|
October 24, 2001
Michael Colby
Radioactive
Mail?
Lori
Allen
Life
in an Occupied Land
During Wartime
Peter
Swire
New
Anti-Terrorism Bill
Poses Old Risks
Irina
Malenko
A
Non-Western Voice
David
Vest
Welcome
to Web Hell
Patrick Cockburn
Battle
of Mazar Gets Nasty
October 23, 2001
Steve
Perry
Anthrax,
Cipro and the Bailout of Bayer
Carl
Estabrook
Just War
or
The Rule of Lawlessness?
Patrick
Cockburn
Errant
Bombs at Bagram
George
Monbiot
War
and Oil
Robert
Jensen
Crushing
Academic Dissent
October 22, 2001
Hamit
Dardagan
The
New Newspeak
Tom
Turnipseed
War
on the Poor
Patrick Cockburn
Killing
Mullah Omar's Child
David
Vest
The
War on Women
Shepherd
Bliss
Advice
from a Vietnam Vet
Hani
Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
October 21, 2001
Donald
Rumsfeld
The
al-Jazeera Interview
Mark
Scaramella
Nuclear
Anxiety
October 19, 2001
Mohammed
Sid-Ahmed
Bush's
Palestinian State
Michael
Colby
A
Mailroom Manifesto
October 18, 2001
Mahajan
and Jensen
Avoiding
a New Cold War
Patrick
Cockburn
US
Planes Pound Taliban
Jamey Hecht
Gerald Ford
and the CIA
Mokhiber
and Weisman
3
Arguments
Against This War
October 17, 2001
Ballinger
and Marsh
Music
and War Resistance
Steve
Perry
The
Anthrax Chronicles
Chris
Kromm
Operation
Infinite Disaster
Susan
Block
Sex
Not Bombs
David Vest
Osama Speaks
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By
Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
Responses to 9/11:
Chomsky, Russell Banks,
Zinn, and Alice Walker
A Free ebook from
Seven Stories Press
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
October 24,
2001
The New War Against Terror
By Noam Chomsky
[Transcribed from audio
recorded during Chomsky's talk at The
Technology & Culture Forum at MIT]
Everyone knows it's the TV people who run the
world [crowd laugher]. I just got orders that I'm supposed to
be here, not there. Well the last talk I gave at this forum was
on a light pleasant topic. It was about how humans are an endangered
species and given the nature of their institutions they are likely to destroy themselves in
a fairly short time. So this time there is a little relief and
we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war on terror. Unfortunately,
the world keeps coming up with things that make it more and more
horrible as we proceed.
I'm going to assume 2 conditions for
this talk.
The first one is just what I assume to
be recognition of fact. That is that the events of September
11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the most devastating instant
human toll of any crime in history, outside of war. The second
assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that our goal
is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such
crimes whether they are against us or against someone else. If
you don't accept those two assumptions, then what I say will
not be addressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number
of questions arise, closely related ones, which merit a good
deal of thought.
The 5 Questions
One question, and by far the most important
one is what is happening right now? Implicit in that is what
can we do about it? The 2nd has to do with the very common assumption
that what happened on September 11 is a historic event, one which
will change history. I tend to agree with that. I think it's
true. It was a historic event and the question we should be asking
is exactly why? The 3rd question has to do with the title, The
War Against Terrorism. Exactly what is it? And there is a related
question, namely what is terrorism? The 4th question which is
narrower but important has to do with the origins of the crimes
of September 11th. And the 5th question that I want to talk a
little about is what policy options there are in fighting this
war against terrorism and dealing with the situations that led
to it.
I'll say a few things about each. Glad
to go beyond in discussion and don't hesitate to bring up other
questions. These are ones that come to my mind as prominent but
you may easily and plausibly have other choices.
1. What's
Happening Right Now?
Starvation
of 3 to 4 Million People
Well let's start with right now. I'll
talk about the situation in Afghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial
sources like the New York Times [crowd laughter]. According to
the New York Times there are 7 to 8 million people in Afghanistan
on the verge of starvation. That was true actually before September
11th. They were surviving on international aid. On September
16th, the Times reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States
demanded from Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that
provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's
civilian population. As far as I could determine there was no
reaction in the United States or for that matter in Europe. I
was on national radio all over Europe the next day. There was
no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my knowledge
to the demand to impose massive starvation on millions of people.
The threat of military strikes right after September.....around
that time forced the removal of international aid workers that
crippled the assistance programs. Actually, I am quoting again
from the New York Times. Refugees reaching Pakistan after arduous
journeys from AF are describing scenes of desperation and fear
at home as the threat of American led military attacks turns
their long running misery into a potential catastrophe. The country
was on a lifeline and we just cut the line. Quoting an evacuated
aid worker, in the New York Times Magazine.
The World Food Program, the UN program,
which is the main one by far, were able to resume after 3 weeks
in early October, they began to resume at a lower level, resume
food shipments. They don't have international aid workers within,
so the distribution system is hampered. That was suspended as
soon as the bombing began. They then resumed but at a lower pace
while aid agencies leveled scathing condemnations of US airdrops,
condemning them as propaganda tools which are probably doing
more harm than good. That happens to be quoting the London Financial
Times but it is easy to continue. After the first week of bombing,
the New York Times reported on a back page inside a column on
something else, that by the arithmetic of the United Nations
there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even
a loaf of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the
harsh winter will make deliveries to many areas totally impossible,
continuing to quote, but with bombs falling the delivery rate
is down to * of what is needed. Casual comment. Which tells us
that Western civilization is anticipating the slaughter of, well
do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something like that.
On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed
with contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery
of the alleged target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for some
evidence to substantiate the demand for total capitulation. It
was dismissed. On the same day the Special Rapporteur of the
UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States to stop the
bombing to try to save millions of victims. As far as I'm aware
that was unreported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid
agencies OXFAM and Christian Aid and others joined in that plea.
You can't find a report in the New York Times. There was a line
in the Boston Globe, hidden in a story about another topic, Kashmir.
Silent Genocide
Well we could easily go on....but all
of that....first of all indicates to us what's happening. Looks
like what's happening is some sort of silent genocide. It also
gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the culture
that we are part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen
we don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented
on the assumption that they may lead to the death of several
million people in the next couple of weeks....very casually with
no comment, no particular thought about it, that's just kind
of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not in the rest
of the world. In fact not even in much of Europe. So if you read
the Irish press or the press in Scotland...that close, reactions
are very different. Well that's what's happening now. What's
happening now is very much under our control. We can do a lot
to affect what's happening. And that's roughly it.
