Terror
and Just Response
by Noam Chomsky
Dissident Voice
July 10, 2002
September 11 will surely go
down in the annals of terrorism as a defining moment. Throughout the world, the
atrocities were condemned as grave crimes against humanity, with near-universal
agreement that all states must act to "rid the world of evildoers,"
that "the evil scourge of terrorism" -- particularly state-backed
international terrorism -- is a plague spread by "depraved opponents of
civilization itself" in a "return to barbarism" that cannot be
tolerated. But beyond the strong support for the words of the US political
leadership -- respectively, George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and his Secretary of
State George Shultz [1] --
interpretations varied: on the narrow question of the proper response to
terrorist crimes, and on the broader problem of determining their nature.
On the latter, an official
US definition takes "terrorism" to be "the calculated use of
violence or threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious,
or ideological in nature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling
fear." [2] That formulation leaves many
questions open, among them, the legitimacy of actions to realize "the
right to self-determination, freedom, and independence, as derived from the
Charter of the United Nations, of people forcibly deprived of that right...,
particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign
occupation..." In its most forceful denunciation of the crime of
terrorism, the UN General Assembly endorsed such actions, 153-2. [3]
Explaining their negative
votes, the US and Israel referred to the wording just cited. It was understood
to justify resistance against the South African regime, a US ally that was
responsible for over 1.5 million dead and $60 billion in damage in neighboring
countries in 1980-88 alone, putting aside its practices within. And the
resistance was led by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress, one of the
"more notorious terrorist groups" according to a 1988 Pentagon
report, in contrast to pro-South African RENAMO, which the same report
describes as merely an "indigenous insurgent group" while observing
that it might have killed 100,000 civilians in Mozambique in the preceding two
years. [4] The same wording was taken to justify resistance
to Israel's military occupation, then in its 20th year, continuing its
integration of the occupied territories and harsh practices with decisive US
aid and diplomatic support, the latter to block the longstanding international
consensus on a peaceful settlement.[5]
Despite such fundamental
disagreements, the official US definition seems to me adequate for the purposes
at hand,[6] though the disagreements shed some
light on the nature of terrorism, as perceived from various perspectives.
Let us turn to the question
of proper response. Some argue that the evil of terrorism is
"absolute" and merits a "reciprocally absolute doctrine" in
response.[7] That would appear to mean ferocious
military assault in accord with the Bush doctrine, cited with apparent approval
in the same academic collection on the "age of terror": "If you
harbor terrorists, you're a terrorist; if you aid and abet terrorists, you're a
terrorist -- and you will be treated like one." The volume reflects
articulate opinion in the West in taking the US-UK response to be appropriate
and properly "calibrated," but the scope of that consensus appears to
be limited, judging by the evidence available, to which we return.
More generally, it would be
hard to find anyone who accepts the doctrine that massive bombing is the
appropriate response to terrorist crimes -- whether those of Sept. 11, or even
worse ones, which are, unfortunately, not hard to find. That follows if we
adopt the principle of universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for
others, it is right (or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal
moral level of applying to themselves the standards they apply to others --
more stringent ones, in fact -- plainly cannot be taken seriously when they
speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and evil.
To illustrate what is at
stake, consider a case that is far from the most extreme but is
uncontroversial; at least, among those with some respect for international law
and treaty obligations. No one would have supported Nicaraguan bombings in
Washington when the US rejected the order of the World Court to terminate its
"unlawful use of force" and pay substantial reparations, choosing
instead to escalate the international terrorist crimes and to extend them,
officially, to attacks on undefended civilian targets, also vetoing a Security
Council resolution calling on all states to observe international law and
voting alone at the General Assembly (with one or two client states) against
similar resolutions. The US dismissed the ICJ on the grounds that other nations
do not agree with us, so we must "reserve to ourselves the power to
determine whether the Court has jurisdiction over us in a particular case"
and what lies "essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the United
States" -- in this case, terrorist attacks against Nicaragua.[8]
Meanwhile Washington
continued to undermine regional efforts to reach a political settlement,
following the doctrine formulated by the Administration moderate, George
Shultz: the US must "cut [the Nicaraguan cancer] out," by force.
