http://www.zcommunications.org/znet/viewArticle/16237
Znet January 18, 2008
There Is No "War on Terror"
By Edward S. Herman and David Peterson
One of the most telling signs of the political naiveté of liberals and the
Left in the United States has been their steadfast faith in much of the
worldview that blankets the imperial state they call home. Nowhere has this
critical failure been more evident than in their acceptance of the premise
that there really is something called a "war on terror" or
"terrorism"[1]-however poorly managed its critics make it out to be-and that
righting the course of this war ought to be this country's (and the world's)
top foreign policy priority. In this perspective, Afghanistan and Pakistan
rather than Iraq ought to have been the war on terror's proper foci; most
accept that the U.S. attack on Afghanistan from October 2001 on was a
legitimate and necessary stage in the war. The tragic error of the Bush
Administration, in this view, was that it lost sight of this priority, and
diverted U.S. military action to Iraq and other theaters, reducing the
commitment where it was needed.
Of course we expect to find this line of criticism expressed by the many
former supporters who have fled from the sinking regime in Washington.[2]
But it is striking that commentators as durably hostile to Bush policies as
the New York Times's Frank Rich should accept so many of the fundamentals of
this worldview, and repeat them without embarrassment. Rich asserts that
the question "Who lost Iraq? is but a distraction from the more damning
question, Who is losing the war on terrorism?" A repeated theme of Rich's
work has been that the Cheney - Bush presidency is causing "as much damage
to fighting the war on terrorism as it does to civil liberties." Even in
late 2007, Rich still lamented the "really bad news" that, "Much as Iraq
distracted America from the war against Al Qaeda, so a strike on Iran could
ignite Pakistan, Al Qaeda's thriving base and the actual central front of
the war on terror."[3]
Other expressions of faith in something called the "war on terror" abound.
Thus in a long review of several books in which she urged "[r]evamping our
approach to terrorism" and "recapturing hearts and minds" around the world,
Harvard's Samantha Power, a top lieutenant in the humanitarian brigade,
wrote that "most Americans still rightly believe that the United States must
confront Islamic terrorism-and must be relentless in preventing terrorist
networks from getting weapons of mass destruction. But Bush's premises have
proved flawed.."[4] Most striking was Power's expression of disappointment
that "millions-if not billions-of people around the world do not see the
difference between a suicide bomber's attack on a pizzeria and an American
attack on what turns out to be a wedding party"-the broken moral compass
residing within these masses, of course, who fail to understand that only
the American attacks are legitimate and that the numerous resultant
casualties are but "tragic errors" and "collateral damage."[5]
Like Samantha Power, the What We're Fighting For statement issued in
February 2002 by the Institute for American Values and signed by 60 U.S.
intellectuals, including Jean Bethke Elshtain, Francis Fukuyama, Mary Ann
Glendon, Samuel Huntington, Harvey C. Mansfield, Will Marshall, Daniel
Patrick Moynihan, Michael Novak, Michael Walzer, George Weigel, and James Q.
Wilson, declared the war on terror a "just war." "Organized killers with
global reach now threaten all of us," it is asserted in one revealing
passage. "In the name of universal human morality, and fully conscious of
the restrictions and requirements of a just war, we support our
government's, and our society's, decision to use force of arms against
them."[6] The idea that "killers with global reach" who are far more deadly
and effective than Al Qaeda could be found at home doesn't seem to occur to
these intellectuals. And like Power, they also make what they believe a
telling distinction between the deliberate killing of civilians, as in a
suicide bombing, and "collateral damage"-type casualties even in cases where
civilian casualties are vastly larger and entirely predictable, though not
specifically intended.[7] Throughout these reflections, the purpose is to
distinguish our murderous acts from theirs. It is the latter that
constitute a "world-threatening evil...that clearly requires the use of
force to remove it."[8]
In the same mode, Princeton University international law professor Richard
Falk's early contributions to The Nation after 9/11 found a "visionary
program of international, apocalyptic terrorism" behind the events. "It is
truly a declaration of war from the lower depths," Falk wrote, a
"transformative shift in the nature of the terrorist challenge both
conceptually and tactically..There is no indication that the forces behind
the attack were acting on any basis beyond their extraordinary destructive
intent..We are poised on the brink of a global, intercivilizational war
without battlefields and borders.." Some weeks later, in a nod to "just
war" doctrine, Falk argued that the "destruction of both the Taliban regime
and the Al Qaeda network.are appropriate goals..[T]he case [against the
Taliban] is strengthened," he added, "to the degree that its governing
policies are so oppressive as to give the international community the
strongest possible grounds for humanitarian intervention."[9]
Peter Beinart, a liberal-leaning former editor of the New Republic and the
author of the 2006 book The Good Fight: Why Liberals--and Only Liberals-Can
Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, wrote in the aftermath
of Cheney - Bush's 2004 re-election: "Today, the war on terrorism is
partially obscured by the war in Iraq, which has made liberals cynical about
the purposes of U.S. power. But, even if Iraq is Vietnam, it no more
obviates the war on terrorism than Vietnam obviated the battle against
communism. Global jihad will be with us long after American troops stop
dying in Falluja and Mosul. And thus, liberalism will rise or fall on
whether it can become, again, what [Arthur] Schlesinger called 'a fighting
faith'."[10]
Even David Cole and Jules Lobel, authors of a highly-regarded critique of
Cheney - Bush policies on "Why America Is Losing the War on Terror," take
the existence of its "counterterrorism strategy" at face value; this
strategy has been a "colossal failure," they argue, because it has
"compromised our spirit, strengthened our enemies and left us less free and
less safe." The U.S. war in Iraq "permitted the Administration to turn its
focus from Al Qaeda, the organization that attacked us on 9/11, to Iraq, a
nation that did not. The Iraq war has by virtually all accounts made the
United States, the Iraqi people, many of our allies and for that matter much
of the world more vulnerable to terrorists. By targeting Iraq, the Bush
Administration not only siphoned off much-needed resources from the struggle
against Al Qaeda but also created a golden opportunity for Al Qaeda to
inspire and recruit others to attack US and allied targets. And our
invasion of Iraq has turned it into the world's premier terrorist training
ground."[11]
Elsewhere, appearing at a forum in New York City sponsored by the Open
Society Institute to discuss his work, David Cole made the remarkable
assertion that "no one argued" the post-9/11 U.S. attack on Afghanistan was
"not a legitimate act of self-defense." No less remarkable was Cole's
statement shortly thereafter that the United States' "holding [of prisoners]
at Guantanamo would not have been controversial practice had we given them
hearings at the outset," because, as Cole explained it, such hearings "would
have identified those people as to whom we had no evidence that they were
involved with Al Qaeda and then they would be released."[12]
Cole's first remark ignores the UN Charter, which allows an attack on
another state in self-defense only when an imminent attack is threatened,
and then only until such time as the Security Council acts on behalf of the
threatened state. But given the absence of such urgency and the absence of
a UN authorization, and given that the hijacker bombers of 9/11 were
independent terrorists and not agents of a state, the October 2001 U.S. war
on Afghanistan was a violation of the UN Charter and a "supreme
international crime," in the language of the Judgment at Nuremberg.[13]
Would Cole have defended Cuban or Nicaraguan or Iraqi bombing attacks on
Washington D.C. as legitimate acts of self-defense at any juncture in the
past when the United States was attacking or sponsoring an attack on these
countries? We doubt it. Cole also seems unaware that the United States
attacked after refusing the Afghan government's offer to give up bin Laden
upon the presentation of evidence of his involvement in the crime.[14]
Furthermore, the war began long after bin Laden and his forces had been
given time to exit, and was fought mainly against the Taliban government and
Afghan people, thousands of whom were killed under targeting rules that
assured and resulted in numerous "tragic errors" and can reasonably be
called war crimes.