2. Why was
it a Historic Event?
National
Territory Attacked
Alright let's turn to the slightly more
abstract question, forgetting for the moment that we are in the
midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4 million people, not
Taliban of course, their victims. Let's go back...turn to the
question of the historic event that took place on September 11th.
As I said, I think that's correct. It was a historic event. Not
unfortunately because of its scale, unpleasant to think about,
but in terms of the scale it's not that unusual. I did say it's
the worst...probably the worst instant human toll of any crime.
And that may be true. But there are terrorist crimes with effects
a bit more drawn out that are more extreme, unfortunately. Nevertheless,
it's a historic event because there was a change. The change
was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That's new.
Radically new. So, take US history.
The last time that the national territory
of the United States was under attack, or for that matter, even
threatened was when the British burned down Washington in 1814.
There have been many...it was common to bring up Pearl Harbor
but that's not a good analogy. The Japanese, what ever you think
about it, the Japanese bombed military bases in 2 US colonies
not the national territory; colonies which had been taken from
their inhabitants in not a very pretty way. This is the national
territory that's been attacked on a large scale, you can find
a few fringe examples but this is unique.
During these close to 200 years, we,
the United States expelled or mostly exterminated the indigenous
population, that's many millions of people, conquered half of
Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region, Caribbean
and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and the
Philippines, killing several 100,000 Filipinos in the process.
Since the Second World War, it has extended its reach around
the world in ways I don't have to describe. But it was always
killing someone else, the fighting was somewhere else, it was
others who were getting slaughtered. Not here. Not the national
territory.
Europe
In the case of Europe, the change is
even more dramatic because its history is even more horrendous
than ours. We are an offshoot of Europe, basically. For hundreds
of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people all over
the world. That's how they conquered the world, not by handing
out candy to babies. During this period, Europe did suffer murderous
wars, but that was European killers murdering one another. The
main sport of Europe for hundreds of years was slaughtering one
another. The only reason that it came to an end in 1945, was....it
had nothing to do with Democracy or not making war with each
other and other fashionable notions. It had to do with the fact
that everyone understood that the next time they play the game
it was going to be the end for the world. Because the Europeans,
including us, had developed such massive weapons of destruction
that that game just have to be over. And it goes back hundreds
of years. In the 17th century, about probably 40% of the entire
population of Germany was wiped out in one war.
But during this whole bloody murderous
period, it was Europeans slaughtering each other, and Europeans
slaughtering people elsewhere. The Congo didn't attack Belgium,
India didn't attack England, Algeria didn't attack France. It's
uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small in
scale, certainly invisible in the scale of what Europe and us
were doing to the rest of the world. This is the first change.
The first time that the guns have been pointed the other way.
And in my opinion that's probably why you see such different
reactions on the two sides of the Irish Sea which I have noticed,
incidentally, in many interviews on both sides, national radio
on both sides. The world looks very different depending on whether
you are holding the lash or whether you are being whipped by
it for hundreds of years, very different. So I think the shock
and surprise in Europe and its offshoots, like here, is very
understandable. It is a historic event but regrettably not in
scale, in something else and a reason why the rest of the world...most
of the rest of the world looks at it quite differently. Not lacking
sympathy for the victims of the atrocity or being horrified by
them, that's almost uniform, but viewing it from a different
perspective. Something we might want to understand.
3. What
is the War Against Terrorism?
Well, let's go to the third question,
'What is the war against terrorism?' and a side question, 'What's
terrorism?'. The war against terrorism has been described in
high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which is
spread by barbarians, by "depraved opponents of civilization
itself." That's a feeling that I share. The words I'm quoting,
however, happen to be from 20 years ago. Those are...that's President
Reagan and his Secretary of State. The Reagan administration
came into office 20 years ago declaring that the war against
international terrorism would be the core of our foreign policy....describing
it in terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. And it was
the core of our foreign policy. The Reagan administration responded
to this plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself
by creating an extraordinary international terrorist network,
totally unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities
all over the world, primarily....well, partly nearby, but not
only there. I won't run through the record, you're all educated
people, so I'm sure you learned about it in High School. [crowd
laughter]
Reagan--US
War Against Nicaragua
But I'll just mention one case which
is totally uncontroversial, so we might as well not argue about
it, by no means the most extreme but uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial
because of the judgments of the highest international authorities
the International Court of Justice, the World Court, and the
UN Security Council. So this one is uncontroversial, at least
among people who have some minimal concern for international
law, human rights, justice and other things like that. And now
I'll leave you an exercise. You can estimate the size of that
category by simply asking how often this uncontroversial case
has been mentioned in the commentary of the last month. And it's
a particularly relevant one, not only because it is uncontroversial,
but because it does offer a precedent as to how a law abiding
state would respond to...did respond in fact to international
terrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even more extreme
than the events of September 11th. I'm talking about the Reagan-US
war against Nicaragua which left tens of thousands of people
dead, the country ruined, perhaps beyond recovery.
Nicaragua's
Response
Nicaragua did respond. They didn't respond
by setting off bombs in Washington. They responded by taking
it to the World Court, presenting a case, they had no problem
putting together evidence. The World Court accepted their case,
ruled in their favor, ordered the...condemned what they called
the "unlawful use of force," which is another word
for international terrorism, by the United States, ordered the
United States to terminate the crime and to pay massive reparations.
The United States, of course, dismissed the court judgment with
total contempt and announced that it would not accept the jurisdiction
of the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua then went to the UN Security
Council which considered a resolution calling on all states to
observe international law. No one was mentioned but everyone
understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now stands
as the only state on record which has both been condemned by
the World Court for international terrorism and has vetoed a
Security Council resolution calling on states to observe international
law. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly where there
is technically no veto but a negative US vote amounts to a veto.
It passed a similar resolution with only the United States, Israel,
and El Salvador opposed. The following year again, this time
the United States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2
votes opposed to observing international law. At that point,
Nicaragua couldn't do anything lawful. It tried all the measures.
They don't work in a world that is ruled by force.
