Chomsky al MIT(Znet)

["Nello Margiotta" <animarg at tin.it>]

Everyone knows it's the TV people who run the world [crowd laugher]. I just
got orders that I'm supposed to be here, not there. Well the last talk I
gave at this forum was on a light pleasant topic. It was about how humans
are an endangered species and given the nature of their institutions they
are likely to destroy themselves in a fairly short time. So this time there
is a little relief and we have a pleasant topic instead, the new war on
terror. Unfortunately, the world keeps coming up with things that make it
more and more horrible as we proceed.



Assume 2 Conditions for this Talk

I'm going to assume 2 conditions for this talk.

The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That is that
the events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the most
devastating instant human toll of any crime in history, outside of war.
The second assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that our goal
is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such crimes whether
they are against us or against someone else.
If you don't accept those two assumptions, then what I say will not be
addressed to you. If we do accept them, then a number of questions arise,
closely related ones, which merit a good deal of thought.



The 5 Questions

One question, and by far the most important one is what is happening right
now? Implicit in that is what can we do about it? The 2nd has to do with the
very common assumption that what happened on September 11 is a historic
event, one which will change history. I tend to agree with that. I think it'
s true. It was a historic event and the question we should be asking is
exactly why? The 3rd question has to do with the title, The War Against
Terrorism. Exactly what is it? And there is a related question, namely what
is terrorism? The 4th question which is narrower but important has to do
with the origins of the crimes of September 11th. And the 5th question that
I want to talk a little about is what policy options there are in fighting
this war against terrorism and dealing with the situations that led to it.

I'll say a few things about each.  Glad to go beyond in discussion and don't
hesitate to bring up other questions. These are ones that come to my mind as
prominent but you may easily and plausibly have other choices.



1. What's Happening Right Now?

Starvation of 3 to 4 Million People

Well let's start with right now. I'll talk about the situation in
Afghanistan. I'll just keep to uncontroversial sources like the New York
Times [crowd laughter]. According to the New York Times there are 7 to 8
million people in Afghanistan on the verge of starvation. That was true
actually before September 11th. They were surviving on international aid. On
September 16th, the Times reported, I'm quoting it, that the United States
demanded from Pakistan the elimination of truck convoys that provide much of
the food and other supplies to Afghanistan's civilian population. As far as
I could determine there was no reaction in the United States or for that
matter in Europe. I was on national radio all over Europe the next day.
There was no reaction in the United States or in Europe to my knowledge to
the demand to impose massive starvation on millions of people. The threat of
military strikes right after September...around that time forced the removal
of international aid workers that crippled the assistance programs.
Actually, I am quoting again from the New York Times. Refugees reaching
Pakistan after arduous journeys from AF are describing scenes of desperation
and fear at home as the threat of American led military attacks turns their
long running misery into a potential catastrophe. The country was on a
lifeline and we just cut the line. Quoting an evacuated aid worker, in the
New York Times Magazine.

The World Food Program, the UN program, which is the main one by far, were
able to resume after 3 weeks in early October, they began to resume at a
lower level, resume food shipments. They don't have international aid
workers within, so the distribution system is hampered. That was suspended
as soon as the bombing began. They then resumed but at a lower pace while
aid agencies leveled scathing condemnations of US airdrops, condemning them
as propaganda tools which are probably doing more harm than good. That
happens to be quoting the London Financial Times but it is easy to continue.
After the first week of bombing, the New York Times reported on a back page
inside a column on something else, that by the arithmetic of the United
Nations there will soon be 7.5 million Afghans in acute need of even a loaf
of bread and there are only a few weeks left before the harsh winter will
make deliveries to many areas totally impossible, continuing to quote, but
with bombs falling the delivery rate is down to ½ of what is needed. Casual
comment. Which tells us that Western civilization is anticipating the
slaughter of, well do the arithmetic, 3-4 million people or something like
that. On the same day, the leader of Western civilization dismissed with
contempt, once again, offers of negotiation for delivery of the alleged
target, Osama bin Laden, and a request for some evidence to substantiate the
demand for total capitulation. It was dismissed. On the same day the Special
Rapporteur of the UN in charge of food pleaded with the United States to
stop the bombing to try to save millions of victims. As far as I'm aware
that was unreported. That was Monday. Yesterday the major aid agencies OXFAM
and Christian Aid and others joined in that plea. You can't find a report in
the New York Times. There was a line in the Boston Globe, hidden in a story
about another topic, Kashmir.

Silent Genocide

Well we could easily go on..but all of that..first of all indicates to us
what's happening. Looks like what's happening is some sort of silent
genocide. It also gives a good deal of insight into the elite culture, the
culture that we are part of. It indicates that whatever, what will happen we
don't know, but plans are being made and programs implemented on the
assumption that they may lead to the death of several million people in the
next couple of weeks..very casually with no comment, no particular thought
about it, that's just kind of normal, here and in a good part of Europe. Not
in the rest of the world. In fact not even in much of Europe. So if you read
the Irish press or the press in Scotland.that close, reactions are very
different. Well that's what's happening now. What's happening now is very
much under our control. We can do a lot to affect what's happening. And that
's roughly it.



2. Why was it a Historic Event?

National Territory Attacked

Alright let's turn to the slightly more abstract question, forgetting for
the moment that we are in the midst of apparently trying to murder 3 or 4
million people, not Taliban of course, their victims. Let's go back.turn to
the question of the historic event that took place on September 11th. As I
said, I think that's correct. It was a historic event. Not unfortunately
because of its scale, unpleasant to think about, but in terms of the scale
it's not that unusual. I did say it's the worst.probably the worst instant
human toll of any crime. And that may be true. But there are terrorist
crimes with effects a bit more drawn out that are more extreme,
unfortunately. Nevertheless, it's a historic event because there was a
change. The change was the direction in which the guns were pointed. That's
new. Radically new. So, take US history.

The last time that the national territory of the United States was under
attack, or for that matter, even threatened was when the British burned down
Washington in 1814. There have been many.it was common to bring up Pearl
Harbor but that's not a good analogy. The Japanese, what ever you think
about it, the Japanese bombed military bases in 2 US colonies not the
national territory; colonies which had been taken from their inhabitants in
not a very pretty way. This is the national territory that's been attacked
on a large scale, you can find a few fringe examples but this is unique.

