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October
3, 2001
John
Chuckman
War
on Terror:
Crusade Without a Definition
Mahajan/Jensen
Tough
Talk Won't Solve
Problems of Terrorism
Ariel
Dorfman:
America
the Wounded
Lennie
Brenner
Dr.
Watson in Afghanistan
Steve
Perry:
Ashcroft's
Scare Tactics
Patrick Cockburn:
Waiting
Is The Hardest Part
October
2, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn:
Inside
an Afghan Hospital
Richard
Manning:
A
Vietnam Vet on Patriotism
St. Clair/Cockburn:
Tarnished
Star,
Tom Ridge in Vietnam
October
1, 2001
Noam
Chomsky:
Memo
to Hitchens
Hizam
Bitar:
Refuting
Michael Kinsley
David Grenier:
The
Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
Douglas
Valentine:
Homeland
Insecurity
Carl
Estabrook:
Stop Bush's Killing
Mahajan/Jensen:
Food,
Fear and War
Patrick
Cockburn:
Ready
to Strike
Cockburn/St.
Clair:
Things
Could Be Worse
Terry
Allen:
Early
Profit-taking and 9/11
September
29, 2001
Steve Perry:
The
Pentagon's Blueprint
Patrick
Cockburn:
When
Will the Missiles Fall?
September
28, 2001
Edward Said:
Backlash
and Backtrack
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October
3, 2001
Road to Armageddon
By Robin Blackburn
As the high-jacked planes swooped towards the
World Trade Center and Pentagon a meeting of the Organisation
of American States in Lima assembled to ratify a new charter
that outlawed not simply old-fashioned military coups but also
what it called 'an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional
regime'. The formula was not that precise but everyone knew what
was being alluded to--Alberto Fujimori's action in closing down
Peru's Congress in 1992 and subsequently ruling by decree. Despite
the alarming news from Washington and New York, Colin Powell
stayed long enough to endorse the formula before flying back
to the stricken capital. From the press reports it seems that
no Latin American delegate was bold enough to remind the gathering
that September 11 was the anniversary of a coup in another Latin
American state, sanctioned by another US Secretary of State,
namely the toppling of Salvador Allende, Chile's elected president,
by General Pinochet in 1973.
While the OAS was turning its face against
special regimes in South America the extraordinary terrorist
coup in North America was setting the scene for the resurgence
of an imperial presidency. This was initially concealed by Bush's
dithering on the day itself as the commander-in-chief allowed
himself to be taken first to Louisiana and then Nebraska, where
he was  bundled down what Ann Compton,
the only reporter present, described as a 'rabbit hole'. Bush's
manner remained hesitant even in his address later that evening.
Yet it soon became clear that the White House was taking advantage
of the shock at what had happened to demand 'war powers' and
the financial and constitutional means to employ them. In less
than 48 hours NATO was persuaded to invoke, for the first time
ever, Article 5 and consequently to give the US commander in
chief carte blanche to act in its name. The Senate took only
a little longer to back the President's declaration of war against
an unnamed enemy and for Congress to place a $40 billion war
chest at his disposal.
But what has now happened raises the
power of the president by a quantum leap. It restores an imperial
potency to the presidency equal to--or even exceeding-that of
the Reagan era. Bush's authority and freedom of action today
is certainly far greater than that enjoyed by his father on the
eve of the Gulf War. As we contemplate what, mutatis mutandis,
might be called the 18th Brumaire of the Bush dynasty we might
bear in mind that Louis Bonaparte was also seen as a bumbling
fellow, entirely lacking his uncle's decisiveness and military
genius. And the accomplishment of G.W.Bush is the more remarkable
for the absence of those huge majorities which elevated the Frenchman
to the presidency before he converted himself into an Emperor.
This particular mutation has, of course, been carried out quite
constitutionally. The 18th Brumaire echo refers essentially to
the new power of the executive, bearing in mind that Napoleon
the Third used this to neutralise rather than suppress newspapers,
trade unions and elections, all of which he not only tolerated
but embraced.
But some will argue that Bush's imperial
White House is simply continuing the policies of his predecessor.
If we strip away party labels is it not the case that the diffident
Bush is simply taking up the mantle of the slicker Clinton? While
Bush has made unilateralism a trademark of his foreign policy,
his predecessor bombarded Sudan, Pakistan and Afghanistan without
UN or even NATO cover. The declarations of Hilary Clinton have
chimed in perfectly with those of the Bush White House approach.
