BC: GREAT SATAN
WHY ARE WE DESPISED?
Boulder examines the conscience of a country
by Pamela White (Editorial@boulderweekly.com)
As the dust settled on Tuesday's shocking terrorist attacks in New
York and Washington, D.C., President George Bush vowed the United
States would find and punish those responsible for the devastation.
His words resonated with stunned Americans across the country, who
gathered in front of television sets and spoke out on TV programs and
radio shows, some demanding a swift and brutal U.S. response.
Anger fueled by images of Palestinians celebrating the attacks in the
street prompted one local caller to say it was time to "kill all the
towel heads."
But scattered among the grief-stricken and angry voices were a small
number of Americans asking whether the United States has done
anything to provoke such violence.
It's a question many people didn't appreciate.
"I'm appalled at the lack of patriotism," said one caller, who spoke
out on KGNU radio. Still, it's a question worth trying to answer.
Why is the United States despised?
John Wayne politics
Local U.S. policy experts and activists grappled with grief and shock
Tuesday along with the rest of the country. While they took pains to
explain that they in no way excuse or condone Tuesday's violence,
some were willing to offer their insights into the reasons so many
people hate America.
Understanding the motives behind terrorist attacks against the United
States is hampered by the assumptions many Americans hold, said Ira
Chernus, a professor of religious studies at CU.
One of those assumptions is that U.S. intentions the world over are
good, even when the government or military makes mistakes. The belief
that we're only trying to help makes it hard for us to understand why
anyone would do something like this to us, Chernus said.
Related to that assumption is the belief that the United States is
both innocent and invulnerable, which prevents Americans from
listening to the message behind such events.
"The important thing is to be able to listen insofar as we can to the
people who carried out this thing," Chernus said. "We start out with
the assumption that there's no point in listening to what they have
to say. The general assumption is that if you listen to what they
say, that endorses (the attack)."
Chernus points out that the message of terrorists on trial for other
acts of violence around the world has been left out of court
coverage. People never get a clear picture of what's bothering these
people and why they were driven to such extremes.
While some critics claim that U.S. policy is motivated by greed or
aggression, Chernus believes foreign policy since World War II has
been focused on defending the country against perceived threats like
communism and the Soviet Union. Those efforts to protect and defend
often extend far beyond U.S. borders, however, forcing the United
States into conflict with other peoples.
"We believe the only way to defend the United States is to organize
the world. We step on other people's toes every day in ways we can't
understand," Chernus said. "It's a stupid way to defend yourself
because in the end you experience more risk."
According to David Barsamian, host of the nationally broadcast
program Alternative Radio, risk to American lives comes as a result
of rage generated by U.S. foreign policy and economic and cultural
hegemony.
"It's directly related to its foreign policy and its perception as
the primary agent and enforcer of the status quo of the global
capitalist system," said Barsamian.
Barsamian sat in his Boulder home Tuesday watching coverage of the
"very shocking" attacks on television.
"What's extraordinary about these attacks is the level of
sophistication," Barsamian said. "Where is the CIA? Where is the FBI?
Where are the tens of billions of dollars being spent?
"Starbucks closes all stores internationally. This is huge. Look at
the level of panic here."
Speculation since the attacks has centered on various Islamic
fundamentalist groups, particularly Saudi Arabian exile Osama Bin
Laden and his followers. While pointing out that we don't know who is
responsible for the attacks, Barsamian stressed there is a great deal
of rage toward the United States in the Middle East.
"U.S. foreign policy is seen by many Middle Eastern people as being
overwhelmingly one-sided in favor of Israel," he said. "There's
tremendous anger toward the United States, and there's a tremendous
irony in this. If it is traced to Bin Laden, he's a product of U.S.
foreign policy."
In an effort to drive the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan, the U.S.
swallowed its repugnance toward Bin Laden and men like him, who were
trained and funded by the CIA in a bit of Cold War strategy that has
had devastating consequences as the students turn their weapons
against their teachers.
