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The notion that terrorist acts against the United States can be
explained by envy and irrational hatred, and not by what the United
States does to the world -- i.e., US foreign policy -- has been written
on the face of the Bush administration ever since the attacks of
September 11, 2001.
The fires were still burning at Ground Zero in New York when Secretary
of State Colin Powell declared: "Once again, we see terrorism, we
see terrorists, people who don't believe in democracy."{1}
President Bush picked up on that theme and ran with it.
He's
been its leading proponent with his repeated insistence, in one wording
or another, that terrorists are people who hate America and all that it
stands for, its democracy, its freedom, its wealth, its secular
government.
(Ironically,
the president and his first Attorney General, John Ashcroft, probably
hate America's secular government as much as anyone.)
Here is the president more than a year after September 11: "The
threats we face are global terrorist attacks. That's the threat. And the
more you love freedom, the more likely it is you'll be
attacked."{2}
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative watchdog
group founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president, announced in
November 2001 the formation of the Defense of Civilization Fund,
declaring that "It was not only America that was attacked on
September 11, but civilization.
We
were attacked not for our vices, but for our virtues."{3}
In September 2002, the White House released the "National Security
Strategy", purported to be chiefly the handiwork of Condoleezza
Rice, which speaks of the "rogue states" which "sponsor
terrorism around the globe; and reject basic human values and hate the
United States and everything for which it stands."
In July of the following year, we could hear the spokesman for Homeland
Security, Brian Roehrkasse, declare: "Terrorists hate our freedoms.
They
want to change our ways."{4}
And in his January 2005 inauguration address, the president spoke of the
threat to the United States: "We have seen our vulnerability -- and
we have seen its deepest source.
For
as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny,
prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder, violence will
gather."
Not
a single word in his talk about anything the United States has ever done
to contribute to this resentment and hatred. It's just there in the
anti-American terrorists, perhaps in their genes.
To all of this, Thomas Friedman the renowned foreign policy analyst of
the New York Times would say amen. Terrorists, he wrote in 1998 after
two US embassies in Africa had been attacked, "have no specific
ideological program or demands. Rather, they are driven by a generalized
hatred of the US, Israel and other supposed enemies of Islam."{5}
This idée fixe -- that the rise of anti-American terrorism owes
nothing to American policies -- in effect postulates an America that is
always the aggrieved innocent in a treacherous world, a benign United
States government peacefully going about its business but being
"provoked" into taking extreme measures to defend its people,
its freedom and its democracy.
It
follows from this idea that there's no good reason to modify US foreign
policy, no choice but to battle to the death this irrational
international force out there that hates the United States with an
abiding passion.
Thus it was that Afghanistan and Iraq were bombed and invaded with
seemingly little concern in Washington that this could well create many
new anti-American terrorists.
And
indeed, following the first strike on Afghanistan in October 2001 there
were literally scores of terrorist attacks against American institutions
in the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, more than a dozen in
Pakistan alone: military, civilian, Christian, and other targets
associated with the United States, including the October 2002 bombings
in Bali, Indonesia, which destroyed two nightclubs and killed more than
200 people, almost all of them Americans
and their Australian and British allies.
The
following year brought the heavy bombing of the US-managed Marriott
Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, the site of diplomatic receptions and 4th
of July celebrations held by the American Embassy; all this in addition
to the thousands of attacks in Iraq against US occupation.
Even when a terrorist attack is not aimed directly at Americans, the
reason the target has been chosen can be because the country it takes
place in has been cooperating with the United States in its so-called
"War on Terrorism". Witness the horrendous attacks of recent
years in Madrid, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
A
US State Department report on worldwide terrorist attacks --
"Patterns of Global Terrorism" -- showed that the year 2003
had more "significant terrorist incidents" than at any time
since the department began issuing statistics in 1985, even though the
figures did not include attacks on US troops by insurgents in Iraq,
which the Bush administration explicitly labels as
"terrorist".{6}
When
the 2004 report showed an even higher number of incidents, the State
Department announced that it was going to stop publishing the annual
statistics.{7}
Terrorists in their
own words
The word "terrorism" has been so overused in recent years that
it's now commonly used simply to stigmatize any individual or group one
doesn't like, for almost any kind of behavior involving force.
