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Title: Terror and Just Response
Author: Noam Chomsky
Date: July 2, 2002
Language: en
Topics: terrorism, US foreign interventions
Source: Retrieved on 2nd July 2021 from https://chomsky.info/20020702/
Notes: Published in ZNet.

Noam Chomsky

Terror and Just Response

September 11 will surely go down in the annals of terrorism as a

defining moment. Throughout the world, the atrocities were condemned as

grave crimes against humanity, with near-universal agreement that all

states must act to “rid the world of evildoers,” that “the evil scourge

of terrorism” — particularly state-backed international terrorism — is a

plague spread by “depraved opponents of civilization itself” in a

“return to barbarism” that cannot be tolerated. But beyond the strong

support for the words of the US political leadership — respectively,

George W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, and his Secretary of State George Shultz

[1] — interpretations varied: on the narrow question of the proper

response to terrorist crimes, and on the broader problem of determining

their nature.

On the latter, an official US definition takes “terrorism” to be “the

calculated use of violence or threat of violence to attain goals that

are political, religious, or ideological in nature…through intimidation,

coercion, or instilling fear.”[2] That formulation leaves many question

open, among them, the legitimacy of actions to realize “the right to

self-determination, freedom, and independence, as derived from the

Charter of the United Nations, of people forcibly deprived of that

right…, particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and

foreign occupation…” In its most forceful denunciation of the crime of

terrorism, the UN General Assembly endorsed such actions, 153–2.[3]

Explaining their negative votes, the US and Israel referred to the

wording just cited. It was understood to justify resistance against the

South African regime, a US ally that was responsible for over 1.5

million dead and $60 billion in damage in neighboring countries in

1980–88 alone, putting aside its practices within. And the resistance

was led by Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress, one of the “more

notorious terrorist groups” according to a 1988 Pentagon report, in

contrast to pro-South African RENAMO, which the same report describes as

merely an “indigenous insurgent group” while observing that it might

have killed 100,000 civilians in Mozambique in the preceding two

years.[4] The same wording was taken to justify resistance to Israel’s

military occupation, then in its 20^(th) year, continuing its

integration of the occupied territories and harsh practices with

decisive US aid and diplomatic support, the latter to block the

longstanding international consensus on a peaceful settlement.[5]

Despite such fundamental disagreements, the official US definition seems

to me adequate for the purposes at hand,[6] though the disagreements

shed some light on the nature of terrorism, as perceived from various

perspectives.

Let us turn to the question of proper response. Some argue that the evil

of terrorism is “absolute” and merits a “reciprocally absolute doctrine”

in response.[7] That would appear to mean ferocious military assault in

accord with the Bush doctrine, cited with apparent approval in the same

academic collection on the “age of terror”: “If you harbor terrorists,

you’re a terrorist; if you aid and abet terrorists, you’re a terrorist —

and you will be treated like one.” The volume reflects articulate

opinion in the West in taking the US-UK response to be appropriate and

properly “calibrated,” but the scope of that consensus appears to be

limited, judging by the evidence available, to which we return.

More generally, it would be hard to find anyone who accepts the doctrine

that massive bombing is the appropriate response to terrorist crimes —

whether those of Sept. 11, or even worse ones, which are, unfortunately,

not hard to find. That follows if we adopt the principle of

universality: if an action is right (or wrong) for others, it is right

(or wrong) for us. Those who do not rise to the minimal moral level of

applying to themselves the standards they apply to others — more

stringent ones, in fact — plainly cannot be taken seriously when they

speak of appropriateness of response; or of right and wrong, good and

evil.

To illustrate what is at stake, consider a case that is far from the

most extreme but is uncontroversial; at least, among those with some

respect for international law and treaty obligations. No one would have

supported Nicaraguan bombings in Washington when the US rejected the

order of the World Court to terminate its “unlawful use of force” and

pay substantial reparations, choosing instead to escalate the

international terrorist crimes and to extend them, officially, to

attacks on undefended civilian targets, also vetoing a Security Council

resolution calling on all states to observe international law and voting

alone at the General Assembly (with one or two client states) against

similar resolutions. The US dismissed the ICJ on the grounds that other

nations do not agree with us, so we must “reserve to ourselves the power

to determine whether the Court has jurisdiction over us in a particular

case” and what lies “essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the

United States” — in this case, terrorist attacks against Nicaragua.[8]

Meanwhile Washington continued to undermine regional efforts to reach a

political settlement, following the doctrine formulated by the

Administration moderate, George Shultz: the US must “cut [the Nicaraguan

cancer] out,” by force. Shultz dismissed with contempt those who

advocate “utopian, legalistic means like outside mediation, the United

Nations, and the World Court, while ignoring the power element of the

equation”;”Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow

of power is not cast across the bargaining table,” he declared.