During these close to 200 years, we, the United States expelled or mostly
exterminated the indigenous population, that's many millions of people,
conquered half of Mexico, carried out depredations all over the region,
Caribbean and Central America, sometimes beyond, conquered Hawaii and the
Philippines, killing several 100,000 Filipinos in the process. Since the
Second World War, it has extended its reach around the world in ways I don't
have to describe. But it was always killing someone else, the fighting was
somewhere else, it was others who were getting slaughtered. Not here. Not
the national territory.

Europe

In the case of Europe, the change is even more dramatic because its history
is even more horrendous than ours. We are an offshoot of Europe, basically.
For hundreds of years, Europe has been casually slaughtering people all over
the world. That's how they conquered the world, not by handing out candy to
babies. During this period, Europe did suffer murderous wars, but that was
European killers murdering one another. The main sport of Europe for
hundreds of years was slaughtering one another. The only reason that it came
to an end in 1945, was..it had nothing to do with Democracy or not making
war with each other and other fashionable notions. It had to do with the
fact that everyone understood that the next time they play the game it was
going to be the end for the world. Because the Europeans, including us, had
developed such massive weapons of destruction that that game just have to be
over. And it goes back hundreds of years. In the 17th century, about
probably 40% of the entire population of Germany was wiped out in one war.

But during this whole bloody murderous period, it was Europeans slaughtering
each other, and Europeans slaughtering people elsewhere. The Congo didn't
attack Belgium, India didn't attack England, Algeria didn't attack France.
It's uniform. There are again small exceptions, but pretty small in scale,
certainly invisible in the scale of what Europe and us were doing to the
rest of the world. This is the first change. The first time that the guns
have been pointed the other way. And in my opinion that's probably why you
see such different reactions on the two sides of the Irish Sea which I have
noticed, incidentally, in many interviews on both sides, national radio on
both sides. The world looks very different depending on whether you are
holding the lash or whether you are being whipped by it for hundreds of
years, very different. So I think the shock and surprise in Europe and its
offshoots, like here, is very understandable. It is a historic event but
regrettably not in scale, in something else and a reason why the rest of the
world.most of the rest of the world looks at it quite differently. Not
lacking sympathy for the victims of the atrocity or being horrified by them,
that's almost uniform, but viewing it from a different perspective.
Something we might want to understand.



3. What is the War Against Terrorism?

Well, let's go to the third question, 'What is the war against terrorism?'
and a side question, 'What's terrorism?'. The war against terrorism has been
described in high places as a struggle against a plague, a cancer which is
spread by barbarians, by "depraved opponents of civilization itself." That's
a feeling that I share. The words I'm quoting, however, happen to be from 20
years ago. Those are.that's President Reagan and his Secretary of State. The
Reagan administration came into office 20 years ago declaring that the war
against international terrorism would be the core of our foreign
policy..describing it in terms of the kind I just mentioned and others. And
it was the core of our foreign policy. The Reagan administration responded
to this plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself by
creating an extraordinary international terrorist network, totally
unprecedented in scale, which carried out massive atrocities all over the
world, primarily..well, partly nearby, but not only there. I won't run
through the record, you're all educated people, so I'm sure you learned
about it in High School. [crowd laughter]

Reagan-US War Against Nicaragua

But I'll just mention one case which is totally uncontroversial, so we might
as well not argue about it, by no means the most extreme but
uncontroversial. It's uncontroversial because of the judgments of the
highest international authorities the International Court of Justice, the
World Court, and the UN Security Council. So this one is uncontroversial, at
least among people who have some minimal concern for international law,
human rights, justice and other things like that. And now I'll leave you an
exercise. You can estimate the size of that category by simply asking how
often this uncontroversial case has been mentioned in the commentary of the
last month. And it's a particularly relevant one, not only because it is
uncontroversial, but because it does offer a precedent as to how a law
abiding state would respond to.did respond in fact to international
terrorism, which is uncontroversial. And was even more extreme than the
events of September 11th. I'm talking about the Reagan-US war against
Nicaragua which left tens of thousands of people dead, the country ruined,
perhaps beyond recovery.

Nicaragua's Response

Nicaragua did respond. They didn't respond by setting off bombs in
Washington. They responded by taking it to the World Court, presenting a
case, they had no problem putting together evidence. The World Court
accepted their case, ruled in their favor, ordered the.condemned what they
called the "unlawful use of force," which is another word for international
terrorism, by the United States, ordered the United States to terminate the
crime and to pay massive reparations. The United States, of course,
dismissed the court judgment with total contempt and announced that it would
not accept the jurisdiction of the court henceforth. Then Nicaragua then
went to the UN Security Council which considered a resolution calling on all
states to observe international law. No one was mentioned but everyone
understood. The United States vetoed the resolution. It now stands as the
only state on record which has both been condemned by the World Court for
international terrorism and has vetoed a Security Council resolution calling
on states to observe international law. Nicaragua then went to the General
Assembly where there is technically no veto but a negative US vote amounts
to a veto. It passed a similar resolution with only the United States,
Israel, and El Salvador opposed. The following year again, this time the
United States could only rally Israel to the cause, so 2 votes opposed to
observing international law. At that point, Nicaragua couldn't do anything
lawful. It tried all the measures. They don't work in a world that is ruled
by force.

This case is uncontroversial but it's by no means the most extreme. We gain
a lot of insight into our own culture and society and what's happening now
by asking 'how much we know about all this? How much we talk about it? How
much you learn about it in school? How much it's all over the front pages?'
And this is only the beginning. The United States responded to the World
Court and the Security Council by immediately escalating the war very
quickly, that was a bipartisan decision incidentally. The terms of the war
were also changed. For the first time there were official orders
given.official orders to the terrorist army to attack what are called "soft
targets," meaning undefended civilian targets, and to keep away from the
Nicaraguan army. They were able to do that because the United States had
total control of the air over Nicaragua and the mercenary army was supplied
with advanced communication equipment, it wasn't a guerilla army in the
normal sense and could get instructions about the disposition of the
Nicaraguan army forces so they could attack agricultural collectives, health
clinics, and so on.soft targets with impunity. Those were the official
orders.

What was the Reaction Here?