Shultz dismissed with contempt those who advocate "utopian, legalistic
means like outside mediation, the United Nations, and the World Court, while
ignoring the power element of the equation"; "Negotiations are a
euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the
bargaining table," he declared. Washington continued to adhere to the
Shultz doctrine when the Central American Presidents agreed on a peace plan in
1987 over strong US objections: the Esquipulas Accords, which required that all
countries of the region move towards democracy and human rights under
international supervision, stressing that the "indispensable element"
was the termination of the US attack against Nicaragua. Washington responded by
sharply expanding the attack, tripling CIA supply flights for the terrorist
forces. Having exempted itself from the Accords, thus effectively undermining
them, Washington proceeded to do the same for its client regimes, using the
substance -- not the shadow -- of power to dismantle the International
Verification Commission (CIVS) because its conclusions were unacceptable, and
demanding, successfully, that the Accords be revised to free US client states
to continue their terrorist atrocities. These far surpassed even the
devastating US war against Nicaragua that left tens of thousands dead and the
country ruined perhaps beyond recovery. Still upholding the Shultz doctrine,
the US compelled the government of Nicaragua, under severe threat, to drop the
claim for reparations established by the ICJ.[9]
There could hardly be a
clearer example of international terrorism as defined officially, or in
scholarship: operations aimed at "demonstrating through apparently
indiscriminate violence that the existing regime cannot protect the people
nominally under its authority," thus causing not only "anxiety, but
withdrawal from the relationships making up the established order of
society."[10] State terror elsewhere in Central
America in those years also counts as international terrorism, in the light of
the decisive US role, and the goals, sometimes frankly articulated; for
example, by the Army's School of the Americas, which trains Latin American
military officers and takes pride in the fact that "Liberation
Theology...was defeated with the assistance of the U.S. Army."[11]
It would seem to follow,
clearly enough, that only those who support bombing of Washington in response
to these international terrorist crimes -- that is, no one -- can accept the
"reciprocally absolute doctrine" on response to terrorist atrocities
or consider massive bombardment to be an appropriate and properly
"calibrated" response to them.
Consider some of the legal
arguments that have been presented to justify the US-UK bombing of Afghanistan;
I am not concerned here with their soundness, but their implications, if the
principle of uniform standards is maintained. Christopher Greenwood argues that
the US has the right of "self-defense" against "those who caused
or threatened...death and destruction," appealing to the ICJ ruling in the
Nicaragua case. The paragraph he cites applies far more clearly to the US war
against Nicaragua than to the Taliban or al-Qaeda, so if it is taken to justify
intensive US bombardment and ground attack in Afghanistan, then Nicaragua
should have been entitled to carry out much more severe attacks against the US.
Another distinguished professor of international law, Thomas Franck, supports
the US-UK war on grounds that "a state is responsible for the consequences
of permitting its territory to be used to injure another state"; fair
enough, and surely applicable to the US in the case of Nicaragua, Cuba, and
many other examples, including some of extreme severity.[12]
Needless to say, in none of
these cases would violence in "self-defense" against continuing acts
of "death and destruction" be considered remotely tolerable; acts,
not merely "threats."
The same holds of more
nuanced proposals about an appropriate response to terrorist atrocities.
Military historian Michael Howard proposes "a police operation conducted
under the auspices of the United Nations...against a criminal conspiracy whose
members should be hunted down and brought before an international court, where
they would receive a fair trial and, if found guilty, be awarded an appropriate
sentence." Reasonable enough, though the idea that the proposal should be
applied universally is unthinkable. The director of the Center for the Politics
of Human Rights at Harvard argues that "The only responsible response to
acts of terror is honest police work and judicial prosecution in courts of law,
linked to determinate, focused and unrelenting use of military power against
those who cannot or will not be brought to justice."[13]
That too seems sensible, if we add Howard's qualification about international
supervision, and if the resort to force is undertaken after legal means have
been exhausted. The recommendation therefore does not apply to 9-11 (the US
refused to provide evidence and rebuffed tentative proposals about transfer of
the suspects), but it does apply very clearly to Nicaragua.
It applies to other cases as
well. Take Haiti, which has provided ample evidence in its repeated calls for
extradition of Emmanuel Constant, who directed the forces responsible for
thousands of deaths under the military junta that the US was tacitly supporting
(not to speak of earlier history); these requests the US ignores, presumably
because of concerns about what Constant would reveal if tried. The most recent
request was on 30 September 2001, while the US was demanding that the Taliban
hand over Bin Laden.[14] The coincidence was also ignored,
in accord with the convention that minimal moral standards must be vigorously
rejected.
Turning to the
"responsible response," a call for implementation of it where it is
clearly applicable would elicit only fury and contempt.
Some have formulated more
general principles to justify the US war in Afghanistan. Two Oxford scholars
propose a principle of "proportionality": "The magnitude of
response will be determined by the magnitude with which the aggression interfered
with key values in the society attacked"; in the US case, "freedom to
pursue self-betterment in a plural society through market economics,"
viciously attacked on 9-11 by "aggressors...with a moral orthodoxy
divergent from the West." Since "Afghanistan constitutes a state that
sided with the aggressor," and refused US demands to turn over suspects,
"the United States and its allies, according to the principle of magnitude
of interference, could justifiably and morally resort to force against the
Taliban government."[15]
On the assumption of
universality, it follows that Haiti and Nicaragua can "justifiably and
morally resort to" far greater force against the US government. The
conclusion extends far beyond these two cases, including much more serious ones
and even such minor escapades of Western state terror as Clinton's bombing of
the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in Sudan in 1998, leading to "several
tens of thousands" of deaths according to the German Ambassador and other
reputable sources, whose conclusions are consistent with the immediate
assessments of knowledgeable observers.[16] The
principle of proportionality therefore entails that Sudan had every right to
carry out massive terror in retaliation, a conclusion that is strengthened if
we go on to adopt the view that this act of "the empire" had
"appalling consequences for the economy and society" of Sudan so that
the atrocity was much worse than the crimes of 9-11, which were appalling
enough, but did not have such consequences.[17]
Most commentary on the Sudan bombing keeps to the
question of whether the plant was believed to produce chemical weapons; true or
false, that has no bearing on "the magnitude with which the aggression
interfered with key values in the society attacked," such as survival.