Writers in the New Republic nevertheless insist that Clinton's
actions were showy and tokenistic. According to Martin Peretz
a 'one-short, two venue mini-bombing that accomplishes exactly
nothing' . ('Counting', The New Republic, September 24, 2001).
According to Lawrence Kaplan the 'key
fallacy of the Clinton approach was that international terrorism
is a criminal justice issue' and not 'an act of war'. Clinton
refused to really take on the states which harboured and supported
Islamic Jihad and the bin Laden network: 'A serious counterterrorism
policy would have raised the cost of harboring bin Laden beyond
what Afghanistan could bear.' Kaplan believes that Bush understands
all this much better and adds the chilling advice that the President
must renounce the Clintonian principle that '(t)he idea is to
hit things without jeopardising people, to skirt moral ambiguities,
to design strikes, as Clinton put it after the missile strike
against Iraq in 1996, 'to have very limited damage to human beings'.'
('What We've Done Wrong: the Day Before', The New Republic,
September 24).
Peretz and Kaplan may seem unfair to Clinton here,
since the putative new approach is simply an escalation of the
old. But it would be wrong to see the post-September 11 Bush
regime as essentially a ratcheting up of the Clinton policy,
commensurate with the newly-perceived dimensions of the threat.
Everything suggests that a watershed has been passed. Bush is
far stronger than Clinton essentially because he faces virtually
no opposition. While Clinton was unrelentingly pilloried and
opposed by a fairly effective Republic Congressional majority,
Bush now has the Democrats eating out of his hand. On Friday,
September 14, only Congresswoman Barbara Lee (Berkeley) voted
against the emergency package. Indeed Bush has now been voted
such powers that Congress should be little worry to him even
if more critics emerge. Likewise US allies who previously dared
to mutter their concern when Bush made it clear that he regarded
international treaties as scraps of paper (ABM or Kyoto) have
now announced their prior willingness to back almost any revenge
action he may launch, even before learning what it will be.
Thus it is not so much Bush's personality
which should be scrutinised as the situation and character of
his machine and the facilities it now enjoys, both domestically
and abroad. Behind Bush stand more considerable figures like
Cheney and Rumsfeld and behind them a military-industrial complex
which begins to see its prayers being answered. It is astonishing
to recollect that as recently as September 2 the New York Times
ran a headline: 'Dogfight for Dollars on Capitol Hill: The Winnowing
Begins on Contracts for Planes, Ships and All Things Military'.
And just three days later the Senate majority leader visited
the White House and wrung from a reluctant president a commitment
not to raid the surplus in the Social Security 'lockbox'. However
note that Ari Fleischer, the White House press secretary, was
also quoted on the NYT for September 5 as observing that while
the President hoped not to use the Social Security money, the
situation could change in the event of 'war or recession'.
While it would be absurd to minimise
the tidal wave of US public outrage it would also be wrong to
think that all Americans are bent on evening the score by slaughtering
innocents. Public opinion is invariably more complex and contradictory
than can be revealed in a poll so we should treat with due caution
the findings of one carried in the New York Times for September
17 which put the matter thus: 'As they move from shock to fury
Americans are bracing for the United States to go for war, and
they overwhelmingly say the nation should take military action
against those responsible for the terrorist attacksThat sentiment
declines at the prospect that thousands of innocent civilians
abroad could be killed. Still a majority of Americans support
engagement by the military even under those circumstances.
The crisis has spurred the public to
put aside its past reservations about the leadership of President
Bush and instead rally wholeheartedly behind the new President
and express confidence in his ability to guide the nation. His
job approval rating has soared to 84 per cent compared with 50
per cent just over a month agoThe public also supports changing
the law to allow for the assassination of people in foreign countries
who commit terrorist attacks. Although more than half the respondents
said they did not think Arab-Americans were any more sympathetic
towards the terrorists than other Americans, the public is expecting
a backlash against Arab-Americans, Muslims and immigrants from
the Middle East. (I)n follow up interviews many respondentssaid
they backed American military action even if that meant American
casualties.'
After events like those of September
11 there are bound to be contradictory impulses at work in the
public mind and which sentiments prevail depend to a considerable
extent on who has access to the microphones and what is said
by those in authority. I have been living in Lower Manhattan
and have been able to observe reactions there. At the large candlelit
vigils there was not a single banner demanding blood revenge.