What was the reaction? It was known. There was a reaction to it. The policy
was regarded as sensible by left liberal opinion. So Michael Kinsley who
represents the left in mainstream discussion, wrote an article in which he
said that we shouldn't be too quick to criticize this policy as Human Rights
Watch had just done. He said a "sensible policy" must "meet the test of cost
benefit analysis" -- that is, I'm quoting now, that is the analysis of "the
amount of blood and misery that will be poured in, and the likelihood that
democracy will emerge at the other end." Democracy as the US understands the
term, which is graphically illustrated in the surrounding countries. Notice
that it is axiomatic that the United States, US elites, have the right to
conduct the analysis and to pursue the project if it passes their tests. And
it did pass their tests. It worked. When Nicaragua finally succumbed to
superpower assault, commentators openly and cheerfully lauded the success of
the methods that were adopted and described them accurately. So I'll quote
Time Magazine just to pick one. They lauded the success of the methods
adopted: "to wreck the economy and prosecute a long and deadly proxy war
until the exhausted natives overthrow the unwanted government themselves,"
with a cost to us that is "minimal," and leaving the victims "with wrecked
bridges, sabotaged power stations, and ruined farms," and thus providing the
US candidate with a "winning issue": "ending the impoverishment of the
people of Nicaragua." The New York Times had a headline saying "Americans
United in Joy" at this outcome.

Terrorism Works - Terrorism is not the Weapon of the Weak

That is the culture in which we live and it reveals several facts. One is
the fact that terrorism works. It doesn't fail. It works. Violence usually
works. That's world history. Secondly, it's a very serious analytic error to
say, as is commonly done, that terrorism is the weapon of the weak. Like
other means of violence, it's primarily a weapon of the strong,
overwhelmingly, in fact. It is held to be a weapon of the weak because the
strong also control the doctrinal systems and their terror doesn't count as
terror. Now that's close to universal. I can't think of a historical
exception, even the worst mass murderers view the world that way. So pick
the Nazis. They weren't carrying out terror in occupied Europe. They were
protecting the local population from the terrorisms of the partisans. And
like other resistance movements, there was terrorism. The Nazis were
carrying out counter terror. Furthermore, the United States essentially
agreed with that. After the war, the US army did extensive studies of Nazi
counter terror operations in Europe. First I should say that the US picked
them up and began carrying them out itself, often against the same targets,
the former resistance. But the military also studied the Nazi methods
published interesting studies, sometimes critical of them because they were
inefficiently carried out, so a critical analysis, you didn't do this right,
you did that right, but those methods with the advice of Wermacht officers
who were brought over here became the manuals of counter insurgency, of
counter terror, of low intensity conflict, as it is called, and are the
manuals, and are the procedures that are being used. So it's not just that
the Nazis did it. It's that it was regarded as the right thing to do by the
leaders of western civilization, that is us, who then proceeded to do it
themselves. Terrorism is not the weapon of the weak. It is the weapon of
those who are against 'us' whoever 'us' happens to be. And if you can find a
historical exception to that, I'd be interested in seeing it.

Nature of our Culture - How We Regard Terrorism

Well, an interesting indication of the nature of our culture, our high
culture, is the way in which all of this is regarded. One way it's regarded
is just suppressing it. So almost nobody has ever heard of it. And the power
of American propaganda and doctrine is so strong that even among the victims
it's barely known. I mean, when you talk about this to people in Argentina,
you have to remind them. Oh, yeh, that happened, we forgot about it. It's
deeply suppressed. The sheer consequences of the monopoly of violence can be
very powerful in ideological and other terms.

The Idea that Nicaragua Might Have The Right To Defend Itself

Well, one illuminating aspect of our own attitude toward terrorism is the
reaction to the idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself.
Actually I went through this in some detail with database searches and that
sort of thing. The idea that Nicaragua might have the right to defend itself
was considered outrageous. There is virtually nothing in mainstream
commentary indicating that Nicaragua might have that right. And that fact
was exploited by the Reagan administration and its propaganda in an
interesting way. Those of you who were around in that time will remember
that they periodically floated rumors that the Nicaraguans were getting MIG
jets, jets from Russia. At that point the hawks and the doves split. The
hawks said, 'ok, let's bomb 'em.' The doves said, `wait a minute, let's see
if the rumors are true. And if the rumors are true, then let's bomb them.
Because they are a threat to the United States.' Why, incidentally were they
getting MIGs. Well they tried to get jet planes from European countries but
the United States put pressure on its allies so that it wouldn't send them
means of defense because they wanted them to turn to the Russians. That's
good for propaganda purposes. Then they become a threat to us. Remember,
they were just 2 days march from Harlingen, Texas. We actually declared a
national emergency in 1985 to protect the country from the threat of
Nicaragua. And it stayed in force. So it was much better for them to get
arms from the Russians. Why would they want jet planes? Well, for the
reasons I already mentioned. The United States had total control over their
airspace, was over flying it and using that to provide instructions to the
terrorist army to enable them to attack soft targets without running into
the army that might defend them. Everyone knew that that was the reason.
They are not going to use their jet planes for anything else. But the idea
that Nicaragua should be permitted to defend its airspace against a
superpower attack that is directing terrorist forces to attack undefended
civilian targets, that was considered in the United States as outrageous and
uniformly so. Exceptions are so slight, you know I can practically list
them. I don't suggest that you take my word for this. Have a look. That
includes our own senators, incidentally.

Honduras - The Appointment of John Negroponte as Ambassador to the United
Nations

Another illustration of how we regard terrorism is happening right now. The
US has just appointed an ambassador to the United Nations to lead the war
against terrorism a couple weeks ago. Who is he? Well, his name is John
Negroponte. He was the US ambassador in the fiefdom, which is what it is, of
Honduras in the early 1980's. There was a little fuss made about the fact
that he must have been aware, as he certainly was, of the large-scale
murders and other atrocities that were being carried out by the security
forces in Honduras that we were supporting. But that's a small part of it.
As proconsul of Honduras, as he was called there, he was the local
supervisor for the terrorist war based in Honduras, for which his government
was condemned by the world court and then the Security Council in a vetoed
resolution. And he was just appointed as the UN Ambassador to lead the war
against terror. Another small experiment you can do is check and see what
the reaction was to this. Well, I will tell you what you are going to find,
but find it for yourself. Now that tells us a lot about the war against
terrorism and a lot about ourselves.

After the United States took over the country again under the conditions
that were so graphically described by the press, the country was pretty much
destroyed in the 1980's, but it has totally collapsed since in every respect
just about. Economically it has declined sharply since the US take over,
democratically and in every other respect. It's now the second poorest
country in the Hemisphere. I should say..I'm not going to talk about it, but
I mentioned that I picked up Nicaragua because it is an uncontroversial
case. If you look at the other states in the region, the state terror was
far more extreme and it again traces back to Washington and that's by no
means all.

