.net/maps/maps_023/ )
==============================
New Book - Atlas of Cyberspace
==============================
* http://www.atlasofcyberspace.com *
Atlas of Cyberspace, by Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin
Published by Addison-Wesley: published August 2001: 288pp
Hardback ISBN 0-201-74575-5: 30.00 / $45.00
I am pleased to announce the publication of Atlas of Cyberspace, a new
book by Martin Dodge and Rob Kitchin.
Orders can be placed at all good book shops, including:
* Amazon.com (currently selling at $27.99, a 30% discount)
( http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201745755/ )
* Amazon.co.uk
( http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201745755/ )
==================================
Mapping-Cyberspace Discussion List
==================================
If you're interested in discussing the wider issues of measuring and
mapping the Internet and the Web why not join the new Mapping-Cyberspace
List. It is a free and moderated mailing list.
Full details on the list and how to join are available at:
http://www.cybergeography.org/discussion.html
Or just send email to: jiscmail@jiscmail.ac.uk
with the message: join mapping-cyberspace firstname lastname
(E.g. join mapping-cyberspace John Smith)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
thanks for your attention
martin dodge
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I welcome your comments on the usefulness of the bulletin and also on my
Web pages. Suggestions for new information on the theme of the geography
of the Internet, WWW and Cyberspace are also welcome. Send them to
m.dodge@ucl.ac.uk.
If you want to be removed from the update bulletin distribution list
please email me at m.dodge@ucl.ac.uk, with a subject line like "Please
remove me from the update bulletin", remembering to include your email
address that you subscribed with.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
(Copyright (c) Martin Dodge, 2001)
_________________________________________________________________________
martin dodge
cyber geography research
centre for advanced spatial analysis, university college london
gower street, london, wc1e 6bt, united kingdom
email: m.dodge@ucl.ac.uk tel: +44 (0)207 679 1782
http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk http://www.cybergeography.org
http://www.atlasofcyberspace.com
__________________________________________________________________________
I think this is incredibly eloquent - Alan
From AlterNet
Print this story | E-mail this story
Susan Sontag, "The Traitor," Fires Back
David Talbot, Salon
October 17, 2001
Writer Susan Sontag has produced many texts during her four-decade
career, including historical novels and reflections on cancer,
photography and the war in Bosnia. But it was a brief essay, less than
1,000 words long, in the Sept. 24 issue of the New Yorker that created
the biggest uproar of her life.
In the piece, which she wrote shortly after the terror attacks of
Sept. 11, Sontag dissected the political and media blather that poured
out of the television in the hours after the explosions of violence.
After subjecting herself to what she calls "an overdose of CNN,"
Sontag reacted with a coldly furious burst of analysis, savaging
political leaders and media mandarins for trying to convince the
country that everything was OK, that our attackers were simply
cowards, and that our childlike view of the world need not be
disturbed.
As if to prove her point, a furious chorus of sharp-tongued pundits
immediately descended on Sontag, outraged that she had broken from the
ranks of the soothingly platitudinous. She was called an
"America-hater," a "moral idiot," a "traitor" who deserved to be
driven into "the wilderness," never more to be heard. The bellicose
right predictably tried to lump her in with the usual left-wing peace
crusaders, whose programmed pacifism has sidelined them during the
current political debates.
But this tarbrush doesn't stick. As a thinker, Sontag is rigorously,
sometimes abrasively, independent. She has offended the left as often
as the right (political terms, she points out, that have become
increasingly useless), alienating some ideologues when she attacked
communism as "fascism with a human face" during the uprising of the
Polish shipyard workers in the 1980s and again during the U.S. bombing
campaign against the Serbian dictatorship, which she strongly
supported.
Sontag, 68, remains characteristically unrepentant in the face of the
recent attacks. On Monday, she talked with us by phone from her home
in Manhattan, reflecting on the controversy, the Bush war effort and
the media's surrender to what she views as a national conformity
campaign.
Did the storm of reaction to your brief essay in the New Yorker take
you by surprise?