But
the word's raison d'être has traditionally been to convey a
political meaning, something along the lines of: the deliberate use of
violence against civilians and property to intimidate or coerce a
government or the population in furtherance of a political objective.
Terrorism is fundamentally propaganda, a very bloody form of making the
world hear one's jeremiad.
It follows that if the perpetrators of a terrorist act declare what
their objective was, their statement should carry credibility, no matter
what one thinks of the objective or the method used to achieve it. Let
us look at some of their actual declarations.
The terrorists responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center in
1993 sent a letter to the New York Times which stated, in part: "We
declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building.
This action was done in response for the American political, economical,
and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of
the dictator countries in the region."{8}
Richard Reid, who tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe while aboard an
American Airline flight to Miami in December 2001, told police that his
planned suicide attack was an attempt to strike a blow against the US
campaign in Afghanistan and the Western economy.
In
an e-mail sent to his mother, which he intended her to read after his
death, Reid wrote that it was his duty "to help remove the
oppressive American forces from the Muslims land."{9}
After the bombings in Bali, one of the leading suspects, who was later
convicted, told police that the bombings were "revenge" for
"what Americans have done to Muslims." He said that he wanted
to "kill as many Americans as possible" because "America
oppresses the Muslims".{10}
In November 2002, a taped message from Osama bin Laden began: "The
road to safety begins by ending the aggression. Reciprocal treatment is
part of justice. The [terrorist] incidents that have taken place ... are
only reactions and reciprocal actions."{11}
That
same month, when Mir Aimal Kasi (or Kansi), who killed several people
outside of CIA headquarters in 1993, was on death row, he declared:
"What I did was a retaliation against the US government" for
American policy in the Middle East and its support of Israel.{12}
In June 2004, Islamic militants in Saudi Arabia beheaded an employee of
the leading US defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, maker of the Apache
helicopter, on which the victim, Paul Johnson, Jr. had long worked.
His
kidnappers said he was singled out for that reason. "The infidel
got his fair treatment. ... Let him taste something of what Muslims have
long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles."{13}
Finally, we have another audio message from Osama bin Laden, in April
2004, containing the following excerpts:
The greatest rule of safety is justice, and stopping injustice
and aggression. ...
What
happened on 11 September and 11 March [the Madrid train bombings] is
your commodity that was returned to you. ...
We
would like to inform you that labeling us and our acts as terrorism is
also a description of you and of your acts. ...
Our
acts are reaction to your own acts, which are represented by the
destruction and killing of our kinfolk in Afghanistan, Iraq and
Palestine. ...
Which
religion considers your killed ones innocent and our killed ones
worthless?
And
which principle considers your blood real blood and our blood water?
Reciprocal
treatment is fair and the one who starts injustice bears greater blame.
...
The
killing of the Russians was after their invasion of Afghanistan and
Chechnya; the killing of Europeans was after their invasion of Iraq and
Afghanistan; and the killing of Americans on the day of New York was
after their support of the Jews in Palestine and their invasion of the
Arabian Peninsula.{14}
Difficulty of
maintaining the simplistic idée fixe
It should be noted that when Mir Aimal Kasi was executed, the State
Department warned that this could result in attacks against Americans
around the world.{15} It did not warn that the attacks would result from
foreigners hating or envying American democracy, freedom, wealth, or
secular government.
In the days following the start of the American bombing of Afghanistan
there were numerous warnings from US government officials about being
prepared for retaliatory acts, and during the war in Iraq, the State
Department announced: "Tensions remaining from the recent events in
Iraq may increase the potential threat to US citizens and interests
abroad, including by terrorist groups."{16}
Similarly, in June 2002, after a car bomb exploded outside the US
Consulate in Karachi, killing or injuring more than 60 people, the
Washington Post reported that "US officials said the attack was
likely the work of extremists angry at both the United States and
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for siding with the United
States after September 11 and abandoning support for Afghanistan's
ruling Taliban."{17}
George W. and others of his administration may or may not believe what
they tell the world about the motivations behind anti-American
terrorism, but, as in the examples just given, some officials, at least
in effect, have questioned the party line for years.
