AN EVENING WITH NOAM CHOMSKY
The New
War Against Terror
October
18, 2001 - Transcribed from audio
recorded at The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT
The Talk (audio)
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.
Assume 2 Conditions for this
Talk
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 ½ 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 few months….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, yeh, 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, 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.