Gordon
You might also be interested in Chomsky's article inthe UK newspaper The
Guardian this week (or maybe you got it also in the US papers?)
Julian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,788470,00.html
Drain the swamp and there will be no
more mosquitoes
By attacking Iraq, the US will invite a new wave of terrorist attacks
Noam Chomsky
Monday September 9, 2002
{HYPERLINK "http://www.guardian.co.uk"}The Guardian
September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had
better pay much closer attention to what the US 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 President Bush stated, but it is hardly wise to ignore the real
world, which conveys different lessons.
The president is not the first to ask: "Why do they hate us?" In a staff
discussion 44 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 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-September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same reasons
hold today, compounded with resentment over specific policies. Strikingly, that
is even true of privileged, western-oriented sectors in the region.
To cite just one recent example: in the August 1 issue of Far Eastern
Economic Review, the internationally recognised regional specialist Ahmed
Rashid writes that in Pakistan "there is growing anger that US support is
allowing [Musharraf's] military regime to delay the promise of democracy".
Today 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 US, including its freedoms. What
they hate is official policies that deny them the freedoms to which they too
aspire.
For such reasons, the post-September 11 rantings of Osama bin Laden - for
example, about US support for corrupt and brutal regimes, or about the US
"invasion" of Saudi Arabia - 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. In recent years, the US has taken or backed actions in
Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few, that meet
official US definitions of "terrorism" - that is, when Americans apply the term to
enemies.
In the most sober establishment journal, Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington
wrote in 1999: "While the US regularly denounces various countries as 'rogue
states,' in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue superpower ...
the single greatest external threat to their societies."
Such perceptions are not changed by the fact that, on September 11, for the
first time, a western country was subjected on home soil to a horrendous
terrorist attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of western power. The attack
goes far beyond what's sometimes called the "retail terror" of the IRA, FLN or
Red Brigades.
The September 11 terrorism 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 "a military
attack" by the US in Afghanistan. In Latin America, the region with the most
experience of US intervention, support ranged from 2% in Mexico to 16% in
Panama.
The current "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is, of course, also fuelled by
US policies toward Israel-Palestine and Iraq. The US has provided the crucial
support for Israel's harsh military occupation, now in its 35th year.
One way for the US to lessen Israeli-Palestinian tensions would be to stop
refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that calls for
recognition of the right of all states in the region to live in peace and security,
including a Palestinian state in the currently occupied territories (perhaps with
minor and mutual border adjustments).
In Iraq, 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 people "than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass
destruction throughout history", military analysts John and Karl Mueller wrote in
Foreign Affairs in 1999.
Washington's present justifications to attack Iraq have far less credibility than
when President Bush Sr was welcoming Saddam as an ally and a trading
partner after he had committed his worst brutalities - as in Halabja, where Iraq
attacked Kurds with poison gas in 1988. At the time, the murderer Saddam
was more dangerous than he is today.
As for a US attack against Iraq, no one, including Donald Rumsfeld, can
realistically guess the possible costs and consequences. Radical Islamist
extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will kill many people and destroy
much of the country, providing recruits for terrorist actions.
They presumably also welcome the "Bush doctrine" that proclaims the right of
attack against potential threats, which are virtually limitless. The president has
announced: "There's no telling how many wars it will take to secure freedom in
the homeland." That's true.
Threats are everywhere, even at home. The prescription for endless war poses a
far greater danger to Americans than perceived enemies do, for reasons the
terrorist organisations understand very well.
Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshaphat
Harkabi, also a leading Arabist, made a point that still holds true. "To offer an
honourable solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to self-
determination: that is the solution of the problem of terrorism," he said. "When
the swamp disappears, there will be no more mosquitoes."
At the time, Israel enjoyed the virtual immunity from retaliation within the
occupied territories that lasted until very recently. But Harkabi's warning was
apt, and the lesson applies more generally.
Well before September 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 mosquitoes, 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.
© Noam Chomsky
New York Times Syndicate
Noam Chomsky is professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and author of the US bestseller 9-11
Date sent: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 21:15:04 -0700
From: Gordon Wells <gwells@cats.ucsc.edu>
Subject: Re: shocked into silence?
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Forwarded by: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Send reply to: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Date forwarded: Wed, 11 Sep 2002 21:15:09 -0700 (PDT)
> I am fortunate in being able to receive the BBC World Service on my
> radio. This afternoon, by chance, I heard Noam Chomsky asking some
> very pointed questions about the US willingness to meet
> international standards of legality in dealing with (9/11) criminal
> activity. Then a few hours later I listened to Bush's address to the
> nation. What disturbed me was his claim that Americans value all
> life, whereas our enemies are willing to kill innocent men, women and
> children. But what he forgot to mention is that in Afghanistan - as
> in all wars using weapons of indescriminate lethal power - many
> innocent people are killed. How many "innocent" Iraquis will be
> unfortunate side-effect victims if his declared aim to topple the
> current Iraqui political regime is to be the next target of his "war
> on terrorism"?
> --
> Gordon Wells
> UC Santa Cruz.
> gwells@cats.ucsc.edu http://people.ucsc.edu/~gwells/
>
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