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June 14, 2002
Mark Weisbrot
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Starhawk
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The Fear Factor to Promote
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How the
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Israeli-Palestinian
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Indefinite
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Fran Shor
Dirty Bombs, Blowback
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Shelley
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Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
June 11, 2002
Omar Barghouti
On Dance, Identity and War
Robert Fisk
The Bush
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Minerva Wright
The Donkeys of the Holy Land
David Krieger
Stopping
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June 10, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Executioner's Last Songs
June 8/9, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Mademoiselle
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Sleepless
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George Sunderland
"Send
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June 7, 2002
Michael Colby
Bush to the Nation:
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Tanweer Akram
Howard
Zinn's "Terrorism
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David Krieger
New Security Challenges
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The Palestinian
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A Crisis of Confidence
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June 6, 2002
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White House
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Ron Jacobs
The Indo-Pakistan Conflict:
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Take Sharon
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June 5, 2002
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Nuclear
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For What Do We Fight?
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What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
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Kashmir:
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Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
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Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
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Weekend
Edition
June 15/16, 2002
Noam Chomsky's 9-11
by Tanweer Akram
9-11. Chomsky,
Noam. Edited by Greg Ruggiero. New York: Seven Stories Press,
2001. 128 Pp.
US $8.95. ISBN 1-58322-489-0 (paperback).
It is a telling commentary on the political and
intellectual culture of the world's most powerful state that
though Noam Chomsky's booklet 9-11 is a bestseller, mainstream
papers in the United States have so far not seriously reviewed
this important analysis of the events of September 11, 2001 and
its aftermath. The reason for this neglect is that any mention
of Western state terrorism is unacceptable in "polite"
company. Chomsky's book offers a thorough, rigorous and detailed
analysis of the causes and the effects of the events of September
11th attacks.
The atrocities of September 11th, in
which thousands of innocent civilians died, were serious and
unparalleled heinous acts of terrorist attacks in the United
States. There is no dispute that those responsible for perpetrating
this outrageous violence should be brought
to justice and punished according to US and international laws.
The US authorities quickly launched a war on Afghanistan citing
capturing or killing Bin Laden and routing al-Qaida terrorists
as its goal, but later insisting that the overthrow of the Taliban
regime was its objective.
This war against Afghanistan has led
to the deaths of at least 3,000 civilians according to Professor
Mark Herold's comprehensive study of available media reports.
It also led to countless injuries, immense hardships, diseases,
and dislocations of Afghans. Thus, grave sufferings were inflicted
on one of the poorest people in the world. The US military actions
put a large number of people on the brink of malnutrition and
risk of starvation. It is doubtful that there will be a complete
accounting of the deaths and the sufferings of the Afghans and
other wretched masses because it is of little consequences to
the rich and the powerful.
The US authorities deliberately ignored
international norms. Even though the US could have readily obtain
UN endorsement, it ignored UN charter and did not consult the
UN Security Council. The Taliban regime was no match for the
US. The Taliban regime quickly fell to US-supported Northern
Alliance whose record of atrocities and human rights violation
was comparable in type, if not in scale, to that of the previous
regime. But much of Taliban's leadership and that of al-Qaida,
including those suspected to be the ring-leaders of the terrorist
attacks of September 11th, seems to have escaped and survived
intact. There is no reason to believe that US actions have reduced
the future possibility of terrorism either globally or against
civilians in the West.
Given the large number of deaths and
the immense hardships that the war on Afghanistan caused on the
Afghans, some logical questions to ask, but never done so in
the Western press, are: Could this course of action been avoided?
Was this necessary? While one cannot undo history and there will
be no definitive answers, the record shows the US rejected the
path of negotiations. It ruled out of hand the Taliban's offer
to turn over Bin Laden if sufficient evidence of his complicity
were given to them. This was not an unreasonable demand. While
Taliban's offer may well have been a ruse, the fact remains that
the US never seriously contemplated the possibility of negotiations.
Had the Taliban refused to comply with Washington's demand for
handing over Bin Laden after evidence of his role was made available,
there was still further alternatives available, such as concerted
actions by the international community coordinated by the UN.
The US intelligence agencies and Interpol could have undertaken
prolonged investigations and painstaking searches for the culprits.