One constantly sees rescue workers being trucked into or out
of ground zero. They are cheered for their willingness to go
into the rubble for no wages and at great personal risk. The
construction workers strike belligerent poses and chant 'USA,
USA' or sing 'God Bless America'. In conversation they will say
'We must bomb Kabul'. But their main focus is on rescue and displaying
respect for the dead. The whole effort has been led by Mayor
Guiliani who warned against indiscriminate anger.
There are US flags hanging from many
doorways or windows but I have not seen any signs demanding dead
Muslims. The messages from the gatherings in Union Square, or
pinned to the fence in Washington Square, ask for peace; though
in Washington Square a few object and offer 'retaliate x 10'.
Of course there are voices in the tabloids, some radio shows
and respectable organs of opinion which are happy to whip up
blood lust or to peddle stereotypes. But these are dangerous
because they will encourage official recklessness and revenge
not because millions of Americans actually want to fight a war.
On September 18 the New York Times reported that there had been
no increase in enlistment over the previous week and that there
were no queues at the recruiting offices as there had been after
Pearl Harbor.
In the previously-quoted article Peretz,
after attacking the laxity of US border officials, writes: 'Would
greater diligence amount to ethnic profiling? Probably so.' Unlike
the New York mayor, Bush announced that the US was at war without
warning against attacks on individuals. Only several days later,
after several hundred such attacks against turbaned Sikhs and
the like, some of them fatal, did Bush appear at an Islamic centre
and attack vigilanteeism and labelling.
The Presidency now enjoys almost complete freedom
of action and is well-placed to give shape and direction to the
widespread sense of shock, anger and alarm. In a book published
this September Daniel Lazare anticipated this state of affairs
when he warned of the extraordinary power of a US president compared
with counterparts in other democratic states: '(A) US president
is a good deal more powerful. Surrounded by courtiers, intelligence
agencies, and military units at his beck and call, he is free
to launch invasions or order covert operations any time, day
or night, without fear of contradiction from his cabinet or any
of his subordinates. Indeed he is expected to engage in
such unilateral displays'.(Daniel Lazare, The Velvet Coup,
pp. 100-1). Lazare is here drawing attention to a powerful trend
in US government which witnessed a twentieth century aggrandisement
of the presidency that would have astonished the framers of the
Constitution. But this trend was at least partly checked by resistance
to the Vietnam war, by the impeachment of Nixon and by the considerable
public controversy over Iran-Contra, or even the Gulf War or
Kosovo bombardment.
Moreover the post-Vietnam refusal to
accept casualties also hobbled the US president and the war machine
at his command. The opinion polls and talk shows now abundantly
confirm that this restraint has evaporated. Finally US allies
also constrained the White House during those episodes. Today
matters are different and Lazare is simply stating the bare truth
when he writes: 'Short of total war, the US president has carte
blanche to attack whom he pleases virtually anywhere in the world.'
One can now add that Bush now claims a formal mandate to topple
regimes, or as the NYT main headline for 14 September put it:
'Bush and Top Aides Proclaim Policy of 'Ending' States That Back
Terror'. When his predecessors conspired to overthrow governments
they generally did so covertly.
When Americans say they want action against
'those responsible' for the attacks the sentiment is easy to
understand and, so long as proportionate and effective means
are employed, reasonable. We should bear in mind that some of
the Islamic jihad warriors involved are likely to have thought
themselves to be avenging violent acts of the US government,
downing civilian planes in the Gulf or dropping huge quantities
of bombs on Iraq. The revenge taken by the terrorists was wrong
because it targeted innocent civilians--in the World Trade Center
were people of many nations and walks of life--and because the
action as a whole was calculated to provoke more not less US
bombing, not only in Iraq. It is still just possible that US
belligerence will be restrained but this will be despite the
worst efforts of Islamic jihad.
Who was 'responsible' for the terror
actions? Those directly responsible perished while, since US
intelligence manifestly failed to predict the attack, it does
not seem well placed to take on the support network behind it.
This is not because they are unaware of the identity of that
network but because it is one with which they have been structurally
complicit for a long while. The security services of Saudi Arabia
and Pakistan have had the most intimate relations with the US
military and intelligence. It was only Saudi and Pakistani support
for the Taliban--including military units as well as lavish amounts
of money, arms and training--which allowed them to seize power
in Afghanistan in 1996, displacing the fractious alliance of
mujahedeen and military men which ruled the country from 1992.
The Taliban movement received help from bin Laden and have subsequently
allowed his Al Qaeda network to set up training camps there.
