Arnaud de Borchgrave in UPI, :
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) — Much like Nazi and Soviet sympathizers in the 20th century, al-Qaida enjoys a movement of worldwide groupies whose common link is hatred of America.
Their principal objective is to clip the eagle’s talons. They now get together once a year in Porto Allegre in Brazil at the same time as the capitalist world’s nabobs meet at the World Economic Forum at Davos in Switzerland. Their new hero this year was Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, anointed by Fidel Castro as Latin America’s anti-Yankee standard-bearer. Ward Churchill, the University of Colorado’s tenured professor, who applauded the 9/11 al-Qaida terrorists, would have felt at home in Porto Allegre.
This year the anti-American contrarians came from 135 countries for the 5th World Social Forum for six days of debates and marches directed against George W. Bush. U.S. media were busy elsewhere and all but ignored the noise in Porto Allegre. The Maldon Institute, a Baltimore-based research organization, filled the vacuum.
The anti-imperialist jamboree ended on Jan. 31 in a three-mile-long parade of some 150,000 people with banners against President Bush, the war and occupation of Iraq, the Pentagon, the CIA, the Free Trade Associations of the Americas, and IMF and the World Bank. The organizers also posted 352 proposals cobbled by participants and printed on large white panels – such as a Global Call to Action Against Poverty.
Harrumphed WSF executive member Joao Pedro Stedile, leader of the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST), or Landless Peoples’ Movement), “The U.S. Empire is our common enemy.”