Washington continued to adhere to the Shultz doctrine when the Central

American Presidents agreed on a peace plan in 1987 over strong US

objections: the Esquipulas Accords, which required that all countries of

the region move towards democracy and human rights under international

supervision, stressing that the “indispensable element” was the

termination of the US attack against Nicaragua. Washington responded by

sharply expanding the attack, tripling CIA supply flights for the

terrorist forces. Having exempted itself from the Accords, thus

effectively undermining them, Washington proceeded to do the same for

its client regimes, using the substance — not the shadow — of power to

dismantle the International Verification Commission (CIVS) because its

conclusions were unacceptable, and demanding, successfully, that the

Accords be revised to free US client states to continue their terrorist

atrocities. These far surpassed even the devastating US war against

Nicaragua that left tens of thousands dead and the country ruined

perhaps beyond recovery. Still upholding the Shultz doctrine, the US

compelled the government of Nicaragua, under severe threat, to drop the

claim for reparations established by the ICJ.[9]

There could hardly be a clearer example of international terrorism as

defined officially, or in scholarship: operations aimed at

“demonstrating through apparently indiscriminate violence that the

existing regime cannot protect the people nominally under its

authority,” thus causing not only “anxiety, but withdrawal from the

relationships making up the established order of society.”[10] State

terror elsewhere in Central America in those years also counts as

international terrorism, in the light of the decisive US role, and the

goals, sometimes frankly articulated; for example, by the Army’s School

of the Americas, which trains Latin American military officers and takes

pride in the fact that “Liberation Theology…was defeated with the

assistance of the U.S. Army.”[11]

It would seem to follow, clearly enough, that only those who support

bombing of Washington in response to these international terrorist

crimes — that is, no one — can accept the “reciprocally absolute

doctrine” on response to terrorist atrocities or consider massive

bombardment to be an appropriate and properly “calibrated” response to

them.

Consider some of the legal arguments that have been presented to justify

the US-UK bombing of Afghanistan; I am not concerned here with their

soundness, but their implications, if the principle of uniform standards

is maintained. Christopher Greenwood argues that the US has the right of

“self-defense” against “those who caused or threatened…death and

destruction,” appealing to the ICJ ruling in the Nicaragua case. The

paragraph he cites applies far more clearly to the US war against

Nicaragua than to the Taliban or al-Qaeda, so if it is taken to justify

intensive US bombardment and ground attack in Afghanistan, then

Nicaragua should have been entitled to carry out much more severe

attacks against the US. Another distinguished professor of international

law, Thomas Franck, supports the US-UK war on grounds that “a state is

responsible for the consequences of permitting its territory to be used

to injure another state”; fair enough, and surely applicable to the US

in the case of Nicaragua, Cuba, and many other examples, including some

of extreme severity.[12]

Needless to say, in none of these cases would violence in “self-defense”

against continuing acts of “death and destruction” be considered

remotely tolerable; acts, not merely “threats.”

The same holds of more nuanced proposals about an appropriate response

to terrorist atrocities. Military historian Michael Howard proposes “a

police operation conducted under the auspices of the United

Nations…against a criminal conspiracy whose members should be hunted

down and brought before an international court, where they would receive

a fair trial and, if found guilty, be awarded an appropriate sentence.”

Reasonable enough, though the idea that the proposal should be applied

universally is unthinkable. The director of the Center for the Politics

of Human Rights at Harvard argues that “The only responsible response to

acts of terror is honest police work and judicial prosecution in courts

of law, linked to determinate, focused and unrelenting use of military

power against those who cannot or will not be brought to justice.”[13]

That too seems sensible, if we add Howard’s qualification about

international supervision, and if the resort to force is undertaken

after legal means have been exhausted. The recommendation therefore does

not apply to 9–11 (the US refused to provide evidence and rebuffed

tentative proposals about transfer of the suspects), but it does apply

very clearly to Nicaragua.

It applies to other cases as well. Take Haiti, which has provided ample

evidence in its repeated calls for extradition of Emmanuel Constant, who

directed the forces responsible for thousands of deaths under the

military junta that the US was tacitly supporting (not to speak of

earlier history); these requests the US ignores, presumably because of

concerns about what Constant would reveal if tried. The most recent

request was on 30 September 2001, while the US was demanding that the

Taliban hand over Bin Laden.[14] The coincidence was also ignored, in

accord with the convention that minimal moral standards must be

vigorously rejected.

Turning to the “responsible response,” a call for implementation of it

where it is clearly applicable would elicit only fury and contempt.

Some have formulated more general principles to justify the US war in

Afghanistan. Two Oxford scholars propose a principle of

“proportionality”: “The magnitude of response will be determined by the

magnitude with which the aggression interfered with key values in the

society attacked”; in the US case, “freedom to pursue self-betterment in

a plural society through market economics,” viciously attacked on 9–11

by “aggressors…with a moral orthodoxy divergent from the West.” Since

“Afghanistan constitutes a state that sided with the aggressor,” and

refused US demands to turn over suspects, “the United States and its

allies, according to the principle of magnitude of interference, could

justifiably and morally resort to force against the Taliban

government.”[15]

On the assumption of universality, it follows that Haiti and Nicaragua

can “justifiably and morally resort to” far greater force against the US

government. The conclusion extends far beyond these two cases, including

much more serious ones and even such minor escapades of Western state

terror as Clinton’s bombing of the al-Shifa pharmaceutical plant in

Sudan in 1998, leading to “several tens of thousands” of deaths

according to the German Ambassador and other reputable sources, whose

conclusions are consistent with the immediate assessments of

knowledgeable observers.[16] The principle of proportionality therefore

entails that Sudan had every right to carry out massive terror in

retaliation, a conclusion that is strengthened if we go on to adopt the

view that this act of “the empire” had “appalling consequences for the

economy and society” of Sudan so that the atrocity was much worse than

the crimes of 9–11, which were appalling enough, but did not have such

consequences.[17]

