Yahoo Groups Arundhati Roy: Message Excerpt Aug. 19

Yahoo Groups Arundhati Roy A clear-minded, passionate dissenter, Ms. Roy certainly is. As
a "subject of the empire," she feels it's her right -- no, her obligation -- to speak out. Not truth to power, mind you. Power knows the truth, she asserts. It's the commoners, the people that need to be reached...in their hearts and minds. It's the people who,one would hope, need to understand what Power is doing to the world (and themselves), in their name.

She has a few words to say about Power and its arrogance.

On Mr. Bush and his counterpart, Mr. bin Laden:

"Osama bin Laden and George Bush are both terrorists. They are both building international networks that perpetrate terror and devastate people's life. Bush, with the Pentagon, the WTO, the IMF, and the World Bank. Bin Laden with Al Qaeda.

The difference is that nobody elected bin Laden. Bush was elected (in a manner of speaking), so U.S. citizens are more responsible for his actions than Iraqis are for the actions of Saddam Hussein or Afghans are for the Taliban.

And yet hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghans have been killed, either by economic sanctions or cruise missiles, and we're told that these deaths are the results of 'just wars.' If there is such a thing as a just war, who is to decide what is just and what is not? Whose God is going to decide that?" (p. 92)

Who? Niall Ferguson, the author of Empire, Christopher Hitchens, Tony Blair, Suzan Sontag, Michael Ignatieff, and the other guard dogs of the White Citadel, have made the case for just war and the civilizing benefits of empire.