This case is uncontroversial but it's
by no means the most extreme. We gain a lot of insight into our
own culture and society and what's happening now by asking 'how
much we know about all this? How much we talk about it? How much
you learn about it in school? How much it's all over the front
pages?' And this is only the beginning. The United States responded
to the World Court and the Security Council by immediately escalating
the war very quickly, that was a bipartisan decision incidentally.
The terms of the war were also changed. For the first time there
were official orders given...official orders to the terrorist
army to attack what are called "soft targets," meaning
undefended civilian targets, and to keep away from the Nicaraguan
army. They were able to do that because the United States had
total control of the air over Nicaragua and the mercenary army
was supplied with advanced communication equipment, it wasn't
a guerilla army in the normal sense and could get instructions
about the disposition of the Nicaraguan army forces so they could
attack agricultural collectives, health clinics, and so on...soft
targets with impunity. Those were the official orders.
What was
the Reaction Here?
What was the reaction? It was known.
There was a reaction to it. The policy was regarded as sensible
by left liberal opinion. So Michael Kinsley who represents the
left in mainstream discussion, wrote an article in which he said
that we shouldn't be too quick to criticize this policy as Human
Rights Watch had just done. He said a "sensible policy"
must "meet the test of cost benefit analysis" -- that
is, I'm quoting now, that is the analysis of "the amount
of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood
that democracy will emerge at the other end." Democracy
as the US understands the term, which is graphically illustrated
in the surrounding countries. Notice that it is axiomatic that
the United States, US elites, have the right to conduct the analysis
and to pursue the project if it passes their tests. And it did
pass their tests. It worked. When Nicaragua finally succumbed
to superpower assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded
the success of the methods that were adopted and described them
accurately. So I'll quote Time Magazine just to pick one. They
lauded the success of the methods adopted: "to wreck the
economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war until the exhausted
natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves," with
a cost to us that is "minimal," and leaving the victims
"with wrecked bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined
farms," and thus providing the US candidate with a "winning
issue": "ending the impoverishment of the people of
Nicaragua." The New York Times had a headline saying "Americans
United in Joy" at this outcome.
Terrorism
Works--Terrorism is not the
Weapon of the Weak
That is the culture in which we live
and it reveals several facts. One is the fact that terrorism
works. It doesn't fail. It works. Violence usually works. That's
world history. Secondly, it's a very serious analytic error to
say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the
weak. Like other means of violence, it's primarily a weapon of
the strong, overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon
of the weak because the strong also control the doctrinal systems
and their terror doesn't count as terror. Now that's close to
universal. I can't think of a historical exception, even the
worst mass murderers view the world that way. So pick the Nazis.
They weren't carrying out terror in occupied Europe. They were
protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans.
And like other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The
Nazis were carrying out counter terror. Furthermore, the United
States essentially agreed with that. After the war, the US army
did extensive studies of Nazi counter terror operations in Europe.
First I should say that the US picked them up and began carrying
them out itself, often against the same targets, the former resistance.
But the military also studied the Nazi methods published interesting
studies, sometimes critical of them because they were inefficiently
carried out, so a critical analysis, you didn't do this right,
you did that right, but those methods with the advice of Wermacht
officers who were brought over here became the manuals of counter
insurgency, of counter terror, of low intensity conflict, as
it is called, and are the manuals, and are the procedures that
are being used. So it's not just that the Nazis did it. It's
that it was regarded as the right thing to do by the leaders
of western civilization, that is us, who then proceeded to do
it themselves. Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is
the weapon of those who are against 'us' whoever 'us' happens
to be. And if you can find a historical exception to that, I'd
be interested in seeing it.
Nature of
our Culture--How We Regard Terrorism
Well, an interesting indication of the
nature of our culture, our high culture, is the way in which
all of this is regarded. One way it's regarded is just suppressing
it. So almost nobody has ever heard of it. And the power of American
propaganda and doctrine is so strong that even among the victims
it's barely known. I mean, when you talk about this to people
in Argentina, you have to remind them. Oh, yeah, that happened,
we forgot about it. It's deeply suppressed. The sheer consequences
of the monopoly of violence can be very powerful in ideological
and other terms.
The Idea
that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself
Well, one illuminating aspect of our
own attitude toward terrorism is the reaction to the idea that
Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself. Actually I went
through this in some detail with database searches and that sort
of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend
itself was considered outrageous. There is virtually nothing
in mainstream commentary indicating that Nicaragua might have
that right. And that fact was exploited by the Reagan administration
and its propaganda in an interesting way. Those of you who were
around in that time will remember that they periodically floated
rumors that the Nicaraguans were getting MIG jets, jets from
Russia. At that point the hawks and the doves split. The hawks
said, 'ok, let's bomb 'em.' The doves said, `wait a minute, let's
see if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then
let's bomb them. Because they are a threat to the United States.'
Why, incidentally were they getting MIGs. Well they tried to
get jet planes from European countries but the United States
put pressure on its allies so that it wouldn't send them means
of defense because they wanted them to turn to the Russians.
That's good for propaganda purposes. Then they become a threat
to us. Remember, they were just 2 days march from Harlingen,
Texas. We actually declared a national emergency in 1985 to protect
the country from the threat of Nicaragua. And it stayed in force.
So it was much better for them to get arms from the Russians.
Why would they want jet planes? Well, for the reasons I already
mentioned. The United States had total control over their airspace,
was over flying it and using that to provide instructions to
the terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without
running into the army that might defend them. Everyone knew that
that was the reason. They are not going to use their jet planes
for anything else. But the idea that Nicaragua should be permitted
to defend its airspace against a superpower attack that is directing
terrorist forces to attack undefended civilian targets, that
was considered in the United States as outrageous and uniformly
so. Exceptions are so slight, you know I can practically list
them. I don't suggest that you take my word for this. Have a
look. That includes our own senators, incidentally.
Honduras--The
Appointment of John Negroponte
as Ambassador to the United Nations
Another illustration of how we regard
terrorism is happening right now. The US has just appointed an
ambassador to the United Nations to lead the war against terrorism
a couple weeks ago. Who is he? Well, his name is John Negroponte.
He was the US ambassador in the fiefdom, which is what it is,
of Honduras in the early 1980's. There was a little fuss made
about the fact that he must have been aware, as he certainly
was, of the large-scale murders and other atrocities that were
being carried out by the security forces in Honduras that we
were supporting. But that's a small part of it. As proconsul
of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the local supervisor
for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his government
was condemned by the world court and then the Security Council
in a vetoed resolution. And he was just appointed as the UN Ambassador
to lead the war against terror. Another small experiment you
can do is check and see what the reaction was to this. Well,
I will tell you what you are going to find, but find it for yourself.
