MEDIA ALERT
The World After September 11, By Noam Chomsky
20 December 2001
Dear Subscriber
The Guardian recently reported that
three of the top ten best-selling books on international affairs are
currently authored by Noam Chomsky: Rogue States (at 2 in the list),
Propaganda and the Public Mind (7), and The Fateful Triangle (8).
The
general manager of a leading chain of bookshops was quoted as saying
of Chomsky:
"Really, at the moment, many young people look to him as
the person who is offering the best critique of the capitalist system in
general, and of US hegemony - economic, military and political - in
particular." (The Guardian, 10 November 2001)
Curious, then, that
Chomsky has been nowhere to be seen in the Guardian, the Independent or on
BBC TV since 11 September. Media Lens asked Chomsky if he had been approached
for interviews or articles by these media. This was his answer:
"I've
been asked a couple of times by the Guardian to write something, but it was
either a topic I didn't like (the future of the book after Sept. 11 was the
most recent case) or didn't leave enough time. I'm programmed so intensely I
can't do anything quickly. Maybe some other journals; don't recall. I've been
on BBC half a dozen times or so, interviews on World Service, forums, etc.,
and have turned down a fair number of requests from them, for same reasons as
Guardian; either no time or pointless questions. It has been particularly
striking to be on BBC right after Irish radio and TV, which happened a couple
of times. The Irish sea is quite a chasm. It's quite clear around the world,
but particularly dramatic in this case, that one's picture of the world
varies a lot depending on whether you've been holding the lash or been under
it for hundreds of years.
Noam" (20.12.01)
How the UK media
must have struggled to secure Chomsky's contribution! Media Lens emailed him
last night on several complex points and received a full reply by this
morning. The truth is that the media do not care to have such a brilliant
analyst exposing the crude deceptions and omissions that make up much
mainstream political reporting and commentary - Chomsky is granted very
occasional appearances but is otherwise prevented from reaching a mass
audience via the mainstream.
By contrast - to choose an example at random
- the former chief public relations official for the State Department, James
Rubin, is omnipresent throughout the UK print and broadcast media. His role?
Independent commentator.
To attempt to rectify this imbalance in some
small way, and as a kind of festive greeting from the editors, Media Lens is
sending you the latest speech made by Chomsky on 8 December. At a time when
the media appear to have decided that Afghanistan is 'yesterday's news' - and
that the people dying in their hundreds and thousands in the snows of
Afghanistan are non-people - what Chomsky has to say is more vital than
ever.
With best wishes
The Editors
"The World After
Sept. 11" AFSC Conference, Dec. 8, 01
By Noam Chomsky
I am
sure I am not the only one to have been reminded in the past months of some
wise and prescient words of one of the most impressive figures of
20th century America, the radical pacifist A.J. Muste. As the US entered
World War II 60 years ago, he predicted with considerable accuracy the
contours of the world that would emerge after the US victory, and a little
later, observed that "the problem after a war is with the victor. He thinks
he has just proved that war and violence pay. Who will now teach him a
lesson?"
Far too many people around the world were to learn the bitter
meaning of these words. It is only in folk tales, children's stories, and the
journals of intellectual opinion that power is used wisely and well to
destroy evil. The real world teaches very different lessons, and it takes
wilful and dedicated ignorance to fail to perceive them.
These are,
unfortunately, leading themes of history. In his major study of European
state formation, Charles Tilly observed, accurately enough, that over the
last millennium, "war has been the dominant activity of European states," for
an unfortunate reason: "The central tragic fact is simple: coercion _works_;
those who apply substantial force to their fellows get compliance, and from
that compliance draw the multiple advantages of money, goods, deference,
access to pleasures denied to less powerful people." These are close to
historical truisms, which most of the people of the world have learned the
hard way. The deference commonly includes the awed acclaim of the educated
classes. Resort to overwhelming means of violence to destroy defenseless
enemies with impunity tends to win particular admiration, and also to become
natural, a demonstration of one's virtue; again, close to historical-cultural
universals.
