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June
21, 2003
The Wages of Terror
An
Interview with Historian R.T. Naylor
By STANDARD SCHAEFER
We have been told that the War on Terrorism will
be a long war and that it will be unconventional-and it has been.
Declaring war on one enemy, then bombing a country known to have
no ties to the enemy is certainly unconventional. But of course,
there were those alleged financial ties: Saddam Hussein, whom
Osama Bin Laden regards as a bitter enemy, nonetheless was supposedly
funding him. Hence, while the US claimed to be implementing a
policy that would seriously weaken Al Queda by cutting off its
source of funds, it seemed logical to extend a sort-of radical
asset seizure to Iraq as well. Then that rationalization was
replaced by that of curbing WMD--Saddam might not only be giving
Al Queda the money to pursue its campaign of terror, but also
supply it directly with the means. But if it were true that anti-terrorism
was the real objective, and a "follow-the-money" approach
one of the most important tools, it seems to have failed abysmally.
Now there is talk of a regrouped and reinvigorated Al Queda.
Yet no one seems to be subjecting this "follow-the-money"
approach, which, even before the Patriot Act extended it considerably,
was already a source of gross human rights abuses even within
the US, to any critical assessment. No one seems to be asking
how well it worked, what the unintended consequences might have
been, and whether or not it is the right approach. Nor has it
been properly placed in context, namely a long-standing US program
of waging financial and economic war against designated enemies
(most noteably now, those with Arabic surnames) to achieve poitical
and economic objectives.
In order to evaluate what presumably
is an on-going strategy, I interviewed R.T. Naylor, an economist,
criminologist and historian at McGill University in Montreal,
who has spent much of his career studying black markets, the
financial affairs of terrorist and criminal organizations, and
the effects of economic warfare on underworld economies.
In his most recent book, Wages
of Crime: Black Markets, Illegal Finance, and the Underworld
Economy, which appeared shortly after September 11th,
he attacks several myths about organized crime and international
terrorist groups, and shows how these misunderstandings have
made policy, not only useless in dealing with the supposed objectives,
but damaging to the rest of society and the economy. For one
thing, Naylor claims that terror and crime "organizations"
are hardly as organized as we have been lead to believe.  Attempting to fight the terrorism (or
multinational crime) as if it were a mulitnational corporation
not only is ineffective, but counterproductive at home and destructive
abroad--the destruction is all the greater, the weaker the target
country. Worse still, the target group often is driven further
underground, and gives it greater access to underworld resources,
thereby possibly increasing its staying--and striking - power.
Standard Schaefer: In Wages of Crime, you talk about how hard it
is to get trustworthy numbers for the black market economy, and
you detail the CIA backed war against
the Soviets that helped establish bin Laden. You also detail
the alleged relationship of Al Queda to the Afghanistan opium
trade and explain how unlikely bin Laden is to have really wrested
control of it from the likes of the Northern Alliance. What do
we really now about Al Queda's financial situation or its illicit
fund-raising, and do we know for sure if we've seriously curtailed
it?
R.T. Naylor:
There really is no relationship between Al Queda and the Afghan
opium trade. That is because Al Queda itself does not exist,
except in the fevered imaginations of neo-cons and Likudniks,
some of whom, I suspect, also know it is a myth, but find it
extremely useful as a bogeyman to spook the public and the politicians
to acquiesce in otherwise unacceptable policy initiatives at
home and abroad. By those terms, Al Queda is cast like "the
Mafia" and similar nonsense coming from police lobbies.
This is a complex issue but, putting it very simply, what you
have in both cases is loose networks of likeminded individuals-sometimes
they pay homage to some patron figure who they may never have
met and with whom they have no concrete relationship. They conduct
their operations strictly by themselves, even if they may from
time to time seek advice.
In other words, if any line of communication
does exist, it is initiated from the people on the ground "upwards"
to the presumed patriarch--not the other way around. Of course,
from time to time some father-figure, if he really exists, might
dish out some cash to some would-be followers or sycophants or
hangers-on. But the notion that there is a firm "money trail"
used so much in cop discourse, and now hijacked by the national
security establishment, is foolish. And the idea that attacking
the money trail is the best way to curb either crime or terrorism
is a pure fantasy. This follow-the-money stuff has been shown
time after time to be useless when it comes to "organized
crime" (another stupid term) where the motive is supposedly
profit. Therefore how much more so when it comes to "terrorism"
where money is not a motive, but merely one among many instruments,
and where in any case most actions are actually quite cheap to
pull off. The reality is, for "terrorist" actions,
the most important resource is commitment and that is something
which cannot be frozen in a bank account.
