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CounterPunch
September
16, 2002
Bush's
Wars
Tariq Ali v. Daniel Pipes
[What follows is the
transcript of a televised debate from the excellent Australian
SBS program Dateline between CounterPunch's Tariq
Ali and ultra-hawk Daniel Pipes.]
JANA WENDT: Tariq Ali and Daniel Pipes,
welcome to you both. Tariq Ali, what do you believe is the historical
significance of what happened on September 11?
TARIQ ALI,: Well, the historical significance
is that it's the first time since 1812 that the American mainland
has been subjected to violence by persons from outside. I don't
think it was an act of war, but it certainly was a very serious
act of terror and its significance lies in, for me, not so much
in the actual effects it had...because, economically and militarily,
it was even less than a pinprick. I mean, you can't challenge
the might  of the United States by actions
of this sort. The psychological impact, of course, went much,
much deeper but, in reality, what has happened is that the United
States Administration has decided quite openly and blatantly
to use the events of September 11 to remap the world according
to their own needs and that, I think, is where the significance
of September 11 will lie when historians discuss it in 10, 20,
30 years time.
JANA WENDT: Well, Daniel Pipes, what
do you think of that assessment? Has it completely changed the
way that the United States is conducting itself in the world?
DANIEL PIPES: No, Jana, very far from
a complete change. To me, the significance of September 11 is
that the war that militant Islam had declared on the US back
in 1979 when Ayatollah Khomeini came to power and said, "Death
to America," the war that then took some 800 lives in the
course of the many, many attacks on Americans, the war which
was not really noticed, finally on September 11, 2001, became
noticed. There could have been many more deaths in a small sort
of way without it being noted, but the largeness of this event,
the traumatic nature of the day, that caused Americans for the
first time to sit up and take notice, that they had an enemy
that had declared war and who was going to do all that it could
to harm and potentially even destroy the United States.
TARIQ ALI: Well, I don't accept this
for a moment. Basically, what Daniel Pipes is referring to is
the victory of the clerics in Iran after a big mass upheaval
which toppled a pretty much universally hated despotic ruler
in that country, who was seen as having been put on his throne
by the United States after a previous attempt to overthrow him
by secular politicians had failed in the '50s. So it wasn't militant
Islam particularly. It was the voice of the Iranians and because
- I give you an example. At the same time as supposedly militant
Islam had declared war on the United States, the United States
was, in fact, collaborating with sections of militant Islam to
fight the Russians in Afghanistan, including the groups which
currently carried out the attacks on the United States were allies
then.
DANIEL PIPES: You're just corroborating
my point that Americans before 9/11 were not aware that militant
Islam had declared war on them and were therefore happy to collaborate
with some elements while being attacked by others. That would
be much less likely today.
JANA WENDT: OK, I want to ask you both
why you believe that those attacks on September 11 did take place
when they took place? Tariq Ali?
TARIQ ALI: Well, I think that the organisation
which carried out these attacks had made no secret of the fact
for some years previously that it was targeting US institutions.
This was the al-Qa'ida group, and they basically argued they
were people who had fought with the US during the Cold War but,
after the end of the Cold War, and particularly after the Gulf
War, when Saudi Arabia had American troops present on its soil
in large numbers, they turned against the United States, partially
because they were dumped by it and had to keep their little group
going, and partially because they thought that this would win
them support throughout the Islamic world, for these were people
left loose and they had to carry on, so they changed their style
of functioning, they changed their ideology and they moved on.
Though I would like to stress that it is not a very large group.
It is a group, according to all reports, maximum of 2,000 to
3,000 people globally, and so the key thing is to try and cut
off the support these organisations sometimes get and stop the
flow of recruits to them and that requires political not military
solutions, in my opinion.
DANIEL PIPES: No, there was not a shift
in ideology. The shift - there was a consistency. First, it was
the Soviets they fought and then it was the United States. "One
down, one to go," was the prevailing view in Afghanistan.
Secondly, we did not fight with al-Qa'ida. There was no al-Qa'ida,
back when the United States was in Afghanistan. The events of
last September were in response to the fact that the United States
had reacted so feebly to the prior attacks I mentioned - 800
who had been killed in the process of those attacks. Really,
there was no response. 241 marines were killed in Beirut, for
example, in 1983. No response, nothing, just the United States
left. 17 soldiers killed in Somalia. The United States left.
Well, the leaders of al-Qa'ida saw this weakness and said, "Well,
let's be even tougher. Let's hit them in their homeland and then
they'll really capitulate." They misread, obviously, the
American public, but I believe the goal was to hit hard the political
and business leadership, to create a condition of civil unrest
and to create conditions in the United States which would lead
to the collapse of the United States, just as their victory over
the Soviet Union in some fashion contributed to their victory...to
the collapse of the Soviet Union.