A
Department of Defense study in 1997 concluded: "Historical data
show a strong correlation between US involvement in international
situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United
States."{18}
Former US president Jimmy Carter told the New York Times in a 1989
interview:
We sent Marines into Lebanon and you only have to go to Lebanon,
to Syria or to Jordan to witness first-hand the intense hatred among
many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and
unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers -- women and children and
farmers and housewives -- in those villages around Beirut. ... As a
result of that ... we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who
are deeply resentful.
That
is what precipitated the taking of our hostages and that is what has
precipitated some of the terrorist attacks.{19}
Colin Powell has also revealed that he knows better. Writing of this
same 1983 Lebanon debacle in his memoir, he foregoes clichés about
terrorists hating democracy: "The USS New Jersey started hurling
16-inch shells into the mountains above Beirut, in World War II style,
as if we were softening up the beaches on some Pacific atoll prior to an
invasion. What we tend to overlook in such situations is that other
people will react much as we would."{20}
The ensuing terrorist attack against US Marine barracks in Lebanon took
the lives of 241 American military personnel.
Hostile
foreign policy, a list
The bombardment of Beirut in 1983 and 1984 is but one of many
examples of American violence or other outrage against the Middle East
and/or Muslims since the 1980s.
The
record includes:
-
the
support of corrupt and tyrannical Middle East governments, from the
Shah of Iran to the Saudis.
-
the
support for Russia and China against their Muslim populations.
-
the
shooting down of two Libyan planes in 1981.
-
the
bombing of Libya in 1986.
-
the
bombing and sinking of an Iranian ship in 1987.
-
the
shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988.
-
the
shooting down of two more Libyan planes in 1989.
-
the
massive bombing of the Iraqi people in 1991.
-
the
continuing bombings and horrific sanctions against Iraq from 1991 to
2003.
-
the
bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998.
-
the
habitual support of Israel despite the routine devastation and
torture it inflicts upon the Palestinian people.
-
the
habitual condemnation of Palestinian resistance to this.
-
the
abduction of "suspected terrorists" from Muslim countries,
such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Albania, who are then taken
to places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where they are tortured.
-
the
large military and hi-tech presence in Islam's holiest land, Saudi
Arabia, and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region.
-
the
devastation and occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and of
Iraq beginning in 2003 ...
"How
do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is
vitriolic hatred for America?" asked George W. "I'll tell you
how I respond: I'm amazed.
I'm
amazed that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about
that people would hate us.
I
am -- like most Americans, I just can't believe it because I know how
good we are."{21}
It's not just people in the Middle East who have good reason for hating
what the US government does. The United States has created huge numbers
of potential terrorists all over Latin America during a half century of
American actions far worse than what it's done in the Middle East.
If
Latin Americans shared the belief of radical Muslims that they will go
directly to paradise for martyring themselves in the act of killing the
great Satan enemy, by now we might have had decades of repeated
terrorist horror coming from south of the border.
As it is, there have been numerous non-suicidal terrorist attacks
against Americans and their buildings in Latin America over the years.
To what extent do the American people really believe the official
disconnect between what the US does in the world and anti-American
terrorism? One indication that the public is somewhat skeptical came in
the days immediately following the commencement of the bombing of Iraq
on March 20, 2003.
The
airlines later announced that there had been a sharp increase in
cancellations of flights and a sharp decrease in future flight
reservations in those few days.{22}
How the
Muslim world sees the United States
In June, 2003 the Pew Research Center released the results of polling in
20 Muslim countries and the Palestinian territories that brought into
question the official thesis that support for anti-American terrorism
goes hand in hand with hatred of American society.
The
polling revealed that people interviewed had much more
"confidence" in Osama bin Laden than in George W. Bush.
However,
"the survey suggested little correlation between support for bin
Laden and hostility to American ideas and cultural products. People who
expressed a favorable opinion of bin Laden were just as likely to
appreciate American technology and cultural products as people opposed
to bin Laden.