Now that tells us a lot about the war against terrorism and a
lot about ourselves.
After the United States took over the
country again under the conditions that were so graphically described
by the press, the country was pretty much destroyed in the 1980's,
but it has totally collapsed since in every respect just about.
Economically it has declined sharply since the US take over,
democratically and in every other respect. It's now the second
poorest country in the Hemisphere. I should say....I'm not going
to talk about it, but I mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua
because it is an uncontroversial case. If you look at the other
states in the region, the state terror was far more extreme and
it again traces back to Washington and that's by no means all.
US &
UK Backed South African Attacks
It was happening elsewhere in the world
too, take say Africa. During the Reagan years alone, South African
attacks, backed by the United States and Britain, US/UK-backed
South African attacks against the neighboring countries killed
about a million and a half people and left 60 billion dollars
in damage and countries destroyed. And if we go around the world,
we can add more examples.
Now that was the first war against terror
of which I've given a small sample. Are we supposed to pay attention
to that? Or kind of think that that might be relevant? After
all it's not exactly ancient history. Well, evidently not as
you can tell by looking at the current discussion of the war
on terror which has been the leading topic for the last month.
Haiti, Guatemala,
and Nicaragua
I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become
the 2nd poorest country in the hemisphere. What's the poorest
country? Well that's of course Haiti which also happens to be
the victim of most US intervention in the 20th century by a long
shot. We left it totally devastated. It's the poorest country.
Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US intervention in the
20th century. It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with
Guatemala. They interchange every year or two as to who's the
second poorest. And they also vie as to who is the leading target
of US military intervention. We're supposed to think that all
of this is some sort of accident. That is has nothing to do with
anything that happened in history. Maybe.
Colombia
and Turkey
The worst human rights violator in the
1990's is Colombia, by a long shot. It's also the, by far, the
leading recipient of US military aid in the 1990's maintaining
the terror and human rights violations. In 1999, Colombia replaced
Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms worldwide, that is
excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate category. And
that tells us a lot more about the war on terror right now, in
fact.
Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow
of US arms? Well if you take a look at the flow of US arms to
Turkey, Turkey always got a lot of US arms. It's strategically
placed, a member of NATO, and so on. But the arms flow to Turkey
went up very sharply in 1984. It didn't have anything to do with
the cold war. I mean Russian was collapsing. And it stayed high
from 1984 to 1999 when it reduced and it was replaced in the
lead by Colombia. What happened from 1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984,
[Turkey] launched a major terrorist war against Kurds in southeastern
Turkey. And that's when US aid went up, military aid. And this
was not pistols. This was jet planes, tanks, military training,
and so on. And it stayed high as the atrocities escalated through
the 1990's. Aid followed it. The peak year was 1997. In 1997,
US military aid to Turkey was more than in the entire period
1950 to 1983, that is the cold war period, which is an indication
of how much the cold war has affected policy. And the results
were awesome. This led to 2-3 million refugees. Some of the worst
ethnic cleansing of the late 1990's. Tens of thousands of people
killed, 3500 towns and villages destroyed, way more than Kosovo,
even under NATO bombs. And the United States was providing 80%
of the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased, peaking
in 1997. It declined in 1999 because, once again, terror worked
as it usually does when carried out by its major agents, mainly
the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish terror, called of course counter-terror,
but as I said, that's universal, it worked. Therefore Turkey
was replaced by Colombia which had not yet succeeded in its terrorist
war. And therefore had to move into first place as recipient
of US arms.
Self Congratulation
on the Part of
Western Intellectuals
Well, what makes this all particularly
striking is that all of this was taking place right in the midst
of a huge flood of self-congratulation on the part of Western
intellectuals which probably has no counterpart in history. I
mean you all remember it. It was just a couple years ago. Massive
self-adulation about how for the first time in history we are
so magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and values;
dedicated to ending inhumanity everywhere in the new era of this-and-that,
and so-on-and-so-forth. And we certainly can't tolerate atrocities
right near the borders of NATO. That was repeated over and over.
Only within the borders of NATO where we can not only can tolerate
much worse atrocities but contribute to them. Another insight
into Western civilization and our own, is how often was this
brought up? Try to look. I won't repeat it. But it's instructive.
It's a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system to carry
this off in a free society. It's pretty amazing. I don't think
you could do this in a totalitarian state.
Turkey is
Very Grateful
And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few
days ago, Prime Minister Ecevit announced that Turkey would join
the coalition against terror, very enthusiastically, even more
so than others. In fact, he said they would contribute troops
which others have not willing to do. And he explained why. He
said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because
the United States was the only country that was willing to contribute
so massively to our own, in his words "counter-terrorist"
war, that is to our own massive ethnic cleansing and atrocities
and terror. Other countries helped a little, but they stayed
back. The United States, on the other hand, contributed enthusiastically
and decisively and was able to do so because of the silence,
servility might be the right word, of the educated classes who
could easily find out about it. It's a free country after all.
You can read human rights reports. You can read all sorts of
stuff. But we chose to contribute to the atrocities and Turkey
is very happy, they owe us a debt of gratitude for that and therefore
will contribute troops just as during the war in Serbia. Turkey
was very much praised for using its F-16's which we supplied
it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had been doing with the same
planes against its own population up until the time when it finally
succeeded in crushing internal terror as they called it. And
as usual, as always, resistance does include terror. Its true
of the American Revolution. That's true of every case I know.
Just as its true that those who have a monopoly of violence talk
about themselves as carrying out counter terror.
The Coalition--Including
Algeria, Russia,
China, and Indonesia
Now that's pretty impressive and that
has to do with the coalition that is now being organized to fight
the war against terror. And it's very interesting to see how
that coalition is being described. So have a look at this morning's
Christian Science Monitor. That's a good newspaper. One of the
best international newspapers, with real coverage of the world.
The lead story, the front-page story, is about how the United
States, you know people used to dislike the United States but
now they are beginning to respect it, and they are very happy
about the way that the US is leading the war against terror.