JANA WENDT: Just very quickly, Daniel
Pipes, Tariq Ali says this is a small group of people, that action
can be taken against them. You present it as an enormous threat.
Why do you see it as such a huge threat?
DANIEL PIPES: Well, the actual number
of operatives who are out there, ready to engage in violence,
may be small, in the thousands, yes. But their support group
is much larger and we saw a year ago the enormous popularity
of this kind of strike against the West. Easily half the Muslim
world thought this was a great thing. So, yes, the operatives
are few but their support is quite large and their popular base
is massive.
JANA WENDT: Tariq Ali, support from over
half the Muslim world, according to Daniel Pipes. Is that right?
TARIQ ALI: There was some jubilation,
not because of this group, but because they felt that this great,
big empire, which rules the world and which goes round doing
what it wants in every continent had been hit. But this wasn't
confined to the world of Islam. This was very, very strong in
Latin America. I mean, in parts of Latin America, there were
public celebrations of this event. The reaction in parts of China
were also very similar. But that, I don't think, has much to
do with militant Islam at all. And just on one more thing to
take up, which Daniel said, I mean, I think some of the leaders
of this group might have this lunatic dream that they can topple
or overthrow the United States or its allies, but the more serious
ideologues within them have no such crazy illusions or ideas.
Basically, they think that this is the way they can weaken their
own governments in power in the Middle East and countries like
Egypt and Saudi Arabia, governments close to the US, and topple
them. I think that's the main aim because, after all, they are
not that dumb. They know that they didn't bring down the Soviet
Union in Afghanistan on their own.
DANIEL PIPES: Can I just counter those
two points quickly? There was no public jubilation in China and
Latin America. Public jubilation was exclusively in the Muslim
world. Let's get that straight. Secondly, the key thing about
al-Qa'ida...
TARIQ ALI: That is not true.
DANIEL PIPES: is that they had decided
not to go after their own governments - Pakistan, Egypt and so
forth. They've given up on that route and they've decided to
go after what they consider to be the protector and sponsor,
namely the United States. So, what you're calling the lunatic
fringe is actually the very heart and soul of al-Qa'ida. Read
up on it, you'll see. They're not interested in Pakistan. They're
interested in the United States.
JANA WENDT: We appear to be heading at
the moment towards a confrontation with Iraq. Daniel Pipes, is
this the right step in this war?
DANIEL PIPES: Well, it is the right step,
but it's a different war. I think the main war, the war that
began a year ago today, is the war on militant Islam, the one
that we've been talking about until now - it so happens that
Saddam Hussein lives in the same part of the world and is a nominal
Muslim and so there is a tendency to see him as connected to
this, but he's not. The problem of Saddam Hussein is a simple
one. Here is an absolutely ruthless megalomaniac dictator, who
is trying by all means possible to get his hands on nuclear weapons.
He is close to achieving that. We must stop it. It's easy to
do, easy to defeat him militarily, easy to get rid of him. There
is no ideology. He has no cadre. There's no-one devoted to the
thoughts of Saddam Hussein. He'll be gone and one can begin with
a new Iraq and this will have enormously beneficial effects on
all sorts of Middle Eastern and international issues. So it's
urgent. Saddam Hussein with nuclear weapons is the single most
terrifying prospect in the world today. It needs to be done soon.
TARIQ ALI: I totally disagree. This ruthless
megalomaniac was once a close ally of the United States, backed
by them and Britain when they unleashed him to fight the war
against the clerics in Iran. That's when he acquired chemical
weapons and some of his scientists came and were trained in the
Porton Down laboratories in Britain. The notion that this regime,
which has been weakened by continuous sanctions, by weekly Anglo-American
bombing raids, is capable of threatening any Western country
is, of course, a joke. What it does pose a potential threat to...
DANIEL PIPES: What if you're wrong?
TARIQ ALI: is the hegemony of Israel.
That's the real - that's what this war is about. My prediction
is it's, of course, perfectly possible and likely that the power
of the United States is such that they can change the regime
in Iraq. The thought that they will be able to have a democratically
elected regime which would put a Shi-ite majority in power in
Iraq, will be accepted either by the United States or its allies
in the region to me is inconceivable, so you will have more instability
and you will have the whole Arab world saying, "You are
siding and backing Ariel Sharon with what he is doing to the
Palestinians. You won't stop him. He's got nuclear weapons.
He's got chemical weapons, but you're
after yet another Arab government itself." That's for the
people of that region to sort out, these governments, not for
the United States.
