[Peace-political] Fwd: This is worth a read.

[Al Kagan]

>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>X-Sender: stephenk at life.uiuc.edu
>Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 17:29:21 -0500
>To: Recipient List Suppressed: ;
>From: Stephen Kaufman <stephenk at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: This is worth a read.
>Status:  
>
>>This is worth a read.
>>
>>>>The writer:
>>>>Steve Niva writes regularly for Middle East Report
>>>>(www.merip.org)
>>>>and is an associate at the Middle East Research and
>>>>Information
>>>>Project (MERIP) in Washington DC. He also teaches
>>>>International
>>>>politics and Middle East Studies at the Evergreen
>>>>State College.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Addressing the Sources of Middle Eastern Violence
>>>>Against the United
>>>>States
>>>>by Steve Niva
>>>>
>>>>In the wake of the immense tragedy of the recent
>>>>attacks on American
>>>>soil it is difficult to get beyond the horror and
>>>>shock of what has
>>>>just happened and engage in serious reflection on the
>>>>sources of
>>>>violence against the United States. This is
>>>>understandable given the
>>>>almost unbelievable nature of this attack. Yet it is
>>>>more necessary
>>>>than ever if one is to find ways to prevent such
>>>>attacks in the
>>>>future.
>>>>
>>>>What we will see in the next few days and weeks will
>>>>be further
>>>>investigations, arrests of individuals and intense
>>>>speculation about
>>>>which groups or states did this and how the United
>>>>States should
>>>>respond.
>>>>
>>>>Unfortunately, if the pattern of past responses to
>>>>such attacks is
>>>>repeated, we will probably not learn a great deal
>>>>about the reasons
>>>>behind why this attack happened, or the broader
>>>>sources of violence
>>>>against the United States over the past decade.
>>>>Instead the usual
>>>>array of retired generals and military analysts will
>>>>be trotted out
>>>>to explain the tactical elements of their favored
>>>>military response.
>>>>
>>>>We now have seen substantial evidence of a Middle
>>>>Eastern connection
>>>>to this attack and media coverage has frequently
>>>>mentioned the name
>>>>of Osama bin Laden as the number one terrorist suspect
>>>>and mastermind
>>>>of this operation.
>>>>
>>>>As we are inexorably led down the road to military
>>>>confrontation in
>>>>the Middle East, it is necessary to gain clarity about
>>>>the specific
>>>>actors and their motivations before one can even think
>>>>about how to
>>>>respond. For Americans who like their heroes and
>>>>villains portrayed
>>>>in simple dichotomies of good and evil, the result of
>>>>this kind of
>>>>clarity will be disturbing because the United States
>>>>has created many
>>>>enemies through its policies in the Middle East over
>>>>the past century
>>>>and bears a significant amount of responsibility for
>>>>creating a
>>>>fertile soil for anti-American hatred. Any American
>>>>response that
>>>>does not address this truth is doomed to further the
>>>>cycle of
>>>>violence.
>>>>
>>>>Who is behind the attacks?
>>>>
>>>>The recent attacks on U.S. soil are most likely
>>>>related to an
>>>>escalating series of attacks and bombings on U.S.
>>>>targets over the
>>>>past 10 years. In order, these attacks include: the
>>>>recent bombing of
>>>>the USS Cole in October, 2000 that claimed 17 lives;
>>>>the 1998
>>>>bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in
>>>>which hundreds
>>>>were killed; the 1996 car-bomb attack on a U.S.
>>>>barracks in Dharahan,
>>>>Saudi Arabia that killed 19 Americans; the 1995
>>>>car-bomb attack on an
>>>>American National Guard Training center in Riyadh,
>>>>Saudi Arabia that
>>>>took 4 lives and, of course, the 1993 World Trade
>>>>Center truck-
>>>>bombing that killed 6 people and injured over a
>>>>thousand others.
>>>>
>>>>All of these attacks have been attributed to Islamic
>>>>radicals based
>>>>in the Middle East and Central Asia under the rubric
>>>>of a very hazy
>>>>notion of "Islamic fundamentalism." Indeed a number of
>>>>people from
>>>>these regions with links to certain militant Islamic
>>>>groups have been
>>>>arrested and charged in some of these actions.
>>>>Breathless reports of
>>>>a shadowy Islamic conspiracy against the U.S. led by
>>>>Osama bin Laden
>>>>have generated a steady stream of clichÈ's about this
>>>>new enemy and
>>>>its hatred of the U.S., but unfortunately precious
>>>>little light has
>>>>been shed on understanding why this is happening and
>>>>what exactly
>>>>these people believe. Their enmity towards the U.S. is
>>>>explained as
>>>>little more than the product of a fanatical and
>>>>inherently anti-
>>>>Western and anti-American world view.