"This is an example of blowback," Barsamian said, adding, "if it can
be traced to this particular group, which is not farfetched."
Joel Edelstein, professor of political science at CU-Denver and
producer of programs at KGNU radio, acknowledged that Israel has
legitimate concerns about its safety. Still, the struggle in the
Middle East has been over land, with the United States supporting a
policy that is devastating to Palestinians, he said.
"You have this ongoing degradation of Palestinians," Edelstein said.
"They really were forced out of their houses. Their houses really
were bulldozed."
The United States spends $3.5 billion annually on aid to Israel,
which goes to support these actions and to defend Israel's continued
settlement on the West Bank.
"Americans would not sit quiet if they were treated like the
Palestinians are treated by the Israelis," Edelstein said.
Barsamian said Israel's policies build desperation in Palestinian people.
"If you lose your land, if you cannot feed your family, if you've
been culturally humiliated, if you've been denigrated on all sides -
this creates a reaction, and that reaction can take extreme forms,"
he said.
Terrorism, Barsamian said, is the "poor man's B-52."
But it's not just U.S. policy in the Middle East that makes the
United States a target, experts agree. Nor is dissatisfaction with
the United States limited to Muslims. U.S. indifference toward World
Court rulings, its refusal to fulfill its financial obligations to
the United Nations, and its global military presence also inspire
antipathy in people around the world, including America's allies.
"To Americans it seems perfectly normal that we have military bases
in scores of countries, but imagine if Thailand had bases in Canada,"
Barsamian said, conjuring up images of Thai fighters enforcing no-fly
zones over parts of the United States.
The U.S. military presence is offensive to people around the world,
he said. This is particularly true in the Middle East, which has
become a sort of "floating military base," with U.S. warships
continually stationed in waters surrounding the Persian Gulf.
"This is arrogance. This is imperial behavior," Barsamian said.
The "American imperial swagger" that accompanies the U.S. military
only makes matters worse, Barsamian said. This swagger reveals itself
in the U.S. tendency to act unilaterally, rejecting international
opinion and even U.N. authority on issues like sanctions against
Cuba, the Kyoto Accord, and nuclear weapons treaties.
"International treaties are not for us," he said. "Bush has never met an
international treaty he liked. This is John Wayne politics."
Resentment toward the United States extends to Europe, as well.
"Any top dog faces resentment, but some of it is rooted in quite
strong political feeling," Barsamian said.
Europeans are mystified and outraged by American use of capital
punishment and the opposition of some Americans toward abortion. And
while European nations have tried to voice their opinions on U.S.
decisions and actions abroad, the U.S. government has not welcomed
the feedback, ignoring resolutions made by the European Parliament.
"We're a rogue nation," said Edelstein. "The European nations are
looking at us in terms of putting missiles in space, refusing to sign
Kyoto. Europe thinks we're crazy."
Allies that used to vote with us or abstain from voting on
controversial issues of importance to the United States are now
voting against us as our isolation grows, Edelstein said.
While Americans tend to view the United States as a force for
freedom, justice and democracy in the world, many other peoples see
the United States as an oppressor, he said.
"We are the sole hegemon. We're returning to the concept of Manifest Destiny."
A world in poverty ..
"Not only does the United States export foreign policy. It also
exports its culture," Barsamian said. "There's not sensitivity to
local culture and local traditions, particularly in the Islamic world
where tradition is stronger than it is in Europe."
This culture takes the form of Hollywood movies, Starbucks, and
Burger Kings on street corners in places like Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
where American culture is considered suspect at best.
"We tend to view the United States as the universal culture to which
all others aspire," said Edelstein.
This is based, in part, on misconceptions Americans have of their own
country, he said.
"We think we have the highest wages, which is not true," Edelstein
said. "We think we are the freest country, which is debatable. We
tend to think we have the best democracy, which is absurd."
Such blind faith in our own culture creates the mistaken belief that
it is welcome everywhere.