Others point out that the killings were unintended, as are many of the
atrocities we rightly denounce. In this case, we can hardly doubt that the
likely human consequences were understood by US planners. The acts can be
excused, then, only on the Hegelian assumption that Africans are "mere
things," whose lives have "no value," an attitude that accords
with practice in ways that are not overlooked among the victims, who may draw
their own conclusions about the "moral orthodoxy of the West."
One participant in the Yale
volume (Charles Hill) recognized that 11 September opened the second "war
on terror." The first was declared by the Reagan administration as it came
to office 20 years earlier, with the rhetorical accompaniment already
illustrated; and "we won," Hill reports triumphantly, though the
terrorist monster was only wounded, not slain. [18] The first
"age of terror" proved to be a major issue in international affairs
through the decade, particularly in Central America, but also in the Middle
East, where terrorism was selected by editors as the lead story of the year in
1985 and ranked high in other years.
We can learn a good deal
about the current war on terror by inquiring into the first phase, and how it
is now portrayed. One leading academic specialist describes the 1980s as the
decade of "state terrorism," of "persistent state involvement,
or ‘sponsorship,’ of terrorism, especially by Libya and Iran." The US
merely responded, by adopting "a ‘proactive’ stance toward
terrorism." Others recommend the methods by which "we won": the
operations for which the US was condemned by the World Court and Security
Council (absent the veto) are a model for "Nicaragua-like support for the
Taliban's adversaries (especially the Northern Alliance)." A prominent historian
of the subject finds deep roots for the terrorism of Osama Bin Laden: in South
Vietnam, where "the effectiveness of Vietcong terror against the American
Goliath armed with modern technology kindled hopes that the Western heartland
was vulnerable too."[19]
Keeping to convention, these
analyses portray the US as a benign victim, defending itself from the terror of
others: the Vietnamese (in South Vietnam), the Nicaraguans (in Nicaragua),
Libyans and Iranians (if they had ever suffered a slight at US hands, it passes
unnoticed), and other anti-American forces worldwide.
Not everyone sees the world
quite that way. The most obvious place to look is Latin America, which has had
considerable experience with international terrorism. The crimes of 9-11 were
harshly condemned, but commonly with recollection of their own experiences. One
might describe the 9-11 atrocities as "Armageddon," the research
journal of the Jesuit university in Managua observed, but Nicaragua has
"lived its own Armageddon in excruciating slow motion" under US
assault "and is now submerged in its dismal aftermath," and others
fared far worse under the vast plague of state terror that swept through the
continent from the early 1960s, much of it traceable to Washington. A Panamanian
journalist joined in the general condemnation of the 9-11 crimes, but recalled
the death of perhaps thousands of poor people (Western crimes, therefore
unexamined) when the President's father bombed the barrio Chorillo in December
1989 in Operation Just Cause, undertaken to kidnap a disobedient thug who was
sentenced to life imprisonment in Florida for crimes mostly committed while he
was on the CIA payroll. Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano observed that the US
claims to oppose terrorism, but actually supports it worldwide, including
"in Indonesia, in Cambodia, in Iran, in South Africa,...and in the Latin
American countries that lived through the dirty war of the Condor Plan,"
instituted by South American military dictators who conducted a reign of terror
with US backing.[20]
The observations carry over
to the second focus of the first "war on terror": West Asia. The
worst single atrocity was the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, which left
some 20,000 people dead and much of the country in ruins, including Beirut.
Like the murderous and destructive Rabin-Peres invasions of 1993 and 1996, the
1982 attack had little pretense of self-defense. Chief of Staff Rafael
("Raful") Eitan merely articulated common understanding when he
announced that the goal was to "destroy the PLO as a candidate for
negotiations with us about the Land of Israel,"[21] a textbook
illustration of terror as officially defined. The goal "was to install a
friendly regime and destroy Mr. Arafat's Palestinian Liberation
Organization," Middle East correspondent James Bennet writes: "That,
the theory went, would help persuade Palestinians to accept Israeli rule in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip."[22] This may be the first recognition
in the mainstream of facts widely reported in Israel at once, previously
accessible only in dissident literature in the US.
These operations were
carried out with the crucial military and diplomatic support of the Reagan and
Clinton administrations, and therefore constitute international terrorism. The
US was also directly involved in other acts of terror in the region in the
1980s, including the most extreme terrorist atrocities of the peak year of
1985: the CIA car-bombing in Beirut that killed 80 people and wounded 250;
Shimon Peres's bombing of Tunis that killed 75 people, expedited by the US and
praised by Secretary of State Shultz, unanimously condemned by the UN Security
Council as an "act of armed aggression" (US abstaining); and Peres's
"Iron Fist" operations directed against "terrorist
villagers" in Lebanon, reaching new depths of "calculated brutality
and arbitrary murder," in the words of a Western diplomat familiar with
the area, amply supported by direct coverage.[23] Again, all
international terrorism, if not the more severe war crime of aggression.