Given the illegality and immorality of this war-now already well into its
seventh year-the killing of people in Afghanistan cannot be regarded as
"legitimate"-and neither can the taking of prisoners there under any
conditions. Cole's second remark also ignores the modes of seizure of
prisoners, some turned over in exchange for cash bounties; or their
treatment in Afghanistan, en route to Guantanamo, and in rendition
facilities, apart from delays in or absence of "hearings at the outset."
Last, Cole is wrong even on the alleged general agreement on the legitimacy
of this act of "self-defense" in Afghanistan. Despite the domestic
hysteria in the United States at the time, a number of lawyers here
contested its legitimacy .[15] Furthermore, a series of opinion polls in 37
different countries by Gallup International in late September 2001 found
that in no less than 34 of these countries, majorities opposed a U.S.
military attack on Afghanistan, preferring instead to see the events of
September 11 treated as crimes (i.e., non-militarily), with extradition and
trial for the alleged culprits. The three countries where opinion ran
against the majority in the other 34 were the United States (54%), India
(72%), and Israel (77%). Otherwise, it appears that significant and
sometimes overwhelming majorities of the world's population were opposed to
the U.S. resort to war.[16]
What War on Terror?
But talk of the "failure" of the war on terror rests on the false premise
that there really is such a war. This we reject on a number of grounds.
First, in all serious definitions of the term,[17] terror is a means of
pursuing political ends, an instrument of struggle, and it makes little
sense to talk about war against a means and instrument. Furthermore, if the
means consists of modes of political intimidation and publicity-seeking
that use or threaten force against civilians, a major problem with the
alleged "war" is that the United States and Israel also clearly use terror
and support allies and agents who do the same. The "shock and awe" strategy
that opened the 2002 invasion-occupation of Iraq was openly and explicitly
designed to terrorize the Iraq population and armed forces. Much of the
bombing and torture, and the attack that destroyed Falluja, have been
designed to instill fear and intimidate the general population and
resistance. Israel's repeated bombing attacks, ground assaults, and
targeted assassinations of Palestinians are also designed to create fear and
apathy, that is, terrorize. As longtime Labour Party official Abba Eban
admitted years ago, Israel's bombing of Lebanon civilians was based on "the
rational prospect, ultimately fulfilled, that afflicted populations [i.e.,
civilians deliberately targeted] would exert pressure for the cessation of
hostilities."[18] This was a precise admission of the use of terrorism,
and surely fits Israeli policy in the years of the alleged "war on terror."
Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has also acknowledged an intent to attack
civilians, declaring in March 2002 that "The Palestinians must be hit and it
must be very painful: we must cause them losses, victims, so that they feel
the heavy price."[19]
The United States and Israel actually engage in big-time terror, like
strategic bombing, helicopter attacks, torture on a continuing basis, and
large-scale invasions and invasion threats, not lower-casualty-inflicting
actions like occasional plane hijackings and suicide bombings. This has
long been characterized as the difference between wholesale and retail
terror, the former carried out by states and on a large scale, the latter
implemented by individuals and small groups, much smaller in scale, and
causing fewer civilian victims than its wholesale counterpart.[20] Retail
terrorists don't maintain multiple detention centers in which they employ
torture (at the height of its state terror activities in the 1970s the
Argentinian military maintained an estimated 60 such centers, according to
Amnesty International;[21] the United States today, on land bases and naval
vessels and in client state operated facilities, uses dozens of such
centers).
Furthermore, retail terror is often sponsored by the wholesale
terrorists-notoriously, the Cuban refugee network operating out of the
United States for decades, the U.S.-supported Nicaraguan contras, Savimbi's
UNITA in Angola in the 1980s, backed by both South Africa and the United
States, the South Lebanon Army supported by Israel for years, and the
Colombian rightwing death squads still in operation, with U.S. support.
Thus, a meaningful war on terror would surely involve attacks on the United
States and Israel as premier wholesale terrorists and sponsors, a notion we
have yet to find expounded by a single one of the current war-on-terror
proponents.
In short, one secret of the widespread belief that the United States and
Israel are fighting-not carrying out-terror is the remarkable capacity of
the Western media and intellectual class to ignore the standard definitions
of terror and the reality of who does the most terrorizing, and thus to
allow the Western political establishments to use the invidious word to
apply to their targets. We only retaliate and engage in "counter-terror"-our
targets started it and their lesser violence is terrorism.
A second and closely related secret of the swallowing of war-on-terror
propaganda is the ability of the swallowers to ignore the U.S. purposes and
program. They never ask: Is the United States simply responding to the 9/11
attack or do its leaders have a larger agenda for which they can use 9/11
terrorism as a cover? But this obvious question almost answers itself:
Documents of the prior decade show clearly that the Bush team was openly
hoping for another "Pearl Harbor" that would allow them to go on the
offensive and project power in the Middle East and across the globe. In the
rightfully infamous words of the Project for the New American Century
(2000), "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary
change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing
event-like a new Pearl Harbor."[22] The huge military forces that have been
built up in this country conveniently permit this power-projection by threat
and use of force, and their buildup and use has had bipartisan support,
reflecting in large measure the power and objectives of the military
establishment, military contractors, and transnational corporations. The
military buildup was not for defensive purposes in any meaningful sense; it
was for power-projection, which is to say, for offense.
In this connection we should point out that at the time of 9/11 in the year
2001, Al Qaeda was considered by most experts to be a small non-state
operation, possibly centered in Afghanistan and/or Pakistan, but loosely
sprawled across the globe, and with at most only a few thousand
operatives.[23] It is clear that such a small and diffuse operation called
for an anti-crime and intelligence response, not a war. Of course a war
could be carried out against the country which was their principal home, but
given the lags involved and the threat that a war, with its civilian
casualties and imperialist overtones, would possibly strengthen Al Qaeda,
the quick resort to war in the post-9/11 period suggests covert motives,
including vengeance and taking advantage of 9/11 for power-projection. And
while a war could be launched against Afghanistan and an attack made on Al
Qaeda headquarters, this was hardly a war on terror. Nor could the huge
military buildup that ensued have been based on a fight in Afghanistan or
against tiny Al Qaeda.[24]
It is also notable that there has been no attempt by the organizers of the
war on terror to try to stop terrorism at its source by addressing the
problems that have produced the terrorists and provided their recruiting
base. In fact, for the organizers and their supporters in the "war on
terror," raising the question of "why" is regarded as a form of apologetics
for terror, and they are uninterested in the question, satisfied with
clichés about the terrorists envy, hatred of freedom, and genetic or
religious proclivities. This is consistent with the view that getting rid of
terror is not their aim, and that in fact they need the steady flow of
resisters-terrorists which their actions produce to justify their real
purpose of power projection virtually without limit. Failure to end
terrorism is not a failure of the "war on terror," it is a necessary part of
its machinery of operation.
In short, the war on terror is an intellectual and propaganda cover,
analogous-and in many ways a successor-to the departed "Cold War," which in
its time also served as a cover for imperial expansion. Guatemala, Vietnam,
Chile, Indonesia, Zaire (and many others) were regularly subverted or
attacked on the ground of an alleged Soviet menace that had to be combated.
That menace was rarely applicable to the actual cases, and the strained
connection was often laughable. With that cover gone, pursuing terrorists is
proving to be an admirable substitute, as once again a gullible media will
accept that any targeted rebels are actual or potential terrorists and may
even have links to Al Qaeda. The FARC rebels in Colombia are terrorists, but
the government-supported rightwing paramilitaries who kill many more
civilians than FARC are not and are the beneficiaries of U.S.
"counter-terrorism" aid. Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, on the other hand, which
does not kill civilians, is accused of lack of cooperation in the U.S.
