[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:7017] Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror - recorded at The Technology & Culture Forum at MIT II (2/2) (fwd)

[Al Kagan]

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>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:7017] Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against 
>Terror - recorded at The
>  Technology & Culture Forum at MIT  II (2/2) (fwd)
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>Subject: (en) Chomsky Transcript: The New War Against Terror - recorded at The
>     Technology & Culture Forum at MIT  II (2/2)
>
>  ________________________________________________
>       A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
>             http://www.ainfos.ca/
>  ________________________________________________
>
>The New War Against Terror
>Transcribed from audio
>
>The Coalition ñ Including Algeria, Russia, China, Indonesia
>
>Now thatís pretty impressive and that has to do with the coalition that is
>now being organized to fight the war against terror. And itís very
>interesting to see how that coalition is being described. So have a look at
>this morningís Christian Science Monitor. Thatís 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. Itís all over the place there and in
>England and so on. But here, weíre 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. Itís delighted to have support for the atrocities
>itís 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. Thatís
>terrorism. Thatís a fair enough definition. I think it is reasonable to
>accept that. The problem is that it canít 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 thereís 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 canít 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. Thatís 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 thatís a serious problem. You canít use the actual
>definitions. Youíve got to carefully find a definition that doesnít 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, thatís 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 canít
>accept that. The main reason that they couldnít 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 couldnít 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 canít
>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
>canít 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 againstÖis
>essentially a veto. Which is only half the story. It also vetoes it from
>history. So none of this was ever 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 wonít be easy.
>
>4. What are the Origins of the September 11 Crime?
>
>Well, letís 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 shouldnít 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 donít exactly know
>what the purpose of this was. Maybe so that the US could look as though itís
>holding back on some secret evidence that it canít 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 didnít 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 letís assume that itís 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 letís assume that it is true. So
>letís 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 doesnít
>really matter much.
>
>Where did they come from?
>
>Thatís 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 1980ís 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 Carterís
>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 mujahedin 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 mujahedin, 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 ArabiaÖ.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 donít know. He may have been bragging, he is
>apparently very proud of it, knowing the consequences incidentally. But
>maybe itís true. Weíll know someday if the documents are ever released.
>Anyway, thatís 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, itís 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 itís 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, itís worth
>it. There is plenty of interviews. And there are plenty of interviews by
>leading Western reporters, if you donít want to listen to his own voice,
>Robert Fisk and others. And what he has been saying is pretty consistent for
>a long time. Heís not the only one but maybe he is the most eloquent. Itís
>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. Thatís 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 thatís 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. Thatís 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. Iím not going to run through the list but itís, if you
>want to understand it, itís consistent. Itís a consistent picture. Itís
>described in words. Itís revealed in practice for 20 years. There is no
>reason not to take it seriously. Thatís the first category, the likely
>perpetrators.
>
>Category 2: What about the reservoir of support?
>
>What about the reservoir of support? Well, itís 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 McDonalds restaurant, which is an elegant
>restaurant there, wearing fancy American clothes. Thatís 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 donít 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 donít 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 thatís 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 ìThey hate us because we champion a
>new world order of capitalism, individualism, secularism, and democracy that
>should be the norm everywhere.î Thatís 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.í A couple days later, Anthony Lewis, way out on the left,
>explained that the terrorist seek only ìapocalyptic nihilism,î 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
>coalitionís anti-terrorism effort. But beyond that, everything we do is
>irrelevant.
>
>Well, you know, thatís 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 theyíre opposed to globalization, thatís 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 Ö corporate
>globalization but if you want to believe that, yehÖcomforting. And it is a
>great way to make sure that violence escalates. Thatís tribal violence. You
>did something to me, Iíll do something worse to you. I donít care what the
>reasons are. We just keep going that way. And thatís 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 itís a horrible terrorist crime. In the case of crime, you try to find
>the perpetrators, you bring them to justice, you try them. You donít 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 donít go out
>with an assault rifle and kill everyone in that neighborhood. Thatís not the
>way you deal with crime, whether itís 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, thatís why
>presumably we had to destroy it, which followed the right principles. Now of
>course, it didnít get anywhere because it was running up against a power
>that wouldnít 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, letís 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 donít come out of nowhere. They come from something.
>Whether it is a crime in the streets or a monstrous terrorist crime or
>anything else. Thereís 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 thatís
>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 canít 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 wouldnít 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 thatís 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.
>Thatís the principle that has been developed by the Christian Right
>terrorists in the United States. Itís called Leaderless Resistance. You have
>small groups that do things. They donít 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
>donít do it in a meeting. You do it with some people you know and trust, an
>affinity group and then it doesnít get penetrated. Thatís one of the reasons
>why the FBI has never been able to figure out whatís going on in any of the
>popular movements. And other intelligence agencies are the same. They canít.
>Thatís leaderless resistance or affinity groups, and decentralized networks
>are extremely hard to penetrate. And itís quite possible that they just
>donít know. When Osama bin Laden claims he wasnít involved, thatís entirely
>possible. In fact, itís pretty hard to imagine how a guy in a cave in
>Afghanistan, who doesnít even have a radio or a telephone could have planned
>a highly sophisticated operation like that. Chances are itís part of the
>background. You know, like other leaderless resistance terrorist groups.
>Which means itís going to be extremely difficult to find evidence.
>
>Establishing Credibility
>
>And the US doesnít want to present evidence because it wants to be able to
>do it, to act without evidence. Thatís 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 wasnít going to
>veto, they love it. So the US probably could have gotten Security Council
>authorization but it didnít want it. And it didnít 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 donít want
>international authorization because we act unilaterally and therefore we
>donít want it. We donít care about evidence. We donít care about
>negotiation. We donít 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. Itís called establishing credibility. You have to
>establish credibility. Thatís 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. Heíll
>explain to you what credibility means. And itís the same in international
>affairs, except itís talked about in universities using big words, and that
>sort of thing. But itís 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, itís 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 youíd 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. Itís
>a sign of their criminality. How can they ask for evidence? I mean if
>somebody asked us to hand someone over, weíd do it tomorrow. We wouldnít ask
>for any evidence. [crowd laughter].
>
>Haiti
>
>In fact it is easy to prove that. We donít 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 1990ís, 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
>wasnít 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 heíll
>say that he was being funded and helped by the CIA, which is probably true.
>We donít want to open that door. And he is not he only one.
>
>Costa Rica
>
>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 donít 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
>canít 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. Thatís 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. Itís aÖ. well, I already said what I think about it. I donít 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 thatís their only role. A UN initiative to bring together
>elements within Afghanistan that would try to construct something from the
>wreckage. Itís 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 operationÖ.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 wouldnít 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 wouldnít 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 NGOís (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 canít discuss. Well we ought to make it
>possible to discuss it. So thatís 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. Weíre 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 itís much more bitter, as you can imagine. Thatís possible. You
>know, those policies arenít graven in stone.
>
>And further more there are opportunities. Itís 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. Thatís 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 StripÖthere
>has been a change. The things I mentioned in the Wall Street JournalÖthatís
>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.
>
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-- 


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