F
fred f and the lot
Guest
And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied territories, now going into
its 35th year. Supported primarily by the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement
for 30 years now, still is. And you can’t have that. There is another one at the time. Israel
was occupying Southern Lebanon and was being combated by what the US calls a terrorist
force, Hizbullah, which in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And we can’t
allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is one that we support so
therefore the US and Israel had to vote against the major UN resolution on terrorism. And I
mentioned before that a US vote against…is essentially a veto. Which is only half the
story. It also vetoes it from history. So none of this was every reported and none of it
appeared in the annals of terrorism. If you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and so
on, nothing that I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got the wrong people
holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitions and the scholarship and so on
so that you come out with the right conclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship
and honorable journalism. Well, these are some of problems that are hampering the effort to
develop a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. Maybe we should have an academic
conference or something to try to see if we can figure out a way of defining terrorism so
that it comes out with just the right answers, not the wrong answers. That won’t be easy.
4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?
Well, let’s drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the origins of the September 11
crimes? Here we have to make a distinction between 2 categories which shouldn’t be run
together. One is the actual agents of the crime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at least
sympathy, sometimes support that they appeal to even among people who very much
oppose the criminals and the actions. And those are 2 different things.
Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators
Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are not really clear. The United
States either is unable or unwilling to provide any evidence, any meaningful evidence. There
was a sort of a play a week or two ago when Tony Blair was set up to try to present it. I
don’t exactly know what the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as
though it’s holding back on some secret evidence that it can’t reveal or that Tony Blair
could strike proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever the PR [public
relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was in serious circles considered so
absurd that it was barely even mentioned. So the Wall Street Journal, for example, one of
the more serious papers had a small story on page 12, I think, in which they pointed out
that there was not much evidence and then they quoted some high US official as saying that
it didn’t matter whether there was any evidence because they were going to do it anyway.
So why bother with the evidence? The more ideological press, like the New York Times
and others, they had big front-page headlines. But the Wall Street Journal reaction was
reasonable and if you look at the so-called evidence you can see why. But let’s assume that
it’s true. It is astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of thought you could do
better than that without any intelligence service [audience laughter]. In fact, remember this
was after weeks of the most intensive investigation in history of all the intelligence services
of the western world working overtime trying to put something together. And it was a
prima facie, it was a very strong case even before you had anything. And it ended up about
where it started, with a prima facie case. So let’s assume that it is true. So let’s assume
that, it looked obvious the first day, still does, that the actual perpetrators come from the
radical Islamic, here called, fundamentalist networks of which the bin Laden network is
undoubtedly a significant part. Whether they were involved or not nobody knows. It
doesn’t really matter much.
Where did they come from?
That’s the background, those networks. Well, where do they come from? We know all
about that. Nobody knows about that better than the CIA because it helped organize them
and it nurtured them for a long time. They were brought together in the 1980’s actually by
the CIA and its associates elsewhere: Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China
was involved, they may have been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978. The idea
was to try to harass the Russians, the common enemy. According to President Carter’s
National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid 1979. Do you
remember, just to put the dates right, that Russia invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.
Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US support for the mojahedin fighting against the
government began 6 months earlier. He is very proud of that. He says we drew the
Russians into, in his words, an Afghan trap, by supporting the mojahedin, getting them to
invade, getting them into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific mercenary
army. Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best killers they
could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from around North Africa, Saudi
Arabia….anywhere they could find them. They were often called the Afghanis but many of
them, like bin Laden, were not Afghans. They were brought by the CIA and its friends
from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is telling the truth or not, I don’t know. He may have
been bragging, he is apparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally.
But maybe it’s true. We’ll know someday if the documents are ever released. Anyway,
that’s his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in doubt that the US was organizing
the Afghanis and this massive military force to try to cause the Russians maximal trouble.
It was a legitimate thing for the Afghans to fight the Russian invasion. But the US
intervention was not helping the Afghans. In fact, it helped destroy the country and much
more. The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians to withdrew,
finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably delayed their withdrawal because
they were trying to get out of it. Anyway, whatever, they did withdraw.
Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming, and training were
pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no secret. One of the first acts was in 1981
when they assassinated the President of Egypt, who was one of the most enthusiastic of
their creators. In 1983, one suicide bomber, who may or may not have been connected, it’s
pretty shadowy, nobody knows. But one suicide bomber drove the US army-military out
of Lebanon. And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to mobilize
them to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their own thing. They were clear very
about it. After 1989, when the Russians had withdrawn, they simply turned elsewhere.
Since then they have been fighting in Chechnya, Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir, South
East Asia, North Africa, all over the place.