Most commentary on the Sudan bombing keeps to the question of whether

the plant was believed to produce chemical weapons; true or false, that

has no bearing on “the magnitude with which the aggression interfered

with key values in the society attacked,” such as survival. Others point

out that the killings were unintended, as are many of the atrocities we

rightly denounce. In this case, we can hardly doubt that the likely

human consequences were understood by US planners. The acts can be

excused, then, only on the Hegelian assumption that Africans are “mere

things,” whose lives have “no value,” an attitude that accords with

practice in ways that are not overlooked among the victims, who may draw

their own conclusions about the “moral orthodoxy of the West.”

One participant in the Yale volume (Charles Hill) recognized that 11

September opened the second “war on terror.” The first was declared by

the Reagan administration as it came to office 20 years earlier, with

the rhetorical accompaniment already illustrated; and “we won,” Hill

reports triumphantly, though the terrorist monster was only wounded, not

slain.[18] The first “age of terror” proved to be a major issue in

international affairs through the decade, particularly in Central

America, but also in the Middle East, where terrorism was selected by

editors as the lead story of the year in 1985 and ranked high in other

years.

We can learn a good deal about the current war on terror by inquiring

into the first phase, and how it is now portrayed. One leading academic

specialist describes the 1980s as the decade of “state terrorism,” of

“persistent state involvement, or ‘sponsorship,’ of terrorism,

especially by Libya and Iran.” The US merely responded, by adopting “a

‘proactive’ stance toward terrorism.” Others recommend the methods by

which “we won”: the operations for which the US was condemned by the

World Court and Security Council (absent the veto) are a model for

“Nicaragua-like support for the Taliban’s adversaries (especially the

Northern Alliance).” A prominent historian of the subject finds deep

roots for the terrorism of Osama Bin Laden: in South Vietnam, where “the

effectiveness of Vietcong terror against the American Goliath armed with

modern technology kindled hopes that the Western heartland was

vulnerable too.”[19]

Keeping to convention, these analyses portray the US as a benign victim,

defending itself from the terror of others: the Vietnamese (in South

Vietnam), the Nicaraguans (in Nicaragua), Libyans and Iranians (if they

had ever suffered a slight at US hands, it passes unnoticed), and other

anti-American forces worldwide.

Not everyone sees the world quite that way. The most obvious place to

look is Latin America, which has had considerable experience with

international terrorism. The crimes of 9–11 were harshly condemned, but

commonly with recollection of their own experiences. One might describe

the 9–11 atrocities as “Armageddon,” the research journal of the Jesuit

university in Managua observed, but Nicaragua has “lived its own

Armageddon in excruciating slow motion” under US assault “and is now

submerged in its dismal aftermath,” and others fared far worse under the

vast plague of state terror that swept through the continent from the

early 1960s, much of it traceable to Washington. A Panamanian journalist

joined in the general condemnation of the 9–11 crimes, but recalled the

death of perhaps thousands of poor people (Western crimes, therefore

unexamined) when the President’s father bombed the barrio Chorillo in

December 1989 in Operation Just Cause, undertaken to kidnap a

disobedient thug who was sentenced to life imprisonment in Florida for

crimes mostly committed while he was on the CIA payroll. Uruguayan

writer Eduardo Galeano observed that the US claims to oppose terrorism,

but actually supports it worldwide, including “in Indonesia, in

Cambodia, in Iran, in South Africa,…and in the Latin American countries

that lived through the dirty war of the Condor Plan,” instituted by

South American military dictators who conducted a reign of terror with

US backing.[20]

The observations carry over to the second focus of the first “war on

terror”: West Asia. The worst single atrocity was the Israeli invasion

of Lebanon in 1982, which left some 20,000 people dead and much of the

country in ruins, including Beirut. Like the murderous and destructive

Rabin-Peres invasions of 1993 and 1996, the 1982 attack had little

pretense of self-defense. Chief of Staff Rafael (“Raful”) Eitan merely

articulated common understanding when he announced that the goal was to

“destroy the PLO as a candidate for negotiations with us about the Land

of Israel,”[21] a textbook illustration of terror as officially defined.

The goal “was to install a friendly regime and destroy Mr. Arafat’s

Palestinian Liberation Organization,” Middle East correspondent James

Bennet writes: “That, the theory went, would help persuade Palestinians

to accept Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”[22] This may be

the first recognition in the mainstream of facts widely reported in

Israel at once, previously accessible only in dissident literature in

the US.

These operations were carried out with the crucial military and

diplomatic support of the Reagan and Clinton administrations, and

therefore constitute international terrorism. The US was also directly

involved in other acts of terror in the region in the 1980s, including

the most extreme terrorist atrocities of the peak year of 1985: the CIA

car-bombing in Beirut that killed 80 people and wounded 250; Shimon

Peres’s bombing of Tunis that killed 75 people, expedited by the US and

praised by Secretary of State Shultz, unanimously condemned by the UN

Security Council as an “act of armed aggression” (US abstaining); and

Peres’s “Iron Fist” operations directed against “terrorist villagers” in

Lebanon, reaching new depths of “calculated brutality and arbitrary

murder,” in the words of a Western diplomat familiar with the area,

amply supported by direct coverage.[23] Again, all international

terrorism, if not the more severe war crime of aggression.

