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| Six Questions & Answers
From Noam Chomsky ZMag (1) There has been an immense movement of troops and extreme use of military rhetoric, up to comments about terminating governments, etc. Yet, to many people there appears to be considerable restraint...what happened? From the first days after the attack, the
Bush administration has been warned by NATO leaders, specialists on the
region, and presumably its own intelligence agencies (not to speak of many
people like you and me) that if they react with a massive assault that
kills many innocent people, that will be answering bin Laden's most
fervent prayers. They will be falling into a "diabolical trap,"
as the French foreign minister put it. That would be true -- perhaps even
more so -- if they happen to kill bin Laden, still without having provided
credible evidence of his involvement in the crimes of Sept. 11. He would
then be perceived as a martyr even among the enormous majority of Muslims
who deplore those crimes, as bin Laden himself has done, for what it is
worth, denying any involvement in the crimes or even knowledge of them,
and condemning "the killing of innocent women, children, and other
humans" as an act that "Islam strictly forbids...even in the
course of a battle" (BBC, Sept. 29). His voice will continue to
resound on tens of thousands of cassettes already circulating throughout
the Muslim world, and in many interviews, including the last few days. An
assault that kills innocent Afghans -- not Taliban, but their terrorized
victims -- would be virtually a call for new recruits to the horrendous
cause of the bin Laden network and other graduates of the terrorist
networks set up by the CIA and its associates 20 years ago to fight a Holy
War against the Russians, meanwhile following their own agenda, from the
time they assassinated President Sadat of Egypt in 1981, murdering one of
the most enthusiastic of the creators of the "Afghanis" --
mostly recruits from extremist radical Islamist elements around the world
who were recruited to fight in Afghanistan. After a little while, the message
apparently got through to the Bush administration, which has -- wisely
from their point of view -- chosen to follow a different course. However,
"restraint" seems to me a questionable word. On Sept. 16, the
New York Times reported that "Washington has also demanded [from
Pakistan] a cutoff of fuel supplies, ... and the elimination of truck
convoys that provide much of the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's
civilian population." Astonishingly, that report elicited no
detectable reaction in the West, a grim reminder of the nature of the
Western civilization that leaders and elite commentators claim to uphold,
yet another lesson that is not lost among those who have been at the wrong
end of the guns and whips for centuries. In the following days,
those demands were implemented. On Sept. 27, the same NYT correspondent
reported that officials in Pakistan "said today that they would not
relent in their decision to seal off the country's 1,400- mile border with
Afghanistan, a move requested by the Bush administration because, the
officials said, they wanted to be sure that none of Mr. bin Laden's men
were hiding among the huge tide of refugees" (John Burns, Islamabad).
According to the world's leading newspaper, then,
Washington demanded that Pakistan slaughter massive numbers of Afghans,
millions of them already on the brink of starvation, by cutting off the
limited sustenance that was keeping them alive. Almost all aid
missions withdrew or were expelled under the threat of bombing. Huge
numbers of miserable people have been fleeing to the borders in terror,
after Washington's threat to bomb the shreds of existence remaining in
Afghanistan, and to convert the Northern Alliance into a heavily armed
military force that will, perhaps, be unleashed to renew the atrocities
that tore the country apart and led much of the population to welcome the
Taliban when they drove out the murderous warring factions that Washington
and Moscow now hope to exploit for their own purposes. When they reach the
sealed borders, refugees are trapped to die in silence. Only a trickle can
escape through remote mountain passes. How many have already succumbed we
cannot guess, and few seem to care. Apart from the relief agencies, I have
seen no attempt even to guess. Within a few weeks the harsh winter will
arrive. There are some reporters and aid workers in the refugee camps
across the borders. What they describe is horrifying enough, but they
know, and we know, that they are seeing the lucky ones, the few who were
able to escape -- and who express their hopes that ''even the cruel
Americans must feel some pity for our ruined country,'' and relent in this
savage silent genocide (Boston Globe, Sept. 27, p. 1). Perhaps the most apt description was given
by the wonderful and courageous Indian writer and activist Arundhati Roy,
referring to Operation Infinite Justice proclaimed by the Bush
Administration: "Witness the infinite justice of the new century.
Civilians starving to death while they're waiting to be killed"
(Guardian, Sept. 29). (2) The UN has indicated
that the threat of starvation in Afghanistan is enormous. International
criticism on this score has grown and now the U.S. and Britain are talking
about providing food aid to ward off hunger. Are they caving in to dissent
in fact, or only in appearance? What is their motivation? What will be the
scale and impact of their efforts? The UN estimates that
some 7-8 million are at risk of imminent starvation. The NY Times reports
in a small item (Sept. 25) that nearly six million Afghans depend on food
aid from the UN, as well as 3.5 million in refugee camps outside, many of
whom fled just before the borders were sealed. The item reported
that some food is being sent, to the camps across the border. If people in
Washington and the editorial offices have even a single gray cell
functioning, they realize that they must present themselves as
humanitarians seeking to avert the awesome tragedy that followed at once
from the threat of bombing and military attack and the sealing of the
borders they demanded. "Experts also urge the United States to
improve its image by increasing aid to Afghan refugees, as well as by
helping to rebuild the economy" (Christian Science Monitor, Sept.