In the United States, culture is intimately tied to economy, and the
U.S. government promotes the latter with a vengeance. Barsamian said
U.S. diplomatic policy could be summed up this way: "We're going to
do what we want."
Barsamian recalls a story Vandana Shiva shared with him during an
interview. Shiva, a human-rights activist from India, quoted a U.S.
trade representative speaking with Indian officials as saying, "'If
you don't open up your markets, we're going to break them open with a
crowbar.'"
"This is how the Mafia don speaks," Barsamian said. "I often say if
you want to understand U.S. policy, watch 'The Godfather.'"
Despite the effort put into the economy, global capitalism has not
delivered to many people around the globe, Barsamian said.
"It has not delivered the kind of benefits that are meaningful to
segments of the population. Having a Burger King around the corner is
not meaningful."
Edelstein agrees.
"The U.S. government represents the wealthy in our own country," he
said. "And our friends are the wealthy in other countries. You can
see it in the development model we support through the IMF
(International Monetary Fund) and World Bank."
This model ensures that a small percentage of people in developing
countries move up financially but leaves the vast majority behind, he
said.
Intense protests against the IMF, the World Bank and the World Trade
Organization over the past two years indicate that some Americans are
concerned about the connection between poverty and global
development, Edelstein said.
Carolyn Bninski, a local activist who was arrested in April 2000
during the IMF protests in Washington, D.C., said the current model
of development accounts for about six million deaths worldwide each
year.
"We use economic power to impose policies on countries that benefit
wealthy corporations in the United States but harm local people,"
Bninski said. "A lot of people die - slow deaths perhaps - as a
result of those policies. I am in no way downplaying the horror (of
the terrorist attacks). I think it's a horrible tragedy. But I think
we need to start seeing our relationship to every life and everybody
on this planet."
Scott Silber, a local community organizer who has also participated
in protests against the IMF, World Bank and World Trade Organization,
said people from all segments of U.S. society have become concerned
about these economic policies.
"People have been able to link the symptoms they're fighting to
global corporate power," Silber said.
Those symptoms include violations of human rights, workers' rights,
the rights of women and indigenous people, as well as the destruction
of the environment and the blind pursuit of capital, he said.
"People are suffering," Silber said. "The vast majority of the world
is in poverty, and the United States is on the benefiting end of
that."
A call for empathy ..
Bninski said she and other members of the Rocky Mountain Peace and
Justice Center fear the United States will retaliate blindly in a
fury over Tuesday's attack, resulting in the deaths of more innocent
people.
"The United States needs to go through legitimate international
channels and to try people in a court of law that's legitimate,"
Bninski said. "It's really important to reserve judgment and not to
retaliate against people or groups of people."
She's not the only one who's concerned. Muslim students, many of whom
are American citizens by birth, braced for an onslaught of hate mail,
threats, and confrontations. Muslim organizations across the country
reported death threats and hate mail, many pulling their Web sites to
stem the tide of violent words. But at CU, where police have stepped
up security and are prepared to protect Islamic students, incidents
have been minor.
"We're all just holding each other," said Amina Nawaz, an American
citizen and president of CU's Muslim Student Association.
Nawaz said some Muslims experienced heightened tensions in classes
Tuesday. One woman, wearing the traditional hijab covering, walked
into her classroom where students were talking only to have the room
fall silent when people saw her.
"She could just feel everyone's hatred boring into her," Nawaz said.
But Nawaz said members of her organization are grief-stricken over the attacks.
"We're a part of the American community, and we feel it just as
strongly as anybody else," she said.
Those who engineered the attacks don't reflect the values of Islam, Nawaz said.
"Shameless acts are not part of our religion," she said.
Bninski said it's time for Americans to learn to empathize with
people who are suffering around the world. While they connect to the
suffering of other Americans, they seem blind to the suffering of
non-Americans.