SS: You
also mention the important role of Islamic charities, not just
as front groups to raise money for terrorists, but as real charities
that play a crucial role in the legitimate side of these economies.
For example, you point out that in many cases these institutions
alone provide a conduit for moving capital investment into depressed
regions.
Now that we are ruining charitable organizations, we are also
demolishing the much needed infrastructure for economic stability.
Can you explain how such a thing became part of the plan and
do we know if this strategy does anything other than create a
dependence on the criminal economy?
RTN:
Remember that the US is targeting these charities selectively.
It has made no moves against the Jewish fundamentalist "charities"
who have been funding terrorist groups in Occupied Palestine,
and indeed inside the U.S. It has made no serious moves I can
think of against Hindu fundamentalist charities who may be (it
is certainly worth a close look) sending money to the groups
responsible for the mass murder of Muslims in India. Granted
it does look for the phony charities and other tax-free religious
foundations that are linked to militia groups inside the US.
But it is doing little or nothing against those which fund Christian
fundamentalist proselytizing abroad, even though the reaction
in the places where they are active may well provoke further
acts of terrorism, or certainly to further sour opinion against
the US.
As to the impact on the Muslim ones,
keep in mind three things. First, some were set up with the collaboration
of US intelligence to run support for the Afghan mujahideen in
the 1980s--so these can already be monitored as a matter of course.
Second, unlike with Christians and Jews, for Muslims giving to
charity is more than an individual moral choice; it is so central
that it is one of the five pillars of Islam: an attack on their
charities is therefore an attack on the foundations of their
religious principles. Third, as a result of corruption, poverty,
war and pressure from the IMF-World Bank-BIS cartel, many Muslim
countries are no longer able to put adequate funds into the public
infrastructure of hospitals, schools etc. So they rely all the
more heavily on religious institutions who in turn rely on overseas
contributions. When the overseas charities are under attack,
this gets scaled back. Far from being a blow against terrorism,
it is the opposite. The money going to these places may have
on occasion been diverted to illegitimate ends, but that was
hardly necessary for "terrorist" acts to occur--most
of them are cheap and use local resources. But cutting off the
flow of funds to these legitimate and essential organizations
accelerates the breakdown of social institutions, and, by making
the situation on the ground worse, feeds desperation and recruitment.
SS:
It is safe to say, then, that the War on Terrorism is fundamentally
and most likely permanently altering the structure of the economy
in the Middle East. Are we stirring up anti-US sentiment while
simultaneously increasing their dependence on the West financially?
Or were places like Afghanistan, with its opium trade, already
dependent? Is it just a switch from one group of criminals to
another? Is the problem that there is no other possible industry,
aside from oil?
RTN: These points are all related, but
at the same time distinct. Apart from screwing up the flow of
funds through the charities and in a few places fouling up the
tourist trade, there is little DIRECT impact of the "War
on Terrorism" on their economies--indirectly, of course,
the instability is harmful. At the same time be careful of the
Afghan examples. Afghanistan is always a case apart, so much
so that about all it can ever represent is itself. Remember too
that most countries which have oil have small populations. Economic
development for them will inevitably take a different, more labor
intensive path. And there are plenty of opportunities for alternative
paths once peace, stability and genuine independence is achieved.
For most Middle Eastern countries, the
main resource is not oil, it is their émigré population,
well-educated and for the most part anxious to go home. In that
sense the US may be indirectly and accidentally doing these countries
a favor by creating a racist backlash inside the US against people
with Arabic names, whether they are truly Arabs or non-Arab Muslims,
all of whom have Arabic names.
As to stirring up anti-US sentiment in
the Middle East, keep in mind two things. First, that the people
currently in power don't care. They say it often enough, better
to be feared than loved. Plus they are, especially the Christian
fundamentalists, heir to a long-standing prejudice in the West.
Let us not forget that America was created out of a world-wide
movement, launched by the same groups who led the Crusades, to
encircle Islam and capture its sources of wealth. When George
Bush talks about a Crusade, it was not just an unfortunate choice
of figure of speech. Second, US foreign policy towards the Middle
East for decades has been largely moulded by the Israel lobby--everyone
knows that. So stirring up anger is an essential objective, not
just an unfortunate effect. Israel cannot live in peace in the
Middle East--if there were real peace, based on justice, the
place would collapse in social disarray, and within a couple
generations would be utterly transformed, into de facto an Arabic
speaking country with a large minority of Jews. That is something
obviously its leaders and its lobbies will do their utmost to
prevent. Hence the steering of US policy into directions of anti-Muslim
confrontation. So when Osama bin Laden talks about defending
Islam from Crusaders and Zionists, he is only partly ranting.