One normal concomitant of easy victories over defenseless
enemies is the entrenchment of the habit of preferring force over the pursuit
of peaceful means. Another is the high priority of acting without authority.
The incarnation of the God who comes to Earth as the "perfect man" with
the mission of eradicating evil from the world needs no higher authority.
What is true of the most ancient Indian epics from millennia ago holds as
well for the plagiarists of today. The preference for force, and rejection
of authorization, have been notable features of the last decade of
overwhelming and unchallenged power and crushing of much weaker adversaries,
in accord with policy recommendations. As the first Bush administration came
into office, it undertook a National Security Policy Review dealing with
"third world threats." Parts were leaked to the press during the Gulf war.
The Review concluded that "In cases where the U.S. confronts much
weaker enemies" -- that is, the only kind one chooses to fight -- "our
challenge will be not simply to defeat them, but to defeat them decisively
and rapidly." Any other outcome would be "embarrassing" and might
"undercut political support," understood to be thin. With the collapse of the
sole deterrent a few months later, the conclusions became even more
firmly established, not surprisingly. These are, I think, some of
the considerations that should be at the back of our minds when we
contemplate the world after Sept. 11.
Whatever one's judgment about
the events of the past weeks, if we want to reach a reasonable assessment of
what may lie ahead, we should attend carefully to several crucial factors.
Among them are:
(1) The premises on which policy decisions have been
based
(2) Their roots in stable institutions and doctrines in very recent
history, to a large extent involving the same decision-makers
(3) The
ways these have been translated to specific actions
I'd like to say a few
words about each of these topics.
The new millennium quickly produced two
terrible new crimes, added to the gloomy record of persisting ones. The first
was the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11; the second, the response to them,
surely taking a far greater toll of innocent lives, Afghan civilians who were
themselves victims of the suspected perpetrators of the crimes of Sept. 11.
I'll assume these to be Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda network. There has
been a prima facie case from the outset, though little credible evidence has
been produced, and there have been few successes at home, despite what must
be the most intensive investigations ever by the coordinated intelligence
services of the major powers. Such "leaderless resistance" networks, as they
are called, are not easy nuts to crack.
An inauspicious sign is that
in both cases the crimes are considered right and just, even noble, within
the doctrinal framework of the perpetrators, and in fact are justified in
almost the same words. Bin Laden proclaims that violence is justified in
self-defense against the infidels who invade and occupy Muslim lands and
against the brutal and corrupt governments they impose there -- words that
have considerable resonance in the region even among those who despise and
fear him. Bush and Blair proclaim, in almost identical words, that violence
is justified to drive evil from our lands. The proclamations of the
antagonists are not entirely identical. When bin Laden speaks of "our lands,"
he is referring to Muslim lands: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chechnya, Bosnia,
Kashmir, and others; the radical Islamists who were mobilized and nurtured by
the CIA and its associates through the 1980s despise Russia, but ceased their
terrorist operations in Russia from Afghan bases after the Russians withdrew.
When Bush and Blair speak of "our lands" they are, in contrast, referring to
the world. The distinction reflects the power that the adversaries command.
That either side can speak without shame of eradicating evil in the light of
their records... -- that should leave us open-mouthed in astonishment, unless
we adopt the easy course of effacing even very recent history.
Another
fact with grim portent is that in both cases, the perpetrators insist on
underscoring the criminality of their acts. In the case of bin Laden, no
discussion is needed. The US pointedly rejected the framework of legitimacy
that resides in the UN Charter. There has been much debate over whether the
ambiguous Security Council declarations provided authorization for the resort
to force. It is, in my opinion, beside the point. To resolve the debate would
have been simple enough, had there been any wish to do so. There is scarcely
any doubt that Washington could have obtained entirely unambiguous Security
Council authorization, not for attractive reasons. Russia is eager to gain US
support for its own massive crimes. China hopes to be admitted to the
coalition of the just for the same reasons, and in fact, states throughout
the world recognized at once that they could now enlist the support of the
global superpower for their own violence and repression, a lesson not lost on
the global managers either. British support is reflexive; France would raise
no objections. There would, in brief, have been no veto.
