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News :: Miscellaneous |
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ZNet's September 11 Talking Points-Part Two |
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by Written by Michael Albert and Stephen R. Shal
(No verified email address) |
17 Sep 2001
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Continued from Part One
Questions-and-Answers about the September 11 Calamity, the fallout, and talking points for people on the left. |
Q. Do Palestinians support the attacks, and, if so, what is the implication?
A. There have been reports of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza cheering the attacks, and similar reports regarding Palestinians in the United States. Fox News has played over and over the same clip of some Palestinians in the occupied territories celebrating. But the media fails to explain that they are showing only a small minority of Palestinians and that official Palestinian sentiment has expressed its condemnation of the attacks and sympathy for the victims. The media have been especially remiss in not reporting such things as the statement issued by the Palestinian village of Beit Sahour movingly denouncing the terror, or the candlelight vigil in Arab East Jerusalem in memory of the victims.
There is no reason to doubt, however, that some Palestinians -- both in the U.S. and in the Middle East -- cheered the attacks. This is wrong, but it is also understandable. The United States has been the most important international backer of Israeli oppression of Palestinians. Some Palestinians, like the Americans who cheered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima or many lesser bombings, such as that of Libya in 1986, mindlessly ignore the human meaning of destroying an "enemy" target.
But that some Palestinians have reacted in this way, while disappointing and painful to watch, should have no bearing on our understanding of their oppression and the need to remedy it. In fact, given that Israel seems to be using the September 11 attacks as an excuse and a cover for increasing assaults on Palestinians, we need to press all the more vigorously for a just solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
Q. What is the likely impact of the attacks within the U.S. policymaking establishment?
A. The catastrophic character of these events provides a perfect excuse for reactionary elements to pursue every agenda item that they can connect to "the war against terrorism" and that they can fuel by fanning fears in the population. This obviously includes expanding military expenditures that have nothing whatever to do with legitimate security concerns and everything to do with profit-seeking and militarism. For example, even though the events of September 11 should have shown that "national missile defense" is no defense at all against the most likely threats we face, already the Democrats are beginning to drop their opposition to that destabilizing boondoggle. Amazingly, certain elements will even extrapolate to social issues. For example, our own home grown fundamentalists -- like Jerry Falwell -- have actually declared (though retracted after wide criticism) that abortion, homosexuality, feminism, and the ACLU are at fault. Others hope to use the attacks as a rationale for eliminating the capital gains tax, a long-time right-wing objective. But the main focus will be military policy. In coming weeks, in short, we will see a celebration in America, a celebration of military power, a celebration of a massive arms build-up, and perhaps assassinations, all touted as if the terror victims will be honored rather than defiled by our preparing to entomb still more innocent people around the world.
Q. So what is the likely U.S. response?
A. U.S. policymaking regarding international relations (and domestic relations as well) is a juggling act. On one side, the goal is enhancing the privilege, power, and wealth of U.S. elites. On the other side, the constraint is keeping at bay less powerful and wealthy constituencies who might have different agendas, both at home and abroad.
Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has had a problem--how to scare the public into ratifying policies that don't benefit the public, but that serve corporate and elite political interests. The fear of a Soviet menace, duly exaggerated, served that purpose admirably for decades. The ideal response to the current situation, from the elite standpoint, will be to replace the Cold War with the Anti-Terror War. With this accomplished, they will again have a vehicle to instill fear, arguably more credible than the former Soviet menace. Again they will have an enemy, terrorists, whom they can blame for anything and everything, trying as well to smear all dissidents as traveling a path leading inexorably toward the horrors of terrorism.
So their response to these recent events is to intone that we must have a long war, a difficult struggle, against an implacable, immense, and even ubiquitous enemy. They will declare that we must channel our energies to this cause, we must sacrifice butter for guns, we must renounce liberty for security, we must succumb, in short, to the rule of the right, and forget about pursuing the defense and enlargement of rights. Their preferred response will therefore be to use the military, particularly against countries that are defenseless, perhaps even to occupy one and to broadly act in ways that will not so much reduce the threat of terror and to diminish its causes, as to induce conflict that is serviceable to power regardless of the enlargement of terror that ensues.
Already Congress has been asked to give the President a blank check for military action, which means further removing U.S. military action from democratic control. Only Rep. Barbara Lee had the courage to vote "no" on Congress's joint resolution, authorizing the President "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons."
Q. What response should the U.S. take instead, internationally?
A. The best way to deal with terrorism is to address its root causes. Perhaps some terrorism would exist even if the grievances of the people of the Third World were dealt with -- grievances that lead to anger, despair, frustration, feelings of powerlessness, and hatred -- but certainly the ability of those who would commit terror without grievances to recruit others would be tremendously reduced. As a second step, we might help establish a real international consensus against terrorism by putting on trial U.S. officials responsible for some of the atrocities noted earlier.
Of course, these are long-term solutions and we face the horror of terrorism today. So we must consider what we want the United States government to do internationally right now.
The U.S. government's guiding principle ought to be to assure the security, safety, and well-being of U.S. citizens without detracting from the security, safety, and well-being of others. A number of points follow from this principle.
First, we must insist that any response refrain from targeting civilians. It must refrain as well from attacking so-called dual-use targets, those that have some military purpose but substantially impact civilians. The United States did not adhere to this principle in World War II (where the direct intention was often to kill civilians) and it still does not adhere to it, as when it hit the civilian infrastructure in Iraq or Serbia, knowing that the result would be civilian deaths (from lack of electricity in hospitals, lack of drinking water, sewage treatment plants, and so on), while the military benefits would be slight. We would obviously reject as grotesque the claim that the World Trade Center was a legitimate target because its destruction makes it harder for the U.S. government to function (and hence to carry out its military policies). We need to be as sensitive to the human costs of striking dual-use facilities in other countries as we are of those in our own country.