It was Prince Turki al Feisal, the then head of Saudi intelligence,
who first recruited bin Laden to organise resistance in Afghanistan,
with US approval. For its part the Pakistani military intelligence,
the ISI, sponsors of the Taliban, welcomed the Saudi money which
bin Laden has always been able to attract. One reason why the
US claim that the bin Laden network was behind the September
attack is precisely that the ramifications of this claim will
prove awkward and embarrassing for the US authorities themselves.
Another reason is that in an affair like this, the focus of so
much attention, pinning the blame simply on a convenient but
false target--say Saddam or Ghaddafi or Castro--would be risky
and short-sighted. This time the US authorities do need to identify
the real culprits.
The potentially embarrassing aspects
of this matter do not just relate to the 1980s or early 1990s.
The New Republic's advice to Bush may be appallingly dangerous
but its editorial in the previously cited issue may not be ill-informed
when it refers to Saudi Arabia's 'filthy secrets'. Martin Peretz
explains that Saudi money has been flowing into the coffers of
the bin Laden network: 'Many Saudis--maybe even the monarchy
itself--finance it, if only to keep it engaged and out of Riyadh.'
But matters don't stop there because the security services of
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have worked hand-in-glove with those
of the US for several decades and without them the Taliban would
be nowhere. Consider the implications of the following report
from Islamabad by John Burns in the NYT for September 18: 'General
Ahmed, and his deputy General Faiz Gilani, are the top figures
in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or I.S.I.
responsible for channelling large amounts of military and financial
aid to the Taliban. Until the attacks in New York and Washington,
that support had been quietly tolerated by the United States,
despite the bitter opposition to the repressive forms of Islamic
rule imposed by the Taliban.'
Historically the US security establishment did
not see the Islamic jihad and bin Laden terror networks as an
entirely negative phenomenon. In the 1980s such networks were
often financed, trained and armed so long as they were fighting
against the Russian-supported regime in Afghanistan. But in addition,
and subsequent to this, Muslim jihad networks were sometimes
seen as a lesser evil in former Soviet lands and in parts of
the Middle East. Elements of the Al Qaeda network were active
in Chechnya and former Soviet central Asia. They were also active
in Bosnia and Kosovo. The Western press did not like to make
much of it but some of the Bosnian and KLA units were addicted
to terror tactics. Indeed, as a legacy of this, gangs of ethno-religious
thugs still terrorise populations in the Balkan statelets set
up by NATO.
And as we witness special powers being
conferred on Bush in the aftermath of a terror action we should
remember the decisive role played by the bombing of Moscow apartments
in the rise and rise of Vladimir Putin. The slaughter of 118
Muscovites in 1999 set the scene for a revenge panic which Putin
adroitly used first to justify a bloody offensive against the
Chechens and then to elevate himself to the Presidency. Responsibility
for these bombs has never been clarified but supporters of Islamic
jihad do seem plausible candidates as the actual perpetrators,
with or without some degree of collusion from sections of the
Chechen leadership and/or the Russian security services. The
murkiness of terror tactics have long made them the provocateur's
weapon of choice, Conrad's theme in The Secret Agent.
It often seems that the more spectacularly
successful an act of terror is, the more counter-productive its
consequences. This is probably especially the case when the terror
is expressive rather than instrumental, inspired by religion
and not politics. The actions undertaken by the activists that
bin Laden has trained have been notable for a wanton disregard
of human life and apparent obliviousness to context. When he
has allied his networks with communities that are oppressed--whether
Palestinians, Chechens, Bosnian Muslims or Kosovan Albanians--his
terror tactics have often weakened and compromised them. But
it would be wrong to conclude that terror is always ineffective.
The cases cited had a front line character, where Islamic populations
live commingled with those of other faiths or none. In states
with an overwhelmingly Muslim population matters could well be
different.
Nationalist movements have sometimes
used terror to undeniable effect--the FLN in Algeria, Irgun in
Israel. This was because they were linked to an over-arching
political strategy and because there was a complex of social
forces--summoned up by the national movement - which could take
advantage of the confusion. The terror operations of Islamic
jihad in mixed, secularised or 'frontline' zones lack this characteristic
since they energise rather than disrupt their opponents, and
since the community of believers is not a plausible social basis
upon which to construct a new power. The terror actions of Hamas
have divided rather than united Palestinians, leading to some
Israeli 'quiet toleration' of the group in earlier days. Religious
terror sets off reactions which, at least in many parts of the
modern world, it cannot itself profit from. However in the more
unstable and autocratic Islamic states themselves the terror
tactics could work - even if most believers are thoroughly alienated
by them. In these cases the implicit political project is that
of creating a more virtuous and representative state, something
that could well seem appealing in Saudi Arabia or Pakistan, and
possibly in countries like Egypt and Algeria as well.
