Editorial:
Condemn and resist the terrorist war of agression!

Basahin ang artikulong ito sa Pilipino

The Communist Party of the Philippines condemns the heinous crashing of four civilian airplanes in New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania in the US that killed thousands of innocent civilians. The deliberate and malicious attack on the innocent can never be justified even if it is claimed to be in retaliation for similar acts of terrorism by US imperialism.

However, what is more abominable is how this incident is being exploited to advance US imperialist interests. The US is currently drumbeating what it calls a "war against terrorism" in order to justify measures to expand its military power, particularly in Central and South Asia, threaten the sovereignty of all nations across the world especially those with anti-US standpoints, further subjugate the puppet regimes under imperialist hegemony and impede the revolutionary struggles of the world's peoples.

US imperialism has bloodied hands in its long history of sowing terrorism and massacring millions of ordinary people around the world. The scars of this terrorism are forever etched in the collective memory of the countries attacked and plundered by US imperialism. Who can forget the first wave of US terrorism in the 20th century where 400,000 ordinary Filipinos were killed when the United States seized the Philippines? the more than 100,000 civilians killed by US imperialism when it dropped atomic bombs over population centers of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945? or the millions of people from Vietnam to Iraq, Nicaragua to Yugoslavia, who were killed in the US' wars of aggression aimed at establishing its power all over the world?

US imperialism is ultimately responsible for the terrorism that is now hurting innocent Americans. It is the US that began targeting civilian populations, discarding and mocking the laws and standards of carrying out civilized war.

The terrorism that the US is now condemning is the offspring of its own terrorism. In fact, Osama bin Laden, the US' prime suspect in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, was under the protection and care of the CIA during the armed opposition against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan in the 1980s. In the same manner, the US supported the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which it formerly labeled as terrorist, when NATO attacked Yugoslavia in 1999 to overthrow the government of Slobodan Milosevic. But since NATO is now in favor of the new government, it is now disarming the KLA. The Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, mercenary terrorists trained by the US in Afghanistan when the US was in cahoots with bin Laden, was employed to oppose the revolutionary struggle of the Bangsamoro people.

In response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the Bush government is now unleashing a worse kind of terrorism. The entire US Congress has allocated $40 billion in initial funding for the "war against terrorism" and has given Bush a wide range of powers to wage war.

The US is now employing brusque diplomacy and economic sanctions against countries which did not immediately voice out support for US militarism and jingoism. Bush has declared an ultimatum: that any nation that does not support the "war against terrorism" will be considered in league with the terrorists. As a further means of arm-twisting, the US has listed 60 countries which are supposedly involved in terrorism. As a result, the leaders of these countries, including the Philippines, have scrambled to declare support for the US, fearing that the US may make them targets of aggression or impose sanctions such as an aid, funds or trade embargo.

Meanwhile, more than 20,000 US troops, warships and aircraft are now deployed in strategic positions in and around the Middle East and are just awaiting orders from Bush to carry out the actual attack against Afghanistan and other targets.

US imperialism has asserted that this war will be like no other in the past. It will be launched on all fronts - in the military, economic, diplomatic, political and other fields. US imperialism is preparing the American people to brace themselves against a bloody war that may last up to 10 years. It will simultaneously employ overt and covert methods, with the latter actually referring to "dirty means" violative of humanitarian law and civilized standards of war. The US is now intensifying the civil war in Afghanistan by supporting the Northern Alliance which are enemies of the Taliban. It has suspended certain provisions of the rules of war. The US government now openly endorses and is instigating political assassinations of its perceived enemies.

Bush has declared that the "war against terrorism" will cover the entire globe. It will definitely be employed to further uphold US power by positioning US military forces around the world and launching terrorist attacks against governments and peoples fighting US hegemony and waging revolutionary struggle to attain national and social liberation.

As it grows ever desperate, imperialism becomes ever ruthless in unleashing terrorism. Yet, this can only stir up just resistance and revolutionary struggles among peoples the world over. It is the revolutionary struggle of the world's peoples that shall defeat US imperialism, local reaction and all forms of terrorism. As US imperialism and the entire capitalist system experience a deepening and widening economic crisis, the revolutionary struggles of the proletariat and the world's peoples gain further strength. It is this struggle that shall bury imperialism and uphold freedom, democracy and socialism.

September 2001
English Edition

	Editorial: Condemn and resist the terrorist war of agression!
	Terrorist crimes of the US and its fascist puppets
	Vulnerability of imperialist economy exposed in attack on US
	Strategic imperialist interests in Afganistan
	Using the US war of aggression as rationale: Intensifying reaction in the Philippines and overseas
	Reports from Correspondents: Conference on the Iloco language: An important breakthrough in achieving unity on Iloco writing and translation
	Reports from Correspondents: Vigorous, swift and effective action of the masses in the guerilla zones
	Reports from Correspondents: Operations of the Force Recon Battalion of the Philippine Marines
	RHB: Criminal and counterrevolutionary
	CPLA officially integrated into the AFP
	News