In journalism and scholarship on terrorism, 1985 is recognized to be the

peak year of Middle East terrorism, but not because of these events:

rather, because of two terrorist atrocities in which a single person was

murdered, in each case an American.[24] But the victims do not so easily

forget.

This very recent history takes on added significance because leading

figures in the re-declared “war on terror” played a prominent part in

its precursor. The diplomatic component of the current phase is led by

John Negroponte, who was Reagan’s Ambassador to Honduras, the base for

the terrorist atrocities for which his government was condemned by the

World Court and for US-backed state terror elsewhere in Central America,

activities that “made the Reagan years the worse decade for Central

America since the Spanish conquest,” mostly on Negroponte’s watch.[25]

The military component of the new phase is led by Donald Rumsfeld,

Reagan’s special envoy to the Middle East during the years of the worst

terrorist atrocities there, initiated or supported by his government.

No less instructive is the fact that such atrocities did not abate in

subsequent years. Specifically, Washington’s contribution to “enhancing

terror” in the Israel-Arab confrontation continues. The term is

President Bush’s, intended, according to convention, to apply to the

terrorism of others. Departing from convention, we find, again, some

rather significant examples. One simple way to enhance terror is to

participate in it, for example, by sending helicopters to be used to

attack civilian complexes and carry out assassinations, as the US

regularly does in full awareness of the consequences. Another is to bar

the dispatch of international monitors to reduce violence. The US has

insisted on this course, once again vetoing a UN Security Council

resolution to this effect on 14 December 2001. Describing Arafat’s fall

from grace to a position barely above Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, the

press reports that President Bush was “greatly angered [by] a

last-minute hardening of a Palestinian position…for international

monitors in Palestinian areas under a UN Security Council resolution”;

that is, by Arafat’s joining the rest of the world in calling for means

to reduce terror.[26]

Ten days before the veto of monitors, the US boycotted — thus undermined

— an international conference in Geneva that reaffirmed the

applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the occupied

terrorities, so that most US-Israeli actions there are war crimes — and

when “grave breaches,” as many are, serious war crimes. These include

US-funded Israeli settlements and the practice of “wilful killing,

torture, unlawful deportation, wilful depriving of the rights of fair

and regular trial, extensive destruction and appropriation of

property…carried out unlawfully and wantonly.”[27]

The Convention, instituted to criminalize formally the crimes of the

Nazis in occupied Europe, is a core principle of international

humanitarian law. Its applicability to the Israeli-occupied territories

has repeatedly been affirmed, among other occasions, by UN Ambassador

George Bush (September 1971) and by Security Council resolutions: 465

(1980), adopted unanimously, which condemned US-backed Israeli practices

as “flagrant violations” of the Convention; 1322 (Oct. 2000), 14–0, US

abstaining, which called on Israel “to abide scrupulously by its

responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention,” which it was again

violating flagrantly at that moment. As High Contracting Parties, the US

and the European powers are obligated by solemn treaty to apprehend and

prosecute those responsible for such crimes, including their own

leadership when they are parties to them. By continuing to reject that

duty, they are enhancing terror directly and significantly.

Inquiry into the US-Israel-Arab conflicts would carry us too far afield.

Let’s turn further north, to another region where “state terror” is

being practiced on a massive scale; I borrow the term from the Turkish

State Minister for Human Rights, referring to the vast atrocities of

1994; and sociologist Ismail Besikci, returned to prison after

publishing his book State Terror in the Near East, having already served

15 years for recording Turkish repression of Kurds.[28] I had a chance

to see some of the consequences first-hand when visiting the unofficial

Kurdish capital of Diyarbakir several months after 9–11. As elsewhere,

the crimes of September 11 were harshly condemned, but not without

memory of the savage assault the population had suffered at the hands of

those who appoint themselves to “rid the world of evildoers,” and their

local agents. By 1994, the Turkish State Minister and others estimated

that 2 million had been driven out of the devastated countryside, many

more later, often with barbaric torture and terror described in

excruciating detail in international human rights reports, but kept from

the eyes of those paying the bills. Tens of thousands were killed. The

remnants — whose courage is indescribable — live in a dungeon where

radio stations are closed and journalists imprisoned for playing Kurdish

music, students are arrested and tortured for submitting requests to

take elective courses in their own language, there can be severe

penalties if children are found wearing Kurdish national colors by the

omnipresent security forces, the respected lawyer who heads the human

rights organization was indicted shortly after I was there for using the

Kurdish rather than the virtually identical Turkish spelling for the New

Year’s celebration; and on, and on.