In journalism and
scholarship on terrorism, 1985 is recognized to be the peak year of Middle East
terrorism, but not because of these events: rather, because of two terrorist
atrocities in which a single person was murdered, in each case an American.[24]
But the victims do not so easily forget.
This very recent history
takes on added significance because leading figures in the re-declared
"war on terror" played a prominent part in its precursor. The
diplomatic component of the current phase is led by John Negroponte, who was
Reagan's Ambassador to Honduras, the base for the terrorist atrocities for
which his government was condemned by the World Court and for US-backed state
terror elsewhere in Central America, activities that "made the Reagan
years the worse decade for Central America since the Spanish conquest,"
mostly on Negroponte's watch.[25] The military component of the new
phase is led by Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East
during the years of the worst terrorist atrocities there, initiated or
supported by his government.
No less instructive is the
fact that such atrocities did not abate in subsequent years. Specifically,
Washington's contribution to "enhancing terror" in the Israel-Arab
confrontation continues. The term is President Bush's, intended, according to
convention, to apply to the terrorism of others. Departing from convention, we
find, again, some rather significant examples. One simple way to enhance terror
is to participate in it, for example, by sending helicopters to be used to
attack civilian complexes and carry out assassinations, as the US regularly
does in full awareness of the consequences. Another is to bar the dispatch of
international monitors to reduce violence. The US has insisted on this course,
once again vetoing a UN Security Council resolution to this effect on 14
December 2001. Describing Arafat's fall from grace to a position barely above
Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the press reports that President Bush was
"greatly angered [by] a last-minute hardening of a Palestinian
position...for international monitors in Palestinian areas under a UN Security
Council resolution"; that is, by Arafat's joining the rest of the world in
calling for means to reduce terror.[26]
Ten days before the veto of
monitors, the US boycotted -- thus undermined -- an international conference in
Geneva that reaffirmed the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the
occupied territories, so that most US-Israeli actions there are war crimes --
and when "grave breaches," as many are, serious war crimes. These
include US-funded Israeli settlements and the practice of "willful
killing, torture, unlawful deportation, willful depriving of the rights of fair
and regular trial, extensive destruction and appropriation of
property...carried out unlawfully and wantonly."[27]
The Convention, instituted
to criminalize formally the crimes of the Nazis in occupied Europe, is a core
principle of international humanitarian law. Its applicability to the
Israeli-occupied territories has repeatedly been affirmed, among other
occasions, by UN Ambassador George Bush (September 1971) and by Security
Council resolutions: 465 (1980), adopted unanimously, which condemned US-backed
Israeli practices as "flagrant violations" of the Convention; 1322
(Oct. 2000), 14-0, US abstaining, which called on Israel "to abide
scrupulously by its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention,"
which it was again violating flagrantly at that moment. As High Contracting
Parties, the US and the European powers are obligated by solemn treaty to
apprehend and prosecute those responsible for such crimes, including their own
leadership when they are parties to them. By continuing to reject that duty,
they are enhancing terror directly and significantly.
Inquiry into the
US-Israel-Arab conflicts would carry us too far afield. Let's turn further
north, to another region where "state terror" is being practiced on a
massive scale; I borrow the term from the Turkish State Minister for Human
Rights, referring to the vast atrocities of 1994; and sociologist Ismail
Besikci, returned to prison after publishing his book State Terror in the
Near East, having already served 15 years for recording Turkish
repression of Kurds.[28] I had a chance to see some of the
consequences first-hand when visiting the unofficial Kurdish capital of
Diyarbakir several months after 9-11. As elsewhere, the crimes of September 11
were harshly condemned, but not without memory of the savage assault the population
had suffered at the hands of those who appoint themselves to "rid the
world of evildoers," and their local agents. By 1994, the Turkish State
Minister and others estimated that 2 million had been driven out of the
devastated countryside, many more later, often with barbaric torture and terror
described in excruciating detail in international human rights reports, but
kept from the eyes of those paying the bills. Tens of thousands were killed.
The remnants -- whose courage is indescribable -- live in a dungeon where radio
stations are closed and journalists imprisoned for playing Kurdish music,
students are arrested and tortured for submitting requests to take elective
courses in their own language, there can be severe penalties if children are
found wearing Kurdish national colors by the omnipresent security forces, the
respected lawyer who heads the human rights organization was indicted shortly
after I was there for using the Kurdish rather than the virtually identical
Turkish spelling for the New Year's celebration; and on, and on.
These acts fall under the
category of state-sponsored international terrorism. The US provided 80% of the
arms, peaking in 1997, when arms transfers exceeded the entire Cold War period
combined before the "counter-terror" campaign began in 1984. Turkey
became the leading recipient of US arms worldwide, a position it retained until
1999 when the torch was passed to Colombia, the leading practitioner of state
terror in the Western hemisphere.[29]
State terror is also
"enhanced" by silence and evasion. The achievement was particularly
notable against the background of an unprecedented chorus of
self-congratulation as US foreign policy entered a "noble phase" with
a "saintly glow," under the guidance of leaders who for the first
time in history were dedicated to "principles and values" rather than
narrow interests.[30] The proof of the new saintliness
was their unwillingness to tolerate crimes near the borders of NATO -- only
within its borders, where even worse crimes, not in reaction to NATO bombs,
were not only tolerable but required enthusiastic participation, without
comment.
