From: "Michael Albert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 12:31 AM
Subject: ZNet Commentary / Noam Chomsky / Albert Interviews Chomsky / Sept. 30
http://www.zmag.org/sustainers
I sent six questions to Noam Chomsky. His answers, by email, are below.
(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.
--
Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Archived at http://www.cat.org.au/lists/leftlink/
Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop
Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink
Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