These acts fall under the category of state-sponsored international

terrorism. The US provided 80% of the arms, peaking in 1997, when arms

transfers exceeded the entire Cold War period combined before the

“counter-terror” campaign began in 1984. Turkey became the leading

recipient of US arms worldwide, a position it retained until 1999 when

the torch was passed to Colombia, the leading practitioner of state

terror in the Western hemisphere.[29]

State terror is also “enhanced” by silence and evasion. The achievement

was particularly notable against the background of an unprecedented

chorus of self-congratulation as US foreign policy entered a “noble

phase” with a “saintly glow,” under the guidance of leaders who for the

first time in history were dedicated to “principles and values” rather

than narrow interests.[30] The proof of the new saintliness was their

unwillingness to tolerate crimes near the borders of NATO — only within

its borders, where even worse crimes, not in reaction to NATO bombs,

were not only tolerable but required enthusiastic participation, without

comment.

US-sponsored Turkish state terror does not pass entirely unnoticed. The

State Department’s annual report on Washington’s “efforts to combat

terrorism” singled out Turkey for its “positive experiences” in

combating terror, along with Algeria and Spain, worthy colleagues. This

was reported without comment in a front-page story in the New York Times

by its specialist on terrorism. In a leading journal of international

affairs, Ambassador Robert Pearson reports that the US “could have no

better friend and ally than Turkey” in its efforts “to eliminate

terrorism” worldwide, thanks to the “capabilities of its armed forces”

demonstrated in its “anti-terror campaign” in the Kurdish southeast. It

thus “came as no surprise” that Turkey eagerly joined the “war on

terror” declared by George Bush, expressing its thanks to the US for

being the only country willing to lend the needed support for the

atrocities of the Clinton years — still continuing, though on a lesser

scale now that “we won.” As a reward for its achievements, the US is now

funding Turkey to provide the ground forces for fighting “the war on

terror” in Kabul, though not beyond.[31]

Atrocious state-sponsored international terrorism is thus not

overlooked: it is lauded. That also “comes as no surprise.” After all,

in 1995 the Clinton administration welcomed Indonesia’s General Suharto,

one of the worst killers and torturers of the late 20^(th) century, as

“our kind of guy.” When he came to power 30 years earlier, the

“staggering mass slaughter” of hundreds of thousands of people, mostly

landless peasants, was reported fairly accurately and acclaimed with

unconstrained euphoria. When Nicaraguans finally succumbed to US terror

and voted the right way, the US was “United in Joy” at this “Victory for

US Fair Play,” headlines proclaimed. It is easy enough to multiply

examples. The current episode breaks no new ground in the record of

international terrorism and the response it elicits among the

perpetrators.

Let’s return to the question of the proper response to acts of terror,

specifically 9–11.

It is commonly alleged that the US-UK reaction was undertaken with wide

international support. That is tenable, however, only if one keeps to

elite opinion. An international Gallup poll found only minority support

for military attack rather than diplomatic means.[32] In Europe, figures

ranged from 8% in Greece to 29% in France. In Latin America, support was

even lower: from 2% in Mexico to 16% in Panama. Support for strikes that

included civilian targets was very slight. Even in the two countries

polled that strongly supported the use of military force, India and

Israel (where the reasons were parochial), considerable majorities

opposed such attacks. There was, then, overwhelming opposition to the

actual policies, which turned major urban concentrations into “ghost

towns” from the first moment, the press reported.

Omitted from the poll, as from most commentary, was the anticipated

effect of US policy on Afghans, millions of whom were on the brink of

starvation even before 9–11. Unasked, for example, is whether a proper

response to 9–11 was to demand that Pakistan eliminate “truck convoys

that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan’s

civilian population,” and to cause the withdrawal of aid workers and a

severe reduction in food supplies that left “millions of Afghans…at

grave risk of starvation,” eliciting sharp protests from aid

organizations and warnings of severe humanitarian crisis, judgments

reiterated at the war’s end.[33]

It is, of course, the assumptions of planning that are relevant to

evaluating the actions taken; that too should be transparent. The actual

outcome, a separate matter, is unlikely to be known, even roughly;

crimes of others are carefully investigated, but not one’s own. Some

indication is perhaps suggested by the occasional reports on numbers

needing food aid: 5 million before 9–11, 7.5 million at the end of

September under the threat of bombing, 9 million six months later, not

because of lack of food, which was readily available throughout, but

because of distribution problems as the country reverted to

warlordism.[34]

There are no reliable studies of Afghan opinion, but information is not

entirely lacking. At the outset, President Bush warned Afghans that they

would be bombed until they handed over people the US suspected of

terrorism. Three weeks later, war aims shifted to overthrow of the

regime: the bombing would continue, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce announced,

“until the people of the country themselves recognize that this is going

to go on until they get the leadership changed.”[35] Note that the

question whether overthrow of the miserable Taliban regime justifies the

bombing does not arise, because that did not become a war aim until well

after the fact. We can, however, ask about the opinions of Afghans

within reach of Western observers about these choices — which, in both

cases, clearly fall within the official definition of international

terrorism.