And the prime example, well in fact the only serious example,
the others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out that Algeria is
very enthusiastic about the US war against terror. The person
who wrote the article is an expert on Africa. He must know that
Algeria is one of the most vicious terrorist states in the world
and has been carrying out horrendous terror against its own population
in the past couple of years, in fact. For a while, this was under
wraps. But it was finally exposed in France by defectors from
the Algerian army. It's all over the place there and in England
and so on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worst
terrorist states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming
the US war on terror and in fact is cheering on the United States
to lead the war. That shows how popular we are getting.
And if you look at the coalition that
is being formed against terror it tells you a lot more. A leading
member of the coalition is Russia which is delighted to have
the United States support its murderous terrorist war in Chechnya
instead of occasionally criticizing it in the background. China
is joining enthusiastically. It's delighted to have support for
the atrocities it's carrying out in western China against, what
it called, Muslim secessionists. Turkey, as I mentioned, is very
happy with the war against terror. They are experts. Algeria,
Indonesia delighted to have even more US support for atrocities
it is carrying out in Ache and elsewhere. Now we can run through
the list, the list of the states that have joined the coalition
against terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic
in common. They are certainly among the leading terrorist states
in the world. And they happen to be led by the world champion.
What is
Terrorism?
Well that brings us back to the question,
what is terrorism? I have been assuming we understand it. Well,
what is it? Well, there happen to be some easy answers to this.
There is an official definition. You can find it in the US code
or in US army manuals. A brief statement of it taken from a US
army manual, is fair enough, is that terror is the calculated
use of violence or the threat of violence to attain political
or religious ideological goals through intimidation, coercion,
or instilling fear. That's terrorism. That's a fair enough definition.
I think it is reasonable to accept that. The problem is that
it can't be accepted because if you accept that, all the wrong
consequences follow. For example, all the consequences I have
just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort right now at
the UN to try to develop a comprehensive treaty on terrorism.
When Kofi Annan got the Nobel prize the other day, you will notice
he was reported as saying that we should stop wasting time on
this and really get down to it.
But there's a problem. If you use the
official definition of terrorism in the comprehensive treaty
you are going to get completely the wrong results. So that can't
be done. In fact, it is even worse than that. If you take a look
at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is official
US policy you find that it is a very close paraphrase of what
I just read. In fact, Low Intensity Conflict is just another
name for terrorism. That's why all countries, as far as I know,
call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying out, counter
terrorism. We happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low Intensity
Conflict. So that's a serious problem. You can't use the actual
definitions. You've got to carefully find a definition that doesn't
have all the wrong consequences.
Why did
the United States and Israel Vote
Against a Major Resolution Condemning Terrorism?
There are some other problems. Some of
them came up in December 1987, at the peak of the first war on
terrorism, that's when the furor over the plague was peaking.
The United Nations General Assembly passed a very strong resolution
against terrorism, condemning the plague in the strongest terms,
calling on every state to fight against it in every possible
way. It passed unanimously. One country, Honduras abstained.
Two votes against; the usual two, United States and Israel. Why
should the United States and Israel vote against a major resolution
condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in fact pretty much
the terms that the Reagan administration was using? Well, there
is a reason. There is one paragraph in that long resolution which
says that nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights
of people struggling against racist and colonialist regimes or
foreign military occupation to continue with their resistance
with the assistance of others, other states, states outside in
their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel can't accept
that. The main reason that they couldn't at the time was because
of South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially called
an ally. There was a terrorist force in South Africa. It was
called the African National Congress. They were a terrorist force
officially. South Africa in contrast was an ally and we certainly
couldn't support actions by a terrorist group struggling against
a racist regime. That would be impossible.
And of course there is another one. Namely
the Israeli occupied territories, now going into its 35th year.
Supported primarily by the United States in blocking a diplomatic
settlement for 30 years now, still is. And you can't have that.
There is another one at the time. Israel was occupying Southern
Lebanon and was being combated by what the US calls a terrorist
force, Hizbullah, which in fact succeeded in driving Israel out
of Lebanon. And we can't allow anyone to struggle against a military
occupation when it is one that we support so therefore the US
and Israel had to vote against the major UN resolution on terrorism.
And I mentioned before that a US vote against...is essentially
a veto. Which is only half the story. It also vetoes it from
history. So none of this was every reported and none of it appeared
in the annals of terrorism. If you look at the scholarly work
on terrorism and so on, nothing that I just mentioned appears.
The reason is that it has got the wrong people holding the guns.
You have to carefully hone the definitions and the scholarship
and so on so that you come out with the right conclusions; otherwise
it is not respectable scholarship and honorable journalism. Well,
these are some of problems that are hampering the effort to develop
a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. Maybe we should have
an academic conference or something to try to see if we can figure
out a way of defining terrorism so that it comes out with just
the right answers, not the wrong answers. That won't be easy.
4. What
are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?
Well, let's drop that and turn to the
4th question, What are the origins of the September 11 crimes?
Here we have to make a distinction between 2 categories which
shouldn't be run together. One is the actual agents of the crime,
the other is kind of a reservoir of at least sympathy, sometimes
support that they appeal to even among people who very much oppose
the criminals and the actions. And those are 2 different things.
Category
1: The Likely Perpetrators
Well, with regard to the perpetrators,
in a certain sense we are not really clear. The United States
either is unable or unwilling to provide any evidence, any meaningful
evidence. There was a sort of a play a week or two ago when Tony
Blair was set up to try to present it. I don't exactly know what
the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as though
it's holding back on some secret evidence that it can't reveal
or that Tony Blair could strike proper Churchillian poses or
something or other. Whatever the PR [public relations] reasons
were, he gave a presentation which was in serious circles considered
so absurd that it was barely even mentioned. So the Wall Street
Journal, for example, one of the more serious papers had a small
story on page 12, I think, in which they pointed out that there
was not much evidence and then they quoted some high US official
as saying that it didn't matter whether there was any evidence
because they were going to do it anyway. So why bother with the
evidence? The more ideological press, like the New York Times
and others, they had big front-page headlines. But the Wall Street
Journal reaction was reasonable and if you look at the so-called
evidence you can see why. But let's assume that it's true. It
is astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of thought
you could do better than that without any intelligence service
[audience laughter]. In fact, remember this was after weeks of
the most intensive investigation in history of all the intelligence
services of the western world working overtime trying to put
something together. And it was a prima facie, it was a very strong
case even before you had anything. And it ended up about where
it started, with a prima facie case. So let's assume that it
is true. So let's assume that, it looked obvious the first day,
still does, that the actual perpetrators come from the radical
Islamic, here called, fundamentalist networks of which the bin
Laden network is undoubtedly a significant part. Whether they
were involved or not nobody knows. It doesn't really matter much.