Pro-
and anti-bin Laden respondents also differed little in their views on
the workability of Western-style democracy in the Arab world."{23}
After another year of US occupation of Iraq and torture scandals,
polling results unsurprisingly offered Washington no more support for
its claims. A June, 2004 Zogby International survey of men and women in
Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab
Emirates produced results such as the following, reported the Washington
Post:
Those polled said their opinions were shaped by U.S. policies,
rather than by values or culture. When asked: 'What is the first thought
when you hear "America?" respondents overwhelmingly said:
'Unfair foreign policy.' And when asked what the United States could do
to improve its image in the Arab world, the most frequently provided
answers were 'Stop supporting Israel' and 'Change your Middle East
policy'. ... Most Arabs polled said they believe that the Iraq war has
caused more terrorism and brought about less democracy, and that the
Iraqi people are far worse off today than they were while living under
Hussein's rule. The majority also said they believe the United States
invaded Iraq for oil, to protect Israel and to weaken the Muslim
world.{24}
The Pentagon's own advisory panel, the Defense Science Board,
corroborated some of the above, reporting in November 2004: "Today
we reflexively compare Muslim 'masses' to those oppressed under Soviet
rule. This is a strategic mistake.
There
is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim
societies -- except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as
apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends.
... Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies
... when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to
Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.
... [Muslims believe] American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has
not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering."{25}
Lastly, we have Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA, where he
was a senior terrorism analyst. In his 2004 book, Imperial Hubris: Why
The West is Losing the War on Terror (written under the name
"Anonymous"), and elsewhere, he makes the following
observations:
None of bin Laden's stated reasons for waging war on the United
States "have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and
democracy, but everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the
Muslim world," notably unlimited support for Israel's repression of
the Palestinians and the destruction of Iraq.{26} "As long as
unchanged U.S. policies motivate Muslims to become insurgents," the
United States will have to "kill many thousands of these fighters
in what is a barely started war."{27}
"This
mind-set holds that America does not need to reevaluate its policies,
let alone change them; it merely needs to better explain the
wholesomeness of its views and the purity of its purposes to the
uncomprehending Islamic world. What could be more American in the early
21st century, after all, than to re-identify a casus belli as a
communication problem, and then call on Madison Avenue to package and
hawk a remedy called
"Democracy-Secularism-and-Capitalism-are-good-for-Muslims" to
an Islamic world that has, to date, violently refused to
purchase?"{28}
The
Iraqi resistance
The official Washington mentality about the motivations of individuals
they call terrorists has also been manifested in US occupation policy in
Iraq.
Secretary
of War Donald Rumsfeld has declared that there are five groups opposing
US forces -- looters, criminals, remnants of Saddam Hussein's
government, foreign terrorists and those influenced by Iran.{29}
American official in Iraq maintained that many of the people shooting at
US troops are "poor young Iraqis" who have been paid between
$20 and $100 to stage hit-and-run attacks on US soldiers. "They're
not dedicated fighters," he said.
"They're
people who wanted to take a few potshots."{30} With such language
do American officials avoid dealing with the idea that any part of the
resistance is composed of Iraqi citizens who are simply demonstrating
their resentment about being bombed, invaded, occupied, tortured, slain,
and subjected to daily humiliations.
Some officials convinced themselves that it was largely the most loyal
followers of Saddam Hussein and his two sons who were behind the daily
attacks on Americans, and that with the capture or killing of the evil
family, resistance would die out; tens of millions of dollars were
offered as reward for information leading to this joyful prospect.
Thus
it was that the killing of the sons elated military personnel.
US
Army trucks with loudspeakers drove through small towns and villages to
broadcast a message about the death of Hussein's sons. "Coalition
forces have won a great victory over the Baath Party and the Saddam
Hussein regime by killing Uday and Qusay Hussein in Mosul," said
the message broadcast in Arabic. "The Baath Party has no power in
Iraq. Renounce the Baath Party or you are in great danger." It
called on all officials of Hussein's government to turn themselves
in.{31}
What
followed was several days of some of the deadliest attacks against
American personnel since the guerrilla war began.