Absolutely. I mean, I am aware of what a radical point of view is;
very occasionally I have espoused one. But I did not think for a
moment my essay was radical or even particularly dissenting. It seemed
very common sense. I have been amazed by the ferocity of how I've been
attacked, and it goes on and on. One article in the New Republic, a
magazine for which I have written, began: "What do Osama bin Laden,
Saddam Hussein and Susan Sontag have in common?" I have to say my jaw
dropped. Apparently we are all in favor of the dismantling of America.
There's a kind of rhetorical overkill aimed at me that is astonishing.
There has been a demonization which is ludicrous.
What has been constructed is this sort of grotesque trinity comprised
of myself, Bill Maher and Noam Chomsky. In the Saturday New York
Times, Frank Rich tried in his way to defend us by arguing for our
complete lack of importance, by saying that any substitute weather
forecaster on TV has more influence than any of us. Well, it's not
true of course. Excuse me, but Noam Chomsky is quite a bit more than a
distinguished linguist. Our critics are up in arms against us because
we do have a degree of influence. But our own "defenders" are reduced
to saying, "Well, leave the poor things alone, they're quite obscure
anyway. "
Look, I have nothing in common with Bill Maher, whom I had never heard
of before. And I don't agree with Noam Chomsky, whom I am very
familiar with. My position is decidedly not the Chomsky position
How do you differ from Chomsky?
First of all, I'll take the American empire any day over the empire of
what my pal Chris Hitchens calls "Islamic fascism." I'm not against
fighting this enemy -- it is an enemy and I'm not a pacifist.
I think what happened on Sept. 11 was an appalling crime, and I'm
astonished that I even have to say that, to reassure people that I
feel that way. But I do feel that the Gulf War revisited is not the
way to fight this enemy.
There was a very confident, orotund piece by Stanley Hoffman in the
New York Review of Books -- he's a very senior wise man in the George
Kennan mold, certainly no radical. And I felt I could agree with every
word he was saying. He was saying bombing Afghanistan is not the
solution. We have to understand what's going on in the Middle East, we
have to rethink what's going on, our foreign policy. In fact, since
Sept. 11, we're already seeing the most radical realignment of
policies.
Bill Maher has abjectly apologized for his remarks --but you don't
seem to be getting any more docile in the fact of this storm of
criticism. Why not?
Well, I'm not an institution, and I don't have a job to lose. I just
get lots of very nasty letters and read lots of very nasty things in
the press.
What do the letters say?
That I'm a traitor. The New York Post, or so I've been told, has
called for me to be drawn and quartered. And then there was this Ted
Koppel show -- the producer invited me onto the show a week ago. It's
not my thing, but I did it. And they got someone from the Heritage
Foundation [Todd Gaziano], who practically foamed at the mouth, and
said at one point, "Susan Sontag should not be permitted to speak in
honorable intellectual circles ever again." And then Koppel said,
"Whoa, you really mean she shouldn't be allowed to speak?" And he
said, well maybe not silenced, but disgraced and "properly discounted
for her crazy views."
So there's a serious attempt to stifle debate. But, of course, God
bless the Net. I keep getting more articles of various dissenting
opinions e-mailed to me; naturally, some of them are crazy and some I
don't agree with at all. But you can't shut everyone up. The big media
have been very intimidated, but not the Web.
I don't want to get defensive, but of course I am a little defensive
because I'm still so stunned by the way my remarks were viewed. What I
published in the New Yorker was written literally 48 hours after the
Sept. 11 attacks. I was in Berlin at the time, and I was watching CNN
for 48 hours straight. You might say that I had overdosed on CNN. And
what I wrote was a howl of dismay at all the nonsense that I was
hearing. That people were in a state of great pain and bewilderment
and fear I certainly understood. But I thought, "Uh-oh, here comes a
sort of revival of Cold War rhetoric and something utterly
sanctimonious that is going to make it very hard for us to figure out
how best to deal with this." And I have to say that my fears have been
borne out.
