History, From the Bottom Up One thing we do not have to worry about with
Howard Zinn is his being soft on authoritarians, whether or not they are
for or against U.S. foreign policy. Zinn�s take on history and the current
crisis is refreshingly clear headed, rational, and optimistic. He is very
anti-authoritarian in his outlook and extremely critical of the actions of
the U.S. both before and after the attacks. His message is very simple: �If
we want real security, we will have to change our posture in the world�to
stop being an intervening military power and to stop dominating the
economies of other countries.�23
One of the impacts of the September 11th attacks was to give those of us
living in the United States the type of experience usually reserved for
those targeted by U.S. power, either directly or via proxies. As Zinn
points out: �The horror of the terrorist attacks we experienced on
September 11th is something that people in other parts of the
world�Southeast Asia, Iraq, Yugoslavia�have experienced as a result of our
bombings, of terrorism carried out by people we have backed and armed.
Knowing this should have a sobering effect on any desire to continue with
military solutions.�24 Of course by now we know no such sobering up took
place and any goodwill the U.S. enjoyed following the attacks has been
hopelessly squandered by the Bush Administration.
Zinn is completely opposed to the attacks on Afghanistan: �We are
terrorizing Afghanistan.�25 He cites the estimate of Professor Marc Harold
who, based on worldwide news reports, calculated more than 3,700 civilian
deaths from U.S. bombings.26 And this was in the first months of the U.S.
attacks, prior to the attacks on hostile wedding parties and the like,
which occurred in 2002. Zinn quickly dispenses with the notion that the
attacks of 2001 were directed at the United States because terrorists
oppose our freedom and democracy. He correctly points to the political
dimensions of the conflict, namely United States� policy in the Middle
East. He points out that prior to 1990, bin Laden was a U.S. ally, a friend
going back to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Only with the stationing
of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia did bin Laden turn his attention to the
United States. Up to that point he obviously had no problem with any
supposed freedom and democracy in the United States.27
As for the U.S.�s War on Terrorism, Zinn makes two points. First, this
�war� will not succeed because it is not possible to stop terrorism simply
by bombing and invading countries. And, second, if you take this strategy
at face value and judge its success based on the Bush Administration�s
rationale, it has not been a success at all: �They say they are after bin
Laden, and he becomes the focus; but they can�t find bin Laden. And then
they say they want the Taliban leaders; yet now they can�t get the Taliban
leaders. So, even from their own stated objectives�getting the Taliban�s
leaders or al Qaeda or bin Laden�they have failed.�28 Of course Zinn
questions these objectives, asserting that even if they were fulfilled, the
�war� would not be won. He further points out that the countries the United
States chooses to bomb (Afghanistan and soon Iraq) are those countries in
the region not under U.S. control, unlike Saudi Arabia or Turkey for
example, which are in effect �client states,� and therefore highly
responsive to U.S. foreign policy. He also emphasizes that expanding the
war to include Iraq �gives the government a perpetual war and a perpetual
atmosphere of repression. And it generates perpetual profits for
corporations. But it�s going to make the world a far more unstable and
dangerous place.�29
Zinn addresses the ideological nature of the War on Terrorism, drawing
parallels to the 1950s, McCarthyism, and the Cold War: �Terrorism has
replaced Communism as the rationale for the militarization of the country,
for military adventures abroad, and for the suppression of civil liberties
at home. It serves the same purpose, serving to create hysteria.�30 Zinn,
ever the historian, brings up what happened during the Cold War against
Communism, which led to �the deaths of millions of people in Southeast Asia
and hundreds of thousands of people in Central America.� For example, �in
1954, the United States overthrew the government in Guatemala, which was
not Communist but which was expropriating the United Fruit Company. In
1973, the government in Chile was overthrown in the name of fighting
Communism. The government was not Communist, but it was not serving the
interests of Anaconda Copper and ITT. We have to bring up this history and
relate it to what is happening today.�31
In examining the historical record, Zinn responds to Bush�s assertion that
�We are a peaceful nation� by noting that �since World War II, there has
not been a more warlike nation in the world than the United States.�32 This
brings us to I.F. Stone, described by Zinn as �one of the great journalists
of our time.� When speaking to journalism students he would say to them,
��Among all the things I�m going to tell you today about being a
journalist, all you have to remember is two words: governments lie.�� Zinn
believes it is �very important to know that. Otherwise we are victims of
whatever the authorities say.�33
As the United States prepares for another war against Iraq, it is important
to look at the last Gulf War. At that time, Pentagon briefers showed video
footage of pinpoint strikes against Iraqi targets, although Zinn points out
that, in fact, �pinpoint bombing is a fraud. They discovered after the Gulf
War that 93 percent of the bombs turned out not to be so-called smart bombs
and that the �smart� bombs often missed their targets. Overall, 70 percent
of our bombs missed their targets.�34
Further is the myth of �collateral damage:� The United States dropped
88,500 tons of bombs on Iraq during a forty-three day period, �with the
goal of, as the Washington Post put it, �disabling Iraqi society at large.�
According to the reporter Barton Gellman . . . �damage to civilian
structures and interests, invariably described by briefers during the war
as �collateral� and unintended, was sometimes neither.��35
Another example comes from the bombing of Afghanistan, when the United
States intentionally bombed a Red Cross complex three times, �but,
according to the New York Times, �One of the American aircraft that had
been ordered to hit the Red Cross supply warehouses missed its target and
hit a residential neighborhood instead.�� Is this an example of collateral
damage from intentional collateral damage? Of course, all this talk of
pinpoint accuracy is intended to make the bombing of a largely defenseless
people more palatable to the U.S. population. Zinn argues that if the
majority of the American people �knew that we were killing large numbers of
people, and displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes,
they would not take such a benign view of the Afghan war.�36
Finally Zinn asks, �If the deaths of civilians are inevitable in bombing,
as Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged, it is not an accident. The people
prosecuting this war are committing murder. They are engaging in
terrorism.�37 Zinn calls for doing �away with the terrorism of fanatic
sects and the terrorism of governments.�38 Ultimately, Zinn shares a point
of view with the classical anarchists who believed in the intrinsic
goodness of people, which leads to his sense of optimism in these dark
times: �I do feel hopeful in this time that seems to lack hope, and I
suppose that is based on a fundamental belief in the fact that there is a
moral good sense in the American people that comes to the fore when the
blanket of propaganda begins to be lifted. I think there will be a
reassessment, and people who have been calling the war immoral will be
vindicated at some point.�39 Only time will tell if Zinn�s optimism is
warranted.