US & UK Backed South African Attacks

It was happening elsewhere in the world too, take say Africa. During the
Reagan years alone, South African attacks, backed by the United States and
Britain, US/UK-backed South African attacks against the neighboring
countries killed about a million and a half people and left 60 billion
dollars in damage and countries destroyed.  And if we go around the world,
we can add more examples.

Now that was the first war against terror of which I've given a small
sample. Are we supposed to pay attention to that? Or kind of think that that
might be relevant? After all it's not exactly ancient history. Well,
evidently not as you can tell by looking at the current discussion of the
war on terror which has been the leading topic for the last month.

Haiti, Guatemala, and Nicaragua

I mentioned that Nicaragua has now become the 2nd poorest country in the
hemisphere. What's the poorest country? Well that's of course Haiti which
also happens to be the victim of most US intervention in the 20th century by
a long shot. We left it totally devastated. It's the poorest country.
Nicaragua is second ranked in degree of US intervention in the 20th century.
It is the 2nd poorest. Actually, it is vying with Guatemala. They
interchange every year or two as to who's the second poorest. And they also
vie as to who is the leading target of US military intervention. We're
supposed to think that all of this is some sort of accident. That is has
nothing to do with anything that happened in history. Maybe.

Colombia and Turkey

The worst human rights violator in the 1990's is Colombia, by a long shot.
It's also the, by far, the leading recipient of US military aid in the 1990'
s maintaining the terror and human rights violations. In 1999, Colombia
replaced Turkey as the leading recipient of US arms worldwide, that is
excluding Israel and Egypt which are a separate category. And that tells us
a lot more about the war on terror right now, in fact.

Why was Turkey getting such a huge flow of US arms? Well if you take a look
at the flow of US arms to Turkey, Turkey always got a lot of US arms. It's
strategically placed, a member of NATO, and so on. But the arms flow to
Turkey went up very sharply in 1984. It didn't have anything to do with the
cold war. I mean Russian was collapsing. And it stayed high from 1984 to
1999 when it reduced and it was replaced in the lead by Colombia. What
happened from 1984 to 1999? Well, in 1984, [Turkey] launched a major
terrorist war against Kurds in southeastern Turkey. And that's when US aid
went up, military aid. And this was not pistols. This was jet planes, tanks,
military training, and so on. And it stayed high as the atrocities escalated
through the 1990's. Aid followed it. The peak year was 1997. In 1997, US
military aid to Turkey was more than in the entire period 1950 to 1983, that
is the cold war period, which is an indication of how much the cold war has
affected policy. And the results were awesome. This led to 2-3 million
refugees. Some of the worst ethnic cleansing of the late 1990's. Tens of
thousands of people killed, 3500 towns and villages destroyed, way more than
Kosovo, even under NATO bombs. And the United States was providing 80% of
the arms, increasing as the atrocities increased, peaking in 1997. It
declined in 1999 because, once again, terror worked as it usually does when
carried out by its major agents, mainly the powerful. So by 1999, Turkish
terror, called of course counter-terror, but as I said, that's universal, it
worked. Therefore Turkey was replaced by Colombia which had not yet
succeeded in its terrorist war. And therefore had to move into first place
as recipient of US arms.

Self Congratulation on the Part of Western Intellectuals

Well, what makes this all particularly striking is that all of this was
taking place right in the midst of a huge flood of self-congratulation on
the part of Western intellectuals which probably has no counterpart in
history. I mean you all remember it. It was just a couple years ago. Massive
self-adulation about how for the first time in history we are so
magnificent; that we are standing up for principles and values; dedicated to
ending inhumanity everywhere in the new era of this-and-that, and
so-on-and-so-forth. And we certainly can't tolerate atrocities right near
the borders of NATO. That was repeated over and over. Only within the
borders of NATO where we can not only can tolerate much worse atrocities but
contribute to them. Another insight into Western civilization and our own,
is how often was this brought up? Try to look. I won't repeat it. But it's
instructive. It's a pretty impressive feat for a propaganda system to carry
this off in a free society. It's pretty amazing. I don't think you could do
this in a totalitarian state.

Turkey is Very Grateful

And Turkey is very grateful. Just a few days ago, Prime Minister Ecevit
announced that Turkey would join the coalition against terror, very
enthusiastically, even more so than others. In fact, he said they would
contribute troops which others have not willing to do. And he explained why.
He said, We owe a debt of gratitude to the United States because the United
States was the only country that was willing to contribute so massively to
our own, in his words "counter-terrorist" war, that is to our own massive
ethnic cleansing and atrocities and terror. Other countries helped a little,
but they stayed back. The United States, on the other hand, contributed
enthusiastically and decisively and was able to do so because of the
silence, servility might be the right word, of the educated classes who
could easily find out about it. It's a free country after all. You can read
human rights reports. You can read all sorts of stuff. But we chose to
contribute to the atrocities and Turkey is very happy, they owe us a debt of
gratitude for that and therefore will contribute troops just as during the
war in Serbia. Turkey was very much praised for using its F-16's which we
supplied it to bomb Serbia exactly as it had been doing with the same planes
against its own population up until the time when it finally succeeded in
crushing internal terror as they called it. And as usual, as always,
resistance does include terror. Its true of the American Revolution. That's
true of every case I know. Just as its true that those who have a monopoly
of violence talk about themselves as carrying out counter terror.

The Coalition - Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia

Now that's pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition that is
now being organized to fight the war against terror. And it's very
interesting to see how that coalition is being described. So have a look at
this morning's Christian Science Monitor. That's a good newspaper. One of
the best international newspapers, with real coverage of the world. The lead
story, the front-page story, is about how the United States, you know people
used to dislike the United States but now they are beginning to respect it,
and they are very happy about the way that the US is leading the war against
terror. And the prime example, well in fact the only serious example, the
others are a joke, is Algeria. Turns out that Algeria is very enthusiastic
about the US war against terror. The person who wrote the article is an
expert on Africa. He must know that Algeria is one of the most vicious
terrorist states in the world and has been carrying out horrendous terror
against its own population in the past couple of years, in fact. For a
while, this was under wraps. But it was finally exposed in France by
defectors from the Algerian army. It's all over the place there and in
England and so on. But here, we're very proud because one of the worst
terrorist states in the world is now enthusiastically welcoming the US war
on terror and in fact is cheering on the United States to lead the war. That
shows how popular we are getting.