The objective could have been the compilation of evidence to
prove the case against the terrorists in independent national
or international courts. At the international level and among
world public opinion, there was no objection whatsoever to police
(and military) actions against suspected terrorists responsible
for the atrocities in attempts to arrest those responsible. The
most compelling evidence linking Bin Laden and al-Qaida to the
atrocities of September 11th, such as the video tapes in which
Bin Laden and his associates boasts of the damages caused, express
their admiration for such crimes, and speak of their support
of the men responsible for who flew planes and so on, either
surfaced or were all obtained after the bombing of Afghanistan
began. While it is possible that the authorities had other additional
evidence, these are yet to be made public.
This booklet is based on a collection
interviews conducted with Noam Chomsky following the atrocities
of September 11th. The author and the editor made some edits,
revisions, and additions incorporating the latest news and cutting
repetitions of the same points. Chomsky begins by saying that
the attacks of September 11th were something new in world affairs
because this was the first time that the national territory of
the US was under attack. But in terms of terrorist attacks and
assaults on civilians resulting in large numbers of deaths, massive
destructions and sufferings, there are far too many examples,
such as Western annihilation of Native Americans, US conquests
of Mexico, Hawaii, Philippines, and invasion of Vietnam; and
European colonization of South Asia (Indian subcontinent), Congo,
Algeria, and Ethiopia, and so on.
According to Chomsky the official doctrine
and practice of what is euphemistically called "low intensity
warfare" is actually a form of terrorism as understood in
US laws. While there is some truth to the dictum that terrorism
is often the weapon of the weak, terrorism actually is a frequently
used tool of the powerful. The US has often supported a variety
of terrorist criminal wars. It was responsible for the unlawful
use of force against Nicaragua and backed for terrorists contras.
It gave critical supply of arms for Turkey's brutal suppression
of Kurds and attacks on about 3,500 villages and towns. It gives
substantial aid to Israel's illegitimate occupation of Palestinian
territories. Chomsky points out that the US, UK, Egypt, France,
and Pakistan organized, financed, trained, and armed Islamic
fundamentalists. (He goes on to provide a good analysis of the
evolution and the structure of the al-Qaida.) The Western countries
consistently supported Saddam Hussein without any hesitation
when he was committing atrocities against Kurds and other Iraqis.
They also supplied Indonesia's military with weapons when East
Timor was invaded and occupied. The post-September 11th alliance
between USA, Russia, China, Indonesia, Algeria, Egypt has enabled
these countries to carry out their own terrorist atrocities.
Cuba has also been subject to United States' direct and proxy
terror for many years. So far the US has no extradited Emmanuel
Constant, a brutal paramilitary leader tried in absentia for
carrying out massacres in Haiti. John Negroponte, who is now
United States' representative at the UN, served as the "proconsul"
to Honduras while it carried out atrocities. The terrorist attack
of September 11th was a major setback for Palestinians. The Israeli
authorities used the rhetoric of combating terrorism to crush
Palestinian resistance, kill Palestinian civilians, imprison
activists, and destroy infrastructure and ruin whatever semblance
of an independent state that the incompetent Palestinian Nationality
Authority was able to put.
The bombing of al-Shifa pharmaceutical
factory in Sudan was a perfect example of the arrogance of the
Western power. It is known that there was no credible evidence
linking al-Shifa to terrorism. It is known that this substantially
affect Sudan's to provide critical medical drugs. Although reports
of the lack of ties of al-Shifa to terrorism and the potential
consequences of the bombing of this factory to the Sudanese population
were available in the mainstream press, the international community
(which effectively means the Western countries) have neither
investigated this crime nor labeled those responsible for this
as terrorists, let alone calling for their punishment. No US
official has bothered to apologize for the destruction of this
factory. Because the indirect victims of the destruction of al-Shifa
are from developing an African country, little will be heard
about them.
Chomsky rejects the conceited misconception
articulated by various establishment intellectuals, such as Samuel
Huntington and Bernard Lewis, that there is a clash of civilizations
between the West and Islam. The notion that the quest for freedom,
tolerance, prosperity, democracy, peaceful coexistence is alien
to Muslims or Arab has no real basis. Contrary to the claims
of "experts" who assert that the US is hated for its
freedom, democracy, and wealth or that Arabs and Muslims are
against fast food chains or blue jeans, he sticks to the facts:
The resentment of the US in the Muslim and the Arab countries,
even among the Westernized elites, stems from its policy of harsh
sanctions against Iraq and support for Israel's occupation of
Palestinian West Bank and Gaza. The US supported Israel's invasion
of Lebanon in which about 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, mostly
civilians, were killed. Chomsky also reminds the readers of US
sponsorship of terrorist bombing in Beruit in 1985. The Washington
Post revealed in a report published three years later that due
to this bombing 80 people were killed and 250 people injured.