As war aims shifted to regime replacement in late October, 1000 Afghan

leaders gathered in Peshawar, some exiles, some coming from within

Afghanistan, all committed to overthrowing the Taliban regime. It was “a

rare display of unity among tribal elders, Islamic scholars, fractious

politicians, and former guerrilla commanders,” the press reported. They

unanimously “urged the US to stop the air raids,” appealed to the

international media to call for an end to the “bombing of innocent

people,” and “demanded an end to the US bombing of Afghanistan.” They

urged that other means be adopted to overthrow the hated Taliban regime,

a goal they believed could be achieved without death and

destruction.[36]

A similar message was conveyed by Afghan opposition leader Abdul Haq,

who was highly regarded in Washington. Just before he entered

Afghanistan, apparently without US support, and was then captured and

killed, he condemned the bombing and criticized the US for refusing to

support efforts of his and of others “to create a revolt within the

Taliban.” The bombing was “a big setback for these efforts,” he said. He

reported contacts with second-level Taliban commanders and ex-Mujahiddin

tribal elders, and discussed how such efforts could proceed, calling on

the US to assist them with funding and other support instead of

undermining them with bombs. But the US, he said, “is trying to show its

muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world. They don’t care

about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose.”[37]

The plight of Afghan women elicited some belated concern after 9–11.

After the war, there was even some recognition of the courageous women

who have been in the forefront of the struggle to defend women’s rights

for 25 years, RAWA (Revolutionary Association of the Women of

Afghanistan). A week after the bombing began, RAWA issued a public

statement (Oct. 11) that would have been front-page news wherever

concern for Afghan women was real, not a matter of mere expediency. They

condemned the resort to “the monster of a vast war and destruction” as

the US “launched a vast aggression on our country,” that will cause

great harm to innocent Afghans. They called instead for “the eradication

of the plague of Taliban and Al Qieda” by “an overall uprising” of the

Afghan people themselves, which alone “can prevent the repetition and

recurrence of the catastrophe that has befallen our country….”

All of this was ignored. It is, perhaps, less than obvious that those

with the guns are entitled to ignore the judgment of Afghans who have

been struggling for freedom and women’s rights for many years, and to

dismiss with apparent contempt their desire to overthrow the fragile and

hated Taliban regime from within without the inevitable crimes of war.

In brief, review of global opinion, including what is known about

Afghans, lends little support to the consensus among Western

intellectuals on the justice of their cause.

One elite reaction, however, is certainly correct: it is necessary to

inquire into the reasons for the crimes of 9–11. That much is beyond

question, at least among those who hope to reduce the likelihood of

further terrorist atrocities.

A narrow question is the motives of the perpetrators. On this matter,

there is little disagreement. Serious analysts are in accord that after

the US established permanent bases in Saudi Arabia, “Bin Laden became

preoccupied with the need to expel U.S. forces from the sacred soil of

Arabia” and to rid the Muslim world of the “liars and hypocrites” who do

not accept his extremist version of Islam.[38]

There is also wide, and justified, agreement that “Unless the social,

political, and economic conditions that spawned Al Qaeda and other

associated groups are addressed, the United States and its allies in

Western Europe and elsewhere will continue to be targeted by Islamist

terrorists.”[39] These conditions are doubtless complex, but some

factors have long been recognized. In 1958, a crucial year in postwar

history, President Eisenhower advised his staff that in the Arab world,

“the problem is that we have a campaign of hatred against us, not by the

governments but by the people,” who are “on Nasser’s side,” supporting

independent secular nationalism. The reasons for the “campaign of

hatred” had been outlined by the National Security Council a few months

earlier: “In the eyes of the majority of Arabs the United States appears

to be opposed to the realization of the goals of Arab nationalism. They

believe that the United States is seeking to protect its interest in

Near East oil by supporting the status quo and opposing political or

economic progress….” Furthermore, the perception is accurate: “our

economic and cultural interests in the area have led not unnaturally to

close U.S. relations with elements in the Arab world whose primary

interest lies in the maintenance of relations with the West and the

status quo in their countries….”[40]

The perceptions persist. Immediately after 9–11, the Wall Street

Journal, later others, began to investigate opinions of “moneyed

Muslims”: bankers, professionals, managers of multinationals, and so on.

They strongly support US policies in general, but are bitter about the

US role in the region: about US support for corrupt and repressive

regimes that undermine democracy and development, and about specific

policies, particularly regarding Palestine and Iraq. Though they are not

surveyed, attitudes in the slums and villages are probably similar, but

harsher; unlike the “moneyed Muslims,” the mass of the population have

never agreed that the wealth of the region should be drained to the West

and local collaborators, rather than serving domestic needs. The

“moneyed Muslims” recognize, ruefully, that Bin Laden’s angry rhetoric

has considerable resonance, in their own circles as well, even though

they hate and fear him, if only because they are among his primary

targets.[41]

It is doubtless more comforting to believe that the answer to George

Bush’s plaintive query, “Why do they hate us?,” lies in their resentment

of our freedom and love of democracy, or their cultural failings tracing

back many centuries, or their inability to take part in the form of

“globalization” in which they happily participate. Comforting, perhaps,

but not wise.