The Are Telling Us What They Think
They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants to silence the one free
television channel in the Arab world because it’s broadcasting a whole range of things from
Powell over to Osama bin Laden. So the US is now joining the repressive regimes of the
Arab world that try to shut it up. But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden
says, it’s worth it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of interviews by
leading Western reporters, if you don’t want to listen to his own voice, Robert Fisk and
others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent for a long time. He’s not the only
one but maybe he is the most eloquent. It’s not only consistent over a long time, it is
consistent with their actions. So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime
enemy is what they call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal regimes of the Arab
world and when the say that they get quite a resonance in the region. They also want to
defend and they want to replace them by properly Islamist governments. That’s where
they lose the people of the region. But up till then, they are with them. From their point of
view, even Saudi Arabia, the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world, I suppose,
short of the Taliban, which is an offshoot, even that’s not Islamist enough for them. Ok, at
that point, they get very little support, but up until that point they get plenty of support.
Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hate the Russians like poison, but as
soon as the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in
Russia as they had been doing with CIA backing before that within Russia, not just in
Afghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there they are defending Muslims
against a Russian invasion. Same with all the other places I mentioned. From their point of
view, they are defending the Muslims against the infidels. And they are very clear about it
and that is what they have been doing.
Why did they turn against the United States?
Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to do with what they call
the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US established permanent military bases in
Saudi Arabia which from their point of view is comparable to a Russian invasion of
Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is way more important. That’s the home of the
holiest sites of Islam. And that is when their activities turned against the Unites States. If
you recall, in 1993 they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way, but
not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were to blow up the UN
building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I think there were others on the
list. Well, they sort of got part way, but not all the way. One person who is jailed for that,
finally, among the people who were jailed, was a Egyptian cleric who had been brought into
the United States over the objections of the Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention
of the CIA which wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was blowing up
the World Trade Center. And this has been going on all over. I’m not going to run through
the list but it’s, if you want to understand it, it’s consistent. It’s a consistent picture. It’s
described in words. It’s revealed in practice for 20 years. There is no reason not to take it
seriously. That’s the first category, the likely perpetrators.
Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?
What about the reservoir of support? Well, it’s not hard to find out what that is. One of
the good things that has happened since September 11 is that some of the press and some
of the discussion has begun to open up to some of these things. The best one to my
knowledge is the Wall Street Journal which right away began to run, within a couple of
days, serious reports, searching serious reports, on the reasons why the people of the
region, even though they hate bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless
support him in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam, as one said.
Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not surveying public opinion. They are
surveying the opinion of their friends: bankers, professionals, international lawyers,
businessmen tied to the United States, people who they interview in MacDonalds
restaurant, which is an elegant restaurant there, wearing fancy American clothes. That’s the
people they are interviewing because they want to find out what their attitudes are. And
their attitudes are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant with the
message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the United States because of its
support of authoritarian and brutal regimes; its intervention to block any move towards
democracy; its intervention to stop economic development; its policies of devastating the
civilian societies of Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein; and they remember, even if
we prefer not to, that the United States and Britain supported Saddam Hussein right
through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, bin Laden brings that up
constantly, and they know it even if we don’t want to. And of course their support for the
Israeli military occupation which is harsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has
been providing the overwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic support for it, and
still does. And they know that and they don’t like it. Especially when that is paired with
US policy towards Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society which is getting destroyed. Ok,
those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Laden gives those reasons, people recognize it
and support it.
Now that’s not the way people here like to think about it, at least educated liberal opinion.
They like the following line which has been all over the press, mostly from left liberals,
incidentally. I have not done a real study but I think right wing opinion has generally been
more honest. But if you look at say at the New York Times at the first op-ed they ran by
Ronald Steel, serious left liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? This is the
same day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running the survey on why they hate
us. So he says “They hate us because we champion a new world order of capitalism,
individualism, secularism, and democracy that should be the norm everywhere.” That’s
why they hate us. The same day the Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions of
bankers, professionals, international lawyers and saying `look, we hate you because you
are blocking democracy, you are preventing economic development, you are supporting
brutal regimes, terrorist regimes and you are doing these horrible things in the region.’ A
couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left, explained that the terrorist seek
only “apocalyptic nihilism,” nothing more and nothing we do matters. The only
consequence of our actions, he says, that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for
Arabs to join in the coalition’s anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that, everything we do is
irrelevant.
Well, you know, that’s got the advantage of being sort of comforting. It makes you feel
good about yourself, and how wonderful you are. It enables us to evade the consequences
of our actions. It has a couple of defects. One is it is at total variance with everything we
know. And another defect is that it is a perfect way to ensure that you escalate the cycle of
violence. If you want to live with your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate us
because they’re opposed to globalization, that’s why they killed Sadat 20 years ago, and
fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. And these are all
people who are in the midst of … corporate globalization but if you want to believe that,
yeh…comforting. And it is a great way to make sure that violence escalates. That’s tribal
violence. You did something to me, I’ll do something worse to you. I don’t care what the
reasons are. We just keep going that way. And that’s a way to do it. Pretty much straight,
left-liberal opinion.