"counter-terrorism" program, and is alleged to have "links" to U.S. targets
such as Iran and Cuba, which allegedly support terrorists.[25] Egypt,
Jordan, Morocco, Algeria, and other torture-prone states are "with us" in
the war on terror; states like Venezuela, Iran and Cuba are not with us and
are easily situated as terrorist or "linked" to terrorist states.
If Al Qaeda didn't exist the United States would have had to create it, and
of course it did create it back in the 1980s, as a means of destabilizing
the Soviet Union. Al Qaeda's more recent role is a classic case of
"blowback." It is also a case of resistance to power-projection, as Al
Qaeda's terrorist activities switched from combating a Soviet occupation, to
combating U.S. intervention in Saudi Arabia, Palestine and elsewhere. It
was also spurred by lagged resentment at being used by the United States for
its Soviet destabilization purposes and then abandoned.[26]
While U.S. interventionism gave Al Qaeda a strong start, and while it
continues today to facilitate Al Qaeda recruitment, it has also provoked
resistance far beyond Al Qaeda, as in Iraq, where most of the resistance has
nothing to do with Al Qaeda and in fact has widely turned against it. If as
the United States projects power across the globe this produces resistance,
and if this resistance can be labeled "terrorists," then U.S. aggression and
wholesale terror are home-free! Any country that is willing to align with
the United States can get its dissidents and resistance condemned as
"terrorists," with or without links to Al Qaeda, and get U.S. military aid.
The war on terror is a war of superpower power-projection, which is to say,
an imperialist war on a global scale.
The issue of who terrorizes whom is hardly new. Back in 1979, Noam Chomsky
and Edward Herman's The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism
featured the U.S. terror gulag in great detail, and even had a frontispiece
showing the flow of economic and military aid from the United States to 26
of the 35 countries using torture on an administrative basis in that era.
Herman's The Real Terror Network of 1982 also traced out a U.S.-sponsored
terror gulag and showed its logical connection to the growth of the
transnational corporation and desire for friendly state-terrorists who would
produce favorable climates of investment (recall Philippine dictator
Ferdinand Marcos's statement to U.S. oil companies back at the time of his
1972 accession to power: "We'll pass laws you need-just tell us what you
want."[27]). But these works were ignored in the mainstream and could hardly
compete with Claire Sterling's The Terror Network, which traced selected
retail terrorisms-falsely-to the Soviet Union. This fit the Reagan-era "war
on terror" claims, which coincided with the Reagan era support of Israel's
attack on Lebanon and subsequent "iron fist" terrorism there, Reagan's
support of the Argentine military regime, Suharto, Marcos, South Africa, the
Guatemalan and Salvadoran terror regimes, Savimbi, the Cuban terror network,
and the Nicaraguan contras.
This historical record of U.S. terrorism and support of terrorism
occasionally surfaces in the mainstream, but is brushed aside on the ground
that the United States has taken a new course, so that long record can be
ignored. In a classic of this genre, Michael Ignatieff, writing in the New
York Times Magazine, claimed that this was so because President George Bush
said so! "The democratic turn in American foreign policy has been recent,"
he wrote, adding that at long last, the current George Bush has "actually
risked his presidency on the premise that Jefferson might be right."[28]
This capacity to ignore history, and the institutional underpinning of that
history, complements the mainstream media and intellectuals' ability to take
as a premise that the United States is virtuous and in its foreign dealings
is trying to do good or is just defending itself against bad people and
movements who for no good reason hate us. As noted, the amazing definitional
systems in use are de facto Alice-in-Wonderland: Terrorism is anything I
choose to target and so designate.
Two novelties of the Bush era projection of power and wholesale terrorism
are their brazenness and scope. Past U.S. employment of torture, and of
gulags in which to hold and work-over alleged or possible terrorists or
resisters, were more or less sub rosa, the cruelties and violations of
international law and U.S. involvement kept more or less plausibly deniable.
The Bush team is open about them, calling for legalization of torture and
their other violations of international law, which they rationalize by
heavy-handed redefinitions of "torture" and claims of the inapplicability
of international law to their new category of "enemy combatants."[29] Bush
also brags in public about the extension of the U.S. killing machine to
distant places and the extent to which declared enemies have been removed,
implicitly by killing, obviously without hearing or trial. On September 17,
2001, Bush signed a "classified Presidential Finding that authorized an
unprecedented range of covert operations," the Washington Post later
reported, including "lethal measures against terrorists and the expenditure
of vast funds to coax foreign intelligence services into a new era of
cooperation with the CIA."[30] And in his State of the Union speech of 2003,
Bush asserted that "more than 3,000 suspected terrorists" had been arrested
across the globe "and many others have met a different fate-Let's put it
this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends
and allies."[31] As Chris Floyd has pointed out, this represents the work of
a "universal death squad,"[32] the authorization and accomplishments of
which were barely acknowledged in the mainstream media.
U.S. state-terrorism has also been broadened in scope and is a facet of
globalization. In accord with the principles of globalization, there has
been a major increase in the privatization of terrorism. Blackwater
Worldwide is only the best known of mercenary armies in Iraq that now
outnumber regular armed force members, and who are free from some of the
legal constraints of the armed forces in how they treat the local
population. The global American gulag of secret prisons and torture centers
to which an unknown number of people have been sent, held without trial,
worked over and sometimes killed as well as tortured, is located in many
countries: The "spider's web" first described by a Council of Europe
investigation identified landings and takeoffs at no fewer than 30 airports
on four different continents;[33] and earlier research by Human Rights First
estimated that the United States was operating dozens of major and lesser
known detention centers as part of its "war on terror": These included the
obvious cases of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq, the U.S.
Air Force base at Bagram in Afghanistan, Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, and other
suspected centers in Pakistan, Jordan, Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean,
and on U.S. Navy ships at sea.[34] Still others are operated by client and
other states at the torture-producing end of the "extraordinary rendition"
chain (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Morocco). Given the vastness of this U.S.
enterprise, surely we are talking about tens-of-thousands of prisoners, a
great many picked-up and tortured based on rumor, the inducement of bonus
payments, denunciations in vendettas, and accidents of name or location.[35]
We know that a great majority of those imprisoned in sweeps in Iraq were
taken without the slightest information on wrong-doing even on
aggressor-occupier terms.[36] There is strong anecdotal evidence that
suggests that the same is true in Afghanistan.
Another notable feature of the "war on terror" is the extent to which this
mythical war has been advanced via the UN and the "international community,"
the UN's work in particular serving as an extension of U.S. policy. This
has been in marked contrast to their treatment of open aggression and
violations of the UN Charter's prohibition of aggressive war. Time and
again the United States and Israel have violated this fundamental
international law during the past decade, and they are clearly the global
leaders in state-terrorism that many observers believe to be the main force
inspiring a global resistance and spurring on various forms of Islamic
terrorism, including Al Qaeda. But instead of focusing on the causal wars
and state-terrorism, following the U.S. lead the UN and international
community have focused on the lesser and derivative terrorism, and taken the
"war on terror" at face value. In other words, they have once again assumed
the role of servants of U.S. policy, in this instance helping the aggressor
states and wholesale terrorists struggle against the retail terror they
inspire.