And if you look at the coalition that is being formed against terror it
tells you a lot more. A leading member of the coalition is Russia which is
delighted to have the United States support its murderous terrorist war in
Chechnya instead of occasionally criticizing it in the background. China is
joining enthusiastically. It's delighted to have support for the atrocities
it's carrying out in western China against, what it called, Muslim
secessionists. Turkey, as I mentioned, is very happy with the war against
terror. They are experts. Algeria, Indonesia delighted to have even more US
support for atrocities it is carrying out in Ache and elsewhere. Now we can
run through the list, the list of the states that have joined the coalition
against terror is quite impressive. They have a characteristic in common.
They are certainly among the leading terrorist states in the world. And they
happen to be led by the world champion.

What is Terrorism?

Well that brings us back to the question, what is terrorism? I have been
assuming we understand it. Well, what is it? Well, there happen to be some
easy answers to this. There is an official definition. You can find it in
the US code or in US army manuals. A brief statement of it taken from a US
army manual, is fair enough, is that terror is the calculated use of
violence or the threat of violence to attain political or religious
ideological goals through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear. That's
terrorism. That's a fair enough definition. I think it is reasonable to
accept that. The problem is that it can't be accepted because if you accept
that, all the wrong consequences follow. For example, all the consequences I
have just been reviewing. Now there is a major effort right now at the UN to
try to develop a comprehensive treaty on terrorism. When Kofi Annan got the
Nobel prize the other day, you will notice he was reported as saying that we
should stop wasting time on this and really get down to it.

But there's a problem. If you use the official definition of terrorism in
the comprehensive treaty you are going to get completely the wrong results.
So that can't be done. In fact, it is even worse than that. If you take a
look at the definition of Low Intensity Warfare which is official US policy
you find that it is a very close paraphrase of what I just read. In fact,
Low Intensity Conflict is just another name for terrorism. That's why all
countries, as far as I know, call whatever horrendous acts they are carrying
out, counter terrorism. We happen to call it Counter Insurgency or Low
Intensity Conflict. So that's a serious problem. You can't use the actual
definitions. You've got to carefully find a definition that doesn't have all
the wrong consequences.

Why did the United States and Israel Vote Against a Major Resolution
Condemning Terrorism?

There are some other problems. Some of them came up in December 1987, at the
peak of the first war on terrorism, that's when the furor over the plague
was peaking. The United Nations General Assembly passed a very strong
resolution against terrorism, condemning the plague in the strongest terms,
calling on every state to fight against it in every possible way. It passed
unanimously. One country, Honduras abstained. Two votes against; the usual
two, United States and Israel. Why should the United States and Israel vote
against a major resolution condemning terrorism in the strongest terms, in
fact pretty much the terms that the Reagan administration was using? Well,
there is a reason. There is one paragraph in that long resolution which says
that nothing in this resolution infringes on the rights of people struggling
against racist and colonialist regimes or foreign military occupation to
continue with their resistance with the assistance of others, other states,
states outside in their just cause. Well, the United States and Israel can't
accept that. The main reason that they couldn't at the time was because of
South Africa. South Africa was an ally, officially called an ally. There was
a terrorist force in South Africa. It was called the African National
Congress. They were a terrorist force officially. South Africa in contrast
was an ally and we certainly couldn't support actions by a terrorist group
struggling against a racist regime. That would be impossible.

And of course there is another one. Namely the Israeli occupied territories,
now going into its 35th year. Supported primarily by the United States in
blocking a diplomatic settlement for 30 years now, still is. And you can't
have that. There is another one at the time. Israel was occupying Southern
Lebanon and was being combated by what the US calls a terrorist force,
Hizbullah, which in fact succeeded in driving Israel out of Lebanon. And we
can't allow anyone to struggle against a military occupation when it is one
that we support so therefore the US and Israel had to vote against the major
UN resolution on terrorism. And I mentioned before that a US vote against.is
essentially a veto. Which is only half the story. It also vetoes it from
history. So none of this was every reported and none of it appeared in the
annals of terrorism. If you look at the scholarly work on terrorism and so
on, nothing that I just mentioned appears. The reason is that it has got the
wrong people holding the guns. You have to carefully hone the definitions
and the scholarship and so on so that you come out with the right
conclusions; otherwise it is not respectable scholarship and honorable
journalism. Well, these are some of problems that are hampering the effort
to develop a comprehensive treaty against terrorism. Maybe we should have an
academic conference or something to try to see if we can figure out a way of
defining terrorism so that it comes out with just the right answers, not the
wrong answers. That won't be easy.



4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?

Well, let's drop that and turn to the 4th question, What are the origins of
the September 11 crimes? Here we have to make a distinction between 2
categories which shouldn't be run together. One is the actual agents of the
crime, the other is kind of a reservoir of at least sympathy, sometimes
support that they appeal to even among people who very much oppose the
criminals and the actions. And those are 2 different things.

Category 1: The Likely Perpetrators

Well, with regard to the perpetrators, in a certain sense we are not really
clear. The United States either is unable or unwilling to provide any
evidence, any meaningful evidence. There was a sort of a play a week or two
ago when Tony Blair was set up to try to present it. I don't exactly know
what the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as though it's
holding back on some secret evidence that it can't reveal or that Tony Blair
could strike proper Churchillian poses or something or other. Whatever the
PR [public relations] reasons were, he gave a presentation which was in
serious circles considered so absurd that it was barely even mentioned. So
the Wall Street Journal, for example, one of the more serious papers had a
small story on page 12, I think, in which they pointed out that there was
not much evidence and then they quoted some high US official as saying that
it didn't matter whether there was any evidence because they were going to
do it anyway. So why bother with the evidence? The more ideological press,
like the New York Times and others, they had big front-page headlines. But
the Wall Street Journal reaction was reasonable and if you look at the
so-called evidence you can see why. But let's assume that it's true. It is
astonishing to me how weak the evidence was. I sort of thought you could do
better than that without any intelligence service [audience laughter]. In
fact, remember this was after weeks of the most intensive investigation in
history of all the intelligence services of the western world working
overtime trying to put something together. And it was a prima facie, it was
a very strong case even before you had anything. And it ended up about where
it started, with a prima facie case. So let's assume that it is true. So let
's assume that, it looked obvious the first day, still does, that the actual
perpetrators come from the radical Islamic, here called, fundamentalist
networks of which the bin Laden network is undoubtedly a significant part.
Whether they were involved or not nobody knows. It doesn't really matter
much.

Where did they come from?