>>>>
>>>>Stephen Emerson, a so-called terrorism expert who
>>>>frequently appears
>>>>in the media, claims that "the hatred of the US by
>>>>militant Islamic
>>>>fundamentalists is not tied to any particular act or
>>>>event. Rather,
>>>>fundamentalists equate the mere existence of the
>>>>West-its economic,
>>>>political and cultural systems-as an intrinsic attack
>>>>on Islam."
>>>>
>>>>Any explanation of Middle Eastern violence that relies
>>>>upon the
>>>>notion that Islam is an inherently violent or
>>>>inherently anti-Western
>>>>religion is false and misleading. First, Islam is one
>>>>of the world's
>>>>largest and most diverse religions and like
>>>>Christianity or Judaism
>>>>there are thousands of views within Islam about the
>>>>religion and also
>>>>about violence and the West.
>>>>
>>>>Secondly, there are major differences even among
>>>>explicitly Muslim
>>>>militants and activists regarding these issues-some
>>>>insist upon non-
>>>>violent struggle and others regard violence as a
>>>>legitimate tool.
>>>>There is no way one can generalize about Islam or any
>>>>religion for
>>>>that matter.
>>>>
>>>>So who are the perpetrators and what drove them to
>>>>carry this
>>>>horrendous act? The most likely perpetrators of these
>>>>attacks are
>>>>related to an extremely small and fringe network of
>>>>militants whose
>>>>motivations do not derive from Islam so much as from a
>>>>common set of
>>>>experiences and beliefs that resulted from their
>>>>participation in the
>>>>U.S. backed war against the Soviet Union in
>>>>Afghanistan in the
>>>>1980's. These militants were recruited by the CIA and
>>>>the Saudi
>>>>Arabian and Pakistani intelligence services to fight
>>>>against the
>>>>Soviet Union during the 1980's. They came largely from
>>>>the poor and
>>>>unemployed classes or militant opposition groups from
>>>>around the
>>>>Middle East, including Algeria, Egypt, Palestine and
>>>>elsewhere in
>>>>order to wage war on behalf of the Muslim people of
>>>>Afghanistan
>>>>against the communist enemy.
>>>>
>>>>Among the many coordinators and financiers of this
>>>>effort was a rich
>>>>young Saudi named Osama Bin Laden, who was the
>>>>millionaire son of a
>>>>wealthy Saudi businessman with close contacts to the
>>>>Saudi royal
>>>>family. Although accounts vary regarding his actual
>>>>participation in
>>>>the war, he played an important role in helping these
>>>>groups recruit
>>>>volunteers and build extensive networks of bases in
>>>>Pakistan and
>>>>Afghanistan after 1984.
>>>>
>>>>This network of conservative Sunni Muslim militants,
>>>>who became known
>>>>as "the Afghans" in the Middle East, also served
>>>>another purpose for
>>>>the U.S. and its allies in the region. Not only were
>>>>they anti-
>>>>Communist due to their rejection of its atheism, they
>>>>were also
>>>>opposed to the brand of Islamic radicalism promoted by
>>>>the 1979
>>>>Islamic revolution in Iran and its leader Ayatollah
>>>>Khomeini largely
>>>>because it was based on Shiite rather than Sunni
>>>>Islamic doctrine, a
>>>>major doctrinal cleavage within Islam. The revolution
>>>>had toppled a
>>>>major ally of the U.S., the Shah of Iran, who played a
>>>>major
>>>>role as a pillar of U.S. hegemony in the oil rich
>>>>Persian Gulf and
>>>>was threatening key U.S. allies such as Saudi Arabia,
>>>>Kuwait and
>>>>other oil rich states. Therefore, the clear aim of
>>>>U.S. foreign
>>>>policy therefore was to kill two birds with one stone:
>>>>turn back the
>>>>Soviet Union and create a counter-weight to radical
>>>>Iranian inspired
>>>>threats to U.S. interests, particularly U.S. backed
>>>>regimes who
>>>>controlled the massive oil resources.
>>>>
>>>>The failure of U.S. policy in the Middle East:
>>>>
>>>>But this policy has now turned into a nightmare for
>>>>the U.S. and has
>>>>likely led to the recent attacks against the U.S. in
>>>>New York and
>>>>Washington D.C. After the Soviets were defeated in
>>>>Afghanistan in
>>>>1989 the "Afghan" network became expendable to the
>>>>U.S. who no longer
>>>>needed their services. In fact, the U.S. actively
>>>>turned against
>>>>these groups after the Gulf War when a number of these
>>>>militants
>>>>returned home and moved into the violent opposition
>>>>against U.S.