What do you think of the Bush administration's efforts to control the
media, in particular its requests that the TV networks not show bin
Laden and al-Qaida's video statements?
Excuse me, but does anyone over the age of 6 really think that the way
Osama bin Laden has to communicate with his agents abroad is by posing
in that Flintstone set of his and pulling on his left earlobe instead
of his right to send secret signals? Now, I don't believe that
Condoleezza Rice and the rest of the administration really think that.
At least I hope to hell they don't. I assume they have another reason
for trying to stop the TV networks from showing bin Laden's
videotapes, which is they just don't want people to see his message,
whatever it is. They think, Why should we give him free publicity?
Something very primitive like that. Which is ridiculous, because of
course anyone online can see these tapes for themselves. Although I
see the BBC, our British cousins who are of course ever servile, are
discussing whether to broadcast the tapes. We can always count on the
Brits to fall in line.
Why has the media been so willing to go along with the White House's
censorship efforts?
Well, when people like me are being lambasted and excoriated for
saying very mild things, no wonder the media is cowed. Here's
something no one has commented on that I continue to puzzle over: Who
decided that no gruesome pictures of the World Trade Center site were
to be published anywhere? Now I don't think there was single directive
coming from anywhere. But I think there was an extraordinary
consensus, a kind of self-censorship by media executives who concluded
these images would be too demoralizing for the country. I think it's
rather interesting that could happen. There apparently has been only
one exception: one day the New York Daily News showed a severed hand.
But the photo appeared in only one edition and it was immediately
pulled. I think that degree of unanimity within the media is pretty
extraordinary.
What is your position on the war against terrorism? How should the
U.S. fight back?
My position is that I don't like throwing biscuits and peanut butter
and jam and napkins, little snack packages produced in a small city in
Texas, to Afghani citizens, so we can say, "Look, we're doing
something humanitarian." These wretched packages of food that are
grotesquely inadequate -- there's apparently enough food for a half
day's rations. And then the people run out to get them, into these
minefields. Afghanistan has more land mines per capita than any
country in the world. I don't like the way that humanitarianism is
once again being used in this unholy way as a pretext for war.
As woman, of course, I've always been appalled by the Taliban regime
and would dearly like to see them toppled. I was a public critic of
the regime long before the war started. But I've been told that the
Northern Alliance is absolutely no better when it comes to the issue
of women. The crimes against women in Afghanistan are just
unthinkable; there's never been anything like it in the history of the
world. So of course I would love to see that government overthrown and
something less appalling put in its place.
Do I think bombing is the way to do it? Of course I don't. It's not
for me to speculate on this, but there are all sorts of realpolitik
outcomes that one can imagine. Afghanistan in the end could become a
sort of dependency of Pakistan, which of course wouldn't please India
and China. They'd probably like a little country to annex themselves.
So how in the world you're going to dethrone the Taliban without
causing further trouble in that part of the world is a very
complicated question. And I'm sure bright and hard-nosed people in
Washington are genuinely puzzled about how to do it.
Do you really think it could be done without bombing?
Absolutely. But it's a complicated and long process -- and the United
States is not very experienced in these matters. The point is, as I
said in my New Yorker piece, there's a great disconnect between
reality and what people in government and the media are saying of the
reality. I have no doubt that there are real debates among military
and political leaders going on both here and elsewhere. But what is
being peddled to the public is a fairy tale. And the atmosphere of
intimidation is quite extraordinary.
And I think our protectors have been incredibly inept. In any other
country the top officials of the FBI would have resigned or been fired
by now. I mean, [key hijacking suspect] Mohammad Atta was on the FBI
surveillance list, but this was never communicated to the airlines.
The authorities are now responding to the anthrax scare -- to what I
think are 99 percent certain to be just domestic copycat crazies on
their own war path -- by spreading more fear. We have Vice President
Cheney saying, "Well, these people could be part of the same terrorist
network that produced Sept. 11." Well, excuse me, but we have no
reason to think that.