5. What are the Policy Options?
What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow policy option from the
beginning was to follow the advice of really far out radicals like the Pope [audience
laughter]. The Vatican immediately said look it’s a horrible terrorist crime. In the case of
crime, you try to find the perpetrators, you bring them to justice, you try them. You don’t
kill innocent civilians. Like if somebody robs my house and I think the guy who did it is
probably in the neighborhood across the street, I don’t go out with an assault rifle and kill
everyone in that neighborhood. That’s not the way you deal with crime, whether it’s a
small crime like this one or really massive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua,
even worse ones and others in between. And there are plenty of precedents for that. In
fact, I mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua, a lawful, a law abiding state, that’s why
presumably we had to destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of course, it
didn’t get anywhere because it was running up against a power that wouldn’t allow lawful
procedures to be followed. But if the United States tried to pursue them, nobody would
stop them. In fact, everyone would applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.
IRA Bombs in London
When the IRA set off bombs in London, which is pretty serious business, Britain could
have, apart from the fact that it was unfeasible, let’s put that aside, one possible response
would have been to destroy Boston which is the source of most of the financing. And of
course to wipe out West Belfast. Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would
have been criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what they did. You
know, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial; and look for the reasons. Because these
things don’t come out of nowhere. They come from something. Whether it is a crime in the
streets or a monstrous terrorist crime or anything else. There’s reasons. And usually if you
look at the reasons, some of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed, independently
of the crime, they ought to be addressed because they are legitimate. And that’s the way to
deal with it. There are many such examples.
But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United States does not recognize
the jurisdiction of international institutions. So it can’t go to them. It has rejected the
jurisdiction of the World Court. It has refused to ratify the International Criminal Court. It
is powerful enough to set up a new court if it wants so that wouldn’t stop anything. But
there is a problem with any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to any kind
of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking about it on television.
And that’s very hard. It may be impossible to find.
Leaderless Resistance
You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves. Nobody knows this
better than the CIA. These are decentralized, nonhierarchic networks. They follow a
principle that is called Leaderless Resistance. That’s the principle that has been developed
by the Christian Right terrorists in the United States. It’s called Leaderless Resistance. You
have small groups that do things. They don’t talk to anybody else. There is a kind of
general background of assumptions and then you do it. Actually people in the anti war
movement are very familiar with it. We used to call it affinity groups. If you assume
correctly that whatever group you are in is being penetrated by the FBI, when something
serious is happening, you don’t do it in a meeting. You do it with some people you know
and trust, an affinity group and then it doesn’t get penetrated. That’s one of the reasons
why the FBI has never been able to figure out what’s going on in any of the popular
movements. And other intelligence agencies are the same. They can’t. That’s leaderless
resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networks are extremely hard to penetrate.
And it’s quite possible that they just don’t know. When Osama bin Laden claims he
wasn’t involved, that’s entirely possible. In fact, it’s pretty hard to imagine how a guy in a
cave in Afghanistan, who doesn’t even have a radio or a telephone could have planned a
highly sophisticated operation like that. Chances are it’s part of the background. You
know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups. Which means it’s going to be
extremely difficult to find evidence.
Establishing Credibility
And the US doesn’t want to present evidence because it wants to be able to do it, to act
without evidence. That’s a crucial part of the reaction. You will notice that the US did not
ask for Security Council authorization which they probably could have gotten this time,
not for pretty reasons, but because the other permanent members of the Security Council
are also terrorist states. They are happy to join a coalition against what they call terror,
namely in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn’t going to veto, they love it. So
the US probably could have gotten Security Council authorization but it didn’t want it.
And it didn’t want it because it follows a long-standing principle which is not George
Bush, it was explicit in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes back much further
and that is that we have the right to act unilaterally. We don’t want international
authorization because we act unilaterally and therefore we don’t want it. We don’t care
about evidence. We don’t care about negotiation. We don’t care about treaties. We are the
strongest guy around; the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization
is a bad thing and therefore must be avoided. There is even a name for it in the technical
literature. It’s called establishing credibility. You have to establish credibility. That’s an
important factor in many policies. It was the official reason given for the war in the
Balkans and the most plausible reason.
You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He’ll explain to
you what credibility means. And it’s the same in international affairs, except it’s talked
about in universities using big words, and that sort of thing. But it’s basically the same
principle. And it makes sense. And it usually works. The main historian who has written
about this in the last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called Coercion, Capital, and
European States. He points out that violence has been the leading principle of Europe for
hundreds of years and the reason is because it works. You know, it’s very reasonable. It
almost always works. When you have an overwhelming predominance of violence and a
culture of violence behind it. So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all
problems in pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow them you’d really open
some very dangerous doors. Like the US is demanding that the Taliban hand over Osama
bin Laden. And they are responding in a way which is regarded as totally absurd and
outlandish in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but first give us some evidence. In the
west, that is considered ludicrous. It’s a sign of their criminality. How can they ask for
evidence? I mean if somebody asked us to hand someone over, we’d do it tomorrow. We
wouldn’t ask for any evidence. [crowd laughter].
