Serj Tankian
Attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon

"The brutal attacks/bombings this week in New York and Washington D.C. along with threats of attacks there and elsewhere in the country have changed our times forever. While the mass media concentates on the details of the destruction, and the blanketed words of politicians, I will attempt to understand and explain the events from the fence. BOMBINGS AND BEING BOMBEB ARE THE SAME THINGS ON DIFFERENT SIDES OF THE FENCE."
"Terror is not a spontaneous human action without credence. People don't just hijack planes and commit harikari without any weight of thought to the action. No one in the media seems to ask WHY DID THESE PEOPLE DO THIS HORRIFIC ACT OF VIOLENCE AND DESTRUCTION?"
"To be able to understand the answer to this, we must first look at our U.S. Mideast Policy. During most of the 20th century, U.S. businesses have worked on attaining oil rights and concessions from countries in the Middle Ease and Eastern Europe. After WWI, secret back door deals by our State Dept. yielded oil rights from then defeated Turkey to feilds in what is now Iraq and Suadia Arabia, in return for look the other way at a crime against humanity: the Genocide of the Armenians by the Turks. Oil profits have been the motivating factors behind many attempts at conter-insurgency of democratic regimes by the CIA and the U.S. in the Middle East. During the Iran-Iraq war, America supplied both sides with weapons and advice. These are NOT actions of a rich superpower wanting peace. Let's not forget that Saddam Hussein, before becoming America's vision of the Anti-Christ, was a close ally of the U.S. and the CIA. So what was the firm belief system of the consecutive American administrations that caused all this to occur? PEACE IN THE MIDDLE EAST WILL LEAD TO HIGHER OIL AND GASOLINE PRICES. Let's not also forget the power of the Arms industry, disguised as defence, that still sells billions of dollars of weapons to the area. Therefore it has not been in the short term economic interest to foster peace in the Middle East."
"Using the above reasoning, the U.S. has encouraged extremist governments, toppled democracies (as in the case of Iran to replace it with a monarchy), rigged elections, and many more unspeakable political crimes for U.S. businesses abroad. Let's not also forget the Red Scare. During the war between the then Soviet Union and Afghanistan, the United Stated ARMED and SUPPORTED the Taliban, a fundamentalist Muslim organization, and allowed them to export opium and heroin out of their country to pay for those weapons. Therefore, the Taliban rose to power and control with the help of the U.S.. Today, the bombings of Iraq still continue, no longer covered by the media, the economic embargo still remains, killing millions of children, and recently, while the world and the U.N. General Assembly have cried out to bring in peacekeeping forces into Israel and Palestine, to end the escalated war and recent assassinations, the U.S. has vetoed the rest of the Security Council and halted the possiblity of peace there, in the most volatile place in the world."
"People in Serbia, Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Afghanistan to name a few have seen bombs fall, not always at military targets and kill innocent civilians, as the scene in New York yesterday. The wars waged by out government in our names has landed smack in the middle of our living room. The half hour of destruction closed down all world financial markets, struck the cental headquarters of our military, had our leaders running into bunkers, and had our citizens into fear and frenzy. What scares me more than what has occured is what our reactions to the occurances may cause. President Bush belongs to a long generation of Republican Presidents who love war economics. The media has only concentrated on the bombings, if you will, and what type of retaliations are looming for the perpetrators. What everyone fails to realize is that the bombing are a reaction to existing injustices around the world, which is generally unseen to most Americans. To react to a reaction would be to further sponser the reaction. In other words, my beleif is that the terror will multiply if concrete steps are not taken to sponser peace in the Middle East, NOW. This does NOT mean that we should not find the guilty party(s), Bin Laden, or whatever they may be, and not try to stop them. Put simply, as long as a major injustice remains, violence precipitates to the surface of life."
"Native American folklore, the Bible, Nostradamus, and many other major religious beliefs point to the era with the visuals of yesterdays disasters, and conditions of ecological disasters we experience daily in our lives today. War, rumors of war, famine, long burning fires, ect., are at our doorstep. We can prevail over this possible vision with power of the human spirit, understanding, compassion, and peace. IT'S TIME TO PUT OUR NEEDS FOR SECURITY AND SURVIVAL, ACHIEVED ONLY THROUGH PEACE, ABOVE AND BEYOND PROFITS, ESPECIALLY IN THESE TIMES."