We must insist as well that any response to the terror be carried out according to the UN Charter. The Charter provides a clear remedy for events like those of September 11: present the case to the Security Council and let the Council determine the appropriate response. The Charter permits the Council to choose responses up to and including the use of military force. No military action should be carried out without Security Council authorization. To bypass the Security Council is to weaken the foundations of international law that provide security to all nations, especially the weaker ones.
Security Council approval is not always determinative. During the Gulf War, the U.S. obtained such approval by exercising its wealth and power to gain votes. So we should insist on a freely offered Security Council authorization. Moreover, we should insist that the UN retain control of any response; that is, we should oppose the usual practice whereby the United States demands that the Council give it a blank check to conduct a war any way it wants. In the case of the Gulf War, although the Council authorized the war, Council members learned about the opening salvos from CNN; the war was run out of Washington, not the UN. To give the United States a free hand to run a military operation as it chooses removes a crucial check.
And we should insist that no action and no Security Council vote be taken without a full presentation of the evidence assigning culpability. We don't want Washington announcing that we should just take its word for it -- as occurred in 1998, when the U.S. bombed a pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, asserting that it was a chemical warfare facility, only to acknowledge some time later that it had been mistaken.
If -- and it's a big if -- all these conditions are met, then we should no more object to seizing the perpetrators than we object to having the domestic police seize a rapist or a murderer to bring the culprit to justice. And what if a state determines to use military means to protect bin Laden from seizure? The dangers of harm to civilians are much greater in the case of action against a state. Military action would be justified only insofar as it did not cause substantial harm to civilians. In addition, if the goal of a proposed military action is to enhance U.S. security rather than to wreak vengeance, such envisioned benefits would have to be weighed against the prospects of driving thousands of others in the Islamic world into the hands of terrorism. In other words, military action needs to be the smallest part of the international response. More important are diplomatic pressures, cutting off funding sources for terrorist organizations, reducing the grievances that feed frustration, and so on.
It is critically important to also note, however, that even non-military actions can cause immense civilian suffering and that such options too must be rejected. Calling for Pakistan to cut off food aid to Afghanistan, for example, as the United States has already done, would likely lead to starvation on a huge scale. Its implications could be even worse, perhaps far worse, than those of bombing or other seemingly more aggressive choices.
Q. What should we do in the United States to protect ourselves from these sorts of attacks?
A. Beyond pursuing the implementation of international law through appropriate international channels and with regard for proportionate and proper response and beyond trying to rectify unjust conditions that breed hopelessness and despair that can become the nurturing ground of terror -- it is also necessary to reduce vulnerability and risk.
Some things are far easier than the media would have us believe. If we don't want to ever see a commercial airliner turned into a missile and used to destroy people and property, we can simply disconnect the pilots' cabin and the body of the plane, making entry to the former from the latter impossible. Likewise, it is significant that the U.S. airline industry has, up until now, handled airport security through private enterprise, which means low-paid, unskilled security personnel with high turn-over. In Europe, on the other hand, airport security is a government function and the workers are relatively well-paid, and hence much more highly motivated and competent.
Other tasks will be harder. What we should not do, however, is curtail basic freedoms and militarize daily life. That response doesn't ward off terror, but makes terror the victor.
Q. It seems like a lot of Americans are responding to the crisis with a lot of patriotic flag-waving. Is this bad?
A. For people to feel mutual sympathy, to express solidarity, to mourn, to help, is never wrong or bad. The image of firefighters running up stairs to help those above, stairs that would soon collapse, is heroic, and deserves profound respect and engenders almost unbearable sorrow. The vision of hundreds and thousands of people helping at the scene, working to save lives, donating, supporting, is similarly worthy and positive. Even the flag waving, which can at times be jingoism, should not be assumed to be such. To harshly judge the way some show their feelings for the U.S. and for the victims can indeed be callous and also unconstructive. The important thing is to increase awareness of the relevant facts and values at stake, and of the policies that may follow and their implications, and what people of good will can do to influence all these.
Q. How can we respond to people who say America should make a show of strength right now, and retaliate?
A. We understand the sentiment. We share feelings of anger and outrage. But we also feel the rule of law is vastly preferable to vigilantism. We do not advocate that every victim hunt and kill every perpetrator without the critical step of adjudication and of lawful determination of appropriate actions, nor should we in this case.
To retaliate merely to demonstrate strength or resolve, but not to attain real justice or security, is to follow the logic of terror. It seeks not a worthy end but symbolic or vengeful violence. It punishes not perpetrators, but innocents. We should not conduct terrorism as our response to terrorism, but should transcend terrorism in our response to it.
Q. What should the progressives do more broadly?
A. These are difficult times. It is not going to help to isolate ourselves from the reality that others feel, and that we should feel as well. But change depends on organized resistance that raises awareness and commitment. It depends on pressuring decision makers to respect the will of a public with different views. It doesn't suffice for a left to have a good position, to be courageous, to be committed. It must also be huge.
Our immediate task is to communicate accurate information, to counter misconceptions and illogic, to empathize and be on the wavelength of the public, to be able to talk and listen, and be prepared to offer information, analysis, and humane aims.
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See also:
http://www.zmag.org/qacalam.htm
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