Though shocking, the atrocities of 9–11 could not have been entirely

unexpected. Related organizations planned very serious terrorist acts

through the 1990s, and in 1993 came perilously close to blowing up the

World Trade Center, with much more ambitious plans. Their thinking was

well understood, certainly by the US intelligence agencies that had

helped to recruit, train, and arm them from 1980 and continued to work

with them even as they were attacking the US. The Dutch government

inquiry into the Srebrenica massacre revealed that while they were

attempting to blow up the World Trade Center, radical Islamists from the

CIA-formed networks were being flown by the US from Afghanistan to

Bosnia, along with Iranian-backed Hizbollah fighters and a huge flow of

arms, through Croatia, which took a substantial cut. They were being

brought to support the US side in the Balkan wars, while Israel (along

with Ukraine and Greece) was arming the Serbs (possibly with US-supplied

arms), which explains why “unexploded mortar bombs landing in Sarajevo

sometimes had Hebrew markings,” British political scientist Richard

Aldrich observes, reviewing the Dutch government report.[42]

More generally, the atrocities of 9–11 serve as a dramatic reminder of

what has long been understood: with contemporary technology, the rich

and powerful no longer are assured the near monopoly of violence that

has largely prevailed throughout history. Though terrorism is rightly

feared everywhere, and is indeed an intolerable “return to barbarism,”

it is not surprising that perceptions about its nature differ rather

sharply in the light of sharply differing experiences, facts that will

be ignored at their peril by those whom history has accustomed to

immunity while they perpetrate terrible crimes.

—————

Footnotes:

[1] Bush cited by Rich Heffern, National Catholic Reporter, Jan. 11,

2002. Reagan, New York Times, Oct. 18, 1985. Shultz, U.S. Dept. of

State, Current Policy No. 589, June 24, 1984; No. 629, Oct. 25, 1984.

[2] US Army Operational Concept for Terrorism Counteraction, TRADOC

Pamphlet No. 525–37, 1984.

[3] Res. 42/159, 7 Dec. 1987; Honduras abstaining.

[4] Joseba Zulaika and William Douglass, Terror and Taboo (New York,

London: Routledge, 1996), 12. 1980–88 record, see “Inter-Agency Task

Force, Africa Recovery Program/Economic Commission, South African

Destabilization: the Economic Cost of Frontline Resistance to Apartheid,

NY, UN, 1989, 13, cited by Merle Bowen, Fletcher Forum, Winter 1991. On

expansion of US trade with South Africa after Congress authorized

sanctions in 1985 (overriding Reagan’s veto), see Gay McDougall, Richard

Knight, in Robert Edgar, ed., Sanctioning Apartheid (Trenton, NJ: Africa

World Press, 1990).

[5] For review of unilateral US rejectionism for 30 years, see my

introduction to Roane Carey, ed., The New Intifada (London, New York:

Verso, 2000); see sources cited for more detail.

[6] It is, however, never used. On the reasons, see Alexander George,

ed., Western State Terrorism (Cambridge: Polity-Blackwell, 1991).

[7] Strobe Talbott and Nayan Chanda, introduction, The Age of Terror:

America and the World after September 11 (New York: Basic Books and the

Yale U. Center for the Study of Globalization, 2001).

[8] Abram Sofaer, “The United States and the World Court,” U.S. Dept. of

State, Current Policy, No. 769 (Dec. 1985). The vetoed Security Council

resolution called for compliance with the ICJ orders, and, mentioning no

one, called on all states “to refrain from carrying out, supporting or

promoting political, economic or military actions of any kind against

any state of the region.” Elaine Sciolino, NYT, July 31, 1986.

[9] Shultz, “Moral Principles and Strategic Interests,” April 14, 1986,

U.S. Dept. of State, Current Policy No. 820. Shultz Congressional

testimony, see Jack Spence in Thomas Walker, ed., Reagan versus the

Sandinistas (Boulder, London: Westview, 1987). For review of the

undermining of diplomacy and escalation of international state terror,

see my Culture of Terrorism (Boston: South End, 1988); Necessary

Illusions (Boston: South End, 1989); Deterring Democracy (London, New

York: Verso, 1991). On the aftermath, see Thomas Walker and Ariel

Armony, eds., Repression, Resistance, and Democratic Transition in

Central America (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2000). On reparations,

see Howard Meyer, The World Court in Action (Lanham, MD, Oxford: Rowman

& Littlefield, 2002), chap. 14.

[10] Edward Price, “The Strategy and Tactics of Revolutionary

Terrorism,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 19:1; cited by

Chalmers Johnson, “American Militarism and Blowback,” New Political

Science 24.1, 2002.

[11] SOA, 1999, cited by Adam Isacson and Joy Olson, Just the Facts

(Washington: Latin America Working Group and Center for International

Policy, 1999), ix.

[12] Greenwood, “International law and the ‘war against terrorism’,”

International Affairs 78.2 (2002), appealing to par. 195 of Nicaragua v.

USA, which the Court did not use to justify its condemnation of US

terrorism, but surely is more appropriate to that than to the case that

concerns Greenwood. Franck, “Terrorism and the Right of Self-Defense,”

American J. of International Law 95.4 (Oct. 2001).

[13] Howard, Foreign Affairs, Jan/Feb 2002; talk of Oct. 30, 2001 (Tania

Branigan, Guardian, Oct. 31). Ignatieff, Index on Censorship 2, 2002.

[14] NYT, Oct. 1, 2001.

[15] Frank Schuller and Thomas Grant, Current History, April 2002.