That's the background, those networks. Well, where do they come from? We
know all about that. Nobody knows about that better than the CIA because it
helped organize them and it nurtured them for a long time. They were brought
together in the 1980's actually by the CIA and its associates elsewhere:
Pakistan, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, China was involved, they may
have been involved a little bit earlier, maybe by 1978. The idea was to try
to harass the Russians, the common enemy. According to President Carter's
National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the US got involved in mid
1979. Do you remember, just to put the dates right, that Russia invaded
Afghanistan in December 1979. Ok. According to Brzezinski, the US support
for the mojahedin fighting against the government began 6 months earlier. He
is very proud of that. He says we drew the Russians into, in his words, an
Afghan trap, by supporting the mojahedin, getting them to invade, getting
them into the trap. Now then we could develop this terrific mercenary army.
Not a small one, maybe 100,000 men or so bringing together the best killers
they could find, who were radical Islamist fanatics from around North
Africa, Saudi Arabia..anywhere they could find them. They were often called
the Afghanis but many of them, like bin Laden, were not Afghans. They were
brought by the CIA and its friends from elsewhere. Whether Brzezinski is
telling the truth or not, I don't know. He may have been bragging, he is
apparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally. But
maybe it's true. We'll know someday if the documents are ever released.
Anyway, that's his perception. By January 1980 it is not even in doubt that
the US was organizing the Afghanis and this massive military force to try to
cause the Russians maximal trouble. It was a legitimate thing for the
Afghans to fight the Russian invasion. But the US intervention was not
helping the Afghans. In fact, it helped destroy the country and much more.
The Afghanis, so called, had their own...it did force the Russians to
withdrew, finally. Although many analysts believe that it probably delayed
their withdrawal because they were trying to get out of it. Anyway,
whatever, they did withdraw.

Meanwhile, the terrorist forces that the CIA was organizing, arming, and
training were pursuing their own agenda, right away. It was no secret. One
of the first acts was in 1981 when they assassinated the President of Egypt,
who was one of the most enthusiastic of their creators. In 1983, one suicide
bomber, who may or may not have been connected, it's pretty shadowy, nobody
knows.  But one suicide bomber drove the US army-military out of Lebanon.
And it continued. They have their own agenda. The US was happy to mobilize
them to fight its cause but meanwhile they are doing their own thing. They
were clear very about it. After 1989, when the Russians had withdrawn, they
simply turned elsewhere. Since then they have been fighting in Chechnya,
Western China, Bosnia, Kashmir, South East Asia, North Africa, all over the
place.

The Are Telling Us What They Think

They are telling us just what they think. The United States wants to silence
the one free television channel in the Arab world because it's broadcasting
a whole range of things from Powell over to Osama bin Laden. So the US is
now joining the repressive regimes of the Arab world that try to shut it up.
But if you listen to it, if you listen to what bin Laden says, it's worth
it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of interviews by
leading Western reporters, if you don't want to listen to his own voice,
Robert Fisk and others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent for
a long time. He's not the only one but maybe he is the most eloquent. It's
not only consistent over a long time, it is consistent with their actions.
So there is every reason to take it seriously. Their prime enemy is what
they call the corrupt and oppressive authoritarian brutal regimes of the
Arab world and when the say that they get quite a resonance in the region.
They also want to defend and they want to replace them by properly Islamist
governments. That's where they lose the people of the region. But up till
then, they are with them. From their point of view, even Saudi Arabia, the
most extreme fundamentalist state in the world, I suppose, short of the
Taliban, which is an offshoot, even that's not Islamist enough for them. Ok,
at that point, they get very little support, but up until that point they
get plenty of support. Also they want to defend Muslims elsewhere. They hate
the Russians like poison, but as soon as the Russians pulled out of
Afghanistan, they stopped carrying out terrorist acts in Russia as they had
been doing with CIA backing before that within Russia, not just in
Afghanistan. They did move over to Chechnya. But there they are defending
Muslims against a Russian invasion. Same with all the other places I
mentioned. From their point of view, they are defending the Muslims against
the infidels. And they are very clear about it and that is what they have
been doing.

Why did they turn against the United States?

Now why did they turn against the United States? Well that had to do with
what they call the US invasion of Saudi Arabia. In 1990, the US established
permanent military bases in Saudi Arabia which from their point of view is
comparable to a Russian invasion of Afghanistan except that Saudi Arabia is
way more important. That's the home of the holiest sites of Islam. And that
is when their activities turned against the Unites States. If you recall, in
1993 they tried to blow up the World Trade Center. Got part of the way, but
not the whole way and that was only part of it. The plans were to blow up
the UN building, the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the FBI building. I think
there were others on the list. Well, they sort of got part way, but not all
the way. One person who is jailed for that, finally, among the people who
were jailed, was a Egyptian cleric who had been brought into the United
States over the objections of the Immigration Service, thanks to the
intervention of the CIA which wanted to help out their friend. A couple
years later he was blowing up the World Trade Center. And this has been
going on all over. I'm not going to run through the list but it's, if you
want to understand it, it's consistent. It's a consistent picture. It's
described in words. It's revealed in practice for 20 years. There is no
reason not to take it seriously. That's the first category, the likely
perpetrators.

Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?

What about the reservoir of support? Well, it's not hard to find out what
that is. One of the good things that has happened since September 11 is that
some of the press and some of the discussion has begun to open up to some of
these things. The best one to my knowledge is the Wall Street Journal which
right away began to run, within a couple of days, serious reports, searching
serious reports, on the reasons why the people of the region, even though
they hate bin Laden and despise everything he is doing, nevertheless support
him in many ways and even regard him as the conscience of Islam, as one
said. Now the Wall Street Journal and others, they are not surveying public
opinion. They are surveying the opinion of their friends: bankers,
professionals, international lawyers, businessmen tied to the United States,
people who they interview in MacDonalds restaurant, which is an elegant
restaurant there, wearing fancy American clothes. That's the people they are
interviewing because they want to find out what their attitudes are. And
their attitudes are very explicit and very clear and in many ways consonant
with the message of bin Laden and others. They are very angry at the United
States because of its support of authoritarian and brutal regimes; its
intervention to block any move towards democracy; its intervention to stop
economic development; its policies of devastating the civilian societies of
Iraq while strengthening Saddam Hussein; and they remember, even if we
prefer not to, that the United States and Britain supported Saddam Hussein
right through his worst atrocities, including the gassing of the Kurds, bin
Laden brings that up constantly, and they know it even if we don't want to.
And of course their support for the Israeli military occupation which is
harsh and brutal. It is now in its 35th year. The US has been providing the
overwhelming economic, military, and diplomatic support for it, and still
does. And they know that and they don't like it. Especially when that is
paired with US policy towards Iraq, towards the Iraqi civilian society which
is getting destroyed. Ok, those are the reasons roughly. And when bin Laden
gives those reasons, people recognize it and support it.