But
Washington preferred to reject Security Council authorization and to insist
on its unique right to act unilaterally in violation of international law and
solemn treaty obligations, a right forcefully proclaimed by the Clinton
administration and its predecessors in clear and explicit words -- warnings
that we and others may choose to ignore, but at our peril. Similarly,
Washington contemptuously dismissed the tentative offers to consider
extradition of bin Laden and his associates; how real such possibilities were
we cannot know, because of the righteous refusal even to consider them. This
stand adheres to a leading principle of statecraft, called "establishing
credibility" in the rhetoric of statecraft and scholarship. And it is
understandable. If a Mafia Don plans to collect protection money, he does not
first ask for a Court order, even if he could obtain it. Much the same is
true of international affairs. Subjects must understand their place, and must
recognize that the powerful need no higher authority.
Thucydides
remarked that "large nations do what they wish, while small nations accept
what they must." The world has changed a great deal over several thousand
years, but some things stay much the same.
The atrocities of Sept. 11 are
regarded as a historic event, which is true, though not because of their
scale. In its civilian toll, the crime is far from unusual in the annals of
violence short of war. To mention only one example, so minor in context as to
be a mere footnote, a Panamanian journalist, condemning the crimes of Sept.
11, observed that for Panamanians the "sinister times" are not unfamiliar,
recalling the US bombing of the barrio Chorrillo during "Operation Just
Cause" with perhaps thousands killed; our crimes, so there is no serious
accounting. The atrocities of Sept. 11 are indeed a historic event, but
because of their target. For the US, it is the first time since the British
burned down Washington in 1814 that the national territory has been under
serious attack, even threatened. There is no need to review what has been
done to others in the two centuries since. For Europe, the reversal is even
more dramatic. While conquering much of the world, leaving a trail of terror
and devastation, Europeans were safe from attack by their victims, with rare
and limited exceptions. It is not surprising, then, that Europe and its
offshoots should be shocked by the crimes of Sept. 11, a dramatic breach of
the norms of acceptable behavior for hundreds of years.
It is also not
surprising that they should remain complacent, perhaps mildly regretful,
about the even more terrible suffering that followed. The victims, after all,
are miserable Afghans -- "uncivilized tribes," as Winston Churchill described
them with contempt when he ordered the use of poison gas to "spread a lively
terror" among them 80 years ago, denouncing the "squeamishness" of the
soft-hearted ninnies who failed to understand that chemical weapons were just
"the application of modern science to modern warfare" and must be used "to
procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the
frontier."
Similar thoughts are heard today. The editors of the _New
Republic_, who not long ago were calling for more military aid for
"Latin-style fascists...regardless of how many are murdered" because "there
are higher American priorities than Salvadoran human rights," now explain
-- correctly -- that "Operation Enduring Freedom is not a
humanitarian intervention," so that "If we leave behind a country in chaos
that can no longer serve as a base of operations against us, then we will
have accomplished a necessary objective," and should "lose the obsession
with nation-building" to try to repair what we have done to Afghanistan for
20 years.
While few are willing to sink to that level, it remains true
that atrocities committed against Afghans carry little moral stigma, for one
reason, because such practices have been so familiar throughout history, even
when there has been no pretext other than greed and domination. And
retribution knows no bounds. For that there is ample historical precedent,
not to speak of authority in the holiest texts we are taught to
revere.
Another aspect of the complacent acceptance of atrocities was
described with wonder by Alexis de Tocqueville in his report of one of the
great crimes of ethnic cleansing of the continent, the expulsion of the
Cherokees through the trail of tears "in the middle of winter," with snow
"frozen hard on the ground," a "solemn spectacle" of murder and degradation,
"the triumphal march of civilization across the desert." He was particularly
struck that the conquerors could deprive people of their rights and
exterminate them "with singular felicity, tranquilly, legally,
philanthropically, without shedding blood, and without violating a single
great principle of morality in the eyes of the world." It was impossible to
destroy people with "more respect for the laws of humanity," he
wrote.
That is a fair enough description of what has been unfolding
before our eyes. For example, in the refugee camp of Maslakh, where hundreds
of thousands of people are starving, dozens dying every night from cold
and starvation. They were living on the edge of survival even before
the bombing, which deprived them of desperately-needed aid. It remains
a "forgotten camp" as we meet, three months after Sept. 11.
Veteran correspondent Christina Lamb reports scenes more "harrowing" than
anything in her memory, after having "seen death and misery in refugee camps
in many parts of Asia and Africa." The destruction of lives is silent and
mostly invisible, by choice; and can easily remain forgotten, also by choice.
The easy tolerance of the "vivid awfulness" that Lamb recounts merely
reflects the fact that this is how the powerful deal with the weak and
defenseless, hence in no way remarkable.
We have no right to harbor
any illusions about the premises of current planning. Planning for the war in
Afghanistan was based on the unchallenged assumption that the threat of
bombing, and its realization, would considerably increase the number of
Afghans at risk of death from starvation, disease, and exposure. The press
blandly reported that the numbers were expected to increase by 50%, to about
7.5 million: an additional 2.5 million people. Pleas to stop the bombing to
allow delivery of food and other aid were rebuffed without comment, mostly
without even report. These came from high UN officials, major relief and aid
agencies, and others in a good position to know. By late September, the Food
and Agricultural Organization (FAO) had warned that more than 7 million
people would face starvation if the threatened military action were
undertaken, and after the bombing began, advised that the threat of
"humanitarian catastrophe" was "grave," and that the bombing had disrupted
the planting of 80% of the grain supplies, so that the effects next year
could be even more severe.
What will happen we cannot know. But we
know well enough the assumptions on which plans are based and executed, and
commentary produced. As a simple matter of logic, it is these assumptions
that inform us about the shape of the world that lies ahead, whatever the
outcomes might be. The basic facts have been casually reported, including the
fact that as we meet, little is being done to bring food and other aid to
many of those dying in refugee camps and the countryside, even though
supplies are available and the primary factor hampering delivery is lack of
interest and will.
Furthermore, the longer-term effects will remain
unknown, if history is any guide. Reporting is scanty today, and the
consequences will not be investigated tomorrow. It is acceptable to report
the crime of "collateral damage" by bombing error, the inevitable cost of
war, but not the conscious and deliberate destruction of fleeing Afghans who
will die in silence, invisibly, not by design, but because it doesn't matter,
a much deeper level of moral depravity; if we step on an ant while walking,
we have not purposely killed it.
People do not die of starvation
instantly; they can survive on roots and grass, and if malnourished children
die of disease, who will seek to determine the immediate cause? In the
future, the topic is off the agenda by virtue of a crucial principle: We must
devote enormous energy to meticulous accounting of crimes of official
enemies, quite properly including not only those literally killed, but also
those who die as a consequence of their policies; and we must take equally
scrupulous care to avoid this practice in the case of our own crimes,
adopting the stance that so impressed de Tocqueville. There are hundreds of
pages of detailed documentation of the application of these principles;
again, I suppose, close to a historical universal. It will be a welcome
surprise if the current case turns out differently.
And we should
remember that we are not observing all of this from Mars, or describing the
crimes of Attila the Hun. There is a great deal that we can do right now, if
we choose.
To explore what is likely to lie ahead from a different
perspective, let's ask whether there were alternatives to the resort to
devastating force at a distance, a device that comes naturally to those with
overwhelming might at their command, no external deterrent, and confidence in
the obedience of articulate opinion.