US-sponsored Turkish state
terror does not pass entirely unnoticed. The State Department's annual report
on Washington's "efforts to combat terrorism" singled out Turkey for
its "positive experiences" in combating terror, along with Algeria
and Spain, worthy colleagues. This was reported without comment in a front-page
story in the New York Times by its specialist on terrorism. In a
leading journal of international affairs, Ambassador Robert Pearson reports
that the US "could have no better friend and ally than Turkey" in its
efforts "to eliminate terrorism" worldwide, thanks to the
"capabilities of its armed forces" demonstrated in its
"anti-terror campaign" in the Kurdish southeast. It thus "came
as no surprise" that Turkey eagerly joined the "war on terror"
declared by George Bush, expressing its thanks to the US for being the only
country willing to lend the needed support for the atrocities of the Clinton
years -- still continuing, though on a lesser scale now that "we
won." As a reward for its achievements, the US is now funding Turkey to
provide the ground forces for fighting "the war on terror" in Kabul,
though not beyond.[31]
Atrocious state-sponsored
international terrorism is thus not overlooked: it is lauded. That also
"comes as no surprise." After all, in 1995 the Clinton administration
welcomed Indonesia's General Suharto, one of the worst killers and torturers of
the late 20th century, as "our kind of guy." When he came to power 30
years earlier, the "staggering mass slaughter" of hundreds of thousands
of people, mostly landless peasants, was reported fairly accurately and
acclaimed with unconstrained euphoria. When Nicaraguans finally succumbed to US
terror and voted the right way, the US was "United in Joy" at this
"Victory for US Fair Play," headlines proclaimed. It is easy enough
to multiply examples. The current episode breaks no new ground in the record of
international terrorism and the response it elicits among the perpetrators.
Let's return to the question
of the proper response to acts of terror, specifically 9-11.
It is commonly alleged that
the US-UK reaction was undertaken with wide international support. That is
tenable, however, only if one keeps to elite opinion. An international Gallup
poll found only minority support for military attack rather than diplomatic
means.[32] In Europe, figures ranged from 8% in Greece to
29% in France. In Latin America, support was even lower: from 2% in Mexico to
16% in Panama. Support for strikes that included civilian targets was very
slight. Even in the two countries polled that strongly supported the use of
military force, India and Israel (where the reasons were parochial),
considerable majorities opposed such attacks. There was, then, overwhelming
opposition to the actual policies, which turned major urban concentrations into
"ghost towns" from the first moment, the press reported.
Omitted from the poll, as
from most commentary, was the anticipated effect of US policy on Afghans,
millions of whom were on the brink of starvation even before 9-11. Unasked, for
example, is whether a proper response to 9-11 was to demand that Pakistan
eliminate "truck convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies
to Afghanistan's civilian population," and to cause the withdrawal of aid workers
and a severe reduction in food supplies that left "millions of
Afghans...at grave risk of starvation," eliciting sharp protests from aid
organizations and warnings of severe humanitarian crisis, judgments reiterated
at the war's end.[33]
It is, of course, the
assumptions of planning that are relevant to evaluating the actions taken; that
too should be transparent. The actual outcome, a separate matter, is unlikely
to be known, even roughly; crimes of others are carefully investigated, but not
one's own. Some indication is perhaps suggested by the occasional reports on
numbers needing food aid: 5 million before 9-11, 7.5 million at the end of
September under the threat of bombing, 9 million six months later, not because
of lack of food, which was readily available throughout, but because of
distribution problems as the country reverted to warlordism.[34]
There are no reliable
studies of Afghan opinion, but information is not entirely lacking. At the
outset, President Bush warned Afghans that they would be bombed until they
handed over people the US suspected of terrorism. Three weeks later, war aims
shifted to overthrow of the regime: the bombing would continue, Admiral Sir
Michael Boyce announced, "until the people of the country themselves
recognize that this is going to go on until they get the leadership
changed."[35] Note that the question whether
overthrow of the miserable Taliban regime justifies the bombing does not arise,
because that did not become a war aim until well after the fact. We can,
however, ask about the opinions of Afghans within reach of Western observers
about these choices -- which, in both cases, clearly fall within the official
definition of international terrorism.