"I think we have to think about every human life as being of equal
value, not just Americans," Bninski said. "We need to start thinking
of global citizens and think of the impact of U.S. decisions on other
people."
On Bninski's mind are the deaths of an estimated six million Iraqi
children since 1990 due to U.S.-imposed sanctions and the destruction
in Yugoslavia brought on by 68 days of bombing.
"I think of the images of Burmese workers on (American-owned)
pipelines with chains around their ankles," said Silber. "I think of
the workers I see every day all around me who are working 16-hour
days to survive and feed their families. I think of the little
children who are born into war-torn areas of the world where it seems
like their lives are hopeless. If only war weren't profitable, these
kids wouldn't have to grow up in fear and suffering."
But most Americans don't make an effort to learn about the ways in
which their nation contributes to tragedies in the world around them,
Chernus said.
"It's willed ignorance," he said. "There's a cultural divide in the
United States. There's a segment of our population that is able to -
perhaps imperfectly - empathize with suffering in the world. And
there are those Americans who simply can't seem to relate."
Chernus fears Tuesday's horror will be written off as the work of
"unprovoked crazies," and America will lose a chance to benefit from
what could be a wake-up call.
"If things were going right, we would ask ourselves what role we may
have played in the chain of events that led to this disaster. If we
were doing the right thing, we would think of ourselves as part of a
network of relationships," Chernus said. "It's not a question of 'our
fault' or 'their fault,' but of how that network of relationships has
gotten us to where we are today."
Barsamian said that discussions of U.S. foreign policy will be kept
out of the response to the attacks.
"No one's going to go to the root causes, not with corporate media
acting as stenographers to power," Barsamian said. "(The media will
say) 'These are just genetically crazy people. They were having bad
hair days.'"
The media will focus selectively on Islamic fundamentalists, leaving
out mention of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, two very strict Muslim
nations with which the United States has close political ties, he
predicted.
A constructive response, Barsamian said, would look more like this:
"Start obeying international law. Show respect for sensitivity for
other cultures. Stop bullying the world. Stop acting like a Mafia
don. Work with difference. Accept criticism. Radically relook at our
behavior in the Middle East."
Edelstein would like to see the United States respond by turning its
effort inward.
"For the American government to respond in a way that I would
consider constructive would include the establishment of democracy in
the United States."
And if the United States continues on its current path?
"U.S. foreign policy has not given people hope. If you rob people of
their dignity and self-respect, they have nothing," Barsamian said.
"That's how you can become a suicide bomber."
"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just" Thomas Jefferson in "Notes from Virginia"
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US Foreign Interventions and Invasions since Vietnam
Cuba 1963 - today - US blockades island for 39 years. Numerous
assassination attempts against leader. Continued actions condemned by
Human Rights Groups and the United Nations General Assembly.
Australia 1973-75 - CIA interferes and manipulates free election process.
Chile 1973 - CIA backed coup ousts elected president, installs
military Gen. Pinochet. Decades of human rights abuses follow.
Portugal 1974 - CIA funnels millions to destabilize and sabotage NATO ally.
Angola 1976-92 - CIA assists South Africa-backed rebels.
Afghanistan 1979-82 - US supports, arms, trains Mujahadeen rebels
including rebel leader Osama Bin Laden.
El Salvador 1980-92 - US aids government condemned for gross human
rights violations.
Nicaragua 1981-92 - US directs and illegally supports contra war,
mines harbor. Allows open flow of narcotics into US. US actions
condemned by the United Nations World Court.
Chad 1982 - US supports overthrow of government. CIA supported secret
police kill and torture tens of thousands.
Libya 1982 - USA shoots down 2 Libyan jets.
Honduras 1982 -90 - US builds bases near borders, supports government
that uses Death Squads against it's citizens.
Lebanon 1982-84 - US bombs and shells Muslim positions, expels PLO
from territory.
Grenada 1983-84 - US military invades tiny island. 400 Grenadians
killed. "Gross violation" of international law condemned by United
Nations.