Haiti
In fact it is easy to prove that. We don’t have to make up cases. So for example, for the
last several years, Haiti has been requesting the United States to extradite Emmanuel
Constant. He is a major killer. He is one of the leading figures in the slaughter of maybe
4000 or 5000 people in the years in the mid 1990’s, under the military junta, which
incidentally was being, not so tacitly, supported by the Bush and the Clinton
administrations contrary to illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty of
evidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought to trial and sentenced in
Haiti and they are asking the United States to turn him over. Well, I mean do your own
research. See how much discussion there has been of that. Actually Haiti renewed the
request a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t even mentioned. Why should we turn over a
convicted killer who was largely responsible for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of
years ago. In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe he’ll say
that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is probably true. We don’t want to
open that door. And he is not he only one.
Costa Rica
I mean, for the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democratic prize, has been
trying to get the United States to hand over a John Hull, a US land owner in Costa Rica,
who they charge with terrorist crimes. He was using his land, they claim with good
evidence as a base for the US war against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial
conclusion, remember. There is the World Court and Security Council behind it. So they
have been trying to get the United States to hand him over. Hear about that one? No.
They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder, John Hamilton. Paid
compensation, offered compensation. The US refused. Turned his land over into a national
park because his land was also being used as a base for the US attack against Nicaragua.
Costa Rica was punished for that one. They were punished by withholding aid. We don’t
accept that kind of insubordination from allies. And we can go on. If you open the door to
questions about extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So that can’t be done.
Reactions in Afghanistan
Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal, the initial rhetoric was
for a massive assault which would kill many people visibly and also an attack on other
countries in the region. Well the Bush administration wisely backed off from that. They
were being told by every foreign leader, NATO, everyone else, every specialist, I suppose,
their own intelligence agencies that that would be the stupidest thing they could possibly
do. It would simply be like opening recruiting offices for bin Laden all over the region.
That’s exactly what he wants. And it would be extremely harmful to their own interests.
So they backed off that one. And they are turning to what I described earlier which is a
kind of silent genocide. It’s a…. well, I already said what I think about it. I don’t think
anything more has to be said. You can figure it out if you do the arithmetic.
A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered, but it has been
sensible all along, and it is being raised, called for by expatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal
leaders internally, is for a UN initiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans out
of it, totally. These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country out in the
last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should provide massive reparations. But
that’s their only role. A UN initiative to bring together elements within Afghanistan that
would try to construct something from the wreckage. It’s conceivable that that could work,
with plenty of support and no interference. If the US insists on running it, we might as
well quit. We have a historical record on that one.
You will notice that the name of this operation….remember that at first it was going to be a
Crusade but they backed off that because PR (public relations) agents told them that that
wouldn’t work [audience laughter]. And then it was going to be Infinite Justice, but the PR
agents said, wait a minute, you are sounding like you are divinity. So that wouldn’t work.
And then it was changed to enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobody has
yet pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. To endure means to suffer.
[audience laughter]. And a there are plenty of people around the world who have endured
what we call freedom. Again, fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so
nobody has yet pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there will be another problem to
deal with. But if we can back off enough so that some more or less independent agency,
maybe the UN, maybe credible NGO’s (non governmental organizations) can take the lead
in trying to reconstruct something from the wreckage, with plenty of assistance and we
owe it to them. Them maybe something would come out. Beyond that, there are other
problems.
An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror
We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it. There is one easy
way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating in it. That
would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously. But that you can’t discuss. Well
we ought to make it possible to discuss it. So that’s one easy way to reduce the level of
terror.
Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is not the only one,
in which we organize and train terrorist armies. That has effects. We’re seeing some of
these effects now. September 11th is one. Rethink it.
Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support. Exactly what the bankers,
lawyers and so on are saying in places like Saudi Arabia. On the streets it’s much more
bitter, as you can imagine. That’s possible. You know, those policies aren’t graven in
stone.