>>>>allied regimes and opposed the U.S. war against Iraq
>>>>in 1991.
>>>>They were particularly opposed to the unprecedented
>>>>positioning of
>>>>U.S. ground troops in Saudi Arabia on the land of the
>>>>Islamic holy
>>>>sites of Mecca and Medina. As a result, in the past
>>>>decade there has
>>>>been a vicious war of intelligence services in the
>>>>region between
>>>>America and its allies and militant Muslim groups.
>>>>Many Egyptian
>>>>Islamists believe the U.S. trained Egyptian police
>>>>torture techniques
>>>>like they did the Shah and his brutal Savak security
>>>>police.
>>>>Moreover, the CIA has sent snatch squads to abduct
>>>>wanted militants
>>>>form Muslim countries and return them to their
>>>>countries to face
>>>>almost certain death and imprisonment.
>>>>
>>>>The primary belief of this loose and militant network
>>>>of veterans of
>>>>the Afghanistan war is that the West, led by the
>>>>United States, is
>>>>now waging war against Muslims around the world and
>>>>that they have to
>>>>defend themselves by any means necessary, including
>>>>violence and
>>>>terrorism. They point to a number of cases where
>>>>Muslims have born
>>>>the brunt of violence as evidence of this war: the
>>>>Serbian and
>>>>Croation genocide against Bosnian Muslims, the Russian
>>>>war in
>>>>Chechnya, the Indian occupation of Kashmir, the
>>>>Israeli occupation of
>>>>Palestinian lands, the UN sanctions against Iraq and
>>>>the U.S. backing
>>>>of dictatorships in Algeria, Egypt or Saudi Arabia,
>>>>for example. They
>>>>claim that the US either supported the violence or
>>>>failed to prevent
>>>>it in all of these cases. It is these beliefs that
>>>>enable them to
>>>>justify not only targeting U.S. military facilities
>>>>but also its
>>>>civilians.
>>>>
>>>>It should be clear that this network is only a very
>>>>radical fringe of
>>>>militants who have decided that they must use armed
>>>>tactics to get
>>>>their message out to the U.S. and others. They differ
>>>>in important
>>>>ways with the wider current of Islamic activism in
>>>>Arab world and
>>>>more globally which in addition to its Islamic
>>>>orientation has an
>>>>agenda about social justice and social change against
>>>>the
>>>>dictatorships and corruption in many of the
>>>>pro-Western countries in
>>>>the region. They are anti-Iranian. They are now
>>>>anti-Saudi. Their
>>>>actions have sometimes even been condemned by militant
>>>>Muslim
>>>>organizations ranging from the Muslim brotherhood in
>>>>Egypt to the FIS
>>>>in Algeria to HAMAS in Palestine. They are somewhat
>>>>disconnected from
>>>>these movements in that they do not locate their
>>>>struggle in a
>>>>national context, but rather in a global war on behalf
>>>>of Muslims.
>>>>Nevertheless, they certainly share many common
>>>>sentiments with this
>>>>wider current of Islamic activism.
>>>>
>>>>There is no question that the one-sided U.S. support
>>>>for Israel, the
>>>>U.S. sponsorship of sanctions against Iraq as well as
>>>>U.S. support
>>>>for dictatorships across the region have created a
>>>>fertile ground for
>>>>some sympathy with such militancy.
>>>>
>>>>Osama bin Laden is not the mastermind of these attacks
>>>>as is often
>>>>claimed in the media; he just facilitates these groups
>>>>and sentiments
>>>>with logistics and finances, as do others. He is
>>>>simply a very
>>>>visible symbol of this loose network and the U.S.
>>>>obsession with him
>>>>most likely works to increase his standing as an icon
>>>>of resistance
>>>>to the U.S. The network with which he is linked has no
>>>>geographical
>>>>location or fixed center; it appears to be a
>>>>kaleidoscopic overlay of
>>>>cells and interlinkages that span the globe from camps
>>>>on the Afghan-
>>>>Pakistan borderlands to immigrant communities in
>>>>Europe and the U.S.
>>>>
>>>>The rise of this militant network and their adoption
>>>>of violence
>>>>against the United States represents a clear failure
>>>>of U.S. strategy
>>>>in the region, especially the U.S./Saudi/Pakistani
>>>>model of alliance
>>>>between conservative Sunni Islamic activism and the
>>>>West. The problem
>>>>is that US has no alternative political strategy
>>>>because they see all
>>>>Islamic activists as their enemy and refuse to address
>>>>the root
>>>>causes of anti-American sentiments in the region.