We can trace this pattern at least as far back as October 1999 (almost two
years before 9/11), when the Security Council adopted Resolution 1267 "on
the situation in Afghanistan." This Resolution deplored that the "Taliban
continues to provide safe haven to Usama bin Laden," and it demanded that
the "Taliban turn over Usama bin Laden without further delay to appropriate
authorities in a country where he has been indicted." 1267 also created the
Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee to manage this effort to squeeze
the Taliban and anyone linkable to either of them.[37] At the time, bin
Laden had been indicted by a U.S. Federal Court for his alleged involvement
in the August 1998 suicide bombings at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and
Tanzania, killing some 250 people; Al Qaeda had also been designated a
terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State. "The international
community has sent a clear message," President Bill Clinton announced. "The
choice between co-operation and isolation lies with the Taliban." But the
Taliban complained that "This unfair action was taken under the pressure of
the United States..So far, there has not been any evidence of Osama's
involvement in terrorism by any one"-essentially the same retort that the
Taliban made to Bush White House demands after 9/11 that the Taliban
surrender bin Laden.[38] 1267 thus extended key components of the 1996 U.S.
Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act's category of states
designated "not cooperating with U.S. anti-terrorism efforts" beyond U.S.
borders to the level of internationally-enforceable law.
Only four days after 1267, the Council adopted companion Resolution 1269 "on
the responsibility of the Security Council in the maintenance of
international peace and security." 1269 condemned the "practices of
terrorism as criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation,"
and stressed the "vital role" of the UN "in combating terrorism."[39]
Similarly, Resolution 1373, adopted shortly after the 9/11 attacks and just
days before the United States launched its war to remove the Taliban,
greatly expanded the UN's involvement in the U.S. "war on terror," creating
the Counter-Terrorism Committee to manage the fight against terrorism and
criminalizing all forms of support for individuals and groups engaged in
terrorism. Like 1267 and, later, 1540 (April 24, 2004), which created a
committee to prevent "non-State actors" from acquiring "weapons of mass
destruction,"[40] the Security Council adopted each of these resolutions
under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, on the basis of which the Council is to
supposed to respond to "threats to the peace, breaches of the peace, and
acts of aggression."
All of this vigilance with respect to "terrorism," and the notion that
"non-State actors" and "terrorists" of the Al Qaeda variety deserve this
intense UN concern, stands in dramatic contrast with the treatment of
literal aggression, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, and genocidal actions such
as the U.S.-U.K.-UN "sanctions of mass destruction" that killed possibly a
million Iraqi civilians during the years between the first and second wars
against Iraq, ca. 1991-2003.[41] Yet, in his report In larger freedom
(March, 2005), Kofi Annan argued that "It is time to set aside debates on
so-called 'State terrorism'. The use of force by States is already
thoroughly regulated under international law. And the right to resist
occupation must be understood in its true meaning. It cannot include the
right to deliberately kill or maim civilians."[42]
But these comments contain a major falsehood and reflect serious
pro-state-terrorism and anti-resistance bias-there is no "thorough"
regulation of state-terrorism, and in fact there is none at all, as
evidenced by the fact that the United States and its allies have been able
to attack three countries in a single decade (the Federal Republic of
Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, and Iraq) without the slightest impediment from
Kofi Annan's United Nations,[43] but also in each case with the UN's ex post
facto assent. Note also Annan's failure to suggest that states should not
have the "right to deliberately kill or maim civilians," a concern that he
exhibits only as regards resisters to state violence and occupation. This
despite the fact that in their recent and ongoing wars the United States and
its allies have killed, maimed, starved, and driven from their homes vastly
more civilians than has Al Qaeda or all of the world's retail terrorists
combined. Note also that within the targeted countries, political leaders
have been captured by these aggressors, and subjected to trial by
tribunals-but never the leadership of the great powers. In pursuing their
enemies to the farthest reaches of the earth, they continue to enjoyed
complete impunity.[44]
Concluding Note
In sum, the war on terror is a political gambit and myth used to cover over
a U.S. projection of power that needed rhetorical help with the
disappearance of the Soviet Union and Cold War. It has been successful
because U.S. leaders could hide behind the very real 9/11 terrorist attack
and pretend that their own wars, wholesale terrorist actions, and enlarged
support of a string of countries-many authoritarian and engaged in state
terrorism-were somehow linked to that attack and its Al Qaeda authors. But
most U.S. military actions abroad since 9/11 have had little or no
connection with Al Qaeda; and you cannot war on a method of struggle,
especially when you, your allies and clients use those methods as well.
It is widely argued now that the war on terror has been a failure. This also
is a fallacy, resting on the imputation of purpose to the war's organizers
contrary to their actual aims-they were looking for and found the new "Pearl
Harbor" needed to justify a surge of U.S. force projection across the
globe. It appears that Al Qaeda is stronger now than it was on September 11,
2001; but Al Qaeda was never the main target of the Bush administration. If
Al Qaeda had been, the Bush administration would have tried much more
seriously to apprehend bin Laden, by military or political action, and it
would not have carried out policies in Iraq, Palestine, Pakistan, Iran and
elsewhere that have played so well into bin Laden's hand-arguably, policy
responses that bin Laden hoped to provoke. If Washington really had been
worried at the post-9/11 terrorist threat it would have followed through on
the 9/11 Commission's recommendations for guarding U.S. territory (ports,
chemical plants, nuclear facilities, airports and other transportation hubs,
and the like).[45] The fact that it hasn't done this, but instead has
adopted a cynical and politicized system of terrorism alerts, is testimony
to the administration's own private understanding of the contrived character
of the war on terror and the alleged threats that we face.
Admittedly, the surge in power projection that 9/11 and the war on terror
facilitated has not been a complete and unadulterated success. But the "war
on terror" gambit did enable this surge to come about, and it should be
recognized that the invasion-occupation of Iraq was not a diversion, its
conquest was one of the intended objectives of this war. That conquest may
be in jeopardy, but looked at from the standpoint of its organizers, the
war has achieved some of the real goals for which it was designed; and in
this critical but seldom appreciated sense it has been a success. It has
facilitated two U.S. military invasions of foreign countries, served to
line-up many other states behind the leader of the war, helped once again to
push NATO into new, out-of-area operations, permitted a further advance in
the U.S. disregard of international law, helped bring about quasi-regime
changes in some major European capitals, and was the basis for the huge
growth in U.S. and foreign military budgets. While its destabilization of
the Middle East has possibly benefited Iran, it has given Israel a free hand
in accelerated ethnic cleansing, settlements, and more ruthless treatment of
the Palestinians, and the United States and Israel still continue to
threaten and isolate Iran.
Furthermore, with the cooperation of the Democrats and mass media, the "war
on terror" gave the "decider" and his clique the political ability to impose
an unconstitutional, rightwing agenda at home, at the expense of the rule
of law, economic equality, environmental and other regulation, and social
solidarity. The increased military budget and militarization of U.S.
society, the explosive growth in corporate "counter-terrorism" and "homeland
security" enterprises, the greater centralization of power in the executive
branch, the enhanced inequality, the unimpeded growth of the
prison-industrial complex, the more rightwing judiciary, and the failure of
the Democrats to do anything to counter these trends since the 2006
election, suggests that the shift to the right and to a more militarized
society and expansionist foreign policy may have become permanent features
of life in the United States. Is that not a war on terror success story,
given the aims of its creators?
Endnotes
[1] We will use the phrases 'war on terror' and 'war on terrorism'
interchangeably. Nor are we aware of any nuance in meaning to be gained by
distinguishing one phrase from the other. This caveat also holds for the
similar phrase 'global war on terror'. (Etc.)
[2] See, e.g., Francis Fukuyama, America at the Crossroads: Democracy, Power
and the Neoconservative Legacy (Yale University Press, 2006). Along with 24
others that included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Zalmay
Khalilzad, Lewis Libby, Paula Dobriansky, and Norman Podhoretz, Fukuyama was
a founding member of the Project for the New American Century, whose efforts
to "rally support for the cause of American global leadership" and a
"Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity" the world
continues to suffer beneath.-See the Project's "Statement of Principles,"
June 3, 1997.
[3] Frank Rich, "Where Were You That Summer of 2001?" New York Times,
February 25, 2007; "The Wiretappers That Couldn't Shoot Straight," January
8, 2006; and "Noun + Verb + 9/11 + Iran = Democrats' Defeat?" New York
Times, November 4, 2007.
[4] Samantha Power, "Our War on Terror," New York Times Book Review, July
29, 2007.-Power also used this review to lavish praise on the recently
updated The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual
(University of Chicago Press, 2007), assembled by U.S. Army General David
Petraeus et al., the current commander of the U.S.-led Multinational Force
in occupied Iraq, along with critical input from members of the humanitarian
brigades, including Sarah Sewall, a colleague of Power's at Harvard's Carr
Center for Human Rights Policy.
[5] Note that Samantha Power implies that an "American [bombing] attack on
what turns out to be a wedding party" is a unique and excusable "error."
This is false. It was not even the only wedding party bombed in Iraq and
Afghanistan by U.S. forces, and the notable feature of both U.S. wars in
these countries is the lavish use of devastatingly powerful explosives in
places where civilian casualties are certain. In Afghanistan, the United
States has bombed every kind of civilian infrastructure-dams, telephone
exchanges, schools, power stations, bridges, trucks on roads, mosques, Al
Jazeera radio, and even the well-marked Red Cross facilities in Kabul. It
has also used cluster bombs on a massive scale. In his exhaustive analysis
of civilian casualties, Marc W. Herold states that the 3,000-3,400 civilian
deaths resulting from U.S. bombing in the period October 7, 2001 - March
2002 can be explained best by "the low value put upon Afghan civilian lives
by U.S. military planners and the political elite, as clearly revealed by
their willingness to bomb heavily populated areas." He concludes that "the
U.S. bombing campaign which began on the evening of October 7th, has been a
war upon the people, the homes, the farms and the villages of Afghanistan,
as well as upon the Taliban and Al Qaeda." (Marc W. Herold, "A Dossier on
Civilian Victims of United States' Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan," Revised
Edition, March 2002.) This bombing war relied heavily on people like
Samantha Power and the media to keep the ruthlessly anti-civilian character
of this war out of public sight. (Also see Tom Engelhardt, "'Accidents' of
War: The Time Has Come for an Honest Discussion of Air Power," TomDispatch,
July 9, 2007.)
[6] What We're Fighting For: A Letter from America, Institute for American
Values, February, 2002. This document is also reproduced in David
Blankenhorn et al., The Islam/West Debate: Documents from a Global Debate on
Terrorism, U.S. Policy, and the Middle East (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005),
pp. 21-40.
[7] For a critique of this notion of civilian deaths as "collateral damage,"
a legal ploy by which Americans distinguish the "unintended" deaths caused
by their "far more terrifying violence" from the "premeditated" deaths
caused by enemies, see Michael Mandel, How America Gets Away With Murder:
Illegal Wars, Collateral Damage and Crimes Against Humanity (Pluto Press,
2004), pp. 46-56.
[8] In their discussion "A Just War?" the Institute for American Values
asserted: "Although in some circumstances, and within strict limits, it can
be morally justifiable to undertake military actions that may result in the
unintended but foreseeable death or injury of some noncombatants, it is not
morally acceptable to make the killing of noncombatants the operational
objective of a military action." They continued: "On September 11, 2001, a
group of individuals deliberately attacked the United States..Those who died
on the morning of September 11 were killed unlawfully, wantonly, and with
premeditated malice - a kind of killing that, in the name of precision, can
only be described as murder..Those who slaughtered more than 3,000 persons
on September 11 and who, by their own admission, want nothing more than to
do it again, constitute a clear and present danger to all people of good
will everywhere in the world, not just the United States. Such acts are a
pure example of naked aggression against innocent human life, a
world-threatening evil that clearly requires the use of force to remove it."
(What We're Fighting For: A Letter from America, Institute for American
Values, February, 2002.)
[9] Richard Falk, "A Just Response," The Nation, October 8, 2001; and
"Defining a Just War," The Nation, October 29, 2001.-To his credit, Falk was
under no illusions that the Cheney - Bush regime would heed any limits on
the use of force.
[10] Peter Beinart, "A Fighting Faith," New Republic, December 13, 2004 (as
posted to the Free Republic website). Also see his The Good Fight: Why
Liberals--and Only Liberals-Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great
Again (HarperCollins, 2006).
[11] David Cole and Jules Lobel, "Why We're Losing the War on Terror," The
Nation, September 24, 2007. Also see their Less Safe, Less Free: Why
America Is Losing the War on Terror (The New Press, 2007), esp. Ch. 5, "The
Costs of Overreaching," pp. 129-146.
[12] "OSI Forum-Less Safe, Less Free," Open Society Institute, November 14,
2007. -David Cole's own words were: "I just don't see anybody around the
world who has questioned the notion that the United States has the right to
respond to the attacks that we suffered [on September 11, 2001] by going to
Afghanistan. There are people who say it wasn't the best policy. But no
one argued it was not a legitimate act of self-defense." And: "If you have
the right to go to war-you have the right to kill the people you're fighting
against-surely you have the right to hold them for the duration of that
conflict. So that's not a controversial issue. And holding them at
Guantanamo would not have been controversial practice had we given them
hearings at the outset. Which, for one, would have identified those people
as to whom we had no evidence that they were involved with Al Qaeda and
then they would be released-and then we wouldn't have the problem of
innocent people being held at Guantanamo." (Our transcription picks-up
Cole's remarks beginning at approximately the 49:35 minute mark of the
full-length audio clip.)
[13] "The charges in the Indictment that the defendants planned and waged
aggressive wars are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an
evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states
alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression,
therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme
international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains
within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." See Final Judgment of the
International Military Tribunal for the Trial of German Major War Criminals
(September 30, 1946), specifically "The Common Plan or Conspiracy and
Aggressive War," from which this passage derives.
[14] According to Radio Voice of Shari'ah in Mazar-e Sharif, the capital of
Balkh province in northern Afghanistan, "senior officials" of the Taliban
released a statement as early as September 13, 2001 in which they "honestly
asked America to give clear and substantial evidence for what it considers
Usamah to be responsible for, and the [Taliban] will hand him over to one of
the Islamic courts of the world in order to be tried. The stance of the
[Taliban] is clear in this regard. Otherwise, nobody can accuse others by
bringing false and groundless allegations." In the same statement, the
Taliban "condemn" the events of 9/11, calling them "against the welfare and
interests of the world." The Taliban also "expresses its sympathy for the
American people," adding that it "expects the USA not to resort to
irreparable measures before discovering the facts." ("Afghan Taleban ready
to hand Bin-Ladin to Islamic court if USA provides evidence - radio," BBC
Monitoring Central Asia, September 13, 2001.) News of this and subsequent
offers communicated by Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, the Taliban's foreign
minister, and by Abdul Salam Zaeef, the Taliban's ambassador to Pakistan,
were reported by Reuters, The Herald (Glasgow), the New York Times, the
Washington Post, the International Herald Tribune, the Boston Globe, and The
Independent (London). But as the record makes clear, no one will ever know
how genuine these offers really were-the Bush White House categorically
rejected them, and the offers died there.
[15] Among the professors of law at U.S. universities who contested the
legality of the U.S. war on Afghanistan are Marjorie Cohn, currently
president of the National Lawyers Guild, Michael Ratner, now president of
the Center for Constitutional Rights, Francis Boyle, Brian Foley, Jordan
Paust, and John Quigley.
[16] See "Gallup International poll on terrorism in the U.S. (figures),"
Gallup International, late September, 2001. Also see Abid Aslam, "Polls
Question Global Support for Military Campaign," Inter-Press Service, October
8, 2001; and David Miller, "World Opinion Opposed the Attack on
Afghanistan," Sterling Media Research Center, Scotland, November 21, 2001
(as posted to the Religion-online website). Miller noted that "When polling
companies do ask about alternatives [to the war-option], support for war
falls away." Hence, he added, this was the reason why so much news media
coverage systematically distorts the facts away from informing people about
real alternatives and the real impact of the war on Afghanistan. In
Pakistan, a case with great resonance today, a Gallup International poll
sponsored by Newsweek in the early days after the start of the U.S. war
found that "Eighty-three percent of Pakistanis surveyed say they side with
the Taliban, with a mere 3 percent expressing support for the United
States." ("Shifting Sympathies," Newsweek Web Exclusive, October 18, 2001.)
[17] Here we are content to cite two definitions of terrorism. (1)
"[V]violent acts or acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the
criminal laws of the United States or of any State, or that would be a
criminal violation if committed within the jurisdiction of the United States
or of any State;" and that "appear to be intended - (i) to intimidate or
coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government
by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government
by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping.." (United States Code,
Title 18, Part I, Ch. 113B, Section 2331, 1984.) And (2) "Any action.that
is intended to cause death or serious bodily harm to civilians or
non-combatants, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is
to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international
organization to do or to abstain from doing any act." (A more secure world:
Our shared responsibility. Report of the Secretary-General's High-level
Panel on Threats (New York: United Nations, 2004), par. 164(d).)
[18] Abba Eban, "Morality and Warfare," Jerusalem Post, August 16, 1981.
[19] In Matt Rees, "Streets Red With Blood," Time Magazine, March 10, 2002.
[20] See, e.g., Edward S. Herman, The Real Terror Network: Terrorism in Fact
and Propaganda (South End Press, 1982), esp. Ch. 2, "The Semantics and Role
of Terrorism," pp. 21-45; and with Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism"
Industry: The Experts and Institutions That Shape Our View of Terror
(Pantheon Books, 1989), esp. Ch. 3, "The Western Model and Semantics of
Terrorism," pp. 37-51.
[21] Oscar Alfredo González and Horacio Cid de la Paz, Testimony on Secret
Detention Camps in Argentina (Amnesty International, 1980).
[22] Thomas Donnelly et al., Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy,
Forces, and Resources for a New Century, Project for the New American
Century, September, 2000, p. 51, col. 1.-Also see n. 2, above.
[23] The last major "terrorism" report by the U.S. Department of State prior
to 9/11 was Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000 (April 30, 2001). Within its
Appendix B, "Background Information on Terrorist Groups," the entry for
"al-Qaida" stated that the group "May have several hundred to several
thousand members," adding that "Bin Ladin.is said to have inherited
approximately $300 million that he uses to finance the group." In the
Congressional Research Services' last major assessment of "Near Eastern
Terrorism" published the day before 9/11, the CRS reported that "Bin Ladin
is estimated to have about $300 million in personal financial assets with
which he funds his network of as many as 3,000 Islamic militants." (Kenneth
Katzman, Terrorism: Near Eastern Groups and State Sponsors, 2001,
Congressional Research Service, September 10, 2001, p. 13.)
[24] According to conservative estimates on global military trends in the
annual Yearbook published by the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, whereas the last Clinton budget for fiscal year 2001 devoted $345
billion to military account, by fiscal year 2006, Bush's fifth, this had
increased to at least $529 billion (i.e., both in constant 1985 dollars).
The SIPRI Yearbook 2007 reports that "U.S. outlays.increased by 53
percent.between 2001 and 2006, primarily as a result of allocations of $381
billion for military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere." World
military expenditure in 2001 was $839 billion, but by 2006 was "estimated to
have reached $1204 billion in current U.S. dollars," an increase of "37
percent between 1997 and 2006." The primary driver of these huge increases:
The mythical Global War on Terror which, in reality, has witnessed the most
aggressive U.S. and allied military expansion in history. (See SIPRI
Yearbook 2002 Summary, pp. 12-13; and SIPRI Yearbook 2007 Summary, pp.
12-13.)
[25] See, e.g., Larry Birns and Michael Lettieri, "Washington May Soon Try
to Pin the Venezuelan Uranium Tail on the Iranian Nuclear Donkey," Council
on Hemispheric Affairs, May 9, 2006; and Larry Birns and Tiffany Isaacs,
"Chávez Could Fuel U.S. Propaganda Campaign with Upcoming Bilateral talks
with Kim Jong Il, If Misguided Strategy Is Adopted," Council on Hemispheric
Affairs, July 16, 2006.
[26] See Chalmers Johnson, "Abolish the CIA!," TomDispatch, November 5,
2004. Also see Johnson's Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American
Empire, 2nd. Ed. (Metropolitan Books, 2004).
[27] "Philippines: A government that needs U.S. business," Business Week,
November 4, 1972.
[28] Michael Ignatieff, "Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs
to Spread?" New York Times Magazine, June 26, 2005 (as posted to the
Harvard University website).
[29] See, e.g., Marjorie Cohn, Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has
Defied the Law (PoliPoint Press, 2007).
[30] Dana Priest, "Foreign Network at Front of CIA's Terror Fight,"
Washington Post, November 18, 2005.
[31] George W. Bush, "President Delivers 'State of the Union'," White House
Office of the Press Secretary, January 28, 2003.
[32] Chris Floyd, "Sacred Terror," Moscow Times, December 8, 2005 (as posted
by the Information Clearing House).
[33] Dick Marty et al., Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state
transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe member states (Doc.
10957), Council of Europe, June 12, 2006,. Annex, "The global 'spider's
web'." Also see Christos Pourgourides et al., Enforced Disappearances (Doc.
10679), Council of Europe, September 19, 2005; and Dick Marty et al., Secret
detentions and illegal transfers of detainees involving Council of Europe
member states: Second report (AS/Jur/2007/36), Council of Europe, June 7,
2007.
[34] Deborah Pearlstein et al., Ending Secret Detentions, Human Right First,
June, 2004.
[35] Also see Deborah Pearlstein and Priti Patel, Behind the Wire: An Update
to Ending Secret Detentions, Human Rights First, March, 2005; and Guantanamo
and beyond: The continuing pursuit of unchecked executive power, Amnesty
International, May 13, 2005.
[36] Based on interviews that it conducted in late 2003 and early 2004 with
U.S. military personnel serving in Iraq, a confidential report that the
International Committee of the Red Cross used to highlight prisoner abuses
at Abu Ghraib and other prisons run by the occupying forces is reputed to
have estimated that "70 percent to 90 percent of prisoners had been wrongly
arrested"-and, we might add, this is assuming that the occupying forces had
any right to arrest anybody. See Peter Slevin, "System Failures Cited for
Delayed Action on Abuses," Washington Post, May 20, 2004; and R. Jeffrey
Smith, "Army Report Warned in November About Prison Problems," Washington
Post, May 30, 2004.
[37] Resolution 1267 (S/RES/1267), October 15, 1999.
[38] Anthony Goodman, "UN sanctions on Taliban to surrender Bin Laden
force," The Independent, October 16, 1999; "Taleban slams U.N. sanctions
over Osama bin Laden," Deutsche Presse-Agentur, October 16, 1999.-Among the
body of statements attributed to bin Laden over many years are several that
identify the United Nations with the United States precisely because, in his
view, various agencies of the UN have aligned themselves with the U.S. "war
on terror."
[39] Resolution 1269 (S/RES/1269), October 19, 1999. Barbara Crossette,
"U.N. Council in Rare Accord: Fight Terrorism," New York Times, October 20,
1999.
[40] Resolution 1373 (S/RES/1373), September 28, 2001; Resolution 1540
(S/RES/1540), April 28, 2004.
[41] John Mueller and Karl Mueller, "Sanctions of Mass Destruction," Foreign
Affairs, May/June, 1999.-These authors noted that economic sanctions (i.e.,
warfare) have been "deployed frequently, by large states rather than small
ones, and may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era
than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history..The destructive
potential of economic sanctions can be seen most clearly, albeit in an
extreme form, in Iraq..No one knows with any precision how many Iraqi
civilians have died as a result, but various agencies of the United Nations,
which oversees the sanctions, have estimated that they have contributed to
hundreds of thousands of deaths..If the U.N. estimates of the human damage
in Iraq are even roughly correct,.it would appear that.economic sanctions
may well have been a necessary cause of the deaths of more people in Iraq
than have been slain by all so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout
history."
[42] Kofi Annan, In larger freedom: towards development, security and human
rights for all (A/59/2005), United Nations, March 21, 2005, par. 91.
[43] In the case of Operation Allied Force, the U.S.-led NATO bloc's 1999
aggression against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, Kofi Annan had
quietly advocated on behalf of war for as many as nine months in advance of
it.-See, e.g., Kofi Annan, "Secretary-General Reflects on Intervention"
(SG/SM/6613), Ditchley Foundation Lecture, United Kingdom, June 26, 1998;
and Kofi Annan, "Secretary-General Calls for Unconditional Respect for Human
Rights of Kosovo Citizens" (SG/SM/6878), NATO Headquarters, Belgium, January
28, 1999. As Annan delivered these lectures in the context of NATO's
threats of war, we hardly believe that they can be taken as calls for NATO
to stand down.
[44] In the Legality of Use of Force cases (1999 - 2004), brought by the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia against ten of the members of NATO that
attacked it in 1999, the International Court of Justice ruled that as the
defendant-powers refused to recognize the ICJ's jurisdiction in the cases
brought before it by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the ICJ "manifestly
lacks jurisdiction to entertain Yugoslavia's Application" and "cannot
therefore indicate any provisional measure whatsoever"-that is, lacking
jurisdiction, it cannot issue an injunction or rule on the legality of
NATO's use of force. (See, e.g., Yugoslavia v. United States of America,
June 2, 1999. Each of the other nine cases wound up the same.)
[45] The 9/11 Commission Report, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States, July 22, 2004, esp. Ch. 12, "What To Do? A Global
Strategy," and Ch. 13, " How To Do It? A Different Way of Organizing the
Government." As recently as the first week of January 2008, former
Commission co-chairs Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton complained about the
CIA's withholding of evidence and obstruction of the Commission's inquiry.
See "Stonewalled by the C.I.A.," New York Times, January 2, 2008.
There Is No "War on Terror"
by nvrgnbk 8 Replies latest jw friends
-
nvrgnbk
-
nvrgnbk
If Al Qaeda didn't exist the United States would have had to create it, and
of course it did create it back in the 1980s, as a means of destabilizing
the Soviet Union. Al Qaeda's more recent role is a classic case of
"blowback." It is also a case of resistance to power-projection, as Al
Qaeda's terrorist activities switched from combating a Soviet occupation, to
combating U.S. intervention in Saudi Arabia, Palestine and elsewhere. It
was also spurred by lagged resentment at being used by the United States for
its Soviet destabilization purposes and then abandoned.[26] -
AlphaOmega
NVR,
Hi
You have a PM
-
Merry Magdalene
Good article. Thanks for posting.
~Merry
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jaguarbass
The war on terror is something the dingbats W. and Dick came up with.
W. probably got it from that wire running up the back of his suit coat at the presidential debate.
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frankiespeakin
Nev,
Good article much "food for thought"(to quote a common JW phrase). I think people who write these type articles are waking up many to the utter absurdity of the propaganda "War on Terror" in the US. The more people wise up to this bullshit the greater chance we have from avioding disasters caused by Imperialist aims of the US war machine. The US spends vast amounts of tax dollars on this war machine and any build up of the military on the scale seen in the US leads to one thing and one thing only War&Conquest one of the many tools of Imperialist to used to control and exploit.
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sammielee24
Of course there is no 'war on terror'. I didn't read all the article because of it's length...but the 'war on terror' has never been anything more than a concept. A concept only. Terror happens every day and is applied to many people in so many ways - just putting the red/yellow/orange warnings on television and on the outside of some minimarts, is in itself a form of psychological terror. It keeps people scared and immobilized, keeps them under control by security rules that imply increased security, give the illusion of being safe, but in actual fact may do little. It's just a concept to rationalize aggression and put fear in the minds of people in hopes that they buy into that rationalization. sammieswife.
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Merry Magdalene
Here's an article you might also appreciate:
January 17, 2008
Saving the American Empire with Robert Kaplan
Eternal War
By PATRICK IRELAN
I n the early 1990's, Robert Kaplan went to West Africa and saw the future: Disease, overpopulation, crime, war, refugees, private armies, scarce resources, ecological disasters, and various other evils were about to reduce the entire region to a condition in which life would be as "nasty, brutish, and short" as anything ever imagined by Thomas Hobbes.
Kaplan's vision of Africa's future appeared in "The Coming Anarchy," an article in the February 1994 edition of the Atlantic Monthly. He subsequently attached the same title to a book published in 2001. From the more dismal part of whatever library he uses, Kaplan summoned Thomas Malthus, "the philosopher of demographic doomsday, who is now the prophet of West Africa's future. And West Africa's future, eventually, will also be that of most of the rest of the world."
While waiting for West Africa to slide into the ocean, Kaplan became an accepted authority on military matters. The Atlantic put him on salary. Military scribes called him brilliant. The American Navy, always eager for a new trick, hired him to lecture at the U.S. Naval Academy.
But by November of 2007, over a decade after "The Coming Anarchy" appeared in the AtlanticMonthly, Kaplan had returned both Hobbes and Malthus to the open stacks and someone had resuscitated West Africa, which Malthus had led us to believe was as close to dead as the west end of a continent can get. Who performed this miracle? The Pentagon. Who else?
"Africa matters," Kaplan explains with the first two words of "The Next Frontier," a revelation from the leased wires of TheAtlantic.com, November 1, 2007. With his gift of prophecy again in control of the keyboard, Kaplan writes, "The Pentagon's decision to stand up a war-fighting command exclusively for Africa by the end of 2008 presages a new direction for the global war on terrorism."
It's so like the Pentagon to revive a continent with a global war.
But why would the happy warriors in the Pentagon want to "stand up" a command for Africa, which only recently, in whole or in part, was so close to death that we were ready to re-shelve it with Hobbes and Malthus forever?
Kaplan explains: "Without seeking to conquer or govern anything, the American military is pursuing a strategy of security linkages similar to those of the French 150 years ago."
Conquering and governing cost too much. The Pentagon's plan to save Africa and (as we will see) the rest of the world for the American Empire contains a money-saving bonus. "No permanent bases will be needed, just cooperative security facilities owned by the host country and supported by civilian contractors, used quietly and austerely by the Americans." The writing in this sentence presents a verbal shell game, concealing all the familiar ingredients of the "War on Terror"-mercenaries, torture, assassinations, and unlimited cash for the purchase of intelligence that may or may not be true-all contained within "cooperative security facilities" used "quietly and austerely." How cleverly we hide our evil.
But there's even more. Kaplan goes on to say that at one time he favored "major military involvement in the Middle East." That's what he wanted it, and that's what he got. Iraq and Afghanistan were pretty major. But Kaplan has changed his mind. It's a little late, but what does he want now?
