Am I angry, that the US is once again dropping bombs and killing innocent people, all in the service of a goal more effectively pursued in other ways? You bet. Sad, that yet more lives have been lost and yet another cycle of violence and retribution has been jump-started? Definitely. Discouraged, at the lack of creativity and relevance shown by most public anti-war activism so far? Absolutely. And grieving, fearful, horrified, because World War III is still a short and plausible sequence of events away. It makes me want to weep, rage, shake the world and ask "why"?

But still...part of me is hopeful. Very hopeful. Because across this country, people who never before paid attention to what was being done elsewhere in their name are now paying attention. Quite apart from both big media's propaganda machine and anti-war activism, people are asking questions, having conversations, about a war that doesn't add up to the urgent goals it has promised. If the goals can't be achieved that way, they're asking, how can they be achieved?

A remarkable number of people in this country are now talking about ideas for changes--changes in US foreign policy, changes in economics, changes in how we define security--that they would have considered unthinkable Sep. 10. If anything will derail the misconceived "War on Terrorism," and the creepy crew orchestrating it, it is these conversations: popular demands for new responses, new thinking, new social technology that emphasizes the ideals that have brought people to our shores for 225 years. The US need not be a tyrannical global empire. There is another way. George Bush doesn't know it; neither do Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld or Colin Powell. But it's out there. Talk it up. --Geov Parrish

We got the word just before last issue was put to bed, but somehow, the update and correction didn't make it into print: Phil Berrigan is out of segregation. Berrigan, imprisoned for the latest in his decades-long string of nonviolent witnesses to the violence of American Empire, was thrown in the hole on Sep. 11 and denied contact with the outside world (including his family) "for his own safety." Protests got him out, but American political prisoners remain at risk for draconian punishment, due both to "patriotic" wardens and to the ability of folks like Phil to explain to other prisoners the particulars of how prison's ubiquitous TV screens are lying to them. --G.P.

So, if you were an associate of Osama bin Laden, and you had just planned to take out the World Trade Center, what would you do for step two? How 'bout the World Trade Organization, meeting--at US insistence--in anti-democratic Qatar, of all places, in less than a month, for its first post-Seattle meetings, with Seattle's North/South delegate split now widened into a chasm that may cripple the institution forever with only a little bitty push. What a big, plump target. I'd hate to see the security for this one. --G.P.

Home Alive continues their powerful anti-violence work--in spite of funding cutbacks causing layoffs and possible loss of their office/teaching space at 18th and Union. In addition to their dynamite self-defense classes, their annual conferences have realized the coalition-building that most groups talk about but rarely achieve. This year music is the message, with aconference on "Culture Jamming: The Revolution Will Have A Beat/Local Action: Using Music To Counter Hate" (what a great alternative to the usual rally/march formula!) The conference takes place Sat. Oct. 20, 10 AM-8 PM, at Local 46, 2700 1st Ave. between Cedar and Clay in Belltown. And Home Alive supporters are also putting on a show that evening, also at Local 46, featuring Mudhoney, the Catheters, and others. Doors open at 8pm; get tickets at ticketweb.com or 206-956-VERA.

This focus on music is powerful and poignant; Home Alive was founded by local musicians and artists in 1993 after Seattle musician Mia Zapata of The Gits was raped and murdered while walking home after a show. Her murder remains unsolved. As the US military launches an overt war, supporting creative actions against violence is a matter of survival. --Valerie Rose

By strange coincidence, at the Lake Union Shipyard, the USS Turner Joy is being refurbished. I caught sight of it Sunday afternoon during my neighborhood walk by the Lake. Such a thing to see on such a day as this, the very ship involved in the Gulf of Tonkin incident which led to the resolution for unlimited involvement in Vietnam, its flag flying off its stern at half mast. Who, knowing the history of fighting a war with no fronts against an enemy you can't see, could believe Bush when he says we will end this at a time of our choosing? Tonkin began the fateful slide into the quagmire from which there was no easy exit. Doomed to repeat. --Patrick Mazza

Saudi Arabia has refused to allow the US to use the new, high-tech Prince Sultan Air Base to launch and coordinate air strikes against Afghanistan. The US wants to use the base because it can handle large B-52s, which can't be launched from aircraft carriers. The Saudi royal family, however, is worried that helping the US will spur Saudi Arabia's fundamentalist populous to rise up and overthrow the royal family, which numbers upwards of 30,000 people. The enormous royal family staffs the government and runs its nationalized oil company and other industries, while lining its pockets with petrodollars.

Corruption is a way of life for the Saud family. It has spent billions of dollars buying fighter jets and weapons from US military contractors. Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon, et al., love the Saud family because they always pay in cash. Yet, there's an underclass of people who have not benefited from the oil boom. Not surprisingly, the poorest segment of Saudi society is located in the rural, southwest part of the country, where nearly a dozen of the World Trade Center hijackers were born and raised. While the royal family and its associates live in western-style luxury behind the walls of their sprawling compounds, many Saudis do without basic infrastructure. The Saudi elite own stock in US blue-chip companies like Citigroup and AOL Time Warner and own real estate all over the world, but the Saudi government has wracked up a huge public debt in spite of a 20-year-long oil boom. It's obvious where the money has gone.

The Saudi royal family has survived by using fundamentalist Islam to keep the population under control, in the notion that a pious populous is a passive one. But that strategy is backfiring. Osama bin Laden and others like him are products of a strict, fundamentalist education coupled with disgust at the corruption of the Saudi royal family and despair over the impoverishment of most Saudis. Per capita income in Saudia Arabia has fallen more than two-thirds since 1980 to about $8,000.--Maria Tomchick

The air strikes, aimed at aircraft, military camps and hardware, and the Taliban's command and control infrastructure, seem aimed at helping the opposition forces to gain territory at Taliban's expense. It doesn't appear that the strikes are designed to topple the Taliban directly, though it could very well be a result. One consideration would be that total chaos within Afghanistan could very well help bin Laden elude capture, while merely weakening the Taliban may be seen as opening the way for a negotiated settlement.

The northern opposition alliance is not, by itself, a viable replacement government for the Taliban. It would be unacceptable to Pakistan, the Pashtuns and many other Afghans. The alliance has recently come to an agreement with the exiled former king (now living in Rome), laying the groundwork for a future government. The 83-year-old king, an ethnic Pashtun and considered a possible unifying force, has called a Loya Jurga, a Grand Council of regional leaders, to take place in Rome. The king, more symbolic than politically viable, may at least be able to play a catalyzing role in the formation of a stable multilateral government.

Real stability will depend largely on the US and international community's sustained commitment to strengthening Afghan civil society. Sustained humanitarian relief can't be dropped from airplanes. It will come as the Afghans rebuild their society and infrastructure, and as Afghan exiles can return home, returning the resources and expertise that have been denied Afghanistan for far too long. If the US is serious about Afghanistan's security, it will begin to treat it as more than a political pawn. That's the real war against terrorism. --Troy Skeels