>>>>Moreover, the U.S
>>>>appears to have no long-term strategy to address the
>>>>sources of
>>>>grievances that the radical groups share with vast
>>>>majority of Muslim
>>>>activists who abhor using violent methods that would
>>>>include, for
>>>>starters, a more balanced approach to the
>>>>Israeli/Palestinian
>>>>conflict, ending the sanctions on Iraq, moving U.S.
>>>>military bases
>>>>out of Saudi Arabia, and supporting the legitimate
>>>>aspirations of
>>>>regional peoples for democracy and human rights.
>>>>
>>>>How to truly defeat terrorism:
>>>>
>>>>Many of us accept the premise that terrorism is a
>>>>phenomenon that can
>>>>be defeated only by amelioration of the conditions
>>>>that inspire it.
>>>>Terrorism's best asset, in the final analysis, is the
>>>>anger and
>>>>desperation that leads people to see no alternative to
>>>>violence.
>>>>
>>>>While only a fringe element has seized upon violence
>>>>as their
>>>>solution, many of the world's 1.2 billion Muslim
>>>>people are
>>>>understandably aggrieved by double standards. The U.S.
>>>>claims that it
>>>>must impose economic sanctions on certain countries
>>>>that violate
>>>>human rights and/or harbor weapons of mass
>>>>destruction. Yet the U.S.
>>>>largely ignores Muslim victims of human rights
>>>>violations in
>>>>Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo, Kashmir and Chechnya.
>>>>What's more,
>>>>while the U.S. economy is propped up by weapon sales
>>>>to countries
>>>>around the globe and particularly in the Middle East,
>>>>the U.S.
>>>>insists on economic sanctions to prevent weapon
>>>>development in Libya,
>>>>Sudan, Iran and Iraq. In Iraq, the crippling economic
>>>>sanctions cost
>>>>the lives of 5,000 children, under age five, every
>>>>month. Over one
>>>>million Iraqis have died as a direct result of over a
>>>>decade of
>>>>sanctions. Finally, the U.S. pro-Israel policy
>>>>unfairly puts higher
>>>>demands on Palestinians to renounce violence than on
>>>>Israelis to halt
>>>>new settlements and adhere to U.N. resolutions calling
>>>>for an Israeli
>>>>withdrawal from Palestinian lands.
>>>>
>>>>That anger cannot be extinguished by Tomahawk missiles
>>>>or military
>>>>operations. The present U.S. strategy for ending the
>>>>threat of
>>>>terrorism through the use of military force will only
>>>>exacerbate this
>>>>anger and desperation. When innocent U.S. citizens are
>>>>killed and
>>>>harmed by blasts at US embassies or bases, or used as
>>>>cannon fodder
>>>>for suicide hijackings, the U.S. government expects
>>>>expressions of
>>>>outrage and grief over brutal terrorism. But when U.S.
>>>>Cruise
>>>>missiles kill and maim innocent Sudanese, Afghanis,
>>>>and Pakistanis,
>>>>the U.S. calls it collateral damage. Even if Osama bin
>>>>Laden is
>>>>killed or captured, the fertile soil that creates such
>>>>figures
>>>>will still be there. Moreover, any attacks may simply
>>>>serve to
>>>>inflame passions and create hosts of new volunteers to
>>>>their ranks
>>>>
>>>>There is no justification for the horrendous attacks
>>>>on innocent
>>>>American civilians in New York or Washington. These
>>>>attacks have
>>>>served no cause; they have likely set back efforts to
>>>>build popular
>>>>movements and international solidarity that, in the
>>>>final analysis,
>>>>are the best chance of achieving social justice and
>>>>change in the
>>>>Middle East and elsewhere. Yet, at this difficult
>>>>time, Americans
>>>>should critically examine policies with which Arabs,
>>>>Muslims and many
>>>>others have legitimate grievances. Instead our leaders
>>>>refuse to
>>>>admit the flaws in their policies and find it easier
>>>>to demonize
>>>>those in the Arab world who oppose them as a way of
>>>>diverting
>>>>attention from their own mistakes.
>>>>
>>>>Military solutions to the problems in the Middle East
>>>>and the
>>>>terrorism that has resulted from these problems is not
>>>>a policy but a
>>>>recipe for more violence and bombings.
>
>Stephen J. Kaufman
>Professor
>Department of Cell & Structural Biology
>University of Illinois
>B107 Chemistry and Life Sciences Laboratory
>601 South Goodwin Avenue
>Urbana, IL 61801
>USA
>fax:217-244-1648
>tel:217-333-3521
>e-mail:stephenk at uiuc.edu

-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu