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October
3, 2001
War on Terror
A Crusade Without a Definition
By John Chuckman
How well I remember the first terrifying words
in our press. They were terrifying because they did not report,
did not analyze, but only incited rage. It was the beginning
of the murderous, pointless war in Vietnam, the bloodiest part
of a postwar "crusade" against communism, and the headlines
and editorials screamed about "Reds" at the gates.
Today, perspective again seems lost in
America. The word crusade quickly, and without the lest reflection
on its meaning, came to the president's lips. A "minister"
at a national prayer service invoked the image of hurling unspeakable
weapons against America's enemies. The press endlessly repeated
the same photographs of destruction as well as the same trite
phrases about terrorism. And many Americans have openly said
they just want someone killed and something destroyed, regardless
of evidence.
Although it lacks sentiment, there is,
even for terrible events, a valid accounting of numbers. The
death of six thousand Americans has been treated as an event
without parallel. American commentators have called September
11 a watershed in human history. This is not only inaccurate,
it is foolish and unhelpful.
Just fifty-six years ago, the world fought
a war in which fifty million people perished. Entire cities were
obliterated, and an effort was made to obliterate a people. Thirty
years later, in the war in Vietnam, America's relentless dumping
of millions of tons of bombs, Agent Orange, and land mines had
left 3 to 4 million Vietnamese dead.
The resources and attention given to
any problem must have some relationship to the actual size of
the problem. One spectacular event does not justify a vast change
in the nation's business and priorities. How easily we pass over
the simple fact that proper airline security - something many
believed we had - would have prevented the attack. No drums and
drama, just practical measures like secure cockpit doors. Calling
out a show of the National Guard at airports and authorizing
generals to shoot down straying airliners are empty, after-the-fact
bluster.
The oversight in basic security is all
the more stunning, if, as the government claims, it can prove
Osama bin Laden is responsible for this and other terrorist attacks
in recent years. So simple a measure not taken, when confronted
by a relentless, determined foe, borders on irresponsibility
since airliners have been the target for a host of people with
grievances over the last 30 years.
Stunning, too, is the lack of public
curiosity about the motives of the people who did this. Why would
a large group of people - some of them intelligent enough to
fly a jet airliner - go through immense difficulties to smash
themselves into buildings? The label "terrorist," unlike
a diagnosis of "rabid" for an attacking dog, is not
a sufficient explanation.
Indeed, the word blurs rather than clarifies.
I cannot avoid sometimes being reminded of Stalin's use of the
word "wreckers" just before he was to launch a new
bloody purge. The comparison here isn't between Stalin and American
officials but in the use of a vague term that explains nothing
as the rationale for violent action.
Americans generally possess the quality
of being uncurious and unconcerned about the world. The president,
during his election campaign actually bragged about never reading
the international section of the paper. He was bragging for the
benefit of parts of the country whose representatives in Washington
brag about never setting foot outside the United States or holding
a passport.
America itself is a big place, and life
here, at least for many, is good enough just not to care. But
understanding cause is essential to solving problems. Action
in the absence of understanding is barbarism.
G.B. Shaw said that America passed from
barbarism to decadence without ever passing through civilization.
And there is considerable truth in his twinkly-eyed quip, but
the truth is more complicated.
We are a violent people, very selective
in the application of moral principles. We demonstrate this in
many ways, from our unblinking acceptance of having dropped two
atomic bombs on civilians to our refusal to recognize and minister
to the health and educational needs of millions of our own children.
At the very same time, just the right
type of plum-flavored, diet ice tea is important, and we have
people who weep over the fate of stem cells.
Missing entirely from the new crusade
is a definition of terrorism. We have declared war on something
we have not defined, and, as it turns out, a definition is not
easy.
Everyone's effort at definition would
likely include attacks on civil society and the killing of non-combatants
in the name of political, ideological, or religious belief. Beyond
that, things become murky, especially so if you include the phrases
"state terrorism" or "states that harbor terrorists"
as our State Department regularly does.
Does terrorism apply only to acts by
people outside government? It certainly would be inviting to
include the internal acts of governments like Stalin's of Hitler's.