Alternatives were prominently
suggested. By the Vatican, for example, which called for reliance on the
measures appropriate to crimes, whatever their scale: if someone robs my
house and I think I know who did it, I am not entitled to go after him with
an assault rifle, meanwhile killing people randomly in his neighborhood. Or
by the eminent military historian Michael Howard, who delivered a "scathing
attack" on the bombardment of Afghanistan on October 30, not on grounds of
success or failure, but its design: what is needed is "patient operations of
police and intelligence forces," "a police operation conducted under the
auspices of the UN on behalf of the international community as a whole,
against a criminal conspiracy, whose members should be hunted down and
brought before an international court." There certainly are precedents,
including acts of international terrorism even more extreme than those of
Sept. 11: the US terrorist war against Nicaragua, to take an uncontroversial
example -- uncontroversial, because of the judgment of the highest
international authorities, the International Court of Justice and the
Security Council. Nicaragua's efforts to pursue lawful means failed, in a
world ruled by force; but no one would impede the US if it chose to follow a
similar course.
Could the legitimate goals of apprehending and punishing
the perpetrators have been attained without violence? Perhaps. We have no way
of knowing whether the Taliban offers to discuss extradition were serious,
since they were dismissed for the reasons already mentioned. The same is true
of the much later afterthought, overthrowing the Taliban regime, a high
priority for many Afghans, much as for innumerable others throughout the
world who suffer under brutal regimes and miserable oppression.
I
mentioned a few of those who suggested alternatives, and one of many examples
of appropriate precedents. What about the most important place to inquire:
what are the attitudes and opinions of the people of Afghanistan? To
determine their views is a difficult task, no doubt, but not
entirely impossible. There are some reasonable ways to proceed.
We
might begin with the gathering of 1000 Afghan leaders in Peshawar at the end
of October, some of them exiles, some who trekked across the border
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 NY Times
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 mass slaughter and
destruction.
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
the 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.
The US, Abdul Haq 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. And we don't like that.
Because Afghans are now being made to suffer for these Arab fanatics, but we
all know who brought these Arabs to Afghanistan in the 1980s, armed them
and gave them a base. It was the Americans and the CIA. And the Americans
who did this all got medals and good careers, while all these years
Afghans suffered from these Arabs and their allies. Now, when America is
attacked, instead of punishing the Americans who did this, it punishes the
Afghans."
For what it's worth, I think there is considerable merit in his
remarks.
We can also look elsewhere for enlightenment about Afghan
opinions. There has, at last, been some belated concern about the fate of
women in Afghanistan. It even reached the First Lady. Maybe it will be
followed some day by concern for the plight of women elsewhere in Central and
South Asia, which, unfortunately, is not all that different in many places
from life under the Taliban, including the most vibrant democracies. There
are plenty of highly reliable and expert sources on these matters, if we
choose to look. And such a radical departure from past practice would lend at
least some credibility to the professed outrage over Taliban practices just
at the moment when it served US propaganda purposes. Of course, no sane
person advocates foreign military intervention by the US or other states to
rectify these and other terrible crimes in countries that are US allies and
clients. The problems are severe, but should be dealt with from within,
with assistance from outsiders if it is constructive and honest, not
merely hypocritical and self-serving.
But since the harsh treatment of
women in Afghanistan has at last gained some well-deserved attention, however
cynical the motives, it would seem that attitudes of Afghan women towards
policy options should be a primary concern. These no doubt vary considerably,
and are not easy to investigate, but it should not be completely impossible
to determine whether there are mothers in Maslakh who praise the bombing, or
who might, rather, agree with those who fled from their homes to miserable
refugee camps under the threat of bombing and expressed the bitter hope that
"even the cruel Americans must feel some pity for our ruined country" and
refrain from the threatened bombing that was already bringing death and
disaster. And Afghan women are by no means voiceless everywhere. There is an
organization of 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), doing remarkable work. Their leader
was assassinated by Afghan collaborators with the Russians in 1987, but they
continued their work within Afghanistan at risk of death, and in exile
nearby. They have been quite outspoken. A week after the bombing began, for
example, they issued a public statement that would have been front-page news
wherever concern for Afghan women was real, not a matter of mere
expediency.