And further more there are opportunities. It’s hard to find many rays of light in the last
couple of weeks but one of them is that there is an increased openness. Lots of issues are
open for discussion, even in elite circles, certainly among the general public, that were not a
couple of weeks ago. That’s dramatically the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today
can run a very good article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Strip…there has been a
change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journal…that’s change. And among the
general public, I think there is much more openness and willingness to think about things
that were under the rug and so on. These are opportunities and they should be used, at
least by people who accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and terror,
including potential threats that are extremely severe and could make even September 11th
pale into insignificance. Thanks.
its 35th year. Supported primarily by the United States in blocking a diplomatic settlement
for 30 years now, still is. And you can’t have that. There is another one at the time. Israel
was occupying Southern Lebanon and was being combated by what the US calls a terrorist
force, Hizbullah, which in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And we can’t
allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is one that we support so
therefore the US and Israel had to vote against the major UN resolution on terrorism. And I
mentioned before that a US vote against…is essentially a veto. Which is only half the
story. It also vetoes it from history. So none of this was every reported and none of it
appeared in the annals of terrorism. If you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and so
on, nothing that I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got the wrong people
holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitions and the scholarship and so on
so that you come out with the right conclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship
and honorable journalism. Well, these are some of problems that are hampering the effort to
develop a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. Maybe we should have an academic
conference or something to try to see if we can figure out a way of defining terrorism so
that it comes out with just the right answers, not the wrong answers. That won’t be easy.
4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?
Well, let’s drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the origins of the September 11
crimes? Here we have to make a distinction between 2 categories which shouldn’t be run
together. One is the actual agents of the crime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at least
sympathy, sometimes support that they appeal to even among people who very much
oppose the criminals and the actions. And those are 2 different things.
Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators
Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are not really clear. The United
States either is unable or unwilling to provide any evidence, any meaningful evidence. There
was a sort of a play a week or two ago when Tony Blair was set up to try to present it. I
don’t exactly know what the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as
though it’s holding back on some secret evidence that it can’t reveal or that Tony Blair
could strike proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever the PR [public
relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was in serious circles considered so
absurd that it was barely even mentioned. So the Wall Street Journal, for example, one of
the more serious papers had a small story on page 12, I think, in which they pointed out
that there was not much evidence and then they quoted some high US official as saying that
it didn’t matter whether there was any evidence because they were going to do it anyway.
So why bother with the evidence? The more ideological press, like the New York Times
and others, they had big front-page headlines. But the Wall Street Journal reaction was
reasonable and if you look at the so-called evidence you can see why. But let’s assume that
it’s true. It is astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of thought you could do
better than that without any intelligence service [audience laughter]. In fact, remember this
was after weeks of the most intensive investigation in history of all the intelligence services
of the western world working overtime trying to put something together. And it was a
prima facie, it was a very strong case even before you had anything. And it ended up about
where it started, with a prima facie case. So let’s assume that it is true. So let’s assume
that, it looked obvious the first day, still does, that the actual perpetrators come from the
radical Islamic, here called, fundamentalist networks of which the bin Laden network is
undoubtedly a significant part. Whether they were involved or not nobody knows. It
doesn’t really matter much.
Where did they come from?
That’s the background, those networks. Well, where do they come from? We know all
about that. Nobody knows about that better than the CIA because it helped organize them
and it nurtured them for a long time. They were brought together in the 1980’s actually by
the CIA and its associates elsewhere: Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China
was involved, they may have been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978. The idea
was to try to harass the Russians, the common enemy. According to President Carter’s
National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid 1979. Do you
remember, just to put the dates right, that Russia invaded Afghanistan in December 1979.
Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US support for the mojahedin fighting against the
government began 6 months earlier. He is very proud of that. He says we drew the
Russians into, in his words, an Afghan trap, by supporting the mojahedin, getting them to
invade, getting them into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific mercenary
army. Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best killers they
could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from around North Africa, Saudi
Arabia….anywhere they could find them. They were often called the Afghanis but many of
them, like bin Laden, were not Afghans. They were brought by the CIA and its friends
from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is telling the truth or not, I don’t know. He may have
been bragging, he is apparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally.
But maybe it’s true. We’ll know someday if the documents are ever released. Anyway,
that’s his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in doubt that the US was organizing
the Afghanis and this massive military force to try to cause the Russians maximal trouble.
It was a legitimate thing for the Afghans to fight the Russian invasion. But the US
intervention was not helping the Afghans. In fact, it helped destroy the country and much
more. The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians to withdrew,
finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably delayed their withdrawal because
they were trying to get out of it. Anyway, whatever, they did withdraw.
Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming, and training were
pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no secret. One of the first acts was in 1981
when they assassinated the President of Egypt, who was one of the most enthusiastic of
their creators. In 1983, one suicide bomber, who may or may not have been connected, it’s
pretty shadowy, nobody knows. But one suicide bomber drove the US army-military out
of Lebanon. And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to mobilize
them to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their own thing. They were clear very
about it. After 1989, when the Russians had withdrawn, they simply turned elsewhere.
Since then they have been fighting in Chechnya, Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir, South
East Asia, North Africa, all over the place.
