Issue No. 603
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12 - 18 September 2002 Issue No. 603 Heritage |
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Swamp wars
In the post-9/11 era Noam Chomsky reflects on Southern perceptions of US policies around the globe
9/11 was a wake-up call for a good part of the American population, who recognised that we had better pay much closer attention to what the United States' government does in the world and how it is perceived. Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the agenda before. That's all to the good.
It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of future atrocities. It may be comforting to pretend that our enemies "hate our freedoms", as the president stated, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons.
President Bush is not the first to ask, "Why do they hate us?" In an internal discussion 45 years ago, President Eisenhower described "the campaign of hatred against us [in the Arab world], not by the governments but by the people". His National Security Council outlined the basic reasons: the recognition that the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is "opposing political or economic progress" because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region.
Post-9/11 surveys reveal that the same reasons hold today, compounded with resentment over specific policies. Strikingly, that is true of privileged Western-oriented sectors. To mention only one current example, respected specialists now warn that in Pakistan "there is growing anger that US support is allowing [Musharraf's] military regime to delay the promise of democracy" (Ahmed Rashid,The Far Eastern Economic Review, 1 August), extending practices they recognise all too well.
We do ourselves few favours by choosing to believe that "they hate us", and "hate our freedoms". On the contrary, these are attitudes of people who like Americans and admire much about the country, including its freedoms. What they hate is official policies that deny them the freedoms to which they too aspire. For that reason, the messages of Osama Bin Laden, however cynical they may be, have a certain resonance, even among those who despise and fear him. From resentment, anger, and frustration, terrorist bands hope to draw support and recruits.
We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as a terrorist regime. The description is hardly controversial, at least among those who take seriously the World Court, the UN Security Council, the historical record to the present moment, and the official US definitions of "terrorism". And it is also no secret. In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, prominent scholars warn realistically that for much of the world, the US is "becoming the rogue superpower", considered "the single greatest external threat to their societies"; "In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States" (Samuel Huntington, Robert Jervis).
The perceptions are not changed by the fact that for the first time, a Western country has been subjected on home soil to a horrendous terrorist attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of Western power. The atrocities of 9/11 elicited harsh condemnation throughout the world, and an outpouring of sympathy for the innocent victims.
But with qualifications. An international Gallup poll in late September found little support for bombing. In Latin America, the region with the most experience with US intervention, support ranged from 2 per cent (Mexico) to 16 per cent (Panama). And even in Panama, commentators recalled the death of perhaps thousands of people when the president's father bombed poor barrios in December 1989 in Operation Just Cause, undertaken to kidnap a disobedient thug, then President Manuel Noriega, who was sentenced in Florida for crimes mostly committed while he was on the CIA payroll.
In Nicaragua, the research journal of the Jesuit university described the 9/11 atrocities as "Armageddon", adding, however, that 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 plague of state terror that swept through the continent from the early 1960s, much of it traceable to Washington, peaking in the 1980s, and still continuing.
The current "campaign of hatred" is also fuelled by US policies towards Palestine and Iraq. The US has provided the crucial support for Israel's harsh and brutal military occupation, now in its 35th year. And it is also not hard to discover that Washington has unilaterally barred the two-state diplomatic settlement that was backed by virtually the entire world 25 years ago, including the leading Arab states and the PLO, and by the majority of the US population as well. People who pay attention know that talk of a "magnanimous" offer at Camp David cannot survive a simple look at the maps proposed. They are also aware that in the final Clinton-Barak year, funding for new settlements that break up the occupied territories, taking valuable land and scarce resources, rose to the highest level since before the "Oslo process". Bush's "vision" of a future Palestinian state does not even approach the stand of Apartheid South Africa 40 years ago, when it went beyond a "vision" and actually established Black states that were no less viable than what has been offered the Palestinians.
Others also do not easily overlook the fact that a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure has strengthened Saddam Hussein while leading to the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, perhaps more deaths "than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history", two military analysts conclude (Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999). And they recognise that the justifications now offered for the plans to attack Iraq have far less credibility than at the time when President Bush #1 was welcoming Saddam as an ally and valued trading partner after he had committed his worst atrocities, and was helping the brutal murderer develop weapons of mass destruction when he was far more dangerous than today.
Even putting that aside, there is scarcely a precedent in modern history for such openly-announced plans for aggression of the kind condemned as the worst of crimes at Nuremberg, with possible costs and consequences that no one can realistically guess, including Donald Rumsfeld.
Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will kill many people and destroy much of the country, providing new recruits for terrorist actions. They presumably also welcome the "Bush doctrine", which proclaims the right of attack against possible threats, which are virtually limitless.
The president has announced that "There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in the homeland." That's true. Potential threats are everywhere, even at home, in the Federal labs to which the anthrax terror has been traced. The prescription for endless war poses a far greater threat to Americans than perceived enemies, for reasons the terrorist organisations understand very well.
Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshaphat Harkabi, also a leading Arabist, pointed out that, "To offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to self-determination: That is the solution of the problem of terrorism. When the swamp disappears, there will be no more mosquitos."
At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtual immunity from retaliation from within the territories that lasted until very recently, but his warning was apt, and the lesson applies more generally. Well before 9/11 it was understood that with modern technology, the rich and powerful will lose their near monopoly of the means of violence, and can expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.
If we insist on creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitos, with awesome capacity for destruction. If we devote our resources to draining the swamps, addressing the roots of the "campaigns of hatred", we can not only reduce the threats we face, but also live up to ideals that we profess, and that are not beyond reach if we choose to take them seriously.
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