The RAWA statement of October 11 was entitled: "Taliban
should be overthrown by the uprising of Afghan nation," and continued as
follows: "Again, due to the treason of fundamentalist hangmen, our people
have been caught in the claws of the monster of a vast war and destruction.
America, by forming an international coalition against Osama and his
Taliban-collaborators and in retaliation for the 11th September terrorist
attacks, has launched a vast aggression on our country. Despite the claim of
the US that only military and terrorist bases of the Taliban and Al Qieda
will be struck and that its actions would be accurately targeted and
proportionate, we have witnessed for the past seven days leaves no doubt that
this invasion will shed the blood of numerous women, men, children, young and
old of our country."
The statement went on to call 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...."
In another
declaration on November 25, at a demonstration of women's organizations in
Islamabad on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against
Women, RAWA condemned the US/Russian-backed Northern Alliance for a "record
of human rights violations as bad as that of the Taliban's," and called on
the UN to "help Afghanistan, not the Northern Alliance."
Perhaps
Afghans who have been struggling for freedom and women's rights for many
years don't understand much about their country, and should
cede responsibility for its future to foreigners who couldn't have placed
the country on a map a few months ago, along with others who had helped
destroy it in the past, led by commanders who were condemned for
international terrorism by the highest international authorities and are
supported by a coalition of other leading terrorist states. Maybe, but it is
not obvious.
The situation is reminiscent of the Iraq war, when the Iraq
opposition was barred from media and journals of opinion, apart from
dissident journals at the margins. They forcefully opposed the US bombing
campaign against Iraq and accused the US of preferring a military
dictatorship to overthrow of Saddam by internal revolt -- as was conceded
publicly, when Bush (#I) returned to collaboration with his former friend and
ally Saddam in carrying out major atrocities, this time quite directly, as
Saddam brutally crushed a southern Shi'ite revolt that might well have
overthrown the murderous dictator, under the watchful eyes of the US military
that had total control over the region, while Washington refused even to
allow rebelling Iraqi generals access to captured Iraqi arms. The Bush
Administration confirmed that it would have no dealings with Iraqi opposition
leaders: "We felt that political meetings with them would not be appropriate
for our policy at this time," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher
announced on March 14, 1991, while Saddam was massacring southern rebels with
US acquiescence. That had been long-standing government policy. The same is
true of preference for force over pursuit of possibly feasible diplomatic
options, policies that continued in the decade that followed, until today,
and are quite natural, for basically the reasons that Abdul Haq
enunciated.
Another sensible way to assess the prospects for the future
would be to review the actions of today's commanders when they launched the
first war on terrorism 20 years ago: there is ample evidence of what they
achieved in Central America, Southern Africa, the Middle East and Southeast
Asia, all accompanied by much the same lofty rhetoric and passion that we
hear today. There should be no need to review that shameful record.
Evidently, it carries important lessons about the likely future, as does the
fact that the topic is scrupulously ignored in the laudatory chorus for the
current and future projects, although -- or perhaps because -- that record is
so obviously relevant.
At the end of the terrible decade of the 1980s,
the external deterrent to the use of force disappeared. For its victims, the
collapse of Soviet tyranny was a remarkable triumph and liberation, though
the victory was soon tainted by new horrors. For others, the consequences
were more complex. The basic character of the post-Cold War era was revealed
very quickly: more of the same, with revised pretexts and tactics. A few
weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US invaded Panama, killing
hundreds or thousands of people, vetoing two Security Council resolutions,
and kidnapping a thug who was jailed in the US for crimes that he had mostly
committed while on the CIA payroll before committing the only one that
mattered: disobedience. The pattern of events was familiar enough, but there
were some differences. One was pointed out by Elliott Abrams, who pleaded
guilty to crimes committed when he was a State Department official during the
Reagan years, and has now been appointed Human Rights specialist at the
National Security Council. At the time of the invasion, he commented,
astutely, that for the first time in many years the US could resort to force
with no concern about Russian reactions. There were also new pretexts: the
intervention was in defense against Hispanic narcotraffickers, not the
Russians who were mobilizing in Managua, two days march from Harlingen,
Texas.
