
Issue No 111		14 September 2001

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Politics

Consequences of Empire

By Neale Towart

The horror of the events in New York has not led to all American and international observers feeling committed to bloody revenge.


	Terror in the US

The impression from the mainstream media conveys the need to strike back. The Australian media seems to uncritically accept the administration view. Many American people and others are expressing another approach. A look at the alternative media on the web (thankfully there is a space for alternative sources on the Net) gives some perspective, without denying the tragedy that has befallen thousands of workers.

As Noam Chomsky puts it

"as to how to react, we have a choice. We can express justified horror; we can seek to understand what may have led to the crimes, which means making an effort to enter the minds of the likely perpetrators."

He refers to Robert Fisk, the unmatched western journalist based in Beirut, who for many years has been the lone voice of a real view of events in the Middle East, as opposed to the US Administration line. Fisk has personally interviewed the chief suspect Osama bin Laden. Fisk notes

"So it has all come to this. The entire modern history of the Middle East - the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, the Balfour Declaration, Lawrence of Arabia's lies, the Arab revolt, the foundation of the state of Israel, four Arab-Israeli wars and the 34 years of Israel's brutal occupation of Arab land - all erased within hours as those who claim to represent a crushed, humiliated population struck back with the wickedness and awesome cruelty of a doomed people....Some of us warned of the explosion to come. But we never dreamed this nightmare."

Fisk has sat in front of bin Laden as he described how his men destroyed the Russian Army in Afghanistan. He (bin Laden) claims to have had a religious experience during that war when a Russian shell landed at his feet. The US must leave the Gulf he would say every ten minutes. America must stop oppressing the Palestinians. His Arabia that he wanted to create would have more, not less, head chopping and no western style government.

The atrocities, Chomsky points out, are major, a horrendous crime, almost reaching the levels of Clinton's bombing of Sudan, destroying half its pharmaceutical supplies and unknown numbers of people (the US blocked a UN inquiry).

Fisk again - "ask an Arab how he responds to 20 or 30 thousand innocent deaths and he or she will respond as good and decent people should, that it is an unspeakable crime. But they will ask us why we did not use such words about the sanctions that have destroyed the lives of perhaps half a million children in Iraq..." Others have also made this point

Also many commentators, included Michael Moore point out that the prime suspect was trained by the CIA to act against the USSR in Afghanistan.

Chalmers Johnson in Blowback (published last year) argues that in the last decade,

"the US has largely abandoned a reliance on diplomacy, economic aid, international law, and multilateral institutions in carrying out its foreign policies and resorted much of the time to bluster, military force and financial manipulation.

The world is not a safer place as a result.

World politics in the 21st century will in all likelihood be driven primarily by blowback from the second half of the twentieth century - that is, from the unintended consequences of the Cold War and the crucial American decision to maintain a Cold War War posture in a post Cold War world."

Other comments come from a member of the US based Coordinating Committee of the National Network to End the War Against Iraq and on the Board of Directors of Peace Action, Rahul Mahajan.

"Nothing does, nothing can, justify the brutal terror attack that may have killed thousands of innocent civilians". However, he goes on, "Let us not pretend that this was the only harvest in history never sown."

Massive retaliation will just keep us locked in a cycle of violence. We have come to the sharp limits of the security that can keep the boot on the neck, and must, if we are to be secure, try what can come from an open hand.

Mutual disarmanent and peace based on global justice are the only way. Let us be first in peace as we have been first in war so long."

Robert Jensen from the School of Journalism, University of Texas makes the same point well:

"we all must demand of our government - the government that a great man of peace, Martin Luther King Jr., once described as "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world" - that the insanity stop here."

Don Delillo in Libra, his book about the Kennedy assassination and the various scenarios around that, has one of the characters say about Kennedy something like "Jack put himself out there in the path of blood and pain". Fortunately for American people, Kennedy was the sole victim on that occasion (not withstanding the scar on the US psyche tat seems to have remained). On this occasion the US administration actions have put many others in that path.

Having just heard that the US Congress has voted $40billion to combating terrorism (twice what Bush asked for) we seem destined to, as a comment from War Resisters League expresses it, "live in a state of fear and terror". The alternative is "we shall move towards a future in which we shall move toward a future in which peaceful alternatives to violence, and a more just distribution of the worlds resources. As we mourn the many lives lost, our hearts call out for reconciliation, not revenge."

For lots of comments and links calling for a halt to the cycle of violence, try Jay's Leftist and Progressive Internet Directory at http://www.neravt.com/left/

Also some great writing at http://www.counterpunch.org from Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair who note that in the heyday of hijackings in the 1960s and 1970s the US was very concerned about the possibilities of attacks on skyscrapers, and who also provide interesting information about things US Intelligence services had found in the weeks before the attacks.

The Nation at http://www.thenation.com has an impressive archive of events in the Middle East and Afghanistan and current commentary.

ZNET has its commentary and many links at http://www.zmag.org/ZNET.htm

Also Common Dreams News Center at http://www.commondreams.org

Chalmrs Johnson. Blowback: the costs and consequences of American Empire (Henry Holt, 2000). Excerpts on the web at http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blowback_CJohnson/Blowback_CJohnson.html

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Issue 111 contents

Interview: Amidst the Debris
ACTU President Sharan Burrow surveys the wreckage from a week that rocked the world.

Politics: Consequences of Empire
The horror of the events in New York has not led to all American and international observers feeling committed to bloody revenge.

Industrial: Grounded
Ansett workers lay bare their feelings at seeing their company driven into oblivion.

International: Election Results from East Timor
Fretelin as expected has topped the poll in East Timor�s first free democratic election and the violence predicted by some has not eventuated.

E-Change: 3.2 The Electronic Consumerist
In their latest instalment Peter Lewis and Michael Gadiel ask how effective has the law become in safeguarding the things that really matter to us?

Legal: Howard's Falkland War
Zoe Reynolds chronicles the bizarre tale of the Tampa and how a group of refugees bacame pawns in a bigger political game.

Compo: Round Two Begins
Nancy Searle reviews the Sheahan Report and highlights some of the areas of concern to injured workers.

Economics: Knowledge, Power, Banking
Raj Patel questions whether a new World Bank initiative is actually designed to control the way the Third World thinks.

Review: Political Theatre
The Naked Theatre Company is a youthful, adventurous, professional, Sydney theatre company committed to the development and production of Australian playwrights.

Satire: Howard US Visit "Marginally Overshadowed"
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said his US trip was a complete success, if slightly upstaged towards the middle.

» Howard Deserts Ansett Workers

» Trans Tasman Battle for Entitlements

» Qantas Workers Move To Protect Their Entitlements

» Unions Denounce Muslim Attacks

» Fund Established for New York Workers

» Australian Unionist Lost in New York

» US Flight Crews Support Ansett Workers

» Compo: Threshold Too High

» Della Moves on Premium Evasion

» Travel Site Severs Burma Links

» Paint Company Wants Strike Declared Illegal

» Casino Staff Locked Out Again

» Tax Staff to Strike Back

» Union Applauds Deet Ruling On Clothing

» Unions Take Message to Migrant Workers

» Get Ready to Wobble

» Activists' Notebook

» STOP PRESS: Howard Rolls Abbott on Entitlements