As a result of these alarming statements from authorities, the public
is terrified. I live in New York and the streets were empty after the
FBI announced that another terrorist attack was imminent. You have
these idiots in the FBI saying they have "credible evidence" -- I love
that phrase -- that an attack this weekend is "possible." Which means
absolutely nothing. I mean it's possible there's a pink elephant in my
living room right now, as I'm talking to you from my kitchen. I
haven't checked recently, but it's not very likely.
And meanwhile our ridiculous president is telling us to shop and go to
the theater and lead normal lives. Normal? I could go 50 blocks, from
one end of Manhattan to another, in five minutes because there was no
one in the streets, no one in the restaurants, nobody in cars. You
can't scare people and tell them to behave normally.
We also seem to be getting contradictory messages about Muslims in the
U.S. We're told that not all Islamic people are our enemy, but at the
same time there's a fairly wide dragnet, which some civil liberties
defenders have criticized as indiscriminate, aimed at rounding up
Islamic suspects.
Well, people are very scared and Americans are not used to being
scared. There's an American exceptionalism; we're supposed to be
exempt from the calamities and terrors and anxieties that beset other
countries. But now people here are scared and it's interesting how
fast they are moving in another direction. The feeling is, and I've
heard this from people, about Islamic taxi drivers and shopkeepers and
other people -- we really ought to deport all the Muslims. Sure
they're not all terrorists and some of it will be unfair, but after
all we have to protect ourselves. Racial and ethnic profiling is now
seen as common sense itself. I mean how could you not want that if
you're going to take an airplane and you don't want a fellow in a
turban and a beard to sit next to you?
What I live in fear of is there will be another terror attack -- not a
sick joke like the powder in the envelope, but something real that
takes more lives, that has the stamp of something more professional
and thought out. It could be another symbolically targeted building --
maybe not in New York this time, but in Chicago or some other
heartland city that scares the rest of the country. And then you could
get something like martial law here. Many Americans, who as I say are
so used to not being afraid, would willingly accede to great
abridgements of freedom. Because they're afraid.
You called the president "robotic" in your New Yorker essay. But the
New York Times, among other media observers, has editorialized that
Bush has shown a new "gravitas" since Sept. 11. Do you think the
president has grown more commanding since the terror attacks?
I saw that in the Times -- I love that, gravitas. Has Bush grown into
his role of president? No, I think he's acquired legitimacy since
Sept. 11, that's all -- I don't call that "growing" at all. I think
what we obviously have in Washington is some kind of regency, run
presumably by Cheney and Rumsfeld and maybe Powell, although Powell is
much more of an organization man than a real leader. It's all very
veiled. And Cheney has not been much seen lately -- is this because he
is ill? It's all very mysterious. I hate to see everything become so
opaque.
It seems important to the Times and other major media to shore up the
president's image these days.
Yes, I just don't understand why debate equals dissent, and dissent
equals lack of patriotism now. I mean, look, I cry every morning real
tears, I mean down the cheek tears, when I read those small obituaries
that the New York Times publishes of the people who died in the World
Trade Center. I read them faithfully, every last one of them, and I
cry. I live near a firehouse that lost a lot of men, and I've brought
them things. And I'm genuinely and profoundly, exactly like everyone
else, really moved, really wounded, and really in mourning. I didn't
know anyone personally who died. But my son [journalist David Rieff]
had a former classmate who worked for Cantor Fitzgerald who died. A
number of people I know lost friends or loved ones.
I want to make one thing very clear, because I've been accused of this
by some critics. I do not feel that the Sept. 11 attacks were the
pursuit of legitimate grievances by illegitimate means. I think that's
the position of some people, but not me. It may even be the position
of Chomsky, although it's not for me to say. But it's certainly not my
position.
Speaking of your son, he seems to favor a tougher military response to
Islamic terrorism than you do.
Well, I don't want to go deeply into it, but clearly we don't see it
exactly the same way. Whatever David thinks is tremendously important
to me, but we do start from a different point of view. I feel that
it's just a difference of emphasis, but without speaking for him, he
feels it's deeper than that. But he's still the love of my life, so I
won't criticize him.
