[mobglob-discuss] [Infoshop News] What Americans have learnt - and not learnt - since 9/11 (fwd)

Sat Sep 7 23:35:09 PDT 2002

Subscribers,
...some thoughts by beloved Noam Chomsky here fer yer perusal. regards, -tc
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 --- Forwarded message: ---From: "Tom Wheeler" <twbounds at pop.mail.rcn.net>
To: "Infoshop" <infoshop-news at infoshop.org>
Subject: [Infoshop News] What Americans have learnt - and not learnt -
				since 9/11

Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 23:37:52 -0400

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/09/06/1031115935105.html

What Americans have learnt - and not learnt - since 9/11
September 7 2002

Endless war poses a far greater danger to the United States than perceived
enemies do, writes Noam Chomsky.

September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they 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 is all to the good.

It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of future
atrocities. It may be comforting for Americans to pretend that their 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 Dwight 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 argument: 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, 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, Americans do themselves few favours by choosing to believe that "they
hate us" and "hate our freedoms". On the contrary, these are 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 is sometimes called the "retail terror" of the
IRA or Red Brigade.

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 per cent in
Mexico to 16 per cent in Panama.

The present "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is, of course, also
fuelled by US policies towards 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 tension 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 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 No. 1 was welcoming Saddam as an ally and a trading
partner after the Iraqi leader 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 Defence Secretary 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 that: "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 would lose their near-monopoly of the means of
violence and could expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

If America insists on creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitoes,
with awesome capacity for destruction.

If America devotes its resources to draining the swamps, addressing the
roots of the "campaigns of hatred", it can not only reduce the threats it
faces but also live up to ideals that it professes and that are not beyond
reach if Americans choose to take them seriously.

American academic Noam Chomsky is the author, most recently, of the
bestseller September 11.

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