Churchill's failure to even recognize the deaths of the secretaries and janitors in his first essay indicates that he thought them irrelevant. They were just as invisible to him as the Iraqi civilian dead that the Pentagon refuses to even count. The second statement, an after-the-fact "clarification," is half-hearted and muddled at best. If Churchill is really concerned for the lives of the secretaries and janitors, why won't he admit he was wrong and eat his vile words about the "gallant sacrifices of the combat teams" like a real man? Either he is simply too much of a coward to admit that he said something ghastly which he has since reconsidered, or (more likely) he really thinks it was worth the lives of a few hundred secretaries and janitors to kill a few thousand yuppies. In this case:

1.) Far from legitimately decrying the Pentagon's monstrous notion of "collatoral damage," he vigorously shares it.

2.) He really does have the exterminationist zeal of a Pol Pot, and supports mass murder of yuppies.

Did you notice that the original essay actually called the 9-11 attacks "humanitarian", because they gave middle-class America a taste of war? Remember how the leftists all howled when Clinton called the bombardment of Yugoslavia "humanitarian"? And now we are all supposed to justify Churchill's equally appalling logic?

Sept. 11, 1973: Pinochet's coup killed some 3,000 in Chile.

Sept. 11, 2001: WTC attacks kill some 3,000 in NYC.

Now when Pinochet's defenders like Maggie Thatcher essentially argue that the 3,000 Chileans had it coming because they were communists, all us leftists recognize this as a perversity. But when one of "our own" argues that the 3,000 New Yorkers had it coming because they were capitalists, we're all supposed to rush to his defense?

These are the kind of double standards that deprive the left of all credibility, and make it utterly complicit in its own marginalization.

Somebody around here needs to brush up on his Orwell.

This is the AK press item overview for Churchill's CD Pacifism and Pathology in the American Left:

"Liberal activism often embraces non-violent resistance in response to state-sponsored terrorism at home and abroad. In this emotional critique, Churchill urges activists to support any and all tactics in order to stop the tyranny of the state. Churchill argues that the terrorist attack of 9/11 disrupted U.S. global capitalism more radically than any peaceful protest the Left has been able to organize. Recorded at a packed and fired up AK Press warehouse in Oakland."

 http://akpress.com/2002/items/pacifismandpathologyintheamericanleft

I was shocked to see this in the AK press catalog several months ago.  I've never heard the CD but the product description above should be enough to answer any lingering questions about Churchill's opinions.  Or at least it would have been for me, until I saw this on the democracynow.org website:

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Churchill, do you think that the World Trade Center was an acceptable target on September 11? Do you think it was a legitimate target?

WARD CHURCHILL: Do I personally think it was a legitimate target or should have been a legitimate target? Absolutely not.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/18/157211

This was after Goodman had already given him several chances to give some indication that he opposed the 9-11 attacks.  He was trying to dodge the issue by talking about U.S. foreign policy untill finaly he was asked directly.  It reminded me of the way that politicians often try to backpedal after they say ugly things that they probably believe but are condemned for saying even by most of their political allies (like the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond thing a year or two ago). 

It's hard to believe that the immediate gut reaction of anyone who was truly angry about the 9-11 attacks would be to write an essay about US military policy while the mainstream media was still trying to find out just how many thousands of American civilians had just died.  It would be like Noam Chomsky compiling a list of rights abuses committed by the Sandinistas while the US bombed the Nicaraguan civilians (not that the crimes of the Sandinistas and the US government are the same). 

At the same time, while I'm glad that some people on the left are making it clear that Churchill doesn't speak for all of us, for every lefty who supported the 9-11 attacks there are probably a thousand conservatives who said things like this about the bombing of Iraq.  Obviously, it would be crazy to ask that a  independent paper with limited resources condemn every right wing mad-man in the world before talking about Churchill.  Still, there must be some type of parity.  I think that if the whole media adopted a set of universal standards for what to cover and how often, it would be much more difficult for them to be manipulated by powerful interests that want to shape public opinion.  For example, consider the difference in the level of coverage that the chemical weapon attacks on the Kurds in Iraq received in the 80's when they were happening and maybe could have been stopped, compared to the attention that the attacks were given before the US invasion.  If all journalism in the US accepted a set of standards based on what the public thinks should be covered and in what proportions, and on helping citizens make informed decisions on actions (such as the support for iraq in the 80s) that reflect the choices of elected representitives, it would make it much more difficult for the media to facilitate government propaganda campaigns.  In other words, I think that a set of questions should be put to a national vote.  They could be questions like "who should get more media coverage:A) a radical without much influence who says something that everybody knows is crazy anyway, or B) the human rights record of the candidate for head of US intelligence.  Obviously the questions would need to be worded in ways that have more general implications, but I think that if the public defined the agenda for the news instead of the corporations, it would be much more "fair and balanced".  Maybe even some of the conservatives who carry on endlessly about the liberal bias would also support something like this.