This kind of thinking accords with tendencies exhibited by our
government in recent years to interfere heavily in the internal
affairs of other countries.
Then does the crusade commit us to perpetual
war against all ruthless, authoritarian governments on earth?
Including Saudi Arabia?
(Incidentally, this aspect of trying
to define terrorism quickly raises the additional topic of international
cooperation and the growing need, with the phenomenon of globalization,
for international law. Yet, the United States remains the world's
greatest obstacle against progress here.)
Another form of state terrorism might
be the subjugation of neighboring peoples. Do we include the
Israeli forces that broke every written agreement with the U.S.
governing the defensive use of American weapons when they invaded
Lebanon, killing thousands of innocent people and precipitating
a civil war in which many thousands more died and a beautiful
city was virtually destroyed?
Do we include the current prime minister
of Israel who was responsible during this invasion for the deaths
of about two thousand Palestinians, all non-combatants, at the
hands of Christian militia under his control?
I don't think so. These are our terrorists.
So far as the kind of bloody behavior
that usually comes to mind with the word terrorism, that is,
by private groups against other states, do we include the violent
Cuban refugee groups in Florida that for many years carried out
the most appalling acts in Cuba, including (only a few years
ago) leaving bombs in hotels? Earlier, these groups shot up Russian
ships in Cuban ports, dropped things from airplanes, and set
murderous booby traps. No, I don't think they will be included,
because they are our terrorists, and we have safely harbored
them for 40 years.
Will the crusade be taken to the IRA
which over the last 30 years has caused terrible grief and still
refuses to surrender its arms? I don't think so. They aren't
our terrorists, but there's a soft spot in the American heart
for them. Most of the money for IRA weapons came from Americans
- millions of dollars for weapons used to kill the soldiers of
our most steadfast NATO ally and blow up office buildings in
London - and there is a huge reservoir of sympathy and sentimental
attachment in America's influential Irish community.
Will it include the Kurds who were encouraged
and supported by Mr. Kissinger to create instability in selected
parts of the Mideast? Later, we dropped them, along with their
dreams of a Kurdish state, in face of an altered political situation,
but today they still cause a lot of grief in Turkey and other
places.
Not all the old torturers and secret
policemen of Chile, El Salvador, Iraq, Iran, Vietnam and a dozen
other places who enjoyed our blessing and support in their unspeakable
work are yet laid to rest. We could go after them, but I suspect
they are pretty safe.
Is an American "evangelist,"
with his prayerful reference to using weapons of mass destruction
on America's enemies, a terrorist? This is no mere sarcasm, for
we have tried and convicted a Muslim cleric and accuse Bin Laden
of essentially doing the same thing, insisting such instigation
to violence be called terrorism.
And what about the consequences of a
new crusade? We might reflect on still another American crusade,
the War on Drugs. One effect of that decades-old campaign has
been the alienation of people all over the world who see America
as blaming others for its own weakness.
We make cute jokes in movies about drugs
while we insist peasants' fields in other countries be sprayed
with poison. The American street-corner price of drugs, in real
terms, has actually fallen during much of this crusade - the
clearest possible evidence of its failure. The fact that we do
not treat drugs for what they are, a problem of our own way of
life that needs remedy, only advertises us to the world as self-righteous,
self-indulgent bullies.
The new crusade will likely instigate
more violence by newly-alienated groups. This is especially true
if the character of the effort is seen as anti-Muslim, which
to this point it most clearly is, despite feeble, photo-op efforts
to reassure the world that we believe most Muslims are good people.
Of course, the Middle East is never far
from instability. Authoritarian government or closed oligarchy,
often out of step with local public sentiment, characterizes
our best friends in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Pakistan, and Egypt. Stir up enough hostility with a campaign
that focuses on Muslims and Arabs, and it is impossible to predict
the long-term, destabilizing results.
Pakistan, a state we have strongly pressured
to support us despite its support of the Taliban and its many
Muslims sympathetic to Bin Laden, is an atomic power with significant
stockpiles of fissile material. Does anyone in his right mind
want this up for grabs in a region that includes Afghanistan,
Iraq, and Iran?