A few months later, the Bush Administration presented its new
Pentagon budget, an event of particular significance because this was the
first submission that could not rely on the plea that the Russians are
coming. The Administration requested a huge military budget, as before, and
in part for the same reasons. Thus it would be necessary to bolster "the
defense industrial base" (aka high-tech industry), and to maintain the
intervention forces that are aimed primarily at the Middle East because of
"the free world's reliance on energy supplies from this pivotal region." But
there was a change: in that pivotal region the "threats to our interests"
that have required direct military engagement "could not be laid at the
Kremlin's door," contrary to decades of propaganda, now recognized to be
useless. Nor could the threats be laid at Saddam's door: the Butcher of
Baghdad was still a valued friend and ally, not yet having committed his
crime of disobedience. Rather, the threat was indigenous nationalism, as it
had always been. The clouds lifted on the larger threat as well. It is not
the Russians, but rather the "growing technological sophistication" of
third world powers that requires that we maintain complete military
dominance worldwide, even without "the backdrop of superpower competition."
The Cold War confrontation was always in the background no doubt, but served
more as a pretext than a reason, just as the Russians appealed to the US
threat to justify their crimes within their own domains. The real enemy is
independent (called "radical") nationalism in the South, as now tacitly
acknowledged, the traditional pretexts having lost their utility. The
documentary and historical record provide ample evidence to support that
conclusion.
Another consequence of the collapse of the junior partner in
world control was the elimination of any space for non-alignment, and the
limited measure of independence it allowed. One indication is the immediate
sharp reduction in foreign aid, most radically in the US, where the category
virtually disappeared, even if we count the largest component, which goes to
a rich country for strategic reasons, and to Egypt because of its
collaboration in the same enterprise. The decline of options was fully
recognized. President Mahathir of Malaysia spoke for many when he said that:
"Paradoxically, the greatest catastrophe for us, who had always been
anti-communist, is the defeat of communism. The end of the Cold War has
deprived us of the only leverage we had - the option to defect. Now we can
turn to no one." Not really a paradox, but the natural course of real-world
history.
Similar fears were widely expressed. The Gulf war was bitterly
condemned throughout the South as a needless show of force, evading
diplomatic options; there was considerable evidence for such an
interpretation at the time, more since. Many perceived what Abdul Haq
describes today: the US "is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and
scare everyone in the world," establishing "credibility." The resort to
overwhelming military force is designed to demonstrate that "What We Say
Goes," in George Bush's proud words as bombs and missiles rained on Iraq.
Those who did not grasp the message then should have had no problem in doing
so when he instantly returned to support for Saddam's murderous violence in
order to ensure "stability," a code word for subordination to US power
interests. The general mood in the South was captured by Cardinal Paulo
Evarista Arns of Sao Paulo: In the Arab countries, he said, "the rich sided
with the US government while the _millions_ of poor condemned this military
aggression." Throughout the Third World, he continued, "there is hatred and
fear: When will they decide to invade us," and on what pretext?
The
general reaction to the bombing of Serbia was similar, and again, there is
considerable evidence that peaceful options might have been pursued, avoiding
much misery. In this case, it was officially and repeatedly proclaimed that
the motives were to establish "credibility" and ensure "stability." It is
difficult to take seriously the claim that a subsidiary goal was to prevent
the ethnic cleansing and atrocities that followed the withdrawal of monitors
(over unreported Serbian objections) and the bombing immediately afterwards
-- a "predictable" consequence, as the commanding General informed the press
as the bombing began, later reiterating that he knew of no such war aims. The
rich documentary record from the State Department, OSCE, the British
government, and other Western sources substantially reinforces these
conclusions. Perhaps that is why the illuminating record is so consistently
ignored in the extensive literature on the topic. Even in the most loyal
client states the bombing was condemned as a reversion to traditional gunboat
diplomacy "cloaked in moralistic righteousness" in the traditional fashion
(the respected Israeli military analyst Amos Gilboa, by no means an isolated
voice).