The Are Telling Us What They Think
They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants to silence the one free
television channel in the Arab world because it’s broadcasting a whole range of things from
Powell over to Osama bin Laden. So the US is now joining the repressive regimes of the
Arab world that try to shut it up. But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden
says, it’s worth it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of interviews by
leading Western reporters, if you don’t want to listen to his own voice, Robert Fisk and
others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent for a long time. He’s not the only
one but maybe he is the most eloquent. It’s not only consistent over a long time, it is
consistent with their actions. So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime
enemy is what they call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal regimes of the Arab
world and when the say that they get quite a resonance in the region. They also want to
defend and they want to replace them by properly Islamist governments. That’s where
they lose the people of the region. But up till then, they are with them. From their point of
view, even Saudi Arabia, the most extreme fundamentalist state in the world, I suppose,
short of the Taliban, which is an offshoot, even that’s not Islamist enough for them. Ok, at
that point, they get very little support, but up until that point they get plenty of support.
Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hate the Russians like poison, but as
soon as the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in
Russia as they had been doing with CIA backing before that within Russia, not just in
Afghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there they are defending Muslims
against a Russian invasion. Same with all the other places I mentioned. From their point of
view, they are defending the Muslims against the infidels. And they are very clear about it
and that is what they have been doing.
Why did they turn against the United States?
Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to do with what they call
the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US established permanent military bases in
Saudi Arabia which from their point of view is comparable to a Russian invasion of
Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is way more important. That’s the home of the
holiest sites of Islam. And that is when their activities turned against the Unites States. If
you recall, in 1993 they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way, but
not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were to blow up the UN
building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I think there were others on the
list. Well, they sort of got part way, but not all the way. One person who is jailed for that,
finally, among the people who were jailed, was a Egyptian cleric who had been brought into
the United States over the objections of the Immigration Service, thanks to the intervention
of the CIA which wanted to help out their friend. A couple years later he was blowing up
the World Trade Center. And this has been going on all over. I’m not going to run through
the list but it’s, if you want to understand it, it’s consistent. It’s a consistent picture. It’s
described in words. It’s revealed in practice for 20 years. There is no reason not to take it
seriously. That’s the first category, the likely perpetrators.
Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?
What about the reservoir of support? Well, it’s not hard to find out what that is. One of
the good things that has happened since September 11 is that some of the press and some
of the discussion has begun to open up to some of these things. The best one to my
knowledge is the Wall Street Journal which right away began to run, within a couple of
days, serious reports, searching serious reports, on the reasons why the people of the
region, even though they hate bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless
support him in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam, as one said.
Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not surveying public opinion. They are
surveying the opinion of their friends: bankers, professionals, international lawyers,
businessmen tied to the United States, people who they interview in MacDonalds
restaurant, which is an elegant restaurant there, wearing fancy American clothes. That’s the
people they are interviewing because they want to find out what their attitudes are. And
their attitudes are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant with the
message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the United States because of its
support of authoritarian and brutal regimes; its intervention to block any move towards
democracy; its intervention to stop economic development; its policies of devastating the
civilian societies of Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein; and they remember, even if
we prefer not to, that the United States and Britain supported Saddam Hussein right
through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, bin Laden brings that up
constantly, and they know it even if we don’t want to. And of course their support for the
Israeli military occupation which is harsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has
been providing the overwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic support for it, and
still does. And they know that and they don’t like it. Especially when that is paired with
US policy towards Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society which is getting destroyed. Ok,
those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Laden gives those reasons, people recognize it
and support it.
Now that’s not the way people here like to think about it, at least educated liberal opinion.
They like the following line which has been all over the press, mostly from left liberals,
incidentally. I have not done a real study but I think right wing opinion has generally been
more honest. But if you look at say at the New York Times at the first op-ed they ran by
Ronald Steel, serious left liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? This is the
same day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running the survey on why they hate
us. So he says “They hate us because we champion a new world order of capitalism,
individualism, secularism, and democracy that should be the norm everywhere.” That’s
why they hate us. The same day the Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions of
bankers, professionals, international lawyers and saying `look, we hate you because you
are blocking democracy, you are preventing economic development, you are supporting
brutal regimes, terrorist regimes and you are doing these horrible things in the region.’ A
couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left, explained that the terrorist seek
only “apocalyptic nihilism,” nothing more and nothing we do matters. The only
consequence of our actions, he says, that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for
Arabs to join in the coalition’s anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that, everything we do is
irrelevant.
Well, you know, that’s got the advantage of being sort of comforting. It makes you feel
good about yourself, and how wonderful you are. It enables us to evade the consequences
of our actions. It has a couple of defects. One is it is at total variance with everything we
know. And another defect is that it is a perfect way to ensure that you escalate the cycle of
violence. If you want to live with your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate us
because they’re opposed to globalization, that’s why they killed Sadat 20 years ago, and
fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. And these are all
people who are in the midst of … corporate globalization but if you want to believe that,
yeh…comforting. And it is a great way to make sure that violence escalates. That’s tribal
violence. You did something to me, I’ll do something worse to you. I don’t care what the
reasons are. We just keep going that way. And that’s a way to do it. Pretty much straight,
left-liberal opinion.
