Date: Sat, 7 Sep 2002 18:58:07 +1000
Subject: Noam Chomsky 7 Sept 2002

US ignores the real world at its peril.

As long as America dismisses its enemies as merely 'haters of freedom'
it will remain a target for terrorists, writes NOAM CHOMSKY

   September 11 shocked many Americans into an awareness that they had
better pay much closer attention to what the United States Government
does in the world and how it is perceived.
   Many issues have been opened for discussion that were not on the
agenda before. That's all to the good.
   It is also the merest sanity, if we hope to reduce the likelihood of
future atrocities. It may be comfortable to pretend that our enemies
"hate our freedoms", as President Bush said, but it is hardly wise to
ignore the real world, which conveys different lessons.
   The President is not the first to ask, "Why do they hate us?"

   In a staff discussion 44 years ago, President Eisenhower described
"the campaign of hatred against us [in the Arab world], not by the
governments but by the people". His National Security Council outlined
the basic reasons: the US supported corrupt and oppressive governments
and was "op posing political or economic progress" because of its
interest in controlling the oil resources of the region.
   Post-September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same
reasons hold true today, compounded with resentment over specific
policies. Strikingly, that is even true of privileged, Western-oriented
sectors in the region.

    To cite just one recent example: in the August 1 issue of The Far
Eastern Economic Review, the internationally recognised regional
specialist Ahmed Rashid writes that in Pakistan "there is growing anger
that US support is allowing [General Pervez Musharraf's] military
regime to delay the promise of democracy".
   Today we do ourselves few favours by choosing to believe that "they
hate us" and they "hate our freedoms". On the contrary there are people
who like Americans and admire much about the US including its freedoms.
What they hate is official policies that deny them the freedoms to
which they, too, aspire.

   For such reasons, the post-September 11 rantings of Osama bin Laden
- for example, about US support for corrupt and brutal regimes, or
about the US "invasion" of Saudi Arabia - have a certain resonance,
even among those who despise and fear him. From resentment, anger and
frustration, terrorist bands hope to draw support and recruits.
   We should also be aware that much of the world regards Washington as
a terrorist regime. In recent years, the US has taken or backed actions
in Colombia, Nicaragua, Panama, Sudan and Turkey, to name a few
countries, that meet official US definitions of "terrorism" - that is,
when Americans apply the term to enemies.
   In the most sober establishment journal Foreign Affairs, Samuel
Huntington wrote in 1999: "While the US regularly denounces various
countries as "rogue states", in the eyes of many countries it is
becoming the rogue superpower .the single greatest external threat to
their societies."

   Such perceptions are not changed by the fact that, on September 11,
for the first time, a Western country was subjected on home soil to a
horrendous terrorist attack of a kind all too familiar to victims of
Western power. The attack goes far beyond what's sometimes called the
"retail terror" of the IRA, FNL or the Red Brigades.
   The September 11 terrorism elicited harsh condemnation throughout
the world and an outpouring of sympathy for the innocent victims.
But with qualifications.
   An international Gallup poll in late September found little support
for "a military attack" by the US in Afghanistan. In South America, the
region with the most experience of US intervention, support ranged from
2 percent in Mexico to 16 percent in Panama.

   The current "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is, of course,
also fuelled by US policies towards Israel-Palestine and Iraq. The US
has provided the crucial support for Israel's harsh military
occupation, now in its 35th year.
   One way to lessen Israeli-Palestinian tensions would be to stop
refusing to join the long-standing international consensus that calls
for recognition of the right of all states in the region to live in
peace and security, including a Palestinian state in the occupied
territories- perhaps with minor and mutual border adjustments.

   In Iraq, a decade of harsh sanctions under US pressure has
strengthened Saddam Hussein while leading to the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis- perhaps more people "than have been slain by all
so-called weapons of mass destruction throughout history", military
analysts, John and Karl Mueller wrote in Foreign Affairs in 1999.
   Washington's present justifications to attack Iraq have far less
credibility than when President Bush No 1 was welcoming Saddam as an
ally and a trading partner after he had committed his worst brutalities
- as in Halabja, where Iraq attacked Kurds with poison gas in 1988. At
the time, the murderer Saddam was more dangerous than he is today.
   As for a US attack against Iraq, no-one, including Donald Rumsfield,
can realistically guess at its possible costs and consequences.
   Radical Islamist extremists surely hope that an attack on Iraq will
kill many people and destroy much of the country, providing recruits
for terrorist actions.
   They presumably also welcome the "Bush doctrine" that proclaims the
right of attack against potential threats which are virtually
limitless. Bush has announced that " there's no telling how many wars
it will take to secure freedom in the homeland.".
   That's true.

   Threats are everywhere, even at home. The prescription for endless
war poses a far greater danger to Americans than perceived enemies do,
for reasons the terrorist organisations understand very well.
   Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence,
Yehoshaphat Karkabi, also a leading Arabist, made a point that still
holds true. "To offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians
respecting their right to self-determination: that is the solution of
the problems of terrorism, " he said. "When the swamp disappears, there
will be no more mosquitoes."
   At the time, Israel enjoyed virtual immunity from retaliation within
the occupied territories that lasted until very recently. But Harkabi's
warning was apt, and the lesson applies more generally. Well before
September 11 it was understood that with modern technology, the rich
and powerful will lose their near monopoly of the means of violence and
can expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

   If we insist on creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitoes,
with awesome capacity for destruction.
   If we devote our resources to draining the swamps, addressing the
roots of the "campaigns of hatred", we can not only reduce the threats
we face but also live up to the ideals that we profess and that are not
beyond reach if we choose to take them seriously.

Noam Chomsky is apolitical activist, professor of linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of the best-seller
September 11.    smh.com.au             "    JC

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