The images above, originally broadcast by the news agency Al Jazeera, document the brutal reality of the U.S. bombings of Afghanistan and the imperialistic "war on "terror." The child in the AP wire photo in the upper left corner is 13-year-old Jawad. He is the only survivor of his family who were killed during the U.S. bombing of a neighborhood in northern Kabul early on Sunday, Oct. 28, 2001. This single airstrike killed at least 10 people and was the second strike in less than 24 hours to cause civilian fatalities. Images such as these have been censored from corporate-controlled media outlets because the resulting outrage would certainly undermine public support for the war, which has been synthesized through a tightly controlled stream of militaristic media propaganda. And unlike you, the people of Afghanistan cannot simply change a TV channel or put down a newspaper if the war news becomes too unpleasant. Like the so-called "war on drugs," this new campaign of state violence is defined by vague parameters which are global in scope while conveniently providing justification for the undermining of civil liberties nationally, deepening our state of domestic militarization. And like the war on drugs, the victims of this vaguely-defined war on "evil" are impoverished people and children caught in the crossfire. Half the population of Afghanistan (26 million) are children under 16 years old. Because of the U.S. military campaign against the Taliban regime, an estimated 7.5 million of these children face starvation this winter. Look at the faces of the children shown above. Which one of these young people has been tied to the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11? They were maimed and killed simply because they lived in the pathway of an oil pipeline into the Caspian Sea region. Furthermore, according to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance possesses the same repressive attitude toward women as the formerly U.S.-backed Taliban regime. The corporate-controlled media have failed to scrutinize the true motives and false propaganda supporting President Bush's terrorist war, choosing instead to broadcast a barrage of doublespeak that disguises mass murder as patriotism. Obviously, bombing innocent children is the depraved act of a terrorist, as is supporting forces which systematically implement violence against women. The U.S. government is a terrorist organization, and the taxes you pay help fund its terrorist acts. It is unconscionable to tolerate the U.S. government's murderous "war on terror." The rapid escalation of political fascism in the United States, projected outward on the trade routes of globalization, poses a threat to all life on the planet and cannot be ignored. Do not live in denial. When patriotism equals complicity in mass genocide, there exists a moral obligation to be rabidly unpatriotic. Download printable .pdf of this page (11x17, includes text) Download printable .pdf of this page (8.5x11, no text) For more info, contact thecmc. > More CMC Posters > Back to CMC Home Page

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