Already, just our rhetoric has produced
along the Afghan-Pakistan border, the beginnings of a massive
refugee problem for which the UN is seeking half a billion dollars.
It has also inflamed passions in the large and important nation
of Indonesia.
There is an odd disconnect in America
between the people and their government in Washington, one with
huge implications for foreign policy, that perhaps few people
outside the country appreciate. Hostility and suspicion of the
federal government are virtually American birthrights with origins
in the days of rum-running and smuggling under British colonial
government and the virtual chaos of the national government which
followed in the revolutionary and Confederation periods.
This near-paranoia about national government
often prevents Americans from taking the best and most rational
measures even for their internal affairs (as for example, our
remaining the only advanced country without some form of national
health care), let alone foreign affairs. Despite our being a
fairly democratic society, our foreign policies often do not
truly reflect the informed consent of our people.
Not only do the American people by and
large take little interest in foreign affairs so long as things
at the local level are going well, but 18th-century, rather undemocratic
measures embedded in our Constitution, especially those governing
the nature of the Senate, mean that, more often than not, quite
provincial politicians have a disproportionate influence in foreign
policy. And provincial politicians are only too ready to play
upon the electorate's fears and suspicions for their own benefit.
Add to this our corrupt campaign-financing practices, which do
seriously affect who is elected in this country, and it is easy
to understand that what we do abroad often is not what ordinary
Americans would embrace were it accurately explained. The best
qualities of the American people are simply often not reflected
in many of our actions abroad.
But Americans are proud. Not only is
theirs an extraordinary successful nation in economic terms,
many Americans display the disproportionate pride of a young
people, and young people who have been given a great deal.
So, regardless of the lack of interest
in foreign affairs, when there is a sense of the country's being
attacked, support for the national government will be strong
until what is felt to be an appropriate response is made. People
will then lapse into indifference, leaving interest in foreign
affairs to a relatively small number of people in Washington
again.
This dynamic makes the notion of an "attack
on America" rather than an attack on parts of our foreign
policy that destroy others an easy one to sell. Equally, it makes
any redress of imbalances difficult to achieve.
But our policies in the Middle East have
been unbalanced for years, and the tremendous frustration and
anger this breeds are almost unknown to Americans who see themselves
as essentially fair-minded people. Palestinians have lived for
decades with occupation, torture, and assassination, and see
what little land remains to them being eaten away by "settlers,"
while American foreign policy seems to have almost limitless
tolerance for Israeli excesses.
In this country, we cannot even discuss
the problem accurately. Our press endlessly uses the Orwellian
term, the "peace process," a term which has no substance
and serves to avoid the actual problem which is that the Palestinians
must either be granted an independent state or be absorbed into
Israel, or some combination of the two.
For half a century, Israeli prime ministers
have insisted that the Palestinians' homeland can only be Jordan,
and many of them have openly advocated annexing the West Bank
to Israel. The closest Israel has ever come to allowing anything
vaguely resembling a Palestinian state was Mr. Barak's proposals
at Camp David, proposals which would have created an absurd Bantustan-style
state, which did not come close to satisfying the U.N.'s Resolution
242, and which, by all accounts, were offered with considerable
arrogance and anger.
The good intentions of the present government
of Israel may be judged by Mr. Sharon's actions in the weeks
following September 11. Mr. Sharon exploited the confusion by
refusing, as he had previously agreed, to meet with Mr. Arafat,
he furthermore publicly compared Arafat to Bin Laden (which is
quite interesting in light of Arafat's donating blood for American
victims), and the Israeli army reportedly was preparing, according
to Mr. Peres, to murder Arafat. Surely, this cannot be the way
to peace and justice.
Yes, by all means, let us bring anyone
truly responsible for the destruction in New York to justice,
but the notion of another American crusade, a crusade against
terror, is a terrible mistake. It is disproportionate, it is
poorly defined, and it is fraught with uncertainty. And as it
takes on a large and violent scope, it will certainly let Israel
off the hook from doing what justice demands she do. CP
John Chuckman lives
in Portland, Maine.
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