SS: The
recent announcement that Israel intends to completely eliminate
everyone connected to Hamas certainly reveals the intentions
of the Israeli leaders. But the lobbyists disingenuously embrace
"the road map to peace". Some like Norman Pattiz, chairman
of radio giant Westwood One and member of the government's Broadcasting
Board of Governors, has a thirty million dollar grant to promote
pro-US propaganda in Iraq. Robert Fisk of The Independent,
recently reported that Paul Bremer, the occupation magistrate
in Iraq, has announced to he wants to censor the Iraqi papers.
Why bother to promote "the American Way of Life" if
the point is provoke confrontation with Muslims? Is this just
evidence that US industry plans to exploit Iraqi labor and resources
perpetually?
RTN: They
are not inconsistent. The anti-Muslim campaign does several things
at once. It disparages an existing way of life to weaken the
population's sense of their cultural identity and their sense
of historical injustice. That simultaneously westernizes attitudes,
winning ideological acceptance. And, not to be ignored, it helps
create markets as well. It is not so much MacWorld versus Jihad
as it is Big Mac versus shish-kebab. Also never forget that the
US is one of the most naïve places on earth. Despite its
record of crimes against humanity, it genuinely believes that
if the rest of the world doesn't want to be just like it, the
rest of the world should want to be. That being the case, there
is nothing wrong with trying to make it come true. As to the
censorship of Iraqi media, this is a red herring. Obviously under
martial law, there will be censorship. The question is, how effective?
And the answer is not very. Everyone will be expecting it, and
anyway Iraqis are long used to much more effective and brutally
enforced censorship than the US can dish out. The real danger
comes from the control of the school system--what looks like
simply another case of war profiteering, namely US firms given
the contract to print and distribute textbooks and other educational
material in Iraq, in fact has the potential for much greater
long-term brainwashing. I say "potential" because I
also do not think it will be very effective. Let us realize,
shocking though it may be to American egos, this is really an
unfair contest which the US cannot win. I don't mean militarily--obviously
the US can overwhelm. I mean it socially and culturally. Compare
the US on the one side and Iraq on the other in terms of social
and cultural consciousness - the US is way out of its league.
SS: You've
extensively documented America's economic tactics in Economic
Warfare where you mention a trend toward using embargos and sanctions
in lieu of military intervention. Those tactics didn't
prevent the second war in Iraq. What do you say to people who
contend that Saddam Hussein brought the sanctions on to himself?
RTN:
First of all, a central argument of that book is that sanctions
and embargoes were invented as an ad joint to military campaigns.
It was only in the atmosphere after World War II that people
tried to convince themselves, despite the record of failure in
the hands of the League of Nations, that sanctions, aka economic
warfare, could be detached from military force and used as an
alternative. The major powers never truly believed that. The
fact is the US employed sanctions the way they were always designed
to be used, as a softening up ploy to weaken the other side,
and make the military campaign easier. Sure, sometimes the other
side gave up before the military campaign, but that was due to
unbearable economic immiserization and the realization of the
inevitability of an irresistible military strike to follow. The
role of the UN in fact was not to use sanctions to get Saddam
into line and therefore preclude war, but (perhaps without fully
realizing it) to rubber stamp an Anglo-American plan to so weaken
the remaining Iraqi military forces that they could wade in and
finish the job they started in 1991 with minimal danger of serious
casualties. In addition, a population so traumatized and immiserized
by the medieval economic siege to which they were subjected would
be not only less prone to resist, but possibly even be so demoralized
as to welcome the invaders as liberators.
SS:
Now that the sanctions have been lifted and US industry seems
on the verge of being firmly installed, is the economic situation
likely to improve for the average Iraqi or do the former black
marketeers simply become legitimate mercantilists who simply
speed up the flight of capital?
RTN:
First of all, US industry is NOT yet firmly installed. That is
the plan, but it will take a long time. What corporation in its
right mind would buy any of the privatized Iraqi assets now while
the resistance is killing or seriously wounding at least one
US soldier per day? And this is before the Shia' populated areas
explode, as they will. As to the living standards of the Iraqis,
the British and Americans managed in ten years to reduce them
from about equivalent to that of Greece to a position closer
to Mali. Almost anything would be an improvement. The key to
recovery, I suspect, is going to be the return of the exiles,
and how much of the net earnings from oil get pumped back into
rebuilding infrastructure. Now this may sound strange. But a
US takeover (which will be brief) of the Iraqi economy may actually
be a good thing for Iraqis! To support its own transnationals,
the US will be forced to stop allowing Iraqi oil money be drained
off to buy more gold faucets for the palaces of the emir of Kuwait
("reparations" for 1990-1) and instead rebuild infrastructure.