[16] Werner Daum, “Universalism and the West,” Harvard International

Review, Summer 2001. On other assessments, and the warnings of Human

Rights Watch, see my 9–11 (New York: Seven Stories, 2001), 45ff.

[17] Christopher Hitchens, Nation, June 10, 2002.

[18] Talbott and Chanda, op. cit.

[19] Martha Crenshaw, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay, David Rapoport,

Current History, America at War, Dec. 2001. On interpretations of the

first “war on terror” at the time, see George, op. cit.

[20] Env¡o (UCA Managua), Oct.; Ricardo Stevens (Panama), NACLA Report

on the Americas, Nov/Dec; Galeano, La Jornada (Mexico City), cited by

Alain Frachon, Le Monde, Nov. 24, 2001.

[21] For many sources, see my Fateful Triangle (Boston: South End, 1983;

updated 1999 edition, on South Lebanon in the 1990s); Pirates and

Emperors (New York: Claremont, 1986; Pluto, London, forthcoming); World

Orders Old and New.

[22] Bennet, NYT, Jan. 24, 2002

[23] For details, see my essay in George, op. cit.

[24] Crenshaw, op. cit.

[25] Chalmers Johnson, Nation, Oct. 15, 2001.

[26] Ian Williams, Middle East International, 21 Dec. 2001, 11 Jan.

2002. John Donnelly, Boston Globe, April 25, 2002; the specific

reference is to an earlier US veto.

[27] Conference of High Contracting Parties, Report on Israeli

Settlement, Jan.-Feb. 2002 (Foundation for Middle East Peace,

Washington). On these matters see Francis Boyle, “Law and Disorder in

the Middle East,” The Link 35.1, Jan.-March 2002.

[28] For some details, see my New Military Humanism (Monroe ME: Common

Courage, 1999), chap. 3, and sources cited. On evasion of the facts in

the State Department Human Rights Report, see Lawyers Committee for

Human Rights, Middle East and North Africa (New York, 1995), 255.

[29] Tamar Gabelnick, William Hartung, and Jennifer Washburn, Arming

Repression: U.S. Arms Sales to Turkey During the Clinton Administration

(New York and Washington: World Policy Institute and Federation of

Atomic Scientists, October 1999). I exclude Israel-Egypt, a separate

category. On state terror in Colombia, now largely farmed out to

paramilitaries in standard fashion, see particularly Human Rights Watch,

The Sixth Division (Sept. 2001) and Colombia Human Rights Certification

III, Feb. 2002. Also, among others, Me’dicos Sin Fronteras, Desterrados

(Bogota’ 2001).

[30] For a sample, see New Military Humanism and my A New Generation

Draws the Line (London, NY: Verso, 2000).

[31] Judith Miller, NYT, April 30, 2000. Pearson, Fletcher Forum 26:1,

Winter/Spring 2002.

[32]

www.gallup.international.com

; data from Sept. 14–17, 2001.

[33] John Burns, NYT, Sept. 16, 2001; Samina Amin, International

Security 26.3, Winter 2001–02). For some earlier warnings, see 9–11. On

the postwar evaluation of international agencies, see Imre Karacs,

Independent on Sunday (London), Dec. 9, 2001, reporting their warnings

that over a million people are “beyond their reach and face death from

starvation and disease.” For some press reports, see my “Peering into

the Abyss of the Future,” Lakdawala Memorial Lecture, Institute of

Social Sciences, New Delhi, Nov. 2001, updated Feb. 2002.

[34] Ibid., for early estimates. Barbara Crossette, NYT, March 26, and

Ahmed Rashid, WSJ, June 6, 2002, reporting the assessment of the UN

World Food Program and the failure of donors to provide pledged funds.

The WFP reports that “wheat stocks are exhausted, and there is no

funding” to replenish them (Rashid). The UN had warned of the threat of

mass starvation at once because the bombing disrupted planting that

provides 80% of the country’s grain supplies (AFP, Sept. 28; Edith

Lederer, AP, Oct. 18, 2001). Also Andrew Revkin, NYT, Dec. 16, 2001,

citing U.S. Department of Agriculture, with no mention of bombing.

[35] Patrick Tyler and Elisabeth Bumiller, NYT, Oct. 12, quoting Bush;

Michael Gordon, NYT, Oct. 28, 2001, quoting Boyce; both p. 1.

[36] Barry Bearak, NYT, Oct. 25; John Thornhill and Farhan Bokhari,

Financial Times, Oct. 25, Oct. 26; John Burns, NYT, Oct. 26; Indira

Laskhmanan, BG, Oct. 25, 26, 2001.

[37] Interview, Anatol Lieven, Guardian, Nov. 2, 2001.

[38] Ann Lesch, Middle East Policy IX.2, June 2002. Also Michael Doran,

Foreign Affairs, Jan.-Feb. 2002; and many others, including several

contributors to Current History, Dec. 2001.

[39] Sumit Ganguly, Ibid.

[40] For sources and background discussion, see my World Orders Old and

New, 79, 201f.

[41] Peter Waldman et al., WSJ, Sept. 14, 2001; also Waldman and Hugh

Pope, WSJ, Sept. 21, 2001.

[42] Aldrich, Guardian, 22 April, 2002.