SECOND, it is fairly likely that the attack does have its roots somewhere in the Middle East and if so, the evidence will come out. Therefore the first point does not mean denying that possibility.

Whether the attack came from there or another part of the globe, one basic fact stands--the only way to protect people in the U.S. from attacks like this is for our government to stop doing things that make so many people in the Middle East and around the world hate us so passionately.

The President and numerous media mouthpieces have framed this as an issue of "evil" people who "hate freedom." Nobody sacrifices his or her life out of an abstract hatred of freedom. This attack is the direct result of years of US policy and actions. The US government has committed many crimes around the world which have killed men, women and children on a scale that dwarfs the toll of Tuesday's explosion. Most recently, by destroying Iraq's water supplies--against all the rules of war--and pressuring the UN to enforce economic sanctions, the U.S. government has caused the deaths of more than half a million Iraqi children. And the U.S. supplies the military equipment that the Israeli government has used to uproot, attack and assassinate Palestinians for 50 years. Why is it a shock that ordinary Palestinians are not condemning attacks on the U.S.? They're oppressed and desperate and they know who's supplying the weapons used against them.

One talking head expert on terrorism called it a high concept, low-tech attack. It was very low-tech. Reports based on a cell phone call made from the plane that hit the Pentagon indicate that the hijackers were armed only with knives and boxcutters. Even in terms of their own national security logic, the rulers of the U.S. screwed up. They've been pushing Star Wars and other high tech boons for the weapons industry that many experts admit do not address the real sources of threat to the U.S.

THIRD, we have to ready to take a really unpopular stand when the U.S. military inevitably attacks somebody. The buildup is well underway, both on military bases and in the battle for public opinion. Already there are calls by experts and political demagogues for the military to just go and trash the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan, since they're probably involved somehow or another. Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV, in particular, has chosen to demonize the Palestinians, showing footage of spontaneous anti-US celebrations on the West Bank over and over again.

Here the faith-based communities are out in front, holding church meetings and vigils of mourning to call for peace. It is essential to unite with such forces in standing against the ramp-up to military attacks.

Exactly how we respond will depend on who Bush chooses to attack, and how. Will it be massive carpet bombing like that in Serbia or in Baghdad, which will create more death and destruction than the explosions in NY and at the Pentagon? And if they start dragging us into a land war in Afghanistan, we should immediately point out the Vietnam-style quagmire the USSR faced there in the '80s. We have to speak out right away so people can start thinking and organizing.

FOURTH, we criticize the attacks, especially the one on the World Trade Center. Probably thousands of ordinary people have been killed and thousands injured. The deaths of the airline passengers and staff, workers in the buildings, bystanders and rescue workers cannot be justified. People who fight against U.S. imperialism around the world, even those taking part in protracted armed liberation struggles, have as a rule refused to descend to the level of wholesale slaughter that the U.S. and its client states have repeatedly engaged in over the years. When that high ground is abandoned, our movement loses.

It's important to recognize the emotional reality we're in. Some of us lost friends or relatives working in the buildings or the rescue, or saw people jumping out of windows to their deaths. Even for those who did not suffer a deep personal loss, the impact of seeing your city attacked, a major symbol destroyed, realizing your life could be incinerated in an instant, is traumatic. What is new and shocking for us here in the U.S. is a level of suffering that many peoples around the world have experienced for decades at a time, often due to the actions of U.S. imperialism--Vietnamese watching their children napalmed, in a war where well over a million civilians died in Pentagon-decreed free fire zones.

FIFTH, there are already reports on anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racist acts erupting around the country. For instance, mosques and Islamic schools in Charlotte and Raleigh, North Carolina have already had to close down in the face of brutal threats.There is certain to be a big wave of such attacks, especially once the media drop their responsible veneer and start howling that someone must be punished. Progressive people must take a strong, organized, and active stand against such acts and attacks. We must work hard to educate confused people about right and wrong around this, and not just fling hate back at them. In the next few weeks, there will be sentiment in our unions, mass organizations and churches to express sympathy with bombing victims and their families and it will be important to win them to do so without falling into national chauvinism, or anti-immigrant or anti-Arab racism.

There was a great online report from NYC-DAN, in the first hours after the WTC explosion: