At time of writing 17 cases of anthrax infection including 4 deaths were reported in the USA. At the same time 578 anthrax hoaxes and incidents per day were reported. Does that statistic impress you? If “Yes”, what does it say about USA society? If “No,” are you using your brains?

Many years ago I opened a letter addressed to me. I knew the sender and the carrier. Some powder and other alien matter puffed up in my face. I suspected it was simply someone, relatively harmless and naïve, trying a little obeah, that was destined to be ineffective. Yet I was not amused. I was very aggrieved, and very aggravated. You can imagine the panic, the testing and the accusations of public mischief that would have been generated if that incident had occurred today; especially in the USA.

We must condemn terrorism in all its grotesque variety; from anthrax to innocuous powder; from Unibomber to Mc Veigh to World Trade Centre.

The USA gave Mr. Bush very high marks for leadership after September 11. He was tainted only by his initial instinctive run-and-hide. Mayor of New York Mr. Giuliani got full marks until the weekend of November 2, when his role became not just tainted, but infected by hints and allegations that his leadership was inspired not so much by compassion and understanding for victims dead and alive, but more by treasure.

On November 2 it was being reported that New York’s bravest were pitted against New York’s finest. In a protest by firemen some policemen were injured and 12 protesters, including firemen were arrested.

Mayor and lawyer Giuliani saw it as a matter in which firemen breached discipline and law and order. But spokesmen for the firemen dismissed the mayor’s “tort and tortuous argument” (Kamau Brathwaite) as a non-issue. “It’s all about money,” they said.

For over 7 weeks they had been working in the debris of the WTC without interference, digging out their colleagues and others …, the only way to ensure for them a decent burial and closure for their relatives. But that week, hundreds of million dollars worth of gold, buried in the debris, had been recovered and vehicled away. It appeared that the need to recover human remains paled into insignificance or mere coincidence. It was time to ask the firemen to stand back while heavy equipment clear the sites and make way for re-building and for the money-making activities that pertained prior to September 11.

You may have seen but noticed not that Giuliani easily won.

That week too, a CNN report concluded that available technology could have been developed and used against terrorism such as resulted in the destruction of the WTC. Why was it not used? It was simply a matter of “ return on investment.” It would not have been profitable.

November 4, the CNN ticker tape reported that Pakistan freed two nuclear scientists detained for suspected links to the Taliban. Did you see that? Does it chill you?

Meanwhile, all the big media are reporting “surprise at the low level of protest in Pakistan.” Neither the same flippancy nor the hypocrisy is employed to remind us that the early protests were violently suppressed by the Pakistani military, that many religious leaders were arrested, and protesters were killed.

At 4.45 a.m, October 25, the said CNN ticker tape informed those who cared to notice:

“U.S. MILITARY CONTINGENT ARRIVES IN SOUTHERN PHILLIPINES TO HELP COMBAT MILITANT GROUPS.”

Does that impress you as a telling blow for or against democracy? There appears to be a negative correlation with the militancy that led to American independence some 225 years ago.

On October 21, Robin Oakley and others were speaking on CNN, London. They commented on “information management” by the United States and United Kingdom governments:

• “Governments think it is acceptable to lie in times of war. So we have to be skeptical.”
• “It is appropriate that war begins at night because we are all being kept in the dark.”