I spent most the day yesterday sitting looking out my window. I must have spent a few hours just blankly gazing at the building across from me while recalling various occasions of days and weeks roaming London’s streets. Of any other city in the world, besides Vancouver, I am most fond and comfortable in London. In fact, if I were ever forced to relocate it would be my first choice.

My father, though born in India, lived in and around London for most of his young life. His greatest passion, that for football, was passed on to me, as was his passion for the North London side that he has devoutly supported since the late 40’s. The first time that I stood inside Highbury I looked out across the pitch and realized that my father, some 40+ years before me, had done the same. When I was gifted the opportunity to visit the dressing room, players lounge, and pitch itself after an Arsenal – Liverpool match in early 2001, memories of my father yelling at a television screen came flooding back to me in a way that I thought that they never would.

I mention football because it is has been my primary connection to London, and Great Britain, my entire life. When I think of England I am not automatically awash with visions of the Blitz, the rubble that my father played in as a boy, The Beatles, punk rock, or the UK’s great and troubled history and grandeur. What I am first confronted with are images of Charlie George, Alan Smith, Liam Brady, and a long ball played towards Michael Thomas at Anfield in 1989. Football, and Arsenal, have and always will be my main connection to the town and the country.

This world slips away from us. As each day passes we become less aware of each other’s potential for friendship and more aware of each other’s potential for violence. I struggle to ignore the words of ignorance that point fingers at an entire race and religion in the aftermath of the violence that struck London yesterday. I struggle to ignore the foolish partisan divisions that are created by those that feel that differing opinions on such subjects are a sign of support for those that would senselessly kill people. By fighting ourselves we do nothing but defeat ourselves and no one besides.

I was raised in an era in which nuclear destruction was the greatest of fears. As a child I took part in drills at school to practice what to do in the event of a nuclear attack – it consisted of getting under our desks and holding our head in our hands as if passengers on a failing plane. The irony of that drill has never left me, nor has the cold feeling of the floor on my hands. In the event of a nuclear attack we would have either been liquefied (were we lucky enough), or tossed like matchsticks through the air along with several tons of concrete, wood, glass, bodies, and metal. The only reason to get on the floor was to take our minds off of it long enough to be killed. But we did it anyway. And later that night at home I would talk about it with my parents and a palpable fear would be produced by contemplating the realities of such a terrible thing. It effected me so much that in my teen years I suffered from insomnia and often paced around clenching my fists so hard that I would sometimes break the skin.

Fear keeps people in line and forces them to focus on specific things. In our society we commonly focus on consumption as a cure for anxiety. In other parts of the world, inclusion in radical religious and social groups is sometimes sought to combat the anxieties of hopelessness, extreme poverty, and injustice. Ultimately, the need to belong is often used to combat our fears. But no matter your cure-all, at some point you have to ask yourself who’s benefiting from all of this fear and hatred. Surely not Allah. Surely not Jesus Christ or any other God. Their names are often invoked in anger, but far more so in distress. And we stand to learn something very important about our commonality by remember that.

Revenge is for those without the wisdom to realize that compassion leads to the healing of the effected and guilty alike. There can be no agreeable violent resolve, as becoming that which would murder for a cause ultimately renders the cause of all to become murderers. Sitting there, looking out the window, I silently sent out my most heartfelt sympathies to the victim’s families, to those injured and effected, and even to those who have lost so much of their humanity as to believed it acceptable to undertake such terrible things. Because, in the end, they are the truly dead. Getting up I walked past my 1971 Double Winners pennant and, invoking the ghost of Herb Chapman, told London to hang tough.

Of all of the various films that I’ve seen about post 9/11 America, I think this is one of the better ones. In fact, no matter your political beliefs, any free thinking person should desire to see it. It contains fantastic interviews with a variety of individuals, including: Tariq Ali, Chalmers Johnson, Daniel Ellsberg, Mark Danner, Stan Goff, William Hartung, Robert Jensen, Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Ret.), Zia Mian, Vandana Shiva, and Scott Ritter among others.

If you’d like to learn more about the film, or watch previews, visit the Hijacking Catastrophe website at hijackingcatastrophe.org.

During my first viewing I took some notes so that I could present, point form, a handful of the points made in the film. Here are a few.

1. The National Debt of the United States at the end of 2004 was roughly 7 trillion dollars. That sum is almost three times that of the entire Third World. Military spending since the implementation of the Wolfowitz Doctrine as official US foreign policy has been roughly $400 billion dollars a year. Foreign nations hold the notes on about one third of the US debt.

2. Under The Bush (Wolfowitz) Doctrine The United States has refused to adhere to the 51st Article of the UN Charter.

3. All major American military bases in Afghanistan are positioned along the route of a projected pipeline.

4. The context of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and the deliverance of democracy was used to secure regions of the world vital to US military and energy interests.

5. The invasion of Iraq played an important role in demonstrating to the European and Far Eastern powers what the United States is militarily and politically capable of. Since the end of the Cold War, a segment of the American conservative right has held the belief that the United States should ensure that no other nation should be allowed to rival the influence and military capability of the United States, thus rendering them the world’s sole super power and guaranteeing their ability to influence regions of the world vital to US interests without opposition.

6. The United States consistently supported the regime of Saddam Hussein when doing so matched US regional interests. This includes the period of the regimes worst human rights violations, including the gassing of Halabja and the suppression of the Shia uprising encouraged by the US following the Gulf War.

7. The Patriot Act was passed without public or Congressional discussion of its contents. The 4th and 6th Amendments to the US Constitution have been severely imperiled.

8. Shock & Awe, thought by many to be a term created for media purposes, is actually the title of a 1996 National Defense University Report. Authored by Harlan Ullman and James Wade, the military doctrine advocates the destruction of an adversary’s will to fight through the use of extreme displays of military power. It is a subset of “Rapid Dominance�?, or the belief that the defeat of an enemy is best achieved by accelerated action against all aspects of their ability to resist. This includes massive military strikes undertaken to diminish the public will and impose extreme psychological effects.

9. After the invasion of Iraq, President Bush confronts accusations that his administration purposely linked the regime of Saddam Hussein to the attacks of September 11th with surprise and claims that no connection was ever found. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, 70% of the American public believed that there was a connection.

10. Much of American society has come to view militarism with a sort of romance. Many are taken with military technologies, the weapons of war, and their impact. The media, while largely supporting this phenomenon, tends not to highlight the results of weapons of war or war in general. The American public has applauded an increase in military spending post 9/11 believing that it means greater security. Ironically, the fact that in September of 2001 the United States possessed the world’s most advanced and powerful military (as well as the world’s largest WMD arsenal and leading intelligence capabilities) did not stop the attacks of September 11th from occurring.

11. Fear justifies the ability to damage and limit rights.

12. The war in Iraq is an atrocities generating situation.

13. The definition of patriotism has been hijacked and radicalized.

14. President Bush once responded a question about an increase in attacks in Iraq by saying “bring ‘em on�?. Neither George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, or Paul Wolfowitz have first hand experience with warfare. The majority of those that have advocated American military unilateralism have never served in the armed forces, nor have their children.

15. Following the attacks of September 11th the people of the world marched in historically unprecedented solidarity with the people of the United States. Two years later, the world marched in historically unprecedented numbers against the US led invasion of Iraq.