5. What are the Policy Options?
What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow policy option from the
beginning was to follow the advice of really far out radicals like the Pope [audience
laughter]. The Vatican immediately said look it’s a horrible terrorist crime. In the case of
crime, you try to find the perpetrators, you bring them to justice, you try them. You don’t
kill innocent civilians. Like if somebody robs my house and I think the guy who did it is
probably in the neighborhood across the street, I don’t go out with an assault rifle and kill
everyone in that neighborhood. That’s not the way you deal with crime, whether it’s a
small crime like this one or really massive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua,
even worse ones and others in between. And there are plenty of precedents for that. In
fact, I mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua, a lawful, a law abiding state, that’s why
presumably we had to destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of course, it
didn’t get anywhere because it was running up against a power that wouldn’t allow lawful
procedures to be followed. But if the United States tried to pursue them, nobody would
stop them. In fact, everyone would applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.
IRA Bombs in London
When the IRA set off bombs in London, which is pretty serious business, Britain could
have, apart from the fact that it was unfeasible, let’s put that aside, one possible response
would have been to destroy Boston which is the source of most of the financing. And of
course to wipe out West Belfast. Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would
have been criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what they did. You
know, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial; and look for the reasons. Because these
things don’t come out of nowhere. They come from something. Whether it is a crime in the
streets or a monstrous terrorist crime or anything else. There’s reasons. And usually if you
look at the reasons, some of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed, independently
of the crime, they ought to be addressed because they are legitimate. And that’s the way to
deal with it. There are many such examples.
But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United States does not recognize
the jurisdiction of international institutions. So it can’t go to them. It has rejected the
jurisdiction of the World Court. It has refused to ratify the International Criminal Court. It
is powerful enough to set up a new court if it wants so that wouldn’t stop anything. But
there is a problem with any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to any kind
of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking about it on television.
And that’s very hard. It may be impossible to find.
Leaderless Resistance
You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves. Nobody knows this
better than the CIA. These are decentralized, nonhierarchic networks. They follow a
principle that is called Leaderless Resistance. That’s the principle that has been developed
by the Christian Right terrorists in the United States. It’s called Leaderless Resistance. You
have small groups that do things. They don’t talk to anybody else. There is a kind of
general background of assumptions and then you do it. Actually people in the anti war
movement are very familiar with it. We used to call it affinity groups. If you assume
correctly that whatever group you are in is being penetrated by the FBI, when something
serious is happening, you don’t do it in a meeting. You do it with some people you know
and trust, an affinity group and then it doesn’t get penetrated. That’s one of the reasons
why the FBI has never been able to figure out what’s going on in any of the popular
movements. And other intelligence agencies are the same. They can’t. That’s leaderless
resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networks are extremely hard to penetrate.
And it’s quite possible that they just don’t know. When Osama bin Laden claims he
wasn’t involved, that’s entirely possible. In fact, it’s pretty hard to imagine how a guy in a
cave in Afghanistan, who doesn’t even have a radio or a telephone could have planned a
highly sophisticated operation like that. Chances are it’s part of the background. You
know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups. Which means it’s going to be
extremely difficult to find evidence.
Establishing Credibility
And the US doesn’t want to present evidence because it wants to be able to do it, to act
without evidence. That’s a crucial part of the reaction. You will notice that the US did not
ask for Security Council authorization which they probably could have gotten this time,
not for pretty reasons, but because the other permanent members of the Security Council
are also terrorist states. They are happy to join a coalition against what they call terror,
namely in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn’t going to veto, they love it. So
the US probably could have gotten Security Council authorization but it didn’t want it.
And it didn’t want it because it follows a long-standing principle which is not George
Bush, it was explicit in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes back much further
and that is that we have the right to act unilaterally. We don’t want international
authorization because we act unilaterally and therefore we don’t want it. We don’t care
about evidence. We don’t care about negotiation. We don’t care about treaties. We are the
strongest guy around; the toughest thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization
is a bad thing and therefore must be avoided. There is even a name for it in the technical
literature. It’s called establishing credibility. You have to establish credibility. That’s an
important factor in many policies. It was the official reason given for the war in the
Balkans and the most plausible reason.
You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He’ll explain to
you what credibility means. And it’s the same in international affairs, except it’s talked
about in universities using big words, and that sort of thing. But it’s basically the same
principle. And it makes sense. And it usually works. The main historian who has written
about this in the last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called Coercion, Capital, and
European States. He points out that violence has been the leading principle of Europe for
hundreds of years and the reason is because it works. You know, it’s very reasonable. It
almost always works. When you have an overwhelming predominance of violence and a
culture of violence behind it. So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all
problems in pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow them you’d really open
some very dangerous doors. Like the US is demanding that the Taliban hand over Osama
bin Laden. And they are responding in a way which is regarded as totally absurd and
outlandish in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but first give us some evidence. In the
west, that is considered ludicrous. It’s a sign of their criminality. How can they ask for
evidence? I mean if somebody asked us to hand someone over, we’d do it tomorrow. We
wouldn’t ask for any evidence. [crowd laughter].