As war aims shifted to
regime replacement in late October, 1000 Afghan leaders gathered in Peshawar,
some exiles, some coming from within Afghanistan, all committed to overthrowing
the Taliban regime. It was "a rare display of unity among tribal elders,
Islamic scholars, fractious politicians, and former guerrilla commanders,"
the press reported. They unanimously "urged the US to stop the air
raids," appealed to the international media to call for an end to the "bombing
of innocent people," and "demanded an end to the US bombing of
Afghanistan." They urged that other means be adopted to overthrow the
hated Taliban regime, a goal they believed could be achieved without death and
destruction.[36]
A similar message was
conveyed by Afghan opposition leader Abdul Haq, who was highly regarded in
Washington. Just before he entered Afghanistan, apparently without US support,
and was then captured and killed, he condemned the bombing and criticized the
US for refusing to support efforts of his and of others "to create a
revolt within the Taliban." The bombing was "a big setback for these
efforts," he said. He reported contacts with second-level Taliban
commanders and ex-Mujahiddin tribal elders, and discussed how such efforts
could proceed, calling on the US to assist them with funding and other support
instead of undermining them with bombs. But the US, he said, "is trying to
show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world. They don't care
about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose."[37]
The plight of Afghan women
elicited some belated concern after 9-11. After the war, there was even some
recognition of the courageous women who have been in the forefront of the
struggle to defend women's rights for 25 years, RAWA (Revolutionary Association
of the Women of Afghanistan). A week after the bombing began, RAWA issued a
public statement (Oct. 11) that would have been front-page news wherever concern
for Afghan women was real, not a matter of mere expediency. They condemned the
resort to "the monster of a vast war and destruction" as the US
"launched a vast aggression on our country," that will cause great
harm to innocent Afghans. They called instead for "the eradication of the
plague of Taliban and Al Qieda" by "an overall uprising" of the
Afghan people themselves, which alone "can prevent the repetition and
recurrence of the catastrophe that has befallen our country...."
All of this was ignored. It
is, perhaps, less than obvious that those with the guns are entitled to ignore
the judgment of Afghans who have been struggling for freedom and women's rights
for many years, and to dismiss with apparent contempt their desire to overthrow
the fragile and hated Taliban regime from within without the inevitable crimes
of war.
In brief, review of global
opinion, including what is known about Afghans, lends little support to the
consensus among Western intellectuals on the justice of their cause.
One elite reaction, however,
is certainly correct: it is necessary to inquire into the reasons for the
crimes of 9-11. That much is beyond question, at least among those who hope to
reduce the likelihood of further terrorist atrocities.
A narrow question is the
motives of the perpetrators. On this matter, there is little disagreement.
Serious analysts are in accord that after the US established permanent bases in
Saudi Arabia, "Bin Laden became preoccupied with the need to expel U.S.
forces from the sacred soil of Arabia" and to rid the Muslim world of the
"liars and hypocrites" who do not accept his extremist version of
Islam.[38]
There is also wide, and
justified, agreement that "Unless the social, political, and economic
conditions that spawned Al Qaeda and other associated groups are addressed, the
United States and its allies in Western Europe and elsewhere will continue to
be targeted by Islamist terrorists."[39] These
conditions are doubtless complex, but some factors have long been recognized.
In 1958, a crucial year in postwar history, President Eisenhower advised his
staff that in the Arab world, "the problem is that we have a campaign of
hatred against us, not by the governments but by the people," who are
"on Nasser's side," supporting independent secular nationalism. The
reasons for the "campaign of hatred" had been outlined by the
National Security Council a few months earlier: "In the eyes of the majority
of Arabs the United States appears to be opposed to the realization of the
goals of Arab nationalism. They believe that the United States is seeking to
protect its interest in Near East oil by supporting the status quo and opposing
political or economic progress...." Furthermore, the perception is
accurate: "our economic and cultural interests in the area have led not
unnaturally to close U.S. relations with elements in the Arab world whose
primary interest lies in the maintenance of relations with the West and the
status quo in their countries...."[40]
The perceptions persist.
Immediately after 9-11, the Wall Street Journal, later others,
began to investigate opinions of "moneyed Muslims": bankers,
professionals, managers of multinationals, and so on. They strongly support US
policies in general, but are bitter about the US role in the region: about US
support for corrupt and repressive regimes that undermine democracy and
development, and about specific policies, particularly regarding Palestine and
Iraq. Though they are not surveyed, attitudes in the slums and villages are
probably similar, but harsher; unlike the "moneyed Muslims," the mass
of the population have never agreed that the wealth of the region should be
drained to the West and local collaborators, rather than serving domestic
needs. The "moneyed Muslims" recognize, ruefully, that Bin Laden's
angry rhetoric has considerable resonance, in their own circles as well, even
though they hate and fear him, if only because they are among his primary
targets.[41]
It is doubtless more
comforting to believe that the answer to George Bush's plaintive query,
"Why do they hate us?," lies in their resentment of our freedom and
love of democracy, or their cultural failings tracing back many centuries, or
their inability to take part in the form of "globalization" in which
they happily participate. Comforting, perhaps, but not wise.
