A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001 (Nation Books) [Paperback]

Katrina vanden Heuvel (Editor), Jonathan Schell (Introduction)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The writers and editors of the Nation pull no punches in assailing both the Bush administration and the media for what they deem to be a dangerous and unnecessary overreaction to the September 11 terrorist attacks. From columnist Katha Pollitt's diatribe against the American flag (according to her, "The flag stands for jingoism and vengeance") to author Chalmers Johnson's evocation of the 1950s CIA term "blowback" to try to illustrate how what Johnson sees as America's corrupt foreign policies brought about September 11, this is not the kind of talk one finds within the pages of Time or Newsweek. Although the Nation's targets range from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Bayer, the manufacturer of Cipro, the harshest criticism is reserved for the mainstream media. According to Michael Massing, author of the 30-page section titled "Press Watch," members of the media by not asking pertinent questions or aggressively pursuing concrete answers from Bush administration officials have directly aided the administration's goal of ultimate secrecy. While Massing may be on point, other contributors are definitely not. Some writers predicted a prolonged conflict in Afghanistan with major U.S. casualties. Others suggested that millions of Afghan civilians would starve because of America's military operations. Neither of the aforementioned has happened. Still, those who found the early coverage of America's "War on Terror" to be monotonous will appreciate the Nation's radical point of view.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Since September 11, the mainstream media, for the most part, has shied away from criticizing or disagreeing with the governmental response to the terrorist attacks. Moreover, any connections between U.S. foreign policy and the upsurge of radical Islam have been minimized or ignored. A refreshing exception to the media whitewash has been the Nation, a progressive magazine traditionally committed to providing a forum for left-leaning intelligentsia. Included in this important collection of essays, articles, and editorials published in the Nation since September 11 are contributions that address issues pertaining to First Amendment rights, civil liberties, social justice, disarmament, international law, and world opinion within the context of the current war on terrorism. Although many might disagree with the unpopular conclusions drawn by some of the authors, few would dispute the fact that they provide a reasoned balance to right-wing jingoism. Margaret Flanagan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 349 pages
• Publisher: Nation Books; 2nd edition (March 18, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560254009
• ISBN-13: 978-1560254003
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,237,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It's High Time, December 1, 2008

By 

Armando A. Gomez - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

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This review is from: A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001 (Nation Books) (Paperback)

Although events pertaining on terrorism have further unfolded since the publication of this book, A JUST RESPONSE is as relevant today as it was nearly seven years ago. The book is a once-in-a-life-time look at what really took place just months after 9-11, before the massive obfuscation by the mainstream media and the Bush administration. Saying that, what is gathered in this book are the most respected figures on the progressive spectrum. These men and women writers offer analysis, causes and consequences of not just what the terrorists had brought to our shores but the cover-up and misinformation of the Bush administration. A JUST RESPONSE brought together the long-needed and desperately absented perceptions of what really happened on 9-11 that have been broadsided by the bombastic and jingoism of the corporate and right-wing news media. A JUST RESPONSE is provocative, audacious--and it's high time!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great, but Hollow essays, June 16, 2008

By 

Mark Watterson "Author of Don't Weep for Me, ... - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001 (Nation Books) (Paperback)

This multitude of writers, in a conglomeration by The Nation Magazine, have put together some extremely powerful arguments regarding the US response to the 9/11 attacks. Sadly, however, The Nation Magazine itself has lost its way and the lucid points articulated throughout this book are now lost, along with all the rhetoric about why we sent our military to the Middle East, resulting in the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings.

Most of these writers hit the nail right on the head by repeatedly pointing out that "nothing resembling proof of bin Laden's responsibility for the September 11 attack has yet been put forward either by the United States or its subordinate in Downing Street".

There is a reason for this. There is no proof.

The astute Alexander Cockburn chimes in that there may be a similarity to Pearl Harbor that no one has yet mentioned: "The possibility of a Japanese attack in early December of 1941 was known to U.S. Naval Intelligence".

Anybody see a pattern here, as regards to the information the masses (proles) get from their gov't?

The pattern is LIES, and BIG ones! In other words, 9/11 was not a surprise and it had nothing to do with bin laden. But the perpetual war has been raging now for 7 long years. And the American/British corporate states are very happy about that.

1 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beware, sceptical thoughts found here, October 14, 2002

By 

Chris (Washington state, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Just Response: The Nation on Terrorism, Democracy, and September 11, 2001 (Nation Books) (Paperback)

An overview of some of the contents found in this book, a collection of writings from The Nation magazine written in the few months after the 9-11 massacres.