Now that's not the way people here like to think about it, at least educated
liberal opinion. They like the following line which has been all over the
press, mostly from left liberals, incidentally. I have not done a real study
but I think right wing opinion has generally been more honest. But if you
look at say at the New York Times at the first op-ed they ran by Ronald
Steel, serious left liberal intellectual. He asks Why do they hate us? This
is the same day, I think, that the Wall Street Journal was running the
survey on why they hate us. So he says "They hate us because we champion a
new world order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and democracy that
should be the norm everywhere." That's why they hate us. The same day the
Wall Street Journal is surveying the opinions of bankers, professionals,
international lawyers and saying `look, we hate you because you are blocking
democracy, you are preventing economic development, you are supporting
brutal regimes, terrorist regimes and you are doing these horrible things in
the region.' A couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left,
explained that the terrorist seek only "apocalyptic nihilism," nothing more
and nothing we do matters. The only consequence of our actions, he says,
that could be harmful is that it makes it harder for Arabs to join in the
coalition's anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that, everything we do is
irrelevant.

Well, you know, that's got the advantage of being sort of comforting. It
makes you feel good about yourself, and how wonderful you are. It enables us
to evade the consequences of our actions. It has a couple of defects. One is
it is at total variance with everything we know. And another defect is that
it is a perfect way to ensure that you escalate the cycle of violence. If
you want to live with your head buried in the sand and pretend they hate us
because they're opposed to globalization, that's why they killed Sadat 20
years ago, and fought the Russians, tried to blow up the World Trade Center
in 1993. And these are all people who are in the midst of . corporate
globalization but if you want to believe that, yeh.comforting. And it is a
great way to make sure that violence escalates. That's tribal violence. You
did something to me, I'll do something worse to you. I don't care what the
reasons are. We just keep going that way. And that's a way to do it. Pretty
much straight, left-liberal opinion.

5. What are the Policy Options?

What are the policy options? Well, there are a number. A narrow policy
option from the beginning was to follow the advice of really far out
radicals like the Pope [audience laughter]. The Vatican immediately said
look it's a horrible terrorist crime. In the case of crime, you try to find
the perpetrators, you bring them to justice, you try them. You don't kill
innocent civilians. Like if somebody robs my house and I think the guy who
did it is probably in the neighborhood across the street, I don't go out
with an assault rifle and kill everyone in that neighborhood. That's not the
way you deal with crime, whether it's a small crime like this one or really
massive one like the US terrorist war against Nicaragua, even worse ones and
others in between. And there are plenty of precedents for that. In fact, I
mentioned a precedent, Nicaragua, a lawful, a law abiding state, that's why
presumably we had to destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of
course, it didn't get anywhere because it was running up against a power
that wouldn't allow lawful procedures to be followed. But if the United
States tried to pursue them, nobody would stop them. In fact, everyone would
applaud. And there are plenty of other precedents.

IRA Bombs in London

When the IRA set off bombs in London, which is pretty serious business,
Britain could have, apart from the fact that it was unfeasible, let's put
that aside, one possible response would have been to destroy Boston which is
the source of most of the financing. And of course to wipe out West Belfast.
Well, you know, quite apart from the feasibility, it would have been
criminal idiocy. The way to deal with it was pretty much what they did. You
know, find the perpetrators; bring them to trial; and look for the reasons.
Because these things don't come out of nowhere. They come from something.
Whether it is a crime in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime or
anything else. There's reasons. And usually if you look at the reasons, some
of them are legitimate and ought to be addressed, independently of the
crime, they ought to be addressed because they are legitimate. And that's
the way to deal with it. There are many such examples.

But there are problems with that. One problem is that the United States does
not recognize the jurisdiction of international institutions. So it can't go
to them. It has rejected the jurisdiction of the World Court. It has refused
to ratify the International Criminal Court. It is powerful enough to set up
a new court if it wants so that wouldn't stop anything. But there is a
problem with any kind of a court, mainly you need evidence. You go to any
kind of court, you need some kind of evidence. Not Tony Blair talking about
it on television. And that's very hard. It may be impossible to find.

Leaderless Resistance

You know, it could be that the people who did it, killed themselves. Nobody
knows this better than the CIA. These are decentralized, nonhierarchic
networks. They follow a principle that is called Leaderless Resistance. That
's the principle that has been developed by the Christian Right terrorists
in the United States. It's called Leaderless Resistance. You have small
groups that do things. They don't talk to anybody else. There is a kind of
general background of assumptions and then you do it. Actually people in the
anti war movement are very familiar with it. We used to call it affinity
groups. If you assume correctly that whatever group you are in is being
penetrated by the FBI, when something serious is happening, you don't do it
in a meeting. You do it with some people you know and trust, an affinity
group and then it doesn't get penetrated. That's one of the reasons why the
FBI has never been able to figure out what's going on in any of the popular
movements. And other intelligence agencies are the same. They can't. That's
leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networks are
extremely hard to penetrate. And it's quite possible that they just don't
know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasn't involved, that's entirely
possible. In fact, it's pretty hard to imagine how a guy in a cave in
Afghanistan, who doesn't even have a radio or a telephone could have planned
a highly sophisticated operation like that. Chances are it's part of the
background. You know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups.
Which means it's going to be extremely difficult to find evidence.

Establishing Credibility

And the US doesn't want to present evidence because it wants to be able to
do it, to act without evidence. That's a crucial part of the reaction. You
will notice that the US did not ask for Security Council authorization which
they probably could have gotten this time, not for pretty reasons, but
because the other permanent members of the Security Council are also
terrorist states. They are happy to join a coalition against what they call
terror, namely in support of their own terror. Like Russia wasn't going to
veto, they love it. So the US probably could have gotten Security Council
authorization but it didn't want it. And it didn't want it because it
follows a long-standing principle which is not George Bush, it was explicit
in the Clinton administration, articulated and goes back much further and
that is that we have the right to act unilaterally. We don't want
international authorization because we act unilaterally and therefore we don
't want it. We don't care about evidence. We don't care about negotiation.
We don't care about treaties. We are the strongest guy around; the toughest
thug on the block. We do what we want. Authorization is a bad thing and
therefore must be avoided. There is even a name for it in the technical
literature. It's called establishing credibility. You have to establish
credibility. That's an important factor in many policies. It was the
official reason given for the war in the Balkans and the most plausible
reason.