Though shocking, the
atrocities of 9-11 could not have been entirely unexpected. Related
organizations planned very serious terrorist acts through the 1990s, and in
1993 came perilously close to blowing up the World Trade Center, with much more
ambitious plans. Their thinking was well understood, certainly by the US
intelligence agencies that had helped to recruit, train, and arm them from 1980
and continued to work with them even as they were attacking the US. The Dutch
government inquiry into the Srebrenica massacre revealed that while they were
attempting to blow up the World Trade Center, radical Islamists from the
CIA-formed networks were being flown by the US from Afghanistan to Bosnia,
along with Iranian-backed Hizbollah fighters and a huge flow of arms, through
Croatia, which took a substantial cut. They were being brought to support the
US side in the Balkan wars, while Israel (along with Ukraine and Greece) was
arming the Serbs (possibly with US-supplied arms), which explains why
"unexploded mortar bombs landing in Sarajevo sometimes had Hebrew
markings," British political scientist Richard Aldrich observes, reviewing
the Dutch government report.[42]
More generally, the atrocities of 9-11 serve as a dramatic reminder of what has long been understood: with contemporary technology, the rich and powerful no longer are assured the near monopoly of violence that has largely prevailed throughout history. Though terrorism is rightly feared everywhere, and is indeed an intolerable "return to barbarism," it is not surprising that perceptions about its nature differ rather sharply in the light of sharply differing experiences, facts that will be ignored at their peril by those whom history has accustomed to immunity while they perpetrate terrible crimes.
Noam Chomsky is an internationally renowned Professor of Linguistics at MIT, and is
America’s leading dissident intellectual. He is the author of many books,
including most recently 9-11 (Seven Stories Press, 2001), A New
Generation Draws the Line (Verso, 2000), The New Military Humanism (Common
Courage, 1999), and The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel &
the Palestinians (South End Press, new edition 1999). This article first
appeared at ZNET.
Posted with author’s permission
ENDNOTES
[1] Bush cited by Rich Heffern, National Catholic
Reporter, Jan. 11, 2002. Reagan,
New York Times, Oct. 18, 1985. Shultz, U.S. Dept. of
State, Current Policy, No. 589, June 24, 1984; No. 629, Oct. 25,
1984.
[2] US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism
Counteraction, TRADOC Pamphlet No. 525-37, 1984.
[3] Res. 42/159, 7 Dec. 1987; Honduras abstaining.
[4] Joseba Zulaika and William Douglass, Terror and
Taboo (New York, London: Routledge, 1996), 12. 1980-88 record, see
"Inter-Agency Task Force, Africa Recovery Program/Economic Commission, South
African Destabilization: the Economic Cost of Frontline Resistance to Apartheid,
NY, UN, 1989, 13, cited by Merle Bowen, Fletcher Forum, Winter
1991. On expansion of US trade with South Africa after Congress authorized
sanctions in 1985 (overriding Reagan's veto), see Gay McDougall, Richard
Knight, in Robert Edgar, ed., Sanctioning Apartheid (Trenton, NJ:
Africa World Press, 1990).
[5] For review of unilateral US rejectionism for 30 years,
see my introduction to Roane Carey, ed., The New Intifada
(London, New York: Verso, 2000); see sources cited for more detail.
[6] It is, however, never used. On the reasons, see
Alexander George, ed., Western State Terrorism (Cambridge:
Polity-Blackwell, 1991).
[7] Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda, introduction, The
Age of Terror: America and the World after September 11 (New York:
Basic Books and the Yale U. Center for the Study of Globalization, 2001).
[8] Abram Sofaer, "The United States and the World
Court," U.S. Dept. of State, Current Policy, No. 769 (Dec.
1985). The vetoed Security Council resolution called for compliance with the
ICJ orders, and, mentioning no one, called on all states "to refrain from
carrying out, supporting or promoting political, economic or military actions
of any kind against any state of the region." Elaine Sciolino, New
York Times, July 31, 1986.
[9] Shultz, "Moral Principles and Strategic
Interests," April 14, 1986, U.S. Dept. of State, Current Policy,
No. 820. Shultz Congressional testimony, see Jack Spence in Thomas Walker, ed.,
Reagan versus the Sandinistas (Boulder, London: Westview, 1987).
For review of the undermining of diplomacy and escalation of international
state terror, see my Culture of Terrorism (Boston: South End,
1988); Necessary Illusions (Boston: South End, 1989); Deterring
Democracy (London, New York: Verso, 1991). On the aftermath, see Thomas
Walker and Ariel Armony, eds., Repression, Resistance, and Democratic
Transition in Central America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2000).
On reparations, see Howard Meyer, The World Court in Action
(Lanham, MD, Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), chap. 14.
[10] Edward Price, "The Strategy and Tactics of
Revolutionary Terrorism," Comparative Studies in Society and History,
19:1; cited by Chalmers Johnson, "American Militarism and Blowback," New
Political Science, 24.1, 2002.
[11] SOA, 1999, cited by Adam Isacson and Joy Olson, Just
the Facts (Washington: Latin America Working Group and Center for International
Policy, 1999), ix.
[12] Greenwood, "International law and the ‘war against
terrorism'," International Affairs, 78.2 (2002), appealing
to par. 195 of Nicaragua v. USA, which the Court did not use to
justify its condemnation of US terrorism, but surely is more appropriate to
that than to the case that concerns Greenwood. Franck, "Terrorism and the
Right of Self-Defense," American J. of International Law,
95.4 (Oct. 2001).
[13] Howard, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2002;
talk of Oct. 30, 2001 (Tania Branigan, _Guardian_, Oct. 31). Ignatieff, Index
on Censorship, 2, 2002.
[14] New York Times, Oct. 1, 2001.
[15] Frank Schuller and Thomas Grant, Current History,
April 2002.