These dangers could be much reduced by the disabling
of Al Qaeda since even fundamentalists will often be suspicious
of it (e.g. if they are Shi'ite). But if the US puts itself at
the head of a Western crusade to smash bin Laden it will cast
him in the role of a new Saladin and perilously exacerbate dangers
that are anyway quite acute. This doesn't mean that the US should
do nothing. Its huge influence over Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
give it the opportunity to undo at last some of the damage of
the past. If the Taliban's sponsors now undertook to apprehend
bin Laden and disperse the training camps of Al Qaeda this would
be not only positive but long overdue. But the authorities in
Riyadh and Islamabad may well not feel strong enough to do so.
On the other hand the US can insist on an immediate cessation
of all financial and material support to the Taliban regime,
something which would also be welcome and which the US certainly
has the capacity to monitor.
So at a moment when the US president
has unprecedented opportunities for launching a massive attack
his best policy would be to act only indirectly, by turning off
the spigots which have sustained the terror machine. Unless global
public opinion develops in such a way as to prevent it Bush is
most likely to decide to send US troops, together with such compliant
allies as he can muster, to seize bin Laden and perhaps occupy
Kabul or Kandahar. Such an approach risks a double disaster.
Firstly that the expedition will be a bloody failure, or secondly
that, even if successful in its narrow objective, it will simply
prepare the way for seizures of power by Islamic jihad in Pakistan
and elsewhere. If the United States and NATO try to take on bin
Laden they are more likely to strengthen the Islamic jihad network
than destroy it. The Russian and Chinese governments quickly
expressed their concern for the victims of the terror attack
but as the prospect of undefined unilateral action loomed they
got alarmed.
The best way to disrupt the bin Laden
network is plainly to help the United Front, the Afghani opposition,
to defeat the Taliban. The latter are not a deep-rooted, popular
force but returned exiles and creatures of their foreign backers.
Of course a full-scale US assault--say a bombing campaign--could
yet cement bonds between government and population. The contribution
that the US could make to overthrowing the Taliban would, as
I have said, be to ensure that all Pakistani and Saudi support
for the Taliban ceases immediately. But neither US nor Pakistani
forces are qualified in any way to now pose as the liberators
of Afghanistan. The existing opposition is backed by Tajikistan,
Russia and Iran, and it is these powers which are manifestly
best-placed to continue working for the defeat of the Taliban,
and with them, of the bin Laden network, by supporting the United
Front. The latter is fairly broadly-based but would be more convincing
if it also reached out to more secular and civilian forces such
as the RAWA, or association of Afghan women. Russian, China and
Iran should not, of course, directly intervene since to do so
would also risk uniting Afghans against foreigners. But these
powers could supply useful help. Does the point need to be labored
that the last thing which Russia, China and Iran wish to see
is a US--or NATO--military expedition in the Hindu Kush? Conceivably
the UN could have a positive role to play, so long as Tajikistan,
Russia, China and a range of Islamic states, especially Iran,
were all involved.
Of course the forces of Islamic jihad
are not only to be found in Afghanistan but now thrive in many
parts of the Middle East. Here the US is hampered by the fact
that its cause is now yoked to Egypt, Israel and Saudi Arabia.
For Bush to imagine that the US stands for liberty and justice
in the Middle East is a strange delusion. It could only ever
be seen in this light if it broke with the Saudi monarchy and
obliged Israel to withdraw completely from the occupied territories,
something that would obviously require a complete revolution
in its policy and priorities in the region. This is not about
to happen but, incredible as it may now seem, the time may come
when Washington itself will see that American interests would
be better served by curbing Israel. Already Bush and Powell's
remarks about a Palestinian state are discomfitting Israel.
As it now seeks Arab and Muslim allies
the United States will be under renewed pressure to redefine
its Israel policy and offer some concessions to Arab opinion.
The oil and industrial interests so linked to the Bush regime
could perceive the need for a fresh start in the region and the
President is now so strong that he doesn't need to fear even
the hostility of AIPAC, the influential pressure group which
backs Israel. But alliance with the 'moderate' Arab states--and
the sort of token sops that might satisfy them - will not help
since these are autocratic, repressive and discredited. So a
replay of the Gulf War coalition will not work even on its own
terms. An attempt simply to re-start the flawed and phony 'peace
process' would not be convincing even to most 'moderate' Arabs.