This is one thing I do completely agree with David on: If tomorrow
Israel announced a unilateral withdrawal of its forces from the West
Bank and the Gaza strip -- which I am absolutely in favor of ---
followed by the proclamation of a Palestinian state, I don't believe
it would make a dent in the forces that are supporting bin Laden's
al-Qaida. I think Israel is a pretext for these people.
I do believe in the unilateral withdrawal of Israel from the
Palestinian territories, which is of course the radical view held by a
minority of Israeli citizens, but certainly not by the Sharon
government. And it's a view I expressed when I received the Jerusalem
Prize there in May, which created quite a storm. But just because I am
a critic of Israeli policy -- and in particular the occupation, simply
because it is untenable, it creates a border that cannot be defended
-- that does not mean I believe the U.S. has brought this terrorism on
itself because it supports Israel. I believe bin Laden and his
supporters are using this as a pretext. If we were to change our
support for Israel overnight, we would not stop these attacks.
I don't think this is what it's really about. I think it truly is a
jihad, I think there is such a thing. There are many levels to Islamic
rage. But what we're dealing with here is a view of the U.S. as a
secular, sinful society that must be humbled, and this has nothing to
do with any particular aspect of American policy. So I don't think we
have brought this upon ourselves, which is of course a view that has
been attributed to me.
Let me ask you about another part of your essay that has riled your
critics. You said the hijackers displayed more courage than those,
presumably in the U.S. military, who bomb their enemies from a safe
distance.
No, I did not use the word "courage" -- I did use my words carefully.
I said they were not to be called cowards. I believe that courage is
morally neutral. I can well imagine wicked people being brave and good
people being timid or afraid. I don't consider it a moral virtue.
My feeling about this type of safe bombing goes back to the U.S. air
campaign against the Serbs in Kosovo, which I strongly supported,
though I was criticized by many of my friends on the left for being
too bellicose. I did support the bombing of the Serb forces, because I
had been in Sarajevo for three years during the siege and I wanted the
Serbs checked and rebuked. I wanted them out of Kosovo as I had wanted
them out of Bosnia.
When the U.S. campaign in Kosovo began, I happened to be staying with
a close friend in a town on the tip of Italy, the boot, about 40 miles
across from Albania, and the Apache helicopters were literally passing
over my head. They landed at the Tirana air base in Italy, but they
never took off for Kosovo because it was calculated that they might be
shot down and the crew killed. And the U.S. was unwilling to accept
these casualties.
But in order to bomb precisely, without hitting hospitals and other
civilian targets, you have to fly low to the ground with aircraft like
these. And you have to risk being brought down by antiaircraft fire.
So I was dismayed by the loss of civilian life in that U.S. bombing
campaign, which I had hoped would be very precise.
And so thinking about this, as I was writing my essay for the New
Yorker, I became very angry. And I wrote, if you're going to use the
word "cowardly," let's talk about the people who bomb from so high up
that they're out of the range of any retaliation and therefore cause
more civilian casualties than they otherwise would, in what is
supposedly a limited military bombing.
What about those in the antiwar camp who see a moral equivalence
between the destruction of the World Trade Center and the U.S. bombing
of Afghanistan?
Well, I don't share that view. I'm not a pacifist, but I am against
bombing. And I do think that if you want to conduct a military
operation, you have to be willing to take casualties. There are not,
strictly speaking, very many military targets in Afghanistan. We're
talking about one of the poorest countries in the world. What they can
do is bomb the soldiers, the camps where the Taliban soldiers are
based. And you can imagine who they are, it's a lot of kids. We can
drop a lot of napalm, and uranium-tipped bombs, and kill many
thousands of people. We haven't been doing a lot of that yet. That's
next. And then we'll get these other awful people to come in, this
Northern Alliance, and it will be horrible.
David Talbot is the founder and editor in chief of Salon, where this
article originally appeared. AlterNet