Iraq 1987-88 - US supports and arms Saddam Hussein's Iraq in war against Iran.
Iran 1988 - US shoots down Iranian passenger airliner, killing 290
civilians. Claims it was an "accident".
Libya 1989 - US bombs capitol Tripoli killing 55 civilians. Calls it
"collateral damage".
Philippines 1989 - US supports corrupt govt of Ferdinand Marcos
against citizen uprising.
Panama 1989 - US invades with 27,000 soldiers. Kills 3000+
Panamanians, kidnaps it's own installed drug-dealing leader and CIA
asset. Illegal US actions condemned by nearly unanimous United
Nations and Organization of American States.
Kuwait 1991 - US invades Middle East, contradicting its position by
intervening in inter-Arab affairs. Returns Kuwaiti Monarchy accused
of human right abuses to throne.
Iraq 1990 - today - US randomly bombs civilian areas. Blockades Iraqi
ports, allows no humanitarian or medical aid. est. 10,000 Iraqi's
starve/die monthly as result.
Bulgaria 1991 - CIA funnels millions to destabilize one of the first
freely elected governments.
Somalia 1992-94 - US sends in humanitarian aid. Becomes involved in
Civil war, takes sides attacking one Mogadishu faction. Kills 500+
Somalis.
Peru 1992 - 01 - US provides military support, millions of dollars to
corrupt Fujimori government. Drug kingpin Vladimir Montesino on CIA
payroll while serving as Intelligence Chief. Involved directly in
shooting down missionary aircraft, killing American woman and her
infant child.
Colombia 1992 - present - US supports Colombian military, heavily
involved in drug trafficking. 1,640 pounds of cocaine lands in Ft.
Lauderdale Florida hidden inside Colombian Air Force cargo plane.
Nearly 20,000 people killed by US supported military and
para-military so far.
Bosnia 1993 - US naval blockade of Serbia and Montenegro.
Haiti 1994 - US blockades island government, CIA supports
military
coup to remove elected President Aristide, then forcibly re-installs
Aristide as President after he agrees to US conditions of rule.
Sudan 1998 - US bombs Aspirin Factory in Khartoum killing
civilians.
Afghanistan 1998 - US missiles kill 28 civilians
Yugoslavia 1999 - US laser-guided bombs destroy Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade killing three Chinese journalists.
Afghanistan 2001 - ?
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US involvement in Foreign assassinations or attempts
prohibited by Presidential decree since 1976
1960 - General Abdul Karim Kassem, leader of Iraq
1961 - Francois Duvalier, leader of Haiti
1961 - Patrice Lumumba, Prime Minister of the Congo
1961 - General Rafael Trujillo, leader of Dominican Republic
1963 - Ngo Dinh Diem, President of South Vietnam
1960s - Fidel Castro, President of Cuba , numerous attempts
1960s - Raul Castro, brother of Fidel.
1965 - Francisco Caamano, Opposition leader, Dominican Republic
1965-6 - Charles de Gaulle, President of France
1967 - Ernesto Che Guevara, Cuban leader
1970 - Salvador Allende, President of Chile
1970 - General Rene Schneider, Commander of Chilean Army
1970s, 81 - General Omar Torrijos, leader of Panama
1972 - General Manuel Noriega, chief of Panama Intelligence
1975 - Mobutu Sese Seko, President of Zaire
1976 - Michael Manley, Prime Minister of Jamaica
1980-86 - Moammar Qaddafi, leader of Libya, numerous attempts
1982 - Ayatollah Khomeine, leader of Iran
1983 - General Ahmed Dlimi, Army commander of Morocco
1983 - Miguel d'Escoto, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
1984 - All nine leaders of the Nicaraguan National Directorate
1985 - Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon Shiite leader
1991 - Saddam Hussein, leader of Iraq
1998 - Osama bin Laden, former US trained "freedom fighter".
1999 - Slobodan Mlosevic, President of Yugoslavia
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