The minimum should be compliance with Resolution 242 and willingness
to discuss a territorial settlement that gives both Jews and
Palestinians contiguous land and reasonably defensible borders
(see the proposals of the French General Guy Mondron for one
possibility, in New Left Review, No 10, 2001).
Compared with the killing power of states
bent on war or exemplary punishment the actions of terrorists
are often puny as well as counterproductive. But in this case
the terror action was not just symbolic and spectacular. In terms
of lives lost, or economic and political impact, it transcends
the usual limits of terror actions, including those to which
this network has previously been linked. The calculation involved
was of a high order. The intended audience of the September 11
action was opinion in the Islamic world in general, and disaffected
young men in particular. Anger at the West's acquiescence in
the killing of hundreds of Palestinian youths, or at Sharon's
use of state terror against whole communities, or at the suffering
of the Iraqi people directly at the hands of the US and UK, were
only the most recent provocations. Osama bin Laden and his followers
or co-thinkers have a political as well as identitarian project
in so far as they are prepared to seize power wherever it may
be possible in the Islamic world. They are revolutionaries as
well as warriors.
While the analogy is no doubt a limited
one, we should consider the outlook of Catholic conquistadores
and Puritan revolutionaries. Patricia Seed has explained in Ceremonies
of Possession how the Spanish practice of conquest owed much
to Islamic Holy War. Even closer to home, Michael Walzer, in
his book The Revolution of the Saints, explains how Puritanism,
with its fixation on the need to fight Satan, gave rise to new
ways of waging war. Walzer explains of Calvin: 'Pervasive in
his work was a view of the life of the saint as a perpetual,
almost military, struggle with the devil. It was because of the
devil, and his vast cohorts of earthly followers, that the conscientious,
reforming activity of religious men so often resulted in or required
violence and warfare.' Such an outlook led some English Puritan
soldiers to rid themselves of monarchy--and some to massacre
and oppress the Irish.
I have used the term Islamic jihad to
refer to those who identify the United States as the Great Satan,
a term which confuses political realities with religious categories,
and seemingly entails utter recklessless towards the lives of
believers and non-believers alike. Given the enormous increase
in the potency of weapons of mass destruction we cannot simply
wait for that long process through which religious enthusiasm
becomes secularised and moderated, though to the extent that
this has already happened in some parts of the Muslim world,
notably Iran, there are some rays of light in a darkening landscape.
Awareness of religious motivation should
not, however, lead to denial that this worldview may also have
its own political rationale. The excessive and 'symbolic' dimensions
of the September 11 action will further such objectives if it
drives Washington mad, if it makes the custodians of global capital
forget how much they have to lose and if it plays to the phobias
in US political culture.
The Belgian Marxist Ernest Mandel used
to say that the American bourgeoisie had no rational interest
in blowing up the world in a nuclear conflagration. Once again
bourgeois American is in a like situation and does not have an
interest in, say, provoking the fundamentalist network in the
Pakistani armed forces. But this does not mean American political
leadership can find within itself the wisdom, imagination and
patience to see that the main role must now be played by others.
The Islamic warriors who immolated themselves in the World Trade
Center and Pentagon were armed only with knives and cardboard
cutters. They turned their opponent's civilian airliners into
devastating instruments of destruction. They are also ready to
turn American belligerence into their ally.
A US willingness to talk to the Iranian
government--and allow it to play the lead - would be quite different
from the anticipated US reaction. It would display realism. The
United States should work in concert with leading powers in other
major civilisations and not intervene itself. To point out this
possible line of policy may be to clutch at straws since the
aftermath of the September action hugely boosts the forces of
irrationality. Sections of the US military and frustrated jingoes
throughout the land may find a rolling state of emergency very
congenial.
Bush will feel under huge pressure to
use his new found power for some macho exploit. The most spectacular
terrorist act in history is readily intelligible in the values
of a culture that has given us Top Gun and Mission Impossible.
The characteristic of such movies, however, was always their
romanticization of violence. The danger is that a response in
kind would help the forces of Islamic jihad and might allow them
to seize power in a nuclear state. Indeed for the US to act in
this way would be even more dangerous than the confrontations
of the Cold War. It would be to court armageddon. CP
Robin Blackburn,
a frequent contributor to CounterPunch, is the former editor
of The New Left Review
and author of the excellent history of the slave trade, The
Making of New World Slavery.
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