JANA WENDT: Daniel Pipes, do you think
an attack on Iraq will take place?
DANIEL PIPES: Oh, I do think it will.
The gearing-up for war is very clear. Mr. Ali is correct that
this is not exactly popular in the Arab world or Europe or elsewhere.
Isn't it lucky that it's the United States, Mr. Ali, that's making
the decisions and not you?
TARIQ ALI: No, it's not lucky. Well,
no, I think it's deeply unfortunate for the world that it is
the United States which is making the decisions, 'cause what
this will do, actually, is promote terror and not deal with its
political causes.
DANIEL PIPES: Let's revisit it.
JANA WENDT: Let's revisit it, but at
another time. Tariq Ali in London, thank you very much. Daniel
Pipes in Philadelphia, thank you to you too.
Today's Features
Ben Tripp
Notes for
Future Historians:
The Bush Administration Explained
Tom Crumpacker
Democracy & US Policy on Cuba
David Vest
Neither-Handed
Behzad Yaghmaian
A Letter
from Istanbul
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fire Next Time:
Nuclear Plants & Terrorism
Anis Shivani
The Warped
World of
Bernard Lewis
Uri Avnery
A Witness from the Past
Robert Fisk
Bush Across
the Rubicon
Josh Frank
Lacking Tenacity
Christini, Alam, & Krieger
Poems
New
Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively
to Subscribers:
- War Talk As White Noise:
Anything to Get Harken and Halliburton
Out of the Headlines;
- First Hilliard, Then
McKinney: Jewish
Groups Target Blacks Brave Enough to Talk About Justice in the
Middle East; Intimidation
is the Name of the Game; Smearing
"Insane" McKinney As Muslims' Pawn;
- The Missing Terrorist?
Calling Scotland
Yard: "Where's Atif?"
- They Never Booed Dylan!:
Tape Transcript Shows
Famed Newport Folkfest Dissing of Electric Dylan Not True. The Catcalls were for Peter
Yarrow!
- New Shame from the Liffey
Shrike
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September
14 / 15, 2002
Ben Tripp
Notes for
Future Historians:
The Bush Administration Explained
Tom Crumpacker
Democracy & US Policy on Cuba
David Vest
Neither-Handed
Behzad Yaghmaian
A Letter
from Istanbul
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Fire Next Time:
Nuclear Plants & Terrorism
Anis Shivani
The Warped
World of
Bernard Lewis
Uri Avnery
A Witness from the Past
Robert Fisk
Bush Across
the Rubicon
Josh Frank
Lacking Tenacity
Christini, Alam, & Krieger
Poems
September
12, 2002
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary
of Occupation
James C.
Faris
Riefenstahl
at 100:
The Fascist Aesthetic
Gary Leupp
Presidential
Honesty on Iraq
Tarif Abboushi
A Conversation
with My Arab-American Self
Ron Jacobs
Shelter
from the Storm
Rick Giombetti
Paxil
and Addiction
Krystal Kyer
From NAFTA
to CAFTA
Another Rotten Trade Deal
John Jonik
Overcome
in Philly
September
11, 2002
Anis Shivani
How to
Survive in Ashcroft's America
Pierre Tristam
Abusing
the Sorrows of 9/11
David Krieger
Resisting
Bush's
"Relentless War"
Jerre Skog
9/11 One
Year Later:
Remember the Others, Too
Dave Marsh
Illegal
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A Sampler's Delight
Norm Dixon
How the
Warmongers Have Exploited 9/11
September
7 / 8, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Year Later: It's Happening Here
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Tenth Crusade
Susan Davis
Mr. Ashcroft's
Neighborhood
Bruce Jackson
When
War Came Home
David Krieger
Looking
Back on September 11
Mike Leon
Bush and War
Peter Linebaugh
Levellers
and 9/11
William McDougal
September 11 One Year On:
That's Entertainment!
Riad Z. Abdelkarim
and Jason Erb
How American Muslims Really Responded
to 9/11
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Trouble
with Normal
Tom Stephens
Rise Up...Dump Bush
September
6, 2002
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Stolen
Trust
Gale Norton, Indians and the Case of the Missing $10 Billion
September
5, 2002
Ben Tripp
Jesus vs.
George the Second
William Hughes
McKinney's
Defeat:
Undue Meddling
Gavin Keeney
Beaux
Reves, Citoyens!
Wayne Saunders
War
Begins; Nobody Notices
Irit Katriel
Drunk
with Power:
Israeli Chief of Staff Calls Palestinians a "Cancerous Demographic
Threat"
Gary Leupp
Who's Afraid
of Iraq?
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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