You want to know what credibility means, ask your favorite Mafia Don. He'll
explain to you what credibility means. And it's the same in international
affairs, except it's talked about in universities using big words, and that
sort of thing. But it's basically the same principle. And it makes sense.
And it usually works. The main historian who has written about this in the
last couple years is Charles Tilly with a book called Coercion, Capital, and
European States. He points out that violence has been the leading principle
of Europe for hundreds of years and the reason is because it works. You
know, it's very reasonable. It almost always works. When you have an
overwhelming predominance of violence and a culture of violence behind it.
So therefore it makes sense to follow it. Well, those are all problems in
pursuing lawful paths. And if you did try to follow them you'd really open
some very dangerous doors. Like the US is demanding that the Taliban hand
over Osama bin Laden. And they are responding in a way which is regarded as
totally absurd and outlandish in the west, namely they are saying, Ok, but
first give us some evidence. In the west, that is considered ludicrous. It's
a sign of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean if
somebody asked us to hand someone over, we'd do it tomorrow. We wouldn't ask
for any evidence. [crowd laughter].

Haiti

 In fact it is easy to prove that. We don't have to make up cases. So for
example, for the last several years, Haiti has been requesting the United
States to extradite Emmanuel Constant. He is a major killer. He is one of
the leading figures in the slaughter of maybe 4000 or 5000 people in the
years in the mid 1990's, under the military junta, which incidentally was
being, not so tacitly, supported by the Bush and the Clinton administrations
contrary to illusions. Anyway he is a leading killer. They have plenty of
evidence. No problem about evidence. He has already been brought to trial
and sentenced in Haiti and they are asking the United States to turn him
over. Well, I mean do your own research. See how much discussion there has
been of that. Actually Haiti renewed the request a couple of weeks ago. It
wasn't even mentioned. Why should we turn over a convicted killer who was
largely responsible for killing 4000 or 5000 people a couple of years ago.
In fact, if we do turn him over, who knows what he would say. Maybe he'll
say that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is probably true.
We don't want to open that door. And he is not he only one.

Costa Rica

I mean, for the last about 15 years, Costa Rica which is the democratic
prize, has been trying to get the United States to hand over a John Hull, a
US land owner in Costa Rica, who they charge with terrorist crimes. He was
using his land, they claim with good evidence as a base for the US war
against Nicaragua, which is not a controversial conclusion, remember. There
is the World Court and Security Council behind it. So they have been trying
to get the United States to hand him over. Hear about that one? No.

They did actually confiscate the land of another American landholder, John
Hamilton. Paid compensation, offered compensation. The US refused. Turned
his land over into a national park because his land was also being used as a
base for the US attack against Nicaragua. Costa Rica was punished for that
one. They were punished by withholding aid. We don't accept that kind of
insubordination from allies. And we can go on. If you open the door to
questions about extradition it leads in very unpleasant directions. So that
can't be done.

Reactions in Afghanistan

Well, what about the reactions in Afghanistan. The initial proposal, the
initial rhetoric was for a massive assault which would kill many people
visibly and also an attack on other countries in the region. Well the Bush
administration wisely backed off from that. They were being told by every
foreign leader, NATO, everyone else, every specialist, I suppose, their own
intelligence agencies that that would be the stupidest thing they could
possibly do. It would simply be like opening recruiting offices for bin
Laden all over the region. That's exactly what he wants. And it would be
extremely harmful to their own interests. So they backed off that one. And
they are turning to what I described earlier which is a kind of silent
genocide. It's a.. well, I already said what I think about it. I don't think
anything more has to be said. You can figure it out if you do the
arithmetic.

A sensible proposal which is kind of on the verge of being considered, but
it has been sensible all along, and it is being raised, called for by
expatriate Afghans and allegedly tribal leaders internally, is for a UN
initiative, which would keep the Russians and Americans out of it, totally.
These are the 2 countries that have practically wiped the country out in the
last 20 years. They should be out of it. They should provide massive
reparations. But that's their only role. A UN initiative to bring together
elements within Afghanistan that would try to construct something from the
wreckage. It's conceivable that that could work, with plenty of support and
no interference. If the US insists on running it, we might as well quit. We
have a historical record on that one.

You will notice that the name of this operation..remember that at first it
was going to be a Crusade but they backed off that because PR (public
relations) agents told them that that wouldn't work [audience laughter]. And
then it was going to be Infinite Justice, but the PR agents said, wait a
minute, you are sounding like you are divinity. So that wouldn't work. And
then it was changed to enduring freedom. We know what that means. But nobody
has yet pointed out, fortunately, that there is an ambiguity there. To
endure means to suffer. [audience laughter]. And a there are plenty of
people around the world who have endured what we call freedom. Again,
fortunately we have a very well-behaved educated class so nobody has yet
pointed out this ambiguity. But if its done there will be another problem to
deal with. But if we can back off enough so that some more or less
independent agency, maybe the UN, maybe credible NGO's (non governmental
organizations) can take the lead in trying to reconstruct something from the
wreckage, with plenty of assistance and we owe it to them. Them maybe
something would come out. Beyond that, there are other problems.

An Easy Way To Reduce The Level Of Terror

We certainly want to reduce the level of terror, certainly not escalate it.
There is one easy way to do that and therefore it is never discussed. Namely
stop participating in it. That would automatically reduce the level of
terror enormously. But that you can't discuss. Well we ought to make it
possible to discuss it. So that's one easy way to reduce the level of
terror.

Beyond that, we should rethink the kinds of policies, and Afghanistan is not
the only one, in which we organize and train terrorist armies. That has
effects. We're seeing some of these effects now. September 11th is one.
Rethink it.

Rethink the policies that are creating a reservoir of support. Exactly what
the bankers, lawyers and so on are saying in places like Saudi Arabia. On
the streets it's much more bitter, as you can imagine. That's possible. You
know, those policies aren't graven in stone.

And further more there are opportunities. It's hard to find many rays of
light in the last couple of weeks but one of them is that there is an
increased openness. Lots of issues are open for discussion, even in elite
circles, certainly among the general public, that were not a couple of weeks
ago. That's dramatically the case. I mean, if a newspaper like USA Today can
run a very good article, a serious article, on life in the Gaza Strip.there
has been a change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street Journal.that's
change. And among the general public, I think there is much more openness
and willingness to think about things that were under the rug and so on.
These are opportunities and they should be used, at least by people who
accept the goal of trying to reduce the level of violence and terror,
including potential threats that are extremely severe and could make even
September 11th pale into insignificance. Thanks.

Nello

change the world before the world changes you

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