28). Even without PR specialists to instruct them, administration
officials must comprehend that they should send some food to the refugees
who made it across the border, and at least talk about air drop of food to
starving people within: in order "to save lives" but also to
"help the effort to find terror groups inside Afghanistan"
(Boston Globe, Sept. 27, quoting a Pentagon official, who describes this
as "winning the hearts and minds of the people"). The New York
Times editors picked up the same theme the following day, 12 days after
the journal reported that the murderous operation is being put into
effect. On the scale of aid, one can only hope that
it is enormous, or the human tragedy may be immense in a few weeks. But we
should also bear in mind that there has been nothing to stop massive food
drops from the beginning, and we cannot even guess how many have already
died, or soon will. If the government is sensible, there will be at least
a show of the "massive air drops" that officials mention. (3) International legal
institutions would likely ratify efforts to arrest and try bin Laden and
others, supposing guilt could be shown, including the use of force. Why
does the U.S. avoid this recourse? Is it only a matter of not wishing to
legitimate an approach that could be used, as well, against our acts of
terrorism, or are other factors at play? Much of the world has been
asking the US to provide some evidence to link bin Laden to the crime, and
if such evidence could be provided, it would not be difficult to rally
enormous support for an international effort, under the rubric of the UN,
to apprehend and try him and his collaborators. However, that is no simple
matter. Even if bin Laden and his network are involved in the crimes of
Sept. 11, it may be quite hard to produce credible evidence. As the CIA
surely knows very well, having nurtured these organizations and monitored
them very closely for 20 years, they are diffuse, decentralized,
non-hierarchic structures, probably with little communication or direct
guidance. And for all we know, most of the perpetrators may have killed
themselves in their awful missions. There are further problems in the
background. To quote Roy again, "The Taliban's response to US demands
for the extradition of Bin Laden has been uncharacteristically reasonable:
produce the evidence, then we'll hand him over. President Bush's response
is that the demand is non-negotiable'." She also adds one of the many
reasons why this framework is unacceptable to Washington: "While
talks are on for the extradition of CEOs can India put in a side request
for the extradition of Warren Anderson of the US? He was the chairman of
Union Carbide, responsible for the Bhopal gas leak that killed 16,000
people in 1984. We have collated the necessary evidence. It's all in the
files. Could we have him, please?" Such comparisons elicit frenzied tantrums
at the extremist fringes of Western opinion, some of them called "the
left." But for Westerners who have retained their sanity and moral
integrity, and for great numbers among the usual victims, they are quite
meaningful. Government leaders presumably understand that. And the single example that Roy mentions is
only the beginning, of course, and one of the lesser examples, not only
because of the scale of the atrocity, but because it was not explicitly a
crime of state. Suppose Iran were to request the extradition of high
officials of the Carter and Reagan administrations, refusing to present
the ample evidence of the crimes they were implementing -- and it surely
exists. Or suppose Nicaragua were to demand the extradition of the US
ambassador to the UN, newly appointed to lead the "war against
terror," a man whose record includes his service as
"proconsul" (as he was often called) in the virtual fiefdom of
Honduras, where he surely was aware of the atrocities of the state
terrorists he was supporting, and was also overseeing the terrorist war
for which the US was condemned by the World Court and the Security Council
(in a resolution the US vetoed). Or many others. Would the US even dream
of responding to such demands presented without evidence, or even if the
ample evidence were presented? Those doors are better left closed, just as
it is best to maintain the silence on the appointment of a leading figure
in managing the operations condemned as terrorism by the highest existing
international bodies -- to lead a "war on terrorism." Jonathan
Swift would also be speechless. That may be the reason why administration
publicity experts preferred the usefully ambiguous term "war" to
the more explicit term "crime" -- "crime against humanity
as Robert Fisk, Mary Robinson, and others have accurately depicted it.
There are established procedures for dealing with crimes, however
horrendous. They require evidence, and adherence to the principle that
"those who are guilty of these acts" be held accountable once
evidence is produced, but not others (Pope John Paul II, NYT Sept. 24).
Not, for example, the unknown numbers of miserable people starving to
death in terror at the sealed borders, though in this case too we are
speaking of crimes against humanity. (4) The war on terror was
first undertaken by Reagan, as a substitute for the cold war -- that is,
as a vehicle for scaring the public and thus marshalling support for
programs contrary to the public's interest -- foreign campaigns, war
spending in general, surveillance, and so on. Now we are seeing a larger
and more aggressive attempt to move in the same direction. Does the
problem that we are the world's foremost source of attacks on civilians
auger complications for carrying through this effort? Can the effort be
sustained without, in fact, a shooting war? The Reagan administration
came into office 20 years ago declaring that its leading concern would be
to eradicate the plague of international terrorism, a cancer that is
destroying civilization. They cured the plague by establishing an
international terrorist network of extraordinary scale, with consequences
that are -- or should be -- well-known in Central America, the Middle
East, Africa, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere -- while using the pretexts,
as you say, to carry out programs that were of considerable harm to the
domestic population, and that even threaten human survival. Did they carry
out a "shooting war"? The number of corpses they left in their
wake around the world is impressive, but technically, they did not usually
fire the guns, apart from transparent PR exercises like the bombing of
Libya, the first crime of war in history that was timed precisely for
prime time TV, no small trick considering the complexity of the operation
and the refusal of continental European countries to collaborate. The
torture, mutilation, rape, and massacre were carried out through
intermediaries. Even if we exclude the huge but
unmentionable component of terrorism that traces back to terrorist states,
our own surely included, the terrorist plague is very real, very
dangerous, and truly terrifying. There are ways to react that are likely
to escalate the threats to ourselves and others; there are ample
precedents for more sane and honorable methods, which we've discussed
before, and are not in the least obscure, but are scarcely discussed.