Americans are carefully protected from world opinion and critical
discussion of such matters, but we do ourselves no favors by keeping to
these restrictions.
We also do ourselves no favors by ignoring public
documents that lucidly explain the thinking of planners. They understand very
well that the world may be tripolar in economic terms -- with roughly
comparable economic power in North America, Europe, and Asia -- but that it
is radically unipolar in the capacity to resort to violence and to destroy.
And it should be no surprise to discover that these facts of life enter
crucially into planning.
Even before Sept. 11, the US outspent the next
15 countries for "defense" -- which, as usual, means "offense." And it is far
ahead in sophisticated military technology. The military budget was increased
sharply after Sept. 11, as the Administration exploited the fear and anguish
of the population to ram through a wide array of measures that they knew
would arouse popular opposition without the appeal to "patriotism" -- which
the powerful of course ignore; it is the rest who must be passive and
submissive. These included a variety of means to strengthen the authority of
the very powerful state to which "conservatives" are deeply committed, among
them, sharp increases in military spending designed to enhance the enormous
disparity between the US and the rest of the world. Included are the plans to
extend the "arms race" into space -- a "race" with one competitor only
-- undermining the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 and other
international obligations. Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) is only a small
component, and even that is understood to be an offensive weapon: "not simply
a _shield_ but an _enabler_ of action," the RAND corporation explained,
echoing not only the thoughts but even the words of Chinese authorities.
Strategic analysts realistically describe the program as a means to establish
US global "hegemony," which is what the world needs, they explain, echoing
many distinguished predecessors.
The far broader programs of
militarization of space are explained in high level public documents as the
natural next step in expanding state power. Armies and navies were created to
protect commercial interests and investment, Clinton's Space Command
observed, and the logical next frontier is space, in pursuit of the same
goals. But this time there will be a difference. The British Navy could be
countered by Germany, with consequences we need not discuss. But the US will
be so awesomely powerful that there will be no counterforce, so it is
claimed.
Overwhelming dominance is necessary for well-known technical
reasons. Even BMD requires nullification of the anti-satellite weapons of a
potential adversary. The US must therefore achieve "full spectrum dominance,"
ensuring that even this much simpler technology will not be available. An
iron fist is needed for other reasons. US military planners share the
assessment of the intelligence community and outside experts that what is
misleadingly called "globalization" will lead to a widening divide between
the "haves" and the "have-nots" -- contrary to doctrine, but in accord with
reality. And it will be necessary to control unruly elements: by inspiring
fear, or perhaps by actual use of highly-destructive killing machines
launched from space, probably nuclear-powered and on hair-trigger alert with
automated control systems, thus increasing the likelihood of what in the
trade are called "normal accidents": the unpredictable errors to which all
complex systems are subject.
It is recognized that these programs
significantly increase the danger of uncontrollable catastrophe, but that too
is entirely rational within the framework of prevailing institutions and
ideology, which ranks hegemony well above survival. Again, there are ample
precedents throughout the history of the Cold War, and long before. The
difference today is that the stakes are much higher. It is no exaggeration to
say that the survival of the species is at risk.
These seem to me some
of the realistic prospects if current tendencies persist. But there is no
reason for that to happen. The good news is that the reigning systems of
authority are fragile, and they know it. There is a major effort to exploit
the current window of opportunity to institute harsh and regressive programs
and to neutralize the mass popular movements that have been forming
throughout the world in unprecedented and highly encouraging ways. There is
no reason to succumb to such efforts, and every reason not to. Plenty of
choices and options are available. What is needed, as always, is the will and
dedication to pursue them.
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