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The political economy of development
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The horror of the World Trade Center
in New York, and other horrors



The destruction of the World Trade Center in New York was an atrocity showing how  some human beings are capable of the most terrible crimes in the name of political struggle.
The British weekly "The Economist", paraphrasing George Bush, wrote "the appalling atrocities of September 11th (were) acts that must be seen as a declaration of war not just on America but on all civilised people". We have a problem of definition here: who are the civilised people?

Are they the US ruling elites? They supported on another 11 of September ( in 1973) appalling atrocities against the Chilean people in the name of defending democracy.

Are they the British ruling elites? They bombed the German civilian population during the II World War unleashing appalling atrocities over women, children and old people in a scale far larger than the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Are they the German ruling elites? They unleashed appalling atrocities on the English civilian population during the II World War, and even more appalling atrocities on the Soviet population, the Jews and many other defenceless people.

Are they the French ruling elites? They mastered the art of unleashing appalling atrocities on the Algerian population during the latter's struggle for their independence.

Are they the Russian ruling elites? The appalling atrocities inflicted on the German civilian population at the end of the II World War are well known.

Are they the Japanese ruling elites? The rape of Nanking, when they invaded the Republic of China, was 20 times larger in number of civilian slaughtered than the atrocity in the World Trade Center.


And we have also the murder of more than one hundred thousand civilians in Hiroshima y Nagasaki. None of those cities were military targets. The appalling atrocities committed against the civilian population in Vietnam are very well documented. In a word, it seems to us that the ones who are today declaring themselves  defenders of the civilised world never have been civilised when big businesses and big geo-politics was menaced by challenging political forces.


In the set of articles that follow the reader will find more information about those who have been dominating the world in the last 500 years, and now, suddenly, present themselves  as the representatives of the civilised world. We don't see much difference between the murderers who killed three thousand civilians in New York, and the representatives of the big transnational business and imperial geo-politics who have been murdering systematically those who have been challenging their imperial power. 
(Róbinson Rojas - 2001)

N. Chomsky (interview), On the destruction of the World Trade Center (2001)
I. Ramonet, The American Empire (1997)
The Economist, The roots of hatred (2001)
O. Roy, Fundamentalists without a common cause (1998)
N. Chomsky, America: the outlaw state (2000)
M. T. Klare, America's military revolution (2001)

From The Black World Today : (2001)

J. Gerassi, Will Tears Ever Stop?
R. Burbac, A day that will live in infamy in the U.S. and Chile
M. Chossudovsky, War is good for business
E. Galeano, The theatre of good and evil
M. Moore, Bush, the CIA and the roots of terrorism
J. Pilger, Inevitable ring to the unimaginable
Yu Bin, Why China sides with U.S. in war on terrorism