WHO, US?
It Didn't Happen in a Vacuum
by Bret Fetzer
One eye-opening aspect of this horrific event is just
how much we Americans delude ourselves about
our nation's foreign policy. Every news agency
presents this catastrophe as an unprovoked,
unfathomable attack. An act of pure evil. A
30-year-old speech by the late Canadian television
commentator Gordon Sinclair touting all the good
works the U.S. performs abroad is making the mass
e-mail rounds--and it's true, we offer a lot of aid
around the world (usually followed by the incursion
of McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks). Why,
oh why, do they hate us so?
The most obvious reason is the Persian Gulf War in
1991, ostensibly waged to defend Kuwait from the
aggression of Iraq (similar aggressions and genocides
around the world that did not involve oil have not
required U.S. intervention). According to a 1992
report prepared by Ramsey Clark (a former U.S.
attorney general) for the International War Crimes
Tribunal, the U.S. military deliberately targeted
non-military facilities in Iraq--in particular, facilities
necessary to civilian life, ranging from electric power
plants to water treatment centers.
Schools in Iraq were bombed; hospitals were
bombed; mosques were bombed. Clark's report
estimates that the total death toll in Iraq may have
been as high as 300,000. The Red Crescent
Society--the Muslim version of the Red
Cross--estimated 113,000 civilian casualties, 60
percent of whom were children. After Saddam
Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawal
from Kuwait, U.S. planes bombed and strafed a
60-mile-long convoy fleeing Kuwait--a mixture of
military personnel and civilians--resulting in "tens of
thousands of charred and dismembered bodies." But
when asked by the press about the number dead in
Iraq from air and ground assaults, General Colin
Powell replied, "It's really not a number I'm terribly
interested in." (The New York Times, March 23,
1991)
Some other numbers that probably don't interest
Powell:
· In 1986, in response to a bombing in a German
disco, 18 Air Force F-111s bombed Tripoli, even
though there was little evidence linking Libya to the
bombing, which was eventually traced to Iran and
Syria.
· In 1988, the U.S.S. Vincennes shot down an
Iranian passenger jet over the Persian Gulf, killing
290 people. An accident, we said. But the
Vincennes had been sent to the gulf to support Iraq,
at that time our ally, in its war against Iran. Iran
demanded reparations in the World Court; the U.S.
rejected World Court jurisdiction.
· In 1993, in response to a supposed assassination
plot on the life of former President George
Bush--foiled in its planning stages--President Clinton
lobbed 23 Tomahawk cruise missiles into downtown
Baghdad. Twenty hit their mark, the Iraqi
intelligence HQ; three hit the surrounding residential
neighborhoods.
This list--far from comprehensive, and which
doesn't even touch on our actions in Latin America,
Asia, and lower Africa--is not to justify the appalling
actions of the Islamic radicals who murdered
thousands of people in the United States last week;
it's to put them in perspective. History demonstrates
again and again, from schoolyards to battlefields,
that violence begets violence. An overwhelming
display of force may make its victims feel helpless,
but helplessness doesn't lead to quiet submission--it
breeds hatred and desperation. America has
committed acts of tremendous violence in the
Middle East; some Americans are unaware of them,
others turn a blind eye.
The result is a sense of moral purity that inspires
statements like these: Brent Scowcroft, a former
national security advisor, was quoted in the
September 13 New York Times as saying, "My
sense is, the president would be delighted to do
something really tough and soon." In the same
article, Senator John McCain declared, "I say to our
enemies, we are coming. God may show you mercy.
We will not."
The severe retaliation consistently chosen by the
U.S. springs from a lack of patience and
imagination. As Robert Gates, former director of the
CIA, argued in a 1998 NY Times editorial, "[The]
mix of force and diplomacy [necessary to deter
terrorism]... is not satisfying emotionally. It does not
quench the thirst for revenge or justice; it does not
offer beguilingly simple answers to complex
problems and difficult choices."
Reflecting on the U.S.'s relationship to the rest of
the world, British terrorism expert Paul Rogers said,
"It is analogous to the position of the British during
the days of the empire. The British saw themselves
as a civilizing force, but unfortunately the people
who were colonized did not agree."
living in the BOX as many on thread do....disregarding any opinions by Europeans during the last 9 months as we have distanced ourselves from the WORLD community it is worth thinking about. Those in the 'heartland' are not so far away from the new world of connectivity as they might imagine.
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