[16] Werner Daum, "Universalism and the West," Harvard
International Review, Summer 2001. On other assessments, and the
warnings of Human Rights Watch, see my 9-11 (New York: Seven
Stories, 2001), 45ff.
[17] Christopher Hitchens, Nation, June 10,
2002.
[18] Talbott and Chanda, op. cit.
[19] Martha Crenshaw, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, David
Rapoport, Current History, America at War, Dec. 2001. On
interpretations of the first "war on terror" at the time, see George,
op. cit.
[20] Env¡o (UCA Managua), Oct.; Ricardo
Stevens (Panama), NACLA Report on the Americas, Nov/Dec; Galeano,
La Jornada (Mexico City), cited by Alain Frachon, Le Monde,
Nov. 24, 2001.
[21] For many sources, see my Fateful Triangle
(Boston: South End, 1983; updated 1999 edition, on South Lebanon in the 1990s);
Pirates and Emperors (New York: Claremont, 1986; Pluto, London,
forthcoming); World Orders Old and New.
[22] Bennet, New York Times, Jan. 24, 2002
[23] For details, see my essay in George, op. cit.
[25] Chalmers Johnson, The Nation, Oct. 15,
2001.
[26] Ian Williams, Middle East International,
21 Dec. 2001, 11 Jan. 2002. John Donnelly, Boston Globe, April
25, 2002; the specific reference is to an earlier US veto.
[27] Conference of High Contracting Parties, Report on
Israeli Settlement, Jan.-Feb. 2002 (Foundation for Middle East Peace,
Washington). On these matters see Francis Boyle, "Law and Disorder in the
Middle East," The Link, 35.1, Jan.-March 2002.
[28] For some details, see my New Military Humanism
(Monroe ME: Common Courage, 1999), chap. 3, and sources cited. On evasion of
the facts in the State Department Human Rights Report, see Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights, Middle East and North Africa (New York, 1995),
255.
[29] Tamar Gabelnick, William Hartung, and Jennifer Washburn,
Arming Repression: U.S. Arms Sales to Turkey During the Clinton
Administration (New York and Washington: World Policy Institute and
Federation of Atomic Scientists, October 1999). I exclude Israel-Egypt, a
separate category. On state terror in Colombia, now largely farmed out to
paramilitaries in standard fashion, see particularly Human Rights Watch, The
Sixth Division (Sept. 2001) and Colombia Human Rights
Certification III, (Feb. 2002). Also, among others, Me'dicos Sin
Fronteras, Desterrados (Bogota, 2001).
[30] For a sample, see New Military Humanism
and my A New Generation Draws the Line (London, NY: Verso, 2000).
[31] Judith Miller, New York Times, April 30, 2000. Pearson,
Fletcher Forum, 26:1, Winter/Spring 2002.
[32] http://www.gallup.international.com/terrorismpoll-figures.htm;
data from Sept. 14-17, 2001.
[33] John Burns, New York Times, Sept. 16,
2001; Samina Amin, International Security 26.3, Winter 2001-02).
For some earlier warnings, see 9-11. On the postwar evaluation of
international agencies, see Imre Karacs, The Independent on Sunday
(London), Dec. 9, 2001, reporting their warnings that over a million people are
"beyond their reach and face death from starvation and disease." For
some press reports, see my "Peering
into the Abyss of the Future," Lakdawala Memorial
Lecture, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi, Nov. 2001, updated Feb. 2002.
[34] Ibid., for early estimates. Barbara Crossette, New
York Times, March 26, and Ahmed Rashid, Wall Street Journal,
June 6, 2002, reporting the assessment of the UN World Food Program and the
failure of donors to provide pledged funds. The WFP reports that "wheat
stocks are exhausted, and there is no funding" to replenish them (Rashid).
The UN had warned of the threat of mass starvation at once because the bombing
disrupted planting that provides 80% of the country's grain supplies (AFP,
Sept. 28; Edith Lederer, AP, Oct. 18, 2001). Also Andrew Revkin,
New York Times, Dec. 16, 2001, citing U.S. Department of Agriculture, with no
mention of bombing.
[35] Patrick Tyler and Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times,
Oct. 12, quoting Bush; Michael Gordon, New York Times, Oct. 28,
2001, quoting Boyce; both p. 1.
[36] Barry Bearak, New York Times, Oct. 25;
John Thornhill and Farhan Bokhari, Financial Times, Oct. 25, Oct.
26; John Burns, New York Times, Oct. 26; Indira Laskhmanan, Boston
Globe, Oct. 25, 26, 2001.
[37] Interview, Anatol Lieven, The Guardian
(London), Nov. 2, 2001.
[38] Ann Lesch, Middle East Policy, IX.2, June
2002. Also Michael Doran, Foreign Affairs, Jan.-Feb. 2002; and
many others, including several contributors to Current History, Dec.
2001.
[40] For sources and background discussion, see my World
Orders Old and New, 79, 201f.
[41] Peter Waldman et al., Wall Street Journal,
Sept. 14, 2001; also Waldman and Hugh Pope, Wall Street Journal,
Sept. 21, 2001.
[42] Aldrich, The Guardian, 22 April, 2002.