Haiti
In fact it is easy to prove that. We don’t have to make up cases. So for example, for the
last several years, Haiti has been requesting the United States to extradite Emmanuel
Constant. He is a major killer. He is one of the leading figures in the slaughter of maybe
4000 or 5000 people in the years in the mid 1990’s, under the military junta, which
incidentally was being, not so tacitly, supported by the Bush and the Clinton
administrations contrary to illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty of
evidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought to trial and sentenced in
Haiti and they are asking the United States to turn him over. Well, I mean do your own
research. See how much discussion there has been of that. Actually Haiti renewed the
request a couple of weeks ago. It wasn’t even mentioned. Why should we turn over a
convicted killer who was largely responsible for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of
years ago. In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe he’ll say
that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is probably true. We don’t want to
open that door. And he is not he only one.
Costa Rica
I mean, for the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democratic prize, has been
trying to get the United States to hand over a John Hull, a US land owner in Costa Rica,
who they charge with terrorist crimes. He was using his land, they claim with good
evidence as a base for the US war against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial
conclusion, remember. There is the World Court and Security Council behind it. So they
have been trying to get the United States to hand him over. Hear about that one? No.
They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder, John Hamilton. Paid
compensation, offered compensation. The US refused. Turned his land over into a national
park because his land was also being used as a base for the US attack against Nicaragua.
Costa Rica was punished for that one. They were punished by withholding aid. We don’t
accept that kind of insubordination from allies. And we can go on. If you open the door to
questions about extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So that can’t be done.
Reactions in Afghanistan
Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal, the initial rhetoric was
for a massive assault which would kill many people visibly and also an attack on other
countries in the region. Well the Bush administration wisely backed off from that. They
were being told by every foreign leader, NATO, everyone else, every specialist, I suppose,
their own intelligence agencies that that would be the stupidest thing they could possibly
do. It would simply be like opening recruiting offices for bin Laden all over the region.
That’s exactly what he wants. And it would be extremely harmful to their own interests.
So they backed off that one. And they are turning to what I described earlier which is a
kind of silent genocide. It’s a…. well, I already said what I think about it. I don’t think
anything more has to be said. You can figure it out if you do the arithmetic.
A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered, but it has been
sensible all along, and it is being raised, called for by expatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal
leaders internally, is for a UN initiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans out
of it, totally. These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country out in the
last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should provide massive reparations. But
that’s their only role. A UN initiative to bring together elements within Afghanistan that
would try to construct something from the wreckage. It’s conceivable that that could work,
with plenty of support and no interference. If the US insists on running it, we might as
well quit. We have a historical record on that one.
You will notice that the name of this operation….remember that at first it was going to be a
Crusade but they backed off that because PR (public relations) agents told them that that
wouldn’t work [audience laughter]. And then it was going to be Infinite Justice, but the PR
agents said, wait a minute, you are sounding like you are divinity. So that wouldn’t work.
And then it was changed to enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobody has
yet pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. To endure means to suffer.
[audience laughter]. And a there are plenty of people around the world who have endured
what we call freedom. Again, fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so
nobody has yet pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there will be another problem to
deal with. But if we can back off enough so that some more or less independent agency,
maybe the UN, maybe credible NGO’s (non governmental organizations) can take the lead
in trying to reconstruct something from the wreckage, with plenty of assistance and we
owe it to them. Them maybe something would come out. Beyond that, there are other
problems.
An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror
We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it. There is one easy
way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely stop participating in it. That
would automatically reduce the level of terror enormously. But that you can’t discuss. Well
we ought to make it possible to discuss it. So that’s one easy way to reduce the level of
terror.
Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is not the only one,
in which we organize and train terrorist armies. That has effects. We’re seeing some of
these effects now. September 11th is one. Rethink it.
Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support. Exactly what the bankers,
lawyers and so on are saying in places like Saudi Arabia. On the streets it’s much more
bitter, as you can imagine. That’s possible. You know, those policies aren’t graven in
stone.
And further more there are opportunities. It’s hard to find many rays of light in the last
couple of weeks but one of them is that there is an increased openness. Lots of issues are
open for discussion, even in elite circles, certainly among the general public, that were not a
couple of weeks ago. That’s dramatically the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today
can run a very good article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Strip…there has been a
change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journal…that’s change. And among the
general public, I think there is much more openness and willingness to think about things
that were under the rug and so on. These are opportunities and they should be used, at
least by people who accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and terror,
including potential threats that are extremely severe and could make even September 11th
pale into insignificance. Thanks.