William Greider, Bill Moyers and others address corporate knavery since 9-11.

Katha Pollit asks why we have to fund barbaric dictatorships like the one in Saudi Arabia and oppose progressive forces in the ME. She points to the really unbelievably courageous work of the Revolutionary Women of Afghanistan, operating for years within Afghanistan as fierce opponents of both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. She also staggers humanity by explaining why she would not allow her daughter to fly an American flag out their living room window.

Victor Navasky calls for Ann Coulter to be host of "Politically Incorrect" instead of Bill Maher. Coulter was fired by The National Review Online for saying racist things that not a few readers of that great publication probably believe but don't say so loudly publicly. On the other hand Bill Maher immediately backtracked after his infamous comments after a few advertisers for his show withdrew and he said he didn't mean what he said he loves our military people and so on. At least, he says, Miss Coulter was actually being politically incorrect in contrast to the whimpy centrist liberal Maher.

Chalmers Johnson, the former CIA analyst, has a particularly powerful piece. He quotes the U.S. Space Command's document "Vision for 2020": "the globalization of the world economy will also continue, with a widening between the 'haves' and the have-nots." He quotes the eminent senator from Georgia, the Hon. Zell Miller, as saying on the day after 9/11 that he didn't care if there was "collateral damage," lets bomb the hell out of everybody. He notes that collateral damage is one of those terms that isued to describe our destruction of Iraqi and Serb civillians by our high-flying plains. And that this might have been the term that our ambassador to the UN, John Negroponte, might have used while he was helping coordinate the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Central Americans in the 80's while Ambassador to Honduras.

Richard Falk outlines his case for the attack on Afghanistan being a "just war." Numerous letters are printed in response to this including from Howard Zinn. The latter writes about the effects of our bombing: bloody young children staggering accross the Pakistani border, enitre villages and families wiped out, the evil cluster bombs, a red cross warehouse bombed.

Noam Chomsky quotes the New York Times about U.S. pressure on the military oligarchy running Pakistan to close its border to truck convoys carrying food to Afghanistan. He quotes from various aid agencies which condemned the American bombing as exacerbating the humanitarian disaster by blocking the distribution of desperately needed food aid. The 2001 Fall harvest in Afghanistan was 80 percent disrupted. Other contributors point to the sleaziness of the public relations gesture in dropping 37,000 food packets a day on a population where seven million were needing food. He refers to the massive refugee exodus from the American terror bombing of Kandahar and Herat into land-mine infested rural areas. He quotes from Michael Kinsley, Time magazine and other open supporters of the U.S. terrorist war against Nicaragua in the 80's as they openly advocated terrorist methods that would bring "democracy" there i.e. to terrorize the Nicaguan people into voting the Sandanistas out in 1990.

Alexander Cockburn points out that we on the anti-war left support eradicating Bin Ladenism. It's just that the so-called "war on terrorism" is only going to increase it over the long run. He like alot of other of the contributors, argue for non-violent legal means to aprehend the perpetrators of 9-11 such as through the international criminal court, the UN, coordinated international police work and so on.

Robert Fisk has an article from September 1998 about his interviews with Bin Laden. He quotes Bin Laden as calling the Israeli massacre of the refugees at Qana in 1996 "international terrorism" and calling for trials for the perpetrators. "Clinton used almost exactly the same words about bin Laden and his supporters in August [1998]. But the deaf, as usual, were talking to the deaf." Bin Laden lays out in the midst of ranting, in which he curiously accuses the Saudi regime of financing the defunct radical "communist" regime of North Yemen, his view that the slaughter of Iraqis because of the sanctions as a "war against Islam."

Fisk and Michael Massing write about the barbaric Northern Alliance led by the late Ahmad Shah Masood and Abdul Rashid Dostum and how they raped and plundered and bombed Afghanistan 1992-96, making people willing to accept the Taliban takeover.

Christopher Hitchens boldly shows that the Bin Ladenists are not misguided freedom fighters but barbaric terrorists. Of course nobody is actually contesting that notion and...oh why bother. Michael Massing's account of the critique of U.S. foreign policy of Fareed Zakaria and even Falk's deeply flawed arguments are much better ...

This book, inevitably, is becoming a little bit dated as time goes on for none of the articles are after December 2001 but the arguments in it still hold power.