Then when the US is forced out of Iraq, as I suspect it will
much sooner than people expect, something positive will be left
behind. As to the black marketeers, in every economy subject
to severe sanctions, they have been the primary mechanism for
capital accumulation. They can switch easily from supporting
the old regime to supporting the new--after all, their primary
loyalty is to their own bank accounts. But speculators and smugglers
are not particularly reliable as agents of long term development.
With their typically predatory attitude, they would feel much
more at home running investment banking firms on Wall Street
than investing in factories in Iraq.
SS: In
Hot Money and The Politics of Debt, you argue that "wars
against corruption" in places like Latin America are used
to distract from the fact that standards of living are dropping
as a direct result of the failed policies of the IMF. Is it likely
that we'll see "wars against corruption" in the Iraq
now that the IMF is moving in? In the Middle East in general
if the proposed free-trade zone goes into effect?
RTN:
Ignoring for the moment the fact that these wars on corruption
are driven by the US which has about the most criminalized economy
and one of the most corrupt political systems in the world, it
is important to bear in mind that these wars against corruption
are merely a tool to achieve larger political goals. The hidden
agenda is to knock down state controls and force the privatization
of state assets, using the pretext that they are instruments
of corruption. Sometimes they are, but talk about throwing away
the baby with the bathwater! Often a new government in some developing
country will go along, as a tool for ridding itself and the civil
service of partisans of the old regime and clearing space for
rewarding its own followers and hangers-on. Then, too, anti-corruption
to stop allegedly massive looting is really a matter not of stopping
the looting but changing the beneficiaries. If a country is short
on foreign exchange because the general who ran it moved all
the reserves to Switzerland, you can be sure that whoever benefits
from the return of the money will not be the people. Instead
the money might be diverted to paying interest and repaying principal
on debts contracted to western financial institutions. Iraq is
no different.
SS:
Drawing in part from some of your ideas in Hot Money and the
Politics of Debt, I've argued in CounterPunch that instead
of free trade what is needed in Iraq is protectionism, good ole
fashioned tariffs to sustain the Iraqi economy longer term, to
help stabilize fledgling economies. Is that a correct understanding
or do tariffs contribute to smuggling and black markets, thus
acerbating capital flight?
RTN:
The problem of capital flight and smuggling in relation to any
particular trade policy is not one for one and depends on the
particular circumstances. But, when people talk today about the
fact that development is supposedly hampered by predatory governments,
high tariffs, failure to protect intellectual property rights,
they are showing a profound historical ignorance. In the 19th
century, the US achieved a historically unprecedented rate of
economic growth AND development; yet it had very high tariffs,
an unstable banking and financial system and absolutely no respect
for international intellectual property rights. Just the opposite.
But it had a huge resource base and a government that was used
by big business as a tool to despoil the population at large
in order to accelerate capital accumulation. Furthermore, even
though US corporations and state governments repeatedly defaulted
on their obligations-even though American tycoons flagrantly
stole from their foreign partners- money rushed in from abroad.
Incidentally one of the most revealing books on this is now nearly
100 years old, and almost forgotten- History of The Great American
Fortunes by Gustavus Myers.
SS:
I want to ask is about the general trajectory of US foreign policy
at the moment. It seems to me that as the stock market was crashing
and the Fed was slashing interest rates, the US became less attractive
to foreign investors-they were looking for better returns abroad,
thus hastening the downward trajectory in the US. I wonder if
reversing this trend is figured into the decisions made on the
part of the Bush Administration. Is it true that despite the
weak dollar, the fickle stock market and low interest rates on
US treasuries, the US's increased efforts to destabilize economies
around the globe makes the US more attractive destination for
capital? Doesn't it also make the US dependent on such interventions?
RTN:
These are two seemingly interrelated things, but be careful.
Yes, it is true that until very recently, whenever there was
serious instability in the world, there was a flight of capital
to the US dollar, and to the US--two separate things, both of
which, however, rebounded to American financial advantage. The
flight of capital to the US bolstered its exchange reserves,
replenished its capital market, reduced the need for Americans
to maintain a high savings rate to finance capital accumulation
and propped up the dollar.