Where did
they come from?
That's the background, those networks.
Well, where do they come from? We know all about that. Nobody
knows about that better than the CIA because it helped organize
them and it nurtured them for a long time. They were brought
together in the 1980's actually by the CIA and its associates
elsewhere: Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China
was involved, they may have been involved a little bit earlier,
maybe by 1978. The idea was to try to harass the Russians, the
common enemy. According to President Carter's National Security
Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid 1979.
Do you remember, just to put the dates right, that Russia invaded
Afghanistan in December 1979. Ok. According to Brzezinski, the
US support for the mojahedin fighting against the government
began 6 months earlier. He is very proud of that. He says we
drew the Russians into, in his words, an Afghan trap, by supporting
the mojahedin, getting them to invade, getting them into the
trap. Now then we could develop this terrific mercenary army.
Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the
best killers they could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics
from around North Africa, Saudi Arabia....anywhere they could
find them. They were often called the Afghanis but many of them,
like bin Laden, were not Afghans. They were brought by the CIA
and its friends from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is telling
the truth or not, I don't know. He may have been bragging, he
is apparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally.
But maybe it's true. We'll know someday if the documents are
ever released. Anyway, that's his perception. By January 1980
it is not even in doubt that the US was organizing the Afghanis
and this massive military force to try to cause the Russians
maximal trouble. It was a legitimate thing for the Afghans to
fight the Russian invasion. But the US intervention was not helping
the Afghans. In fact, it helped destroy the country and much
more. The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the
Russians to withdrew, finally. Although many analysts believe
that it probably delayed their withdrawal because they were trying
to get out of it. Anyway, whatever, they did withdraw.
Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that
the CIA was organizing, arming, and training were pursuing their
own agenda, right away. It was no secret. One of the first acts
was in 1981 when they assassinated the President of Egypt, who
was one of the most enthusiastic of their creators. In 1983,
one suicide bomber, who may or may not have been connected, it's
pretty shadowy, nobody knows. But one suicide bomber drove the
US army-military out of Lebanon. And it continued. They have
their own agenda. The US was happy to mobilize them to fight
its cause but meanwhile they are doing their own thing. They
were clear very about it. After 1989, when the Russians had withdrawn,
they simply turned elsewhere. Since then they have been fighting
in Chechnya, Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir, South East Asia,
North Africa, all over the place.
The Are
Telling Us What They Think
They are telling us just what they think.
The United States wants to silence the one free television channel
in the Arab world because it's broadcasting a whole range of
things from Powell over to Osama bin Laden. So the US is now
joining the repressive regimes of the Arab world that try to
shut it up. But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin
Laden says, it's worth it. There is plenty of interviews. And
there are plenty of interviews by leading Western reporters,
if you don't want to listen to his own voice, Robert Fisk and
others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent for
a long time. He's not the only one but maybe he is the most eloquent.
It's not only consistent over a long time, it is consistent with
their actions. So there is every reason to take it seriously.
Their prime enemy is what they call the corrupt and oppressive
authoritarian brutal regimes of the Arab world and when the say
that they get quite a resonance in the region. They also want
to defend and they want to replace them by properly Islamist
governments. That's where they lose the people of the region.
But up till then, they are with them. From their point of view,
even Saudi Arabia, the most extreme fundamentalist state in the
world, I suppose, short of the Taliban, which is an offshoot,
even that's not Islamist enough for them. Ok, at that point,
they get very little support, but up until that point they get
plenty of support. Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere.
They hate the Russians like poison, but as soon as the Russians
pulled out of Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist
acts in Russia as they had been doing with CIA backing before
that within Russia, not just in Afghanistan. They did move over
to Chechnya. But there they are defending Muslims against a Russian
invasion. Same with all the other places I mentioned. From their
point of view, they are defending the Muslims against the infidels.
And they are very clear about it and that is what they have been
doing.
Why did
they turn against the United States?
Now why did they turn against the United
States? Well that had to do with what they call the US invasion
of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US established permanent military
bases in Saudi Arabia which from their point of view is comparable
to a Russian invasion of Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia
is way more important. That's the home of the holiest sites of
Islam. And that is when their activities turned against the Unites
States. If you recall, in 1993 they tried to blow up the World
Trade Center. Got part of the way, but not the whole way and
that was only part of it. The plans were to blow up the UN building,
the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I think there
were others on the list. Well, they sort of got part way, but
not all the way. One person who is jailed for that, finally,
among the people who were jailed, was a Egyptian cleric who had
been brought into the United States over the objections of the
Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention of the CIA which
wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was
blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has been going on
all over. I'm not going to run through the list but it's, if
you want to understand it, it's consistent. It's a consistent
picture. It's described in words. It's revealed in practice for
20 years. There is no reason not to take it seriously. That's
the first category, the likely perpetrators.
Category
2: What about the reservoir of support?
What about the reservoir of support?
Well, it's not hard to find out what that is. One of the good
things that has happened since September 11 is that some of the
press and some of the discussion has begun to open up to some
of these things. The best one to my knowledge is the Wall Street
Journal which right away began to run, within a couple of days,
serious reports, searching serious reports, on the reasons why
the people of the region, even though they hate bin Laden and
despise everything he is doing, nevertheless support him in many
ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam, as one said.
Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not surveying
public opinion. They are surveying the opinion of their friends:
bankers, professionals, international lawyers, businessmen tied
to the United States, people who they interview in MacDonalds
restaurant, which is an elegant restaurant there, wearing fancy
American clothes. That's the people they are interviewing because
they want to find out what their attitudes are. And their attitudes
are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant with
the message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the
United States because of its support of authoritarian and brutal
regimes; its intervention to block any move towards democracy;
its intervention to stop economic development; its policies of
devastating the civilian societies of Iraq while strengthening
Saddam Hussein; and they remember, even if we prefer not to,
that the United States and Britain supported Saddam Hussein right
through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds,
bin Laden brings that up constantly, and they know it even if
we don't want to. And of course their support for the Israeli
military occupation which is harsh and brutal. It is now in its
35th year. The US has been providing the overwhelming economic,
military, and diplomatic support for it, and still does. And
they know that and they don't like it. Especially when that is
paired with US policy towards Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian
society which is getting destroyed. Ok, those are the reasons
roughly. And when bin Laden gives those reasons, people recognize
it and support it.