The Western countries are quite eager to support fundamentalist
Islamic regime, such as that of Saudi Arabia, as long as they
can secure cooperation from the Arab ruling elites in the exploitation
of Middle Eastern oil. The Western countries did not hesitate
to give crucial support to the Latin American elite to crush
the Catholic Church when some of its priests sided with the poor
and the oppressed.
As Chomsky emphatically says, "Nothing
can justify crimes such as those of September 11th." Meanwhile
it has become fashionable to denounce anyone suggesting that
one has to try to fathom the causes of terrorism. If one is serious
about reducing or eliminating terrorism then one would have to
address its causes. Christopher Hitchens of the Nation denounced
what he called the "Chomsky-Zinn-Finkelstein quarter,"
as if examining the plausible connections between the rise of
Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and Western state terrorism
is sacrilege. It is completely irrational to believe that an
attempt to understand the causes of terrorism is a rationalization
of violence. Hitchens has subsequently gone on to praise the
US for "bombing a country back out of the Stone Age,"
arguably because of marginal improvements of women's rights in
particular and other human rights in Afghanistan. Whether there
has indeed been a real and sustainable improvement in human rights,
especially women's rights, in Afghanistan is an empirical question
that has to be careful examined, judged and shown, not merely
proclaimed. The deaths and the sufferings that the Afghan people
had to go through for the reported gains and the great risk of
further violence and instability are far too excessive a price
to pay for what appears at best to be marginal improvements of
social conditions. For those who reject the vulgarity of "bombing
a country back out of the Stone Age" and instead seek peace,
justice, real change in human rights situation and an end to
terrorism and war, Chomsky's 9-11 will enable one recall the
long history of Western state terrorism, understand the context
of events of September 11th, and discuss what the alternatives
are available to reduce violence in today's world.
Chomsky correctly observes that for the
US media the problem of state censorship is insignificant but
there is a real problem of self-censorship and self-induced conformity
to the interests of the powerful. The US authorities did, however,
apply pressure on Qatar-based al-Jazeera TV because of its exposure
of the corruption and the abuse of power of monarchies and dictators
in Arab states. He rejects the notion that the activists must
abide by the dictums of power and privilege. As he notes in the
United States there are many undercurrents of resistance underway
to the wars of terrorism. Chomsky presciently observes that terrorist
attacks serve as "a gift to the harshest and most repressive
elements on all sides, and sure to be exploited . . . to accelerate
the agenda of militarization, regimentation, reversal of social
democratic programs, transfer of wealth to narrow sectors, and
undermining democracy any meaningful form." He envisions
that people in West are unlikely to let this happen without challenge.
This booklet will be an essential read not only for those who
wish to resist the attempt to curb freedom and democracy but
also everyone who wants to learn about the background to the
9-11 terrorist attacks.
A few suggestions can be made to improve
the booklet. These interviews can be supplemented by recent ones.
A detailed postscript analyzing subsequent developments in the
war on Afghanistan may be added. A chronology of events would
be helpful. The editor may also want to add an index.
Without reviews in the major newspapers
and journals of opinion, books rarely become instant bestsellers
in contemporary US. That this booklet is selling well in independent
bookstores in the US and abroad is a testimony to the public's
growing interest in alternatives to the official propaganda and
the sophistry of party commentators. For the sake of broader
public discussion of war and terrorism, it is hoped that the
mainstream media will pay critical attention to not just whom
Hitchens has mocked as "Chomsky-Zinn-Finkelstein quarter"
(in his initial diatribe he missed several prominent critics
of the war, such as Edward Herman, Alexander Cockburn and Tariq
Ali) but many others who also support peace and justice and refuse
to sing hymns of war, terrorism, and violence.
Tanweer Akram
is an economist. Views expressed in this review are solely that
of the reviewer. The reviewer thanks Dr. Annie Campbell Higgins
for her helpful comments. Akram can be reached at: tanweer_akram@hotmail.com
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