"The Thunder from Down Under"

September 17, 2001

Some Saw It Coming
by Antonia Feitz

With the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, the world has entered a new age where nobody is safe. Nobody. However it's futile to talk of a "war on terrorism". Why? Because that's a war that can't be won without the imposition of a global police state - and that's simply too high a price to pay.

Instead of indulging themselves in the cheap rhetoric of 'madmen' and 'fanatics', governments, policy-makers and editorialists would do better to squarely face the causes of terrorism - particularly that originating in the Middle East.

For starters it would help if ordinary Americans were encouraged to understand that foreigners just don't wake up one morning and decide to hate America. Unfortunately, too many foreigners have good reasons to hate US governments. Former Washington Post writer, Colman McCarthy, recently pointed out that over the past 20 years the US has bombed Libya, Grenada, Panama, Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, and Yugoslavia [1].

McCarthy pointed out that most of those countries didn't start committing terrorist acts against US targets until they were provoked [2]. For example, Libya's Colonel Gaddafi didn't target Americans until President Reagan sent US ships and planes into the Gulf of Sidra, shot down Libyan jets and sank Libyan patrol boats.

Terrorism is despicable and must be condemned. But demonising the perpetrators as sub-human is not constructive.

Americans are generally pleasant, courteous, and well-mannered people, but a majority of them are mind-bogglingly ignorant of the wider world outside America. It's not just a personal observation: Pulitzer prize-winning reporter, Peter Arnett, said that international news coverage in most of America's mainstream papers has almost reached vanishing point [3].

But ignorance is dangerous, especially in times of crisis. If the US delivers a massive military strike to Afghanistan - or God forbid, Pakistan - what would it achieve other than more terrorists determined to be martyrs? More martyrs = more deaths of innocents. Hijacking planes might become more difficult, but what about tampering with a city's water supply? The possibilities are endless.

For the security of the entire world the US must be careful. Catching and punishing the people responsible for the attacks is necessary. Punishing innocent people through 'collateral damage' is not acceptable and will bring opprobrium on the US.

Too few Americans understand that America is the new Rome. She has garrisons around the world. She has warships and air bases stationed around the world. Some Americans have openly argued that America's role should be that of a "benevolent global hegemony" [4]. Do ordinary Americans agree that it's their country's task to spread the blessings of capitalism, free trade and Western-style democracy to the people of the world - whether they want them or not?

What ever happened to self-determination? In any case, the 'blessings' are very selectively imposed. Saudi Arabia is just one of many very authoritarian religious regimes. The Saudis flog people, stone adulterers, and amputate hands for theft while attracting no adverse attention from the media.

America says she is protecting US interests, and she is. Like every imperial power before her the US protects her business interests in Central and South America, in Indonesia, in Africa, in the Middle East, Asia and in Europe. Is this what America's Founding Fathers envisaged?

Many foreign countries - particularly those in the third world - deeply resent the US interference in their affairs and the exploitation of their natural resources. America justifies her interference saying she is protecting freedom and democracy around the world. That's not always true. It is beyond dispute that US governments have propped up corrupt and authoritarian regimes all around the world.

For example, the US supported the brutal dictatorships of Sukarno and Soeharto in Indonesia causing the Indonesian people to suffer misery and oppression for generations. And it's well known that US governments have finacially backed both Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.

Back in January 1999, Pat Buchanan eerily prophesied that "with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, America will inevitably be targeted. And the cataclysmic terror weapon is more likely to come by Ryder truck or container ship than by ICBM. And no SDI will stop it." [5]

It wasn't a truck that exposed the vulnerability of the West. It was a commercial plane. Four commercial planes to be precise.

There was another warning. Shortly after the US bombing raids on Iraq in February this year, Patriarch Raphael I Bidawid, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, also prophesied that the sanctions on Iraq would provoke an outbreak of violence on US soil. He said, " ... if the USA and Britain continue this way, the whole of the Middle East will be set on fire. ... The whole of the Arab world is now against the Americans and the British, and ready to commit violence against the USA and Britain in their own countries." [6]

The patriarch recommended dialogue because "blood and violence lead only to more blood and violence." He implored the leaders of the US and Britain to think of the common good and warned that if they spurned dialogue, "the ghost of a war is not improbable and we risk new chaos."

Sadly, they didn't listen. And some 5000 innocent people have paid the price.

© 2001 Antonia Feitz

Footnotes:

1. Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, "Respond to Violence: Teach Peace, Not War" e-newsletter, 13/9/01.

2. Ivan Eland, "Does U.S. Intervention Overseas Breed Terrorism? The Historical Record." Cato Foreign Policy Briefing No. 50, www.cato.org/pubs/fpbriefs/fpb-050es.html

3. Thomas Kunkel, "It's a small world after all for the American media", Sydney Morning Herald, 18/7/01.

4 . Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan, "Towards a Neo-Reaganite Foreign Policy", Foreign Affairs, July/August 1996.

5. Patrick J. Buchanan, "Is Cataclysmic Terrorism Ahead?", www.buchanan.org/pa-99-0112.html

6. Catholic World News, March 2nd 2001, www.cwnews.com/browse/2001/03/14968.htm