Now that's not the way people here like
to think about it, at least educated liberal opinion. They like
the following line which has been all over the press, mostly
from left liberals, incidentally. I have not done a real study
but I think right wing opinion has generally been more honest.
But if you look at say at the New York Times at the first op-ed
they ran by Ronald Steel, serious left liberal intellectual.
He asks Why do they hate us? This is the same day, I think, that
the Wall Street Journal was running the survey on why they hate
us. So he says "They hate us because we champion a new world
order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and democracy
that should be the norm everywhere." That's why they hate
us. The same day the Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions
of bankers, professionals, international lawyers and saying `look,
we hate you because you are blocking democracy, you are preventing
economic development, you are supporting brutal regimes, terrorist
regimes and you are doing these horrible things in the region.'
A couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left, explained
that the terrorist seek only "apocalyptic nihilism,"
nothing more and nothing we do matters. The only consequence
of our actions, he says, that could be harmful is that it makes
it harder for Arabs to join in the coalition's anti-terrorism
effort. But beyond that, everything we do is irrelevant.
Well, you know, that's got the advantage
of being sort of comforting. It makes you feel good about yourself,
and how wonderful you are. It enables us to evade the consequences
of our actions. It has a couple of defects. One is it is at total
variance with everything we know. And another defect is that
it is a perfect way to ensure that you escalate the cycle of
violence. If you want to live with your head buried in the sand
and pretend they hate us because they're opposed to globalization,
that's why they killed Sadat 20 years ago, and fought the Russians,
tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. And these are
all people who are in the midst of ... corporate globalization
but if you want to believe that, yeh...comforting. And it is
a great way to make sure that violence escalates. That's tribal
violence. You did something to me, I'll do something worse to
you. I don't care what the reasons are. We just keep going that
way. And that's a way to do it. Pretty much straight, left-liberal
opinion.
5. What
are the Policy Options?
What are the policy options? Well, there
are a number. A narrow policy option from the beginning was to
follow the advice of really far out radicals like the Pope [audience
laughter]. The Vatican immediately said look it's a horrible
terrorist crime. In the case of crime, you try to find the perpetrators,
you bring them to justice, you try them. You don't kill innocent
civilians. Like if somebody robs my house and I think the guy
who did it is probably in the neighborhood across the street,
I don't go out with an assault rifle and kill everyone in that
neighborhood. That's not the way you deal with crime, whether
it's a small crime like this one or really massive one like the
US terrorist war against Nicaragua, even worse ones and others
in between. And there are plenty of precedents for that. In fact,
I mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua, a lawful, a law abiding state,
that's why presumably we had to destroy it, which followed the
right principles. Now of course, it didn't get anywhere because
it was running up against a power that wouldn't allow lawful
procedures to be followed. But if the United States tried to
pursue them, nobody would stop them. In fact, everyone would
applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.
IRA Bombs
in London
When the IRA set off bombs in London,
which is pretty serious business, Britain could have, apart from
the fact that it was unfeasible, let's put that aside, one possible
response would have been to destroy Boston which is the source
of most of the financing. And of course to wipe out West Belfast.
Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would have
been criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much
what they did. You know, find the perpetrators; bring them to
trial; and look for the reasons. Because these things don't come
out of nowhere. They come from something. Whether it is a crime
in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime or anything else.
There's reasons. And usually if you look at the reasons, some
of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed, independently
of the crime, they ought to be addressed because they are legitimate.
And that's the way to deal with it. There are many such examples.
But there are problems with that. One
problem is that the United States does not recognize the jurisdiction
of international institutions. So it can't go to them. It has
rejected the jurisdiction of the World Court. It has refused
to ratify the International Criminal Court. It is powerful enough
to set up a new court if it wants so that wouldn't stop anything.
But there is a problem with any kind of a court, mainly you need
evidence. You go to any kind of court, you need some kind of
evidence. Not Tony Blair talking about it on television. And
that's very hard. It may be impossible to find.
Leaderless
Resistance
You know, it could be that the people
who did it, killed themselves. Nobody knows this better than
the CIA. These are decentralized, nonhierarchic networks. They
follow a principle that is called Leaderless Resistance. That's
the principle that has been developed by the Christian Right
terrorists in the United States. It's called Leaderless Resistance.
You have small groups that do things. They don't talk to anybody
else. There is a kind of general background of assumptions and
then you do it. Actually people in the anti war movement are
very familiar with it. We used to call it affinity groups. If
you assume correctly that whatever group you are in is being
penetrated by the FBI, when something serious is happening, you
don't do it in a meeting. You do it with some people you know
and trust, an affinity group and then it doesn't get penetrated.
That's one of the reasons why the FBI has never been able to
figure out what's going on in any of the popular movements. And
other intelligence agencies are the same. They can't. That's
leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networks
are extremely hard to penetrate. And it's quite possible that
they just don't know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasn't involved,
that's entirely possible. In fact, it's pretty hard to imagine
how a guy in a cave in Afghanistan, who doesn't even have a radio
or a telephone could have planned a highly sophisticated operation
like that. Chances are it's part of the background. You know,
like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups. Which means
it's going to be extremely difficult to find evidence.
Establishing
Credibility
And the US doesn't want to present evidence
because it wants to be able to do it, to act without evidence.
That's a crucial part of the reaction. You will notice that the
US did not ask for Security Council authorization which they
probably could have gotten this time, not for pretty reasons,
but because the other permanent members of the Security Council
are also terrorist states. They are happy to join a coalition
against what they call terror, namely in support of their own
terror. Like Russia wasn't going to veto, they love it. So the
US probably could have gotten Security Council authorization
but it didn't want it. And it didn't want it because it follows
a long-standing principle which is not George Bush, it was explicit
in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes back much
further and that is that we have the right to act unilaterally.
We don't want international authorization because we act unilaterally
and therefore we don't want it. We don't care about evidence.
We don't care about negotiation. We don't care about treaties.
We are the strongest guy around; the toughest thug on the block.
We do what we want. Authorization is a bad thing and therefore
must be avoided. There is even a name for it in the technical
literature. It's called establishing credibility. You have to
establish credibility. That's an important factor in many policies.