The flight of funds within countries
abroad towards US dollars in physical form allows the US a massive
interest free loan at the expense of the rest of the world--it
prints $100 bills for a few cents, then in effect trades them
for $100 worth of goods abroad, and, rather than returning home
to demand $100 worth of US assets or goods in return, the dollars
go into hoards, or are used to finance criminal activity and
tax evasion--in other countries. The more economic, social, political
and financial instability in the world, and the more black market
and criminal activity, the more the US gains from both of these
mechanisms. Now, there is no doubt people in Washington factor
that in to their calculations. But that does NOT make it a motivation--it
is simply icing on the cake. And that raises the second thing
about which to be careful.
It is important not to give the troglodytes
currently in power more credit for clear and long-term thinking
than they deserve. Bush aside, these guys are highly intelligent,
but they are not very wise. Contrary to a lot of conspiracy notions
too abundant on the critical end of the political spectrum today,
my view is that these guys blunder crudely ahead driven by their
immediate ideological instincts rather than any real long term
plan. It is important to consider one enormous difference between
imperial Britain and imperial America. The British elites, while
certainly not entirely of one mind, had a much higher degree
of consensus on what they wanted from the rest of the world than
the American ones. And the British maintained a focus to their
policy over a long period of time. That was helped considerably
by the existence of a permanent civil service, the top people
in which were drawn from the level of the British social hierarchy
just below the 'natural' governing class.
By contrast, the US really has no foreign
policy, just a set of ad hoc moves dictated by domestic constituencies
seeking particular advantages. I am not saying that the US elites
have no economic and political objectives vis a vis the
rest of the world obviously they do. It is just that the
policies by which they attempt to achieve those objectives are
ad hoc and prone to unpredictable changes. Certainly all kinds
of supposed think tanks are pushing their agendas, but which
one actually takes center stage and for how long is a matter
of domestic political balances which can change rapidly. In addition,
the US, as a society, has no real capacity to understand the
consequences of its own action, or other people's reactions to
them. Incidentally that makes the US more rather than less dangerous
to world peace.
SS:
In conclusion, I'd like to return to the myth of organized terrorism
in relation to Israel. Certainly, Israel knows full well that
no one, not Abu Masen or Hamas can really stop all the suicide
attacks. What exactly do they gain by demanding the impossible?
RTN: It
is fascinating to hear Israeli demands that the Palestinians
stop "terrorism" before negotiations can proceed. Apart
with it being inconsistent with Israel's own history, the hypocrisy
is craven. In effect, Israel is demanding the legitimization
of its own policy of mass murder, systematic incarceration without
trial, state-sanctioned torture, theft of land and water, while
insisting the reactions of the Palestinians are somehow not kosher.
But then, what do you expect from a country
that freely elects terrorists, war criminals and gun runners
to its highest offices? Anyway, no one can stop spontaneous acts
of retaliation, even though some, like the suicide bombings,
are clearly well thought out and backed by a reasonably good
infrastructure. If, under the present climate, Hamas were to
attempt to stop them without any serious quid pro quo-which has
never been offered-then it would suffer the same fate that Zionist
terrorist groups did in pre-War Palestine, splits and breakaways.
That would merely exacerbate the situation, which I suspect is
what the Israelis want anyway.
SS:
Thank you.
In addition to the recent Wages
of Crime, Professor Naylor's other books include Hot
Money and the Politics of Debt, which is about hot and
homeless money, legal or not, and its importance in governmental
and corporate finance. It offers a detailed account of how money
laundering techniques have changed over the years and how legitimate
finance had changed in response. Also there is Economic
Warfare: Sanctions, Embargo Busting, and Their Human Cost
is often available in a Canadian edition of which is called Patriots
and Profiteers. This book is the best I've seen on Economic Warfare,
Embargo Busting, State-Sponsored Crime and includes brief, but
comprehensive historical background on many current issues in
the Middle East. All of the books are relatively free of jargon,
graced by vivid, often amusing historical accounts, a wry wit,
not to mention sophisticated insight.
Standard Schaefer is an independent economic journalist and cultural
historian. He also co-edits the New Review of Literature.
He can be reached at ssschaefer@earthlink.net
Today's Features
Elaine
Cassel
Bush Plays the Racial Profiling Card:
It's a Smokescreen
Brian
Cloughley
Punch-and-Judy in the West Wing:
The Powell-Rice Show
David Lindorff
What's Next?
Mark
Jacobs
A Serious Conversation: a Former Foreign Service Officer on Diplomacy
in the Age of Bush
Alfredo
Castro
Bloodbath in Colombia: The Army and the Death Squads
Saul
Landau
Lying, Flag Waving and Redefining
Conservative Values
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log, 6/19
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