Those are the basic choices. (5) If the Taliban falls
and bin Laden or someone they claim is responsible is captured or killed,
what next? What happens to Afghanistan? What happens more broadly in other
regions? The sensible administration plan would be
to pursue the ongoing program of silent genocide, combined with
humanitarian gestures to arouse the applause of the usual chorus who are
called upon to sing the praises of the noble leaders committed to
"principles and values" and leading the world to a "new
era" of "ending inhumanity." The administration might also
try to convert the Northern Alliance into a viable force, perhaps to bring
in other warlords hostile to it, like Gulbudin Hekmatyar, now in Iran.
Presumably they will use British and US commandoes for missions within
Afghanistan, and perhaps resort to selective bombing, but scaled down so
as not to answer bin Laden's prayers. A US assault should not be compared
to the failed Russian invasion of the 80s. The Russians were facing a
major army of perhaps 100,000 men or more, organized, trained and heavily
armed by the CIA and its associates. The US is facing a ragtag force in a
country that has already been virtually destroyed by 20 years of horror,
for which we bear no slight share of responsibility. The Taliban forces,
such as they are, might quickly collapse except for a small hard core. And
one would expect that the surviving population would welcome an invading
force if it is not too visibly associated with the murderous gangs that
tore the country to shreds before the Taliban takeover. At this point,
most people would be likely to welcome Genghis Khan. What next? Expatriate Afghans and,
apparently, some internal elements who are not part of the Taliban inner
circle have been calling for a UN effort to establish some kind of
transition government, a process that might succeed in reconstructing
something viable from the wreckage, if provided with very substantial
reconstruction aid, channeled through independent sources like the UN or
credible NGOs. That much should be the minimal responsibility of those who
have turned this impoverished country into a land of terror, desperation,
corpses, and mutilated victims. That could happen, but not without very
substantial popular efforts in the rich and powerful societies. For the
present, any such course has been ruled out by the Bush administration,
which has announced that it will not be engaged in "nation
building" -- or, it seems, an effort that would be more honorable and
humane: substantial support, without interference, for "nation
building" by others who might actually achieve some success in the
enterprise. But current refusal to consider this decent course is not
graven in stone. What happens in other regions depends on
internal factors, on the policies of foreign actors (the US dominant among
them, for obvious reasons), and the way matters proceed in Afghanistan.
One can hardly be confident, but for many of the possible courses
reasonable assessments can be made about the outcome -- and there are a
great many possibilities, too many to try to review in brief comments. (6) What do you believe
should be the role and priority of social activists concerned about
justice at this time? Should we curb our criticisms, as some have claimed,
or is this, instead, a time for renewed and enlarged efforts, not only
because it is a crisis regarding which we can attempt to have a very
important positive impact, but also because large sectors of the public
are actually far more receptive than usual to discussion and exploration,
even it other sectors are intransigently hostile? It depends on what these social activists
are trying to achieve. If their goal is to escalate the cycle of violence
and to increase the likelihood of further atrocities like that of Sept. 11
-- and, regrettably, even worse ones with which much of the world is all
too familiar -- then they should certainly curb their analysis and
criticisms, refuse to think, and cut back their involvement in the very
serious issues in which they have been engaged. The same advice is
warranted if they want to help the most reactionary and regressive
elements of the political-economic power system to implement plans that
will be of great harm to the general population here and in much of the
world, and may even threaten human survival. If, on the contrary, the goal of social
activists is to reduce the likelihood of further atrocities, and to
advance hopes for freedom, human rights, and democracy, then they should
follow the opposite course. They should intensify their efforts to inquire
into the background factors that lie behind these and other crimes and
devote themselves with even more energy to the just causes to which they
have already been committed. The opportunities are surely there. The shock
of the horrendous crimes has already opened even elite sectors to
reflection of a kind that would have been hard to imagine not long ago,
and among the general public that is even more true. Of course, there will
be those who demand silent obedience. We expect that from the ultra-right,
and anyone with a little familiarity with history will expect it from some
left intellectuals as well, perhaps in an even more virulent form. But it
is important not to be intimidated by hysterical ranting and lies and to
keep as closely as one can to the course of truth and honesty and concern
for the human consequences of what one does, or fails to do. All truisms,
but worth bearing in mind. Beyond the truisms, we turn to specific questions, for inquiry and for action. http://www.zmag.org/albintchom.htm |