It was the official reason given for the war in the Balkans and
the most plausible reason.
You want to know what credibility means,
ask your favorite Mafia Don. He'll explain to you what credibility
means. And it's the same in international affairs, except it's
talked about in universities using big words, and that sort of
thing. But it's basically the same principle. And it makes sense.
And it usually works. The main historian who has written about
this in the last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called
Coercion, Capital, and European States. He points out that violence
has been the leading principle of Europe for hundreds of years
and the reason is because it works. You know, it's very reasonable.
It almost always works. When you have an overwhelming predominance
of violence and a culture of violence behind it. So therefore
it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all problems in
pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow them you'd
really open some very dangerous doors. Like the US is demanding
that the Taliban hand over Osama bin Laden. And they are responding
in a way which is regarded as totally absurd and outlandish in
the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but first give us some
evidence. In the west, that is considered ludicrous. It's a sign
of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean if
somebody asked us to hand someone over, we'd do it tomorrow.
We wouldn't ask for any evidence. [crowd laughter].
Haiti
In fact it is easy to prove that. We
don't have to make up cases. So for example, for the last several
years, Haiti has been requesting the United States to extradite
Emmanuel Constant. He is a major killer. He is one of the leading
figures in the slaughter of maybe 4000 or 5000 people in the
years in the mid 1990's, under the military junta, which incidentally
was being, not so tacitly, supported by the Bush and the Clinton
administrations contrary to illusions. Anyway he is a leading
killer. They have plenty of evidence. No problem about evidence.
He has already been brought to trial and sentenced in Haiti and
they are asking the United States to turn him over. Well, I mean
do your own research. See how much discussion there has been
of that. Actually Haiti renewed the request a couple of weeks
ago. It wasn't even mentioned. Why should we turn over a convicted
killer who was largely responsible for killing 4000 or 5000 people
a couple of years ago. In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows
what he would say. Maybe he'll say that he was being funded and
helped by the CIA, which is probably true. We don't want to open
that door. And he is not he only one.
Costa Rica
I mean, for the last about 15 years,
Costa Rica which is the democratic prize, has been trying to
get the United States to hand over a John Hull, a US land owner
in Costa Rica, who they charge with terrorist crimes. He was
using his land, they claim with good evidence as a base for the
US war against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial conclusion,
remember. There is the World Court and Security Council behind
it. So they have been trying to get the United States to hand
him over. Hear about that one? No.
They did actually confiscate the land
of another American landholder, John Hamilton. Paid compensation,
offered compensation. The US refused. Turned his land over into
a national park because his land was also being used as a base
for the US attack against Nicaragua. Costa Rica was punished
for that one. They were punished by withholding aid. We don't
accept that kind of insubordination from allies. And we can go
on. If you open the door to questions about extradition it leads
in very unpleasant directions. So that can't be done.
Reactions
in Afghanistan
Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan.
The initial proposal, the initial rhetoric was for a massive
assault which would kill many people visibly and also an attack
on other countries in the region. Well the Bush administration
wisely backed off from that. They were being told by every foreign
leader, NATO, everyone else, every specialist, I suppose, their
own intelligence agencies that that would be the stupidest thing
they could possibly do. It would simply be like opening recruiting
offices for bin Laden all over the region. That's exactly what
he wants. And it would be extremely harmful to their own interests.
So they backed off that one. And they are turning to what I described
earlier which is a kind of silent genocide. It's a.... well,
I already said what I think about it. I don't think anything
more has to be said. You can figure it out if you do the arithmetic.
A sensible proposal which is kind of
on the verge of being considered, but it has been sensible all
along, and it is being raised, called for by expatriate Afghans
and allegedly tribal leaders internally, is for a UN initiative,
which would keep the Russians and Americans out of it, totally.
These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country
out in the last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should
provide massive reparations. But that's their only role. A UN
initiative to bring together elements within Afghanistan that
would try to construct something from the wreckage. It's conceivable
that that could work, with plenty of support and no interference.
If the US insists on running it, we might as well quit. We have
a historical record on that one.
You will notice that the name of this
operation....remember that at first it was going to be a Crusade
but they backed off that because PR (public relations) agents
told them that that wouldn't work [audience laughter]. And then
it was going to be Infinite Justice, but the PR agents said,
wait a minute, you are sounding like you are divinity. So that
wouldn't work. And then it was changed to enduring freedom. We
know what that means. But nobody has yet pointed out, fortunately,
that there is an ambiguity there. To endure means to suffer.
[audience laughter]. And a there are plenty of people around
the world who have endured what we call freedom. Again, fortunately
we have a very well-behaved educated class so nobody has yet
pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there will be another
problem to deal with. But if we can back off enough so that some
more or less independent agency, maybe the UN, maybe credible
NGO's (non governmental organizations) can take the lead in trying
to reconstruct something from the wreckage, with plenty of assistance
and we owe it to them. Them maybe something would come out. Beyond
that, there are other problems.
An Easy
Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror
We certainly want to reduce the level
of terror, certainly not escalate it. There is one easy way to
do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating
in it. That would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously.
But that you can't discuss. Well we ought to make it possible
to discuss it. So that's one easy way to reduce the level of
terror.
Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds
of policies, and Afghanistan is not the only one, in which we
organize and train terrorist armies. That has effects. We're
seeing some of these effects now. September 11th is one. Rethink
it.
Rethink the policies that are creating
a reservoir of support. Exactly what the bankers, lawyers and
so on are saying in places like Saudi Arabia. On the streets
it's much more bitter, as you can imagine. That's possible. You
know, those policies aren't graven in stone.
And further more there are opportunities.
It's hard to find many rays of light in the last couple of weeks
but one of them is that there is an increased openness. Lots
of issues are open for discussion, even in elite circles, certainly
among the general public, that were not a couple of weeks ago.
That's dramatically the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA
Today can run a very good article, a serious article, on life
in the Gaza Strip...there has been a change. The things I mentioned
in the Wall Street Journal...that's change. And among the general
public, I think there is much more openness and willingness to
think about things that were under the rug and so on. These are
opportunities and they should be used, at least by people who
accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and
terror, including potential threats that are extremely severe
and could make even September 11th pale into insignificance.
Thanks.
Noam Chomsky's new book, 9/11,
is available in e-book format and in print from Seven Stories
Press.
|