What he wants now is "a low-hanging-fruit strategy aimed at discreetly killing select groups of Islamic terrorists here and there." This "here and there" sounds a little vague, but Kaplan has plenty of details to relieve our doubts. He refers to the kind of combat that requires "small-scale elite ground units" that will engage in long wars requiring no exit strategy, wars that will last forever if necessary. These wars will be "relentless and low-key," involving "small-scale military strikes that do not generate bad publicity" or, one suspects, any publicity at all, given that small wars are the easiest to conduct in secret.
In 2005, Imperial Grunts crept into a bookstore near you. It explains everything about Kaplan's new enthusiasm for low-hanging-fruit assassinations, elite ground units, and eternal war.
The first thing that grabs your attention in Imperial Grunts is a map of the world, which spreads itself across two pages at the front of the book. Lines divide the entire map into five sections, each with a name like SOUTHCOM (Southern Command) or PACOM (Pacific Command). As Kaplan recently explained, AFRICOM (African Command) will soon raise the number of sections to six. A caption above the map says: THE WORLD WITH COMMANDERS' AREAS OF RESPONSIBILITY.
If you have any understanding of the U.S. military and the people whose interests it serves, it won't take you long to see what this map represents. It shows the American Empire, divided into what may or may not be manageable sections. No matter where you're located on this map, once the United States decides you're a threat to its interests, it will label you a terrorist, and heavily armed men in your part of the world will soon send you the way of all low-hanging fruit. If you present a difficult target, those same men will simply destroy the whole orchard.
When Robert Kaplan first saw a large version of this map hanging on a wall in the Pentagon, he underwent a religious experience not unlike that of the apostle Paul on the road to Damascus. "I stared at it for days on and off, transfixed. How could the U.S. not constitute a global military empire? I thought."
He's not kidding, and he's entirely correct.
At this point, Kaplan sets out to meet the American grunts who kill low-hanging fruit in the various sections of the U.S. Empire. Bob politely calls these sections SOUTHCOM, PACOM, and so on, but the grunts, he tells us, have the habit of calling everything "Indian Country" or "Injun Country." One might find these locutions insensitive, but Bob says they're "never meant as a slight against Native North Americans. Rather, the reverse." For the grunts and their officers, the wars with America's Indians taught the U.S. military how to fight the small, endless wars that Kaplan says will now be required to defend the American Empire. So off he goes to places "here and there."
While marching across SOUTHCOM, Kaplan stops in Colombia, with "its vast untapped oil reserves," to find Army Special Forces teaching Colombian troops how to kill low-hanging "narco-terrorists," although an American sergeant admits that the poor quality of noncommissioned officers in the Colombian army makes it difficult to record much progress. Because this war is scheduled to last forever, the Colombian noncoms still have time for self-improvement. While waiting, Kaplan launches an obligatory verbal attack on President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, claiming that Chávez has his "fingerprints all over the narco-terrorist operation in South America."
As I write this in January of 2008, President Chávez has just negotiated the release of two hostages by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The hostages, Consuelo González de Perdomo and Clara Rojas, are Colombian politicians. In widely reprinted photographs by Howard Yanes of the Associated Press, the women appear with President Chávez, two babies, and various adults. All but the babies are singing the national anthems of Colombia and Venezuela.
Referring to other hostages still in captivity, Chávez later told reporters in Guatemala, "I ask for help from the governments of Latin America, from the governments of the world, so we free all of them." The Bush-Cheney administration is burned up about all this. When President Chávez is freeing hostages and holding babies, he really doesn't look like a terrorist.
Twenty pages after calling President Chávez a narco-terrorist, Kaplan has deserted Colombia and landed in Mongolia, a country that sits on the northern rim of PACOM. Mongolia has 2.5 million citizens, all of whom easily fit within an area over twice the size of Texas.
In this distant country, Bob meets U.S. Army Lt. Col. Thomas Wilhelm. Among other goals and objectives, Col. Wilhelm wants to help the local military prevent "transnational terrorism" in Mongolia, even though the country is so large and so remote that a terrorist could spend a lifetime finding anyone to terrorize. Before Bob packs his bags and heads for someplace with more violence to depict in his quiet and austere way, Wilhelm points out that "the rise of Christian evangelicalism helped stop the indiscipline of the Vietnam-era Army."
Col. Wilhelm's reference to God's saving grace among the U.S armed forces provides a convenient entrée to one of Kaplan's major themes in Imperial Grunts. Everywhere he goes, he finds God on his side. And this deity is no flabby Methodist, Presbyterian, or Lutheran God. He's a Southern Baptist God who grants salvation only to born-again, evangelical Christians.
Later, in Afghanistan, Kaplan meets Capt. Lee Nelson, an evangelical chaplain who is also the minister of a Baptist Church in Florida. After watching Capt. Nelson perform his duties, Kaplan has an epiphany: "the martial evangelicalism of the South [gives] the U.S. military its true religious soul." Then Kaplan meets another southerner with soul, Tony Dill, a major with the Special Forces. Among other achievements, Dill once parachuted onto the infield of a racetrack while a NASCAR race was in progress. Kaplan doesn't say who won the race.
After returning to the United States, Kaplan experiences yet another epiphany. "The Deep South was heavily represented in the military," This is also true of the Middle West, Puerto Rico, East St. Louis, and Pittsburg, but Kaplan doesn't mention it.
At this point, Kaplan starts to sound like a combination of Jimmy Swaggart and Barney Fife:
The American military, especially the NCOs, who were the guardians of its culture and traditions, constituted a world of beer, cigarettes, instant coffee, and chewing tobacco, like Copenhagen and Red Man. It was composed of people who hunted, drove pickups, employed profanities as a matter of dialect, and yet had a literal, demonstrable belief in the Almighty.
Having finished this collection of Hee Haw generalizations, Kaplan gives us the lowdown on the Marines. Sadly, he has to report that these guys aren't all southerners. "They [are] simply generic working class from all regions of the country." They have a much longer tradition than the Army Special Forces. They have unlimited faith in their own ability. And they're experts at low-hanging-fruit removal, having contributed the Small Wars Manual to the library of American military strategy.
The farther Kaplan goes into the land of Copenhagen and Red Man, the more embarrassing he becomes. While still with the Special Forces in Colombia, he says, "I was beginning to love these guys," referring to "three well-spoken men with tattoos,"
Back with the Marines in Iraq, a general tells Kaplan how to deal with the locals: "Wave at them, but have a plan to kill them." But don't let the job of killing obscure the spiritual side of the Marines. "In fact, the U.S. Marines came from the East, from the Orient. That was their spiritual tradition. It was the legacy of their naval landings throughout the Pacific,"
Bob, get hold of yourself. Help is available if you need it.
Despite Kaplan's love for the "martial evangelicalism of the South," at last report he hadn't found a nice cottage in Mississippi, Alabama, or anyplace else in the South where he could settle down, talk dirty, and chew tobacco. Instead, when Imperial Grunts first appeared at your supermarket checkout line, he was still living in western Massachusetts, whose people he dismisses as Democrats, pacifists, and bad journalists.
Because of Kaplan's occasional sappiness, it would be easy to ignore him. But that would be a mistake. Kaplan is entirely humorless, and what he reveals isn't funny. With Imperial Grunts, he lays out America's long-term plan to loot those countries of the world least able to defend themselves. And if they don't like it, tough shit. The Pentagon is ready for Eternal War.
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choosing life
I agree there is no such thing as a "war on terror." After the end of the cold war, someone had to be declared the new enemy. I remember the fear that was instilled in children through bomb drills in elementary school. The Russians were always one step away from attacking. People had bomb shelters in their yards.
It is the classic use of "us and them." That is how the masses of people are kept in fear and under control. I doubt the people who were in Baghdad when the USA unleashed their "shock and awe" campaign, saw much difference than those who experienced the attacks on the World Trade Center.
It's a shame to promote such a climate of fear, no matter how it is done.