From the IWA-Secretariat, Oslo
To the Sections and Friends of the IWA

THE SEPTEMBER ELEVENTH AND NATO`S NEW STRATEGIC CONCEPT

The US and Great Britain are planning a 5 to 10 years long war against terrorism according to The Times of September the 20th. The plan is called "Noble Eagle" and it contains all elements of the the new strategic concept of the NATO: Having mobile units defending "Western" interests around the globe and having a "total defence" where the political, economical and military interests are closely linked and integrated.

The US dominate the military, economic, technological and cultural dimensions of power in the world today, so when we consider their military actions, it is also important to analyse their economical motives. The IWA-Secretariat wrote in the First of May appeal the following:

"One of the United States main objectives is both to manipulate and accomondate the countries in the "corridor" from the Baltic countries, Poland, through East and Central Europe, to the Balkans, Turkey, the Caspian Sea and the Caucasus, the former Central Asian Soviet Republics, to Xinjiang and to Tibet. This is to reduce and undermine European, Russian and South -East Asian ambitions and to get control over the vast oil- and natural resources"

Just as the US used the Iraq invasion of Kuwait as an excuse to implement the subordinate goal of placing troops in Saudi Arabia, we have to look for the real motives of the US when they are going to revenge the attacks of September the 11th. It is this context we must draw attention to the California based company Unocal. They had contacts to the Taliban regime until recently, but did not manage to reach an agreement with them about a project of an oil-pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afganistan to India. An eventual pipeline could have supplied the growing Asian energy marked with oil and gas and given the US- Unocal a dominant role.

Unocals advisor is the former US-Foreign Minister Alexander Haig. Alexander Haig is also a member of the Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) - a company of American generals that were enganged by Croatia in the Krajina offensive, against Serbian forces in Western-Bosnia and as advisors in Colombia. We can expect US-military actions to support the US-economical interests in order to to have a US-dominated Afganistan and a stable and pro-US Pakistan.

The development in Pakistan is vital: The traditional pro-US military forces in Pakistan have no other choice than to cooperate with the USA. They have also demanded a substantial payment of the Pakistan economical depth and a cancelling of all sanctions. A too strong US-presence in Pakistan can provoke "fundamentalist" revolt in Pakistan and other countries in the region- especially Tajikistan and give nuclear weapons to pro-Taliban forces.

Russia has also as the US interests in fighting the "fundamentalists". In Chechnya they have used this fight as an excuse of violations and murdering of a people just to get a stronghold for Russian interests. The Russia is in spite of promises of cooperation with the US higly critical of the increasingly stronger US-presence in Central Asia. US- soldiers have had military exercises with troops from Kazakstan- and Uzbekistan through the socalled "Partnership for peace" The Northern Alliance fighting Taliban in Northern Afganistan has been supported by Russia and Iran, but can now be supported by the US. A "new" Afganistan can give US a new stronghold in Central Asia and give Russia another challenge.

The world is now waiting for the next steps of the US and NATO to revenge the terrorist attacks on Tuesday the September 11th. These attacks are - as Noam Chomsky says in an interview with Radio B92 Belgrade - quite new in world affairs, not in their scale and character, but in the target. For the US it is the first time since the War of 1812 that its national territory has been under attack. Terror has now been globalised to the US and can reach Europe.

The main EU-countries with tradition of hundreds of years of imperial violence rally in their support for the USA. Thursday, September 20th the EU decided in Brussels hard measures against terrorism. These laws, that will be implemented in the respective EU countries, are formulated so widely that they can be used against demonstrators, public strikes and generally against everyone that wants to change the political and economical structure!

The IWA-Secretariat herby makes a call to the Sections and Friends of the IWA to exchange information and take action. Capitalism is an automatic machine producing human and ecological misery, children exploit, unemployment, fascism and wars. The IWA- the inheriting of the First International recovers the anti-militarist tradition and proposes boycotts against the manufacturing of arms and general strike against war.

Our answer is not terror - but enforced, coordinated work for workers self-emancipation!

Oslo, the 23rd of September 2001

With anarchosyndicalist greetings
IWA-Secretariat