Unfazed,
American officials in Washington and Iraq continued to suggest that the
elimination of Saddam himself would surely write finis to anti-American
actions. His capture, in December 2003, of course did no such thing.
Another way in which the political origins of anti-American terrorism
are obscured is by the common practice of blaming poverty or repression
by Middle Eastern governments (as opposed to US support for such
governments) for the creation of such terrorists.
Defenders
of US foreign policy cite this also as a way of showing how enlightened
they are. Here's Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor:
[The Middle East] is a region where hopelessness provides a
fertile ground for ideologies that convince promising youths to aspire
not to a university education, a career or family, but to blowing
themselves up, taking as many innocent lives with them as possible. We
need to address the source of the problem.{32}
There are those on the left who speak in a similar fashion, apparently
unconscious of what they're obfuscating. Their analysis confuses
terrorism with revolution.
But,
in any case, why would a person suffering from hopelessness become a
suicide bomber instead of merely committing suicide, if not for a
political reason?
September
11 Commission
On June 16, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the
United States (investigating the events of September 11, 2001), issued a
report which stated that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, regarded as the
mastermind of the attacks, wanted to personally commandeer one aircraft
and use it as a platform to denounce US policies in the Middle East.
Instead
of crashing it in a suicide attack, the report says, Mohammed planned to
kill every adult male passenger on the plane, contact the media while
airborne, and land at a US airport.
There
he would deliver his speech before releasing all the women and
children.{33}
The question once again arises: Why was Mohammed planning on denouncing
US policies in the Middle East? Why wasn't he instead planning to
denounce America's democracy, freedom, wealth and secular government, or
its music, films or clothing?
A while ago, I heard a union person on the radio proposing what he
called "a radical solution to poverty -- pay people enough to live
on."
Well, I'd like to propose a radical solution to anti-American terrorism
-- stop giving terrorists the motivation to attack America.
As
long as the United States insists that anti-American terrorists have no
good or rational reason for retaliation against the United States for
anything the US has ever done to their countries, as long as the Bush
administration feverishly experiments with one program after another to
improve America's image in the Muslim world instead of putting and end
to a foreign policy of bloody and oppressive interventions, the
"War on Terrorism" is as doomed to failure as the war on drugs
has been.
NOTES ...
1. Miami Herald, September 12, 2001
2. Agence France Presse, November 19, 2002
3. The Guardian (London), December 19, 2001, article by Duncan Campbell
4. Washington Post, August 1, 2003, p.4
5. New York Times, August 22, 1998, p.15
6. Washington Post, June 23, 2004 and June 28, p.19
7. "Bush Administration Eliminating 19-year-old International
Terrorism Report", Knight Ridder Newspapers, April 15, 2005
8. Jim Dwyer, et al., "Two Seconds Under the World" (New York,
1994), p.196; see also the statement made in court by Ramzi Ahmed Yousef,
who planned the attack, New York Times, January 9, 1998, p.B4
9. Washington Post, October 3, 2002, p.6
10. Agence France Press, December 23, 2002; Washington Post, November 9,
2002
11. Los Angeles Times, November 13, 2002, p.6
12. Associated Press, November 7, 2002
13. Associated Press, June 19, 2004
14. BBC News, April 15, 2004
15. Associated Press, November 7, 2002
16. Voice of America News, April 21, 2003
17. Washington Post, June 15, 2002
18. US Department of Defense, Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study
Task Force on DOD Responses to Transnational Threats, October 1997,
Final Report, Vol.1
19. New York Times, March 26, 1989, p.16
20. Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico, "My American Journey"
(New York, 1995), p.291
21. Boston Globe, October 12, 2001, p.28
22. Washington Post, March 27, 2003
23. Ibid., June 4, 2003, p.18
24. Ibid., July 23, 2004
25. New York Times, November 24, 2004
26. "Imperial Hubris", p.x and passim
27. Washington Post, June 26, 2004
28. Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2004, op-ed by "Anonymous"
29. Pentagon briefing, June 30, 2003
30. Washington Post, June 29, 2003
31. Ibid., July 24, 2003, p.7
32. Ibid., August 8